Chapter 56

Chapter 56

[Congratulations on clearing the Twenty-Second Floor!]

[You have cleared the Twenty-Second Floor in the fastest time in the world.]

[Clear Time: 5 Minutes 10 Seconds]

[Achievement registered: Fastest Twenty-Second Floor Clear Record Holder.]

[Twenty-Second Floor clear rewards will now be distributed.]

Baek Cheon-myeong cleared another floor as usual.

And as usual,

the world record was broken.

[You have obtained the right to challenge the Floor Lord of the Twenty-Second Floor.]

[Would you like to challenge the Floor Lord of the Twenty-Second Floor?]

The Floor Lord challenge followed immediately.

Another Floor Lord would fall today.

Baek Cheon-myeong had already defeated a Tower Ascendant.

The next Floor Lord was probably crying blood right now.

I'm sorry.

Kang Ha-min apologized silently

and continued walking.

He was going to meet Siriel inside Nightmare Land.

The moment he entered Nightmare Land,

a quiet sense of rest settled over him.

Maybe because it was a city that induced sleep.

Simply being here made his mind feel strangely calm.

The power from the Blood Stones underground probably feels comfortable because I'm currently becoming a True Ancestor.

Nightmare Land was enormous.

With his current small body,

moving around wasn't easy.

Still,

the scenery was worth seeing even from a child's height.

White towers.

Round rooftops.

Glittering bridges and hanging gardens between buildings.

Purple, blue, and pale pink flowers lined the streets.

A huge palace and city that looked like something from a fairy tale.

Countless pieces of light floated through the sky.

Some resembled bees or butterflies.

Others looked like glass marbles.

The scenery was so beautiful that it almost felt wasteful to simply look at it.

If this place existed outside,

it would probably become a famous tourist destination.

In reality,

it was a terrifying city that extracted blood from dreams.

There's a castle.

Kang Ha-min noticed a castle in the distance.

When he entered,

luxurious hallways stretched before him.

Treasures that would be worth enormous amounts of money outside were displayed everywhere.

Had Nightmare Land once had a king?

Siriel is a queen, though.

Kang Ha-min hadn't heard much about her original world.

He also hadn't asked Baek Cheon-myeong about his past.

He had learned a little through the Floor Realm trial,

but that was all.

Sometimes in life,

it was better not to dig into someone's personal history.

It was a social skill Kang Ha-min had learned from working with people.

Probably...

Siriel also had circumstances of her own.

Being buried as a corpse inside Grave Mountain meant she had eventually made a contract with the Tower.

There was probably a major reason for that.

People who always looked bright

sometimes carried the heaviest things inside.

They help me so much, so I want to help the two of them too.

If either of them ever said they were suffering,

Kang Ha-min wanted to help without hesitation.

With that thought,

he continued walking.

Eventually,

he reached the royal palace terrace.

It was a beautiful place overlooking all of Nightmare Land.

A cool breeze blew

and stirred his hair.

At first,

this entire Secret Floor had been an empty space.

Kang Ha-min had no idea where this wind came from.

Everything about the Tower was mysterious.

What exactly was the Tower?

The more it was climbed,

the more questions appeared.

And what does the Tower want from me?

The rewards he received seemed to be pointing him somewhere.

The Tower definitely wanted something.

Perhaps he would only understand after reaching the top.

Though Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong is the one actually climbing it.

Kang Ha-min smiled bitterly.

He didn't know if climbing through a loophole like this was really acceptable.

"Oh, Lord."

A familiar voice reached his ears.

A beautiful woman approached with both hands folded behind her back.

"Ms. Siriel."

It was Siriel.

The moment she saw Kang Ha-min,

she smiled.

"Did you come to look around Nightmare Land?"

"Yes. I ran away from Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong while he went to the Tower."

Siriel shook her head at Kang Ha-min's honest answer.

"That Heavenly Slaughter Star really does torment Lord too much."

"Should I just cut him apart?"

Baek Cheon-myeong did far too much for Kang Ha-min to consider that.

Of course,

he caused just as many accidents.

Still,

he was always dependable when Kang Ha-min needed him.

"Training is also something he does for me."

"He probably gets even more excited about it because he wants to become stronger himself."

"He pretends his past life has nothing to do with him, but he's still bound by it."

Past life.

Kang Ha-min fell silent for a moment after hearing that.

Siriel looked at him.

"Come to think of it, Lord doesn't know about our lives before death, right?"

"I was thinking about that just now."

"But I wasn't planning to ask first."

"Lord is very considerate."

"I like that about you."

Siriel naturally stood beside him on the terrace.

Then she rested herself against the railing.

It looked dangerous.

But this was Siriel.

Even if she fell,

she probably wouldn't get so much as a scratch.

"Nightmare Land didn't look like this in the past."

