Tower Defense.
A type of defense ga where towers are built along a fixed path to block oncoming enemies.
A familiar genre just about everyone has played at least once on mobile.
The 4th floor’s the was pretty much that.
Not the building-towers part, mind you, just the part about stopping enemies coming down a fixed path.
[You have entered Nightmare difficulty Floor 4.]
The mont I entered, I stopped ti.
I took in every scrap of visual information within sight.
A wide open space that dredged up words like workshop, factory, chanic in no particular order.
A winding path ran through it.
Blending in with the surroundings, the path gave off the feel of a factory conveyor belt ferrying products along.
A big, square entrance that looked like a loading bay.
From there, the path ran straight, then folded into a U-turn four tis total before ending at an exit.
In other words, the path was shaped like two zigzags stacked on top of each other.
At the mont, I was positioned on top of one of the walls that filled the gaps between the path segnts.
There was about a 5-ter height difference between the path and the top of the wall.
Environnt check complete.
The location and layout itself didn’t seem any different from the other difficulties.
‘Hah.’
I’d ended up walking in with a penalty after all.
I had no regrets. If anything, my mind felt clearer.
Or not? If my Clear fell apart and the ti ca for to die, maybe I’d regret it then…
I shook off the useless thoughts.
[1. Physical Ability Reduced by 50%]
The penalty I’d picked was number 1.
The reason was simple.
I’d chosen to preserve my skill-based combat power over my physical combat power.
Number 3, the random option, was too much of a gamble, and number 5, the item ban, would’ve ant giving up Plligas, which I couldn’t stomach.
In terms of raw physical combat power, Plligas is stronger than I am.
And on top of that, so long as her HP doesn’t run dry, I can keep her summoned indefinitely.
I figured it was better to lose half my physical stats and keep Plligas around.
Well… since there was no telling what the 4th floor was going to throw at , the call was mostly based on gut feeling anyway.
Whether it was the right answer, I’d find out from here on out.
I’d made the call based on the the as best I could, but Nightmare was a goddamn my-way-or-the-highway difficulty where there was no telling what kind of curveball was coming.
Might as well try to think about it positively, though.
Maybe the 4th floor was easier than I thought?
Maybe the Tower had slapped a penalty on precisely because it figured I’d clear this too easily otherwise? Hahaha.
…Really hope that’s the case.
I released ti.
Just as the physical-ability-reduction penalty implied, the strength drained from my body in a rush.
Soon, a chanical voice scratched with static rang out through the space.
– Attention: the golems within the workshop are currently malfunctioning and going berserk. All staff are requested to dispose of them imdiately upon sightinggggg…
I looked toward the entrance end of the path.
The indicator light above the entrance was glowing blue.
When it turned red, the golems would start coming out.
On Hard, I’d heard it was three stages total, with 3, 6, and 10 golems respectively.
The golems had fairly high defense, no particular weak spot, and weren’t combat units.
aning they only moved. They didn’t attack.
Co out of the entrance, march down the path, head for the exit. That was the whole of it.
But as in any defense ga, letting the golems reach the exit was naturally a no-go.
Apparently, if one did, the announcent voice from earlier would declare a ‘Grand Incineration’ on the entire workshop and start a ten-second tir.
Incineration ant being burned with fire, presumably, but no one had actually witnessed it firsthand. Anyone who had would be dead.
At any rate, if even one golem made it to the exit, the Clear was a failure.
And I’d probably end up getting incinerated and burning alive along with everything else.
So my job was to destroy every golem that ca out of the entrance and stop them from escaping.
In this tower defense, I was the tower. Except this one could move around freely.
Looking at more detailed data based on Hard difficulty:
The golems spawned at intervals of about five ters, and it took them 150 seconds to travel from entrance to exit. That ca out to thirty seconds per straight section.
And the rest period between stages was one minute.
Just for reference.
On Nightmare, the golems could be more nurous, faster, capable of attacking, weird variants could show up, or so bizarre gimmick or trick could change the Clear conditions entirely. Or it could be all of the above at once.
The start of the path, where the golems spawned.
I hopped along the top of the wall and made my way there.
