Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Chapter 46: Nightmare, 4th Floor (2)

– Black Golems are 100% immune to damage below a certain threshoooold… proceed with cautiooon…

…Now what?

Immunity to damage below a certain threshold?

Ding…

The wreckage of the red golems from before vanished, and the entrance opened.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A black golem ca walking out.

Sure enough, only the color was different. The shape matched the other golems. Bipedal, with a core embedded dead center in its chest.

Plli launched himself at it and swiped with his forepaw.

The black golem staggered for a mont, then shrugged it off and kept advancing. The hit didn’t seem to have done much.

Plli climbed right up onto the golem’s body and started tearing into it with his teeth.

Only then did cracks begin to spread across its body, pieces breaking off. That was finally landing.

Watching, my expression hardened.

Hold on… its defense is this high?

So anything short of a heavy-hitting attack just gets ignored, huh.

I left the one Plli was fighting to him and turned to the next golem.

The mont it stepped out of the entrance, I hit it with Fla Strike.

Five concentrated fireballs, all aid at the sa spot.

Kwaaaaang!

A huge explosion blew part of the golem’s upper body apart, but it didn’t fall.

I was starting to feel rattled.

‘If that doesn’t one-shot it…’

This is going to be a serious problem.

Another golem cos out.

I cast Scorching Zone and laid it down across the entrance path.

Flas ignited on every golem that walked into the area.

But they just keep striding forward. No real damage.

Sustained-type skills clearly weren’t clearing the damage threshold.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

Light Bullet was obviously out of the question.

I let the second golem pass too, jumped down in front of the third, and cast Blade Storm.

Kwaaaaaa!

They felt much heavier than the red golems, so they barely got knocked back.

Damage… basically none, from the look of it.

I climbed back up onto the wall and glanced over at Plli.

The golem he’d been gnawing on didn’t shatter until it reached the corner of Stretch 1.

The second golem, the one I’d hit with Fla Strike, had made it about two-thirds of the way down Stretch 1.

The mont Fla Strike ca off cooldown, I sent another five fireballs at the second golem, all concentrated on the sa spot.

Kwaaaaang!

That finally brought it down.

Thank god. Two hits, and they drop.

I stopped ti and took a mont to collect my thoughts.

From what I’d seen so far, the only attacks that actually worked on black golems were Fla Strike and Plli going all out. Destruction Ray would obviously work too.

Even Blade Storm did nothing, which ant Fla Strike only worked because I was concentrating all five fireballs on one spot.

All my lesser attack skills were naturally useless.

‘This is getting rough…’

The current five I can handle, by the numbers.

I could stop all of them before they reached the exit without using Destruction Ray.

But the next stage would bring ten, then twenty, wouldn’t it.

…First things first. Clear this stage.

I let ti flow again.

The remaining three golems had all erged from the entrance.

I left the third one to Plli and, the mont Fla Strike ca off cooldown, launched it at the fourth.

Kwaaaaang!

I had to save Destruction Ray.

Three-minute cooldown, and the one-minute rest between stages wouldn’t fully recover it. It was my ace in the hole.

Plli took out the third golem. I took out the fourth.

The last one, the fifth, I managed to finish off sowhere around the two-thirds mark of Stretch 2.

The signal light shifted to blue.

“Phew…”

I caught my breath and stopped ti.

Ti to think.

I needed to plan out how to handle ten of them, based on what I’d just learned.

First off, even on Nightmare, the golems’ movent speed and spacing were the sa as other difficulties.

Thirty seconds per stretch, a hundred and fifty seconds total from start to the exit at the end of Stretch 5.

And given their spacing, the maximum number of golems that could line up on a single stretch was five.

To pack more than that onto one stretch, I’d have to physically hold them back…

Plli needed around thirty seconds to kill one black golem.

In other words, a full stretch’s worth of ti.

My Fla Strike cooldown was also thirty seconds.

But since I needed two hits per golem, that was sixty seconds to take one down.

Beyond their trait, the golems’ base stats were clearly scaling up with each stage too.

Just slowing a black golem’s advance was harder than the earlier ones had been.

…Running the sim in my head, I figured ten should still be doable without Destruction Ray.

‘Twenty, though. Not a chance.’

For twenty, I’d need to herd them onto a single stretch as tightly as possible and drop Destruction Ray.

The problem was just the gaps they ca out at. If I could bunch them up enough, packing all twenty onto one stretch was absolutely possible.

Their trait wasn’t damage reduction, it was ignoring damage below a threshold, right?

That ant Destruction Ray’s damage would land in full. A total wipe wasn’t off the table.

Actually, wait, this is really weird though…

Am I even clearing this the right way?

The golems just keep getting stronger, and I have no idea how many stages there are.

I scan the workshop again.

Entrance, exit, chanical structures, wrecked golem bodies scattered along the path.

I couldn’t leave through the entrance or exit. I was stuck here, dealing with golem after golem.

…Destroy so device to stop the golems from spawning?

No, the structures here were all indestructible objects, designed to prevent terrain modification.

The only things destructible in this place were the golems themselves, evidenced by the wreckage lying around.

I kept scanning the workshop, but nothing looked off.

I held ti still and cranked my brain into overdrive, thinking for a long ti.

But nothing ca to .