"What did it look like?"

"Hehehe. It was a small kingdom."

"A kingdom where everyone worked together and lived closely with one another."

Long ago,

Siriel remembered the small kingdom that existed before Nightmare Land.

"But maybe that was exactly why it became a target."

"The kingdom was destroyed."

Since Nightmare Land now stood here instead of that kingdom,

the kingdom's end had clearly not been happy.

"Was it invaded?"

"That is the fate of a weak nation."

"The weak are eaten."

"It's a law that has existed since ancient times."

"You were from that kingdom too, Ms. Siriel."

"Yes."

"I was its youngest princess."

Now she ruled as the Vampire Queen.

But once,

Siriel had been an innocent young girl too.

Perhaps seeing Kang Ha-min's childlike appearance made her remember that time.

A soft smile appeared on her lips.

"But the way the kingdom was invaded was filthy."

"Filthy?"

"Disease."

"The invading nation sent a plague created through black magic."

"Your fangs grew, you lost reason, and you infected others by biting them."

Kang Ha-min's eyes widened.

That sounded like...

"A vampire disease?"

"If we had to compare it, it was a greatly degraded version."

"They weren't really vampires."

"They were closer to beasts capable of drinking blood."

"They lost reason and would bite even their own families."

Siriel's eyes turned cold.

A mother bit into her own child

and drank their blood.

Brothers and sisters clawed at each other,

trying to eat one another.

Granddaughters tore into their old grandfather.

Hell itself had spread through the kingdom.

"If they killed everyone, winning the invasion wouldn't even have much meaning."

When a nation won a war,

the people there were resources too.

Kang Ha-min couldn't understand why the invading country would go that far.

"The kingdom's princess was extremely beautiful."

"The king refused to offer his daughter to the empire, so he resisted them."

"That was how everything grew worse."

In the end,

the kingdom fell.

Its people devoured one another.

The citizens who had once cared deeply for each other no longer existed.

The defeated king was thrown to those same citizens

and eaten alive.

"The empire eventually obtained the princess."

"The emperor, who was famous for loving women, took her as his new bride."

The emperor didn't hesitate to lay his hands on the princess.

The princess had lost her kingdom.

She was completely powerless.

The emperor's desire reached her without resistance.

"On the night of the full moon, the princess bit the emperor with all her strength."

That became the emperor's final night.

Siriel's fangs gleamed coldly.

"The princess had hidden it, but she had already been infected before going there."

Hmm.

Murderous intent and mockery appeared together in Siriel's gloomy eyes.

"She desperately held onto her reason for that one day."

"The emperor's blood was already surging with lust."

"The moment she bit him, he became a vampire."

The transformed emperor instantly turned the imperial palace into chaos.

Even after becoming a vampire,

he was still the emperor.

His retainers hesitated because they didn't know how to act against him.

That hesitation became their downfall.

They were all turned into vampires.

The infection spread from the palace throughout the empire.

The empire burned.

Mindless vampires rampaged everywhere.

Screams filled the land.

Eventually,

the plague spread beyond the empire into other nations.

The empire had possessed the largest population.

To stop the endless waves of vampires,

the surrounding kingdoms had no choice but to unite.

The princess watched all of this

while slowly becoming a vampire herself.

Normally,

the story would have ended with the princess's bitter death.

"But you see..."

The princess did not lose her reason like the others.

"Maybe the princess was cursed."

Every member of her family had either become a vampire or been torn apart.

The entire world was slowly being consumed by vampires.

Yet the princess alone remained sane.

She couldn't even die.

It would have been better if she had forgotten everything

and become a monster too.

Instead,

she had to live while remembering everything clearly.

The vampire's vitality preserved even the memories inside her brain.

"The princess became trapped inside the kingdom of that day."

"Her mother and attendants hiding her before being torn apart by vampires."

"Her father being thrown to the vampire citizens while people laughed."

"Even the suicide of her older brother, who had always protected her."

"She became trapped and could never escape."

Siriel looked out over Nightmare Land.

"Still, after about a thousand years, vampires began to change."

"Some of them awakened intelligence."

They were the ones who would eventually become rulers of the vampire race.

The birth of the True Ancestors.

"The princess was worshiped as their queen."

"She was the first True Ancestor."

"And on the day she became queen, the Tower appeared."

Kang Ha-min's eyes turned toward Siriel.

"It felt as though the Tower was whispering to me."

"That it had the power to grant the princess's wish."

Siriel also turned to look at Kang Ha-min.

"Lord, what do you think the princess wished for?"

The princess.

Siriel's wish.

Siriel smiled more beautifully than ever.

But beneath that smile

was a darkness deeper than anything else.

"I just want to forget everything."

That was the only thing she wanted.

To erase the memories remaining inside her mind.

Nothing more.