Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Chapter 75: Nightmare, 6th Floor (1)

If Floor 4’s the had been defense, Floor 6 added offense to the mix.

Units from both sides clashed on the lanes, and whoever pushed into and destroyed the enemy base first won. Anyone who’d ever gad had probably encountered the genre at least once.

League of Hero.

It wasn’t quite as popular as it used to be, but there was one famous title that might as well be Korea’s national pasti.

Floor 6 was easy to grasp by picturing that ga’s format.

Lanes existed, monsters spawned from each base and advanced along the lanes.

Turrets were stationed at points along the lanes, and pushing into the enemy base to destroy their nexus ant victory.

The difference, of course, was that this wasn’t a 5v5 team match but solo play.

League of Hero also had two map types.

Maps with three lanes, and maps with one.

Floor 6 could be thought of as taking place on the single-lane map.

[You have entered Nightmare Difficulty Floor 6.]

[Absorbing Floor 5’s Power of the Floor.]

[Level has increased.]

[Level has increased.]

[Level has increased.]

.

.

.

ssages cascaded the mont I entered.

Since I’d entered Floor 6, I’d received the Floor 5 level rewards as expected.

[Level: 70]

I stopped ti imdiately.

As always, I started by checking the visual information in front of .

A sky packed with thunderclouds, looking ready to crack open at any mont.

Stretched out before was an enormous overpass.

That bridge was the lane.

And way off across the bridge in the distance… the enemy base.

With my eyesight, I could see the enemy base clearly. Their nexus too.

The bridge was about 500 ters long, was it?

Eyeballing the distance, Nightmare seed to be about the sa as the other difficulties.

I released ti and looked around.

I was currently positioned in our base.

A massive red gemstone hovered faintly above the center of our base.

That was our nexus.

Above the nexus, an HP bar was displayed, just like in a video ga.

“…?”

But…

…this is weird.

Why are there three bridges?

Looking around, it wasn’t just the bridge in front of .

Two more bridges connected outward, surrounding the base. Each pointing toward the vertices of a triangle.

In other words, there were three lanes.

Ahh, I get it.

So enemies ca at from all three directions?

“Goddammit.”

I wasn’t even surprised.

Unlike the other difficulties with their single lane, Nightmare apparently had three.

Yeah, yeah… that’s Nightmare for you.

So I had to cover all three lanes by myself.

And destroy three of the enemy’s nexuses too.

‘Not gonna be easy.’

Whatever it took, I’d just have to pull it off. Sa as always.

I prepped myself.

Monsters spawned thirty seconds after entry, so it would begin soon.

I quickly checked over my body, now stronger thanks to leveling up to 70.

From the weapons hanging on one side of the base, I picked up a mace.

[The match is starting!]

[Destroy all of the opponent’s nexuses!]

A mont later, a ssage appeared before my eyes.

Pop.

At the sa ti, three blue portals ford near the nexus.

A goblin was summoned from each one.

The goblins began advancing toward their respective lanes the mont they spawned.

The ground at each lane entrance was helpfully labeled with the numbers 1, 2, and 3.

I moved to Lane 1 first.

Passing between a pair of blue galithic statues that lood at the bridge entrance, I followed the goblin.

Goooooo…

Looking down off the bridge, I saw a bottomless abyss. A cold draft wafted up from below.

It felt like a massive fidget-spinner-shaped field floating in midair.

I shifted my gaze back to the goblin.

Kerek- kaerek-

The goblin walked along, kerek-ing to itself, completely unbothered by my presence.

Friendly units couldn’t be given commands, if I rembered right.

Their entire programd command was basically: follow the lane and fight the enemy. That was the whole input.

Turrets ca in two types: First Turret and Second Turret.

The pair of stone statues I’d just passed at the bridge entrance were the Second Turrets.

And the single statue near the middle of the bridge was the First Turret.

The number and arrangent of turrets was the sa on the enemy’s side.

So to summarize:

Destroy the enemy’s First Turret, destroy the Second Turret, push into the base, and destroy the nexus. Done.

Since the nexus could only be destroyed after all the turrets were taken out first, changing the order was impossible…

And with three lanes, I’d need to repeat this three tis.