There had to be sothing. I just couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was…

I let ti flow again.

The rest break ended, and the signal light turned red.

Ten golems. Stage 11, begin.

The golem wreckage along the path vanished, and new golems stepped out from the entrance.

I handled them the sa way I had with five.

Plli took one, I took one.

Dealing damage with Fla Strike, rotating in Blade Storm every cooldown to slow their advance as much as possible.

When my Willpower ran dry, I’d stop ti and refill.

One by one, I took them down.

The first half, five of them, I cleared right around the end of Stretch 2, just like before.

Then the remaining five.

It was close, but I dropped the last one in Stretch 4, before they made it to Stretch 5.

Stage 11 ended without incident.

Now Stage 12.

Yeah, no way I’m doing twenty without Destruction Ray.

“This ti, destroying them isn’t the priority, Plli. Just push them and knock them down as much as you can. However you manage it, block the path.”

I gave Plli his orders.

This ti, if Plli just latched onto one golem at a ti, we were sunk.

We’d barely cleared ten in Stretch 4. There was no way to finish twenty before they reached the exit.

So it had to be a blockade, no matter what.

Pack all the golems onto one stretch, then wipe them with Destruction Ray.

Ding…

The wreckage in the path vanished, and Stage 12 began.

Per my orders, Plli focused entirely on holding back their advance.

Kwang!

Body-slamming them, swiping with his forepaws.

Plli was going for the legs as much as he could, trying to bring them down.

What I’d hoped for was: knock one over, the ones behind trip on it, the whole path gets jamd up…

But these crazy bastards just kept pushing forward. And their montum was ridiculous.

Plli brought one down, but the ones behind just stepped on it or shoved it aside with their legs and kept grinding forward.

The golems weren’t attacking, but having that mass just bulldoze into him ant Plli was taking damage simply from holding the line.

If Plli hit his limit and got Reverse Summoned, it was ga over, so I couldn’t push him too hard.

Kwaaaaaa!

Obviously, I was throwing everything I had into helping hold them back too.

Blade Storm, Fla Strike, every weaker spell in my arsenal, spamming all of it to push the golems back even a little. Ice Dagger was a one-and-done, so I was saving it.

Twenty hadn’t even all erged from the entrance yet.

Hold, fall back a little.

Repeating that, I realized a corner was easier to defend than a straight stretch, and dug in there like a siege.

It takes about two minutes for all twenty to co out.

Are we a minute in now?

I hit my limit, gave up Stretch 1, and Plli and I pulled back to Stretch 2.

Plli resud tanking, and I helped out with skills as they ca off cooldown.

At one point, I squeezed between golems to cast a spell and nearly got crushed; I had to Teleport out to escape.

This is never-ending.

That was the only thought in my head.

I kept scraping by, managing things so Plli wouldn’t die.

Finally, two minutes passed, and all twenty had erged from the entrance.

The golems were currently spread across Stretch 2 and Stretch 1.

Should I go now?

No, just a little… a little more.

Might as well pack them all onto Stretch 2.

At the tail end of Stretch 2, Plli and I dug in for one last hold.

Each second dragged by like it was made of tar.

At last, every golem lined up, single file, on one stretch.

The instant I confird it, I had Plli pull back and stopped ti.

‘Die, all of you.’

Two golems had been destroyed during the hold, leaving eighteen.

But still… this many? Could I really wipe them all?

Whatever. We’ll see.

After three hundred seconds of ntal Concentration, I fired a fully charged Destruction Ray.

A black beam lanced out, filling my entire field of vision.

“…!”

When the beam faded.

Lined up in front of were golems, each with a hole punched clean through their chest.

Every single one, perfectly perforated.

…This thing really is stupid strong.

The golems collapsed in a wave.

I climbed back up onto the wall and confird the signal light had turned blue.

Stage 12, cleared.

“Haah…”

I could finally breathe.

Honestly, I’d been torn right up to the last second between taking the physical ability reduction penalty and the Destruction Ray ban.

If I’d picked the Destruction Ray ban, I’d have been genuinely fucked.

“…”

But I’d cleared it, sohow.

And still, no clear ssage.

‘Not that I expected one…’

When the hell is this thing going to end?

No, is there even an end?

If anything weirder or stronger shows up, I really won’t last.

By now, I was almost certain.

I was definitely missing sothing. Sothing.

“…?”

Just then, my eyes caught on the golem wreckage strewn along the path.

Black golems with gaping holes punched through the center of their bodies.

Strangely, the cores that had been embedded in their chests were lying on the ground, completely intact.

Destruction Ray hit them dead-on… and they’re fine?

It was the kind of thing I could easily have just walked past, but sothing about it nagged at .

Drawn in almost despite myself, I approached the wreckage.

I reached out to pick up a core lying in the debris.

But the mont my fingertip touched it…

[200P acquired.]

“…Huh?”

The core lted away, dissolving into nothing.

And a stream of windows popped up in front of .

[Shop]

– Physical Damage 10% (100P)

– Magic Damage 10% (100P)

– Willpower 10% (100P)

– Attribute Conversion (500P)

– Force Field (50P)

– Slow (50P)

– Stop (100P)

– Special Gacha! (5,000P)

Points held: 200P

(Effects from this shop disappear upon leaving Floor 4.)