For what it was worth, every structure in this place besides the golems was said to be indestructible. aning I couldn’t alter the terrain of the path.
I summoned Plligas straight away.
“A lot’s riding on you, Plli. Got it?”
Plligas leapt down onto the path in a light bound.
I stayed up on the wall.
Plligas would engage the golems directly on the path, while I’d attack from up here with magic skills.
My body was already weakened as it was. Fighting down on the path alongside her would only get in the way of Plligas going all-out.
Honestly, this division of labor was part of why I’d picked penalty number 1.
Ding,
Right on cue, the light turned red with a chi. The entrance opened.
All right, co on out.
I watched the entrance, tensing a little.
Thud, thud, thud…
The sound of heavy footsteps.
The first golem erged from the entrance.
Bipedal, slightly larger in build than Plligas.
Its body was made of what looked like white stone, with so kind of blue core embedded in the center of its chest.
Rraaaaahhh!
The mont the golem appeared, Plligas pounced.
She smashed its head with a forepaw, and the golem collapsed in a heap.
One down for now… hm?
I’d been getting ready to cast a skill, but I cocked my head.
Because the golems kept coming out of the entrance one after another, and every last one of them shattered easily from a single hit by Plligas.
Out, smashed. Out, smashed.
There was no need for to launch a skill, so I just watched quietly.
‘…Is it easy because it’s still stage 1?’
Plligas was strong too, of course. Her physicals were around level 50.
Ding,
Five golems total ca out.
The light turned blue and the entrance closed again.
The first stage was over.
So Nightmare started at five, huh. Would the next be ten?
Nothing remained on the path but the shattered fragnts of the golems Plligas had pulverized, and their cores.
By what I knew, stage 2 would start in one minute.
In the anti, I wandered around observing.
Sothing was already starting to feel a little off.
The worst thing about Nightmare was that it set up traps there was absolutely no way to spot on a first try.
The crossbow goblins on 1F, the phantom platforms on 2F, the underground space on 3F…
Rather than no way to spot them, it’d be more accurate to say that by the ti they were spotted, it was already too late.
There had to be sothing on the 4th floor too.
But nothing had jumped out at yet.
Did sothing need to progress further?
Or was I just not noticing? Ugh, the PTSD from the 3rd floor.
Ding,
The light turned red.
As the next stage began, the remnants of the golems still on the path crumbled to dust and vanished.
Back at the start of the path, I fixed my eyes on the entrance.
The sa kind of golems as stage 1 ca pouring out.
One hit per golem. Plligas tore through them, crunching them apart like styrofoam.
As expected, stage 2 had ten golems total.
Every one of them got spawn-killed before taking more than a few steps out of the entrance.
Once again, I didn’t need to use a single skill.
Hard had been 3, 6, 10… so maybe the next stage would be a bit more than fifteen?
But at this level of weakness, it didn’t matter how many ca out.
If it ended at stage 3 like the other difficulties, I was already two-thirds of the way through the Clear.
No way. Like that was ever going to happen.
It’d be more reasonable to believe the Earth was flat.
I couldn’t let my guard down for a second.
I kept shifting my body back and forth to keep the Exaltation effect going, waiting for the next stage to begin.
Ding,
The red light. Stage 3 begins.
The golem debris heaped on the path vanished,
the entrance opened, and yet more white golems ca out.
Twenty total, and once again, Plligas pulverized the lot of them without breaking a sweat.
Stage 3 ended quickly too.
Was it possible I’d just grown stronger than expected, and that was why this was easy?
Clinging to the faint hope, I checked, on the off chance, whether a Clear complete ssage might pop up, but yeah, no such luck.
In place of a ssage, the announcent voice rang out again.
– Attention: not only our standard golems, but even the special golems our workshop has poured its heart into crafting have slipped from our control and begun malfunctioninggggg… Dispose of them all, dispose of them all,
– Blue Golems ignore 99% of physical damage, almost perfectlyyyy… Please respond with cautionnnn…
What?
The light turned red and the entrance opened.
A blue golem, different from the ones before.
Only the color was different; the shape and the core embedded in the center of its chest were the sa.
Plligas charged in straight away and struck the golem’s head with her forepaw, but,
Crack!
The golem went down, but it didn’t break.
Plligas grabbed the golem as it tried to get back up and press forward, biting into it, but still, no damage registered.
All right, finally a little variation?
“Plli, back off.”
Plligas, who’d been gnawing on the golem like a chew toy, sprang back.
I hurled Fla Strike at the fallen golem and the other one that had co out of the entrance behind it.
BOOOOOOM!
Five fireballs detonated in a huge explosion.
Both golems shattered into pieces.
Blue Golems ignored 99% of physical damage.
Plligas’s attacks didn’t work on them.
Which, flipping it around, ant my magic skills worked just fine.
Three more golems ca pouring out of the entrance.
No need to waste firepower, so I had Plligas block the path.
Since the golems didn’t attack, once Plligas latched onto one, the golems behind it were boxed in and couldn’t push forward properly either.
After waiting out the thirty-second cooldown, I pulled Plligas back and hurled Fla Strike at the clustered golems again.
BOOOOOOM!
Cleared them all cleanly.
The light turned blue and the entrance closed.
So stage 5 was another ten blue golems, sa as this.
At this rate… I could probably clear twenty without much trouble.
Hell, if I just herded the golems onto a single straight section, I could sweep them all at once with Destruction Ray.
Not yet, though. Destruction Ray had a three-minute cooldown, so I had to save it.
The golem wreckage on the path vanished and stage 5 began.
Sure enough, ten blue golems ca pouring out.
I had Plligas block the path as before, and once the golems bunched up, I hunted them down in a volley of skills.
Stage 6’s twenty golems went down the sa way, no trouble at all.
Before stage 7 began, the announcent voice rang out again.
– Red Golems ignore 99% of magic damage, almost perfectlyyyy… Please respond with cautionnnn…
Magic immunity this ti?
The golem wreckage on the path vanished and the entrance opened.
Red golems ca pouring out.
As with the others, only the color was different; the shape was identical, and a core was embedded in the center of its chest.
This ti it was Plligas’s turn to go wild again.
Plligas attacked the red golems as they lumbered out.
Beyond the magic-immunity trait, the red golems seed to have stronger base stats than the white ones too.
They held up better against Plligas’s attacks, and pushed forward harder.
Still, they broke in the end.
Plligas handled all five before they got past the first straight section.
Stage 8 begins.
Ten was a bit more of a struggle.
Still, Plligas took care of them all before they made it past the midpoint of the second section.
On the final stage, stage 9, I stepped in too.
I dropped down onto the path and took a few swings at a Red Golem, but…
My attacks, halved by the physical-ability penalty, barely registered on the golems.
BOOOOOM!
Instead, I used my skills to help stop their advance.
Even if I couldn’t do damage, they weren’t immune to knockback, so skills like Blade Storm sent them flying just fine.
In the anti, Plligas picked them off one by one.
We held all twenty of stage 9’s golems back before they got past the second section too, clearing it without much trouble.
“…”
Sothing was off.
Sothing felt wrong.
Not coming from Sixth Sense, just my gut.
‘This isn’t Nightmare’s style.’
The golems were gradually getting stronger, and the difficulty was climbing.
But this wasn’t a gimmick or a trick… this was just a pure stat-check.
1F, 2F, 3F: as vicious as the difficulty was, once the solution was known, other Nightmare Clearers could physically handle them all.
Was this really sothing a level-30-tier Climber could handle…?
For other Climbers who could barely use magic-type skills properly, the physical-immune Blue Golems were nothing short of a catastrophe.
And the golems’ ever-climbing stats were starting to push even Plligas to her limits.
I looked around.
I’d been searching every rest period for so hidden space or chanism like the one on 3F, but I hadn’t been able to find a thing.
The only passages in this place were the entrance where the golems ca out, and the exit.
And not just golems, but anything that passed through the exit would trigger the Grand Incineration countdown, so the exit was a no-go.
As for the entrance, I’d tried getting close earlier while it was open mid-stage, but Sixth Sense had started sounding alarm bells, so that was out too.
No way to tell… Nightmare was always like this.
‘But how many stages does this thing even have?’
Just as the sense of wrongness was thickening, the announcent voice rang out again.
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