Of course, being Nightmare, who knew what cute little gimmick was lurking.

For reference, our side spawned one monster while theirs spawned three.

Since the enemy didn’t have a player like , it made sense they got more monsters.

The difference between difficulties was in the monster.

Easy spawned slightly stronger goblins than the ones on Floor 1.

Normal spawned orcs.

Hard supposedly spawned orcs much stronger than Normal’s.

Then why, on Nightmare, was I getting goblins?

No need to wonder.

Because the enemy’s monsters weren’t goblins.

“Heh.”

I reached the middle of the bridge.

I looked at the enemy monsters and laughed. A dry laugh, of course.

Green-skinned giants, far bigger than goblins.

They looked like they could crush a goblin in one hand.

Not orcs… ogres, maybe?

From mory, they looked a bit different from the trolls I’d seen at the Sub-Tower before.

Anyway, that wasn’t the point.

What mattered was that we had one goblin while they had three ogres. Crazy fucking unbalanced.

Three lanes and they pulled this on top of it.

It was outrageously unfair, but I decided to think positive.

Hey, at least they didn’t spawn ten at a ti, right? How generous!

Grrrraaah-!

The ogres ca charging at .

Our goblin charged in too, like an ant rushing an elephant.

Before the goblin could get clobbered, I stepped in first.

I leapt up and shattered the lead ogre’s skull in a single blow.

KABOOOM!

I took out the other two with Fla Strike.

Thankfully, the ogres weren’t all that strong.

Roughly level 20 or so?

The dead ogres’ corpses vanished quickly.

I looked at the enemy’s First Turret.

A red galithic statue, identical in shape to ours but different in color.

With all the enemies dead, the goblin pressed on toward the enemy turret.

ZAP!

A laser shot out from the turret and erased the goblin.

I stopped ti.

‘Let’s see.’

Ti to sort this out.

Sure, it was goblin vs. ogre, but with here, the unit power gap between us and them wasn’t an issue…

The problem was that there were three lanes.

While I was pushing one, the other two would keep getting attacked.

Against three ogres, our goblin might as well not exist.

The solution ca to right away.

I released ti and dashed back to the base.

“Plli.”

I summoned Plli and sent her to Lane 2.

Three ogres around level 20 were easy work for Plli alone.

That handled Lane 2.

I sprinted to Lane 3.

Spotted one ogre pounding on the First Turret.

Just then, the turret’s laser blasted the remaining ogre apart.

The turret’s laser cooldown was 10 seconds, was it?

The turret’s attack seed to one-shot even ogres, but since ogres ca three at a ti, an unattended lane’s turret was bound to take so damage.

Monster spawn interval: 30 seconds.

The next three ogres appeared right away.

FWOOOSH!

I unfurled Scorching Zone in the middle of Lane 3’s bridge.

The ogres that stepped into Scorching Zone burst into flas.

With the Zone 3 boss’s bracelet plus the fire magic passive boosting its power considerably, the ogres dropped one after another in no ti, sustained-damage skill or not.

[Skill: Scorching Zone (Rare )]

Creates a 5-ter radius scorching zone within 10 ters. Enemies within the zone take continuous burn damage. Requires 50 seconds of ntal concentration to cast.

Classification: Magic Type

Willpower Cost: 30 per second

Cooldown: 1 minute

What was the upside of Scorching Zone?

The 10-ter range was only the casting requirent; once cast, the skill could be sustained no matter how far I moved away.

In short, I could leave Scorching Zone deployed here on Lane 3…

while I worked Lane 1.

Sure, Scorching Zone would also team-kill our goblin…

but since the goblin wasn’t going to break a turret on its own anyway, that didn’t matter.

Lane 2 with Plli, Lane 3 with Scorching Zone.

That solved the empty-lane problem.

While the two lanes auto-fard themselves, all I had to do was push Lane 1!

I returned to Lane 1.

The turret’s laser range was about 10 ters.

Attack priority went to units before climbers, so the textbook play was to use the goblins as at shields while attacking the turret…

But I didn’t have to bother with that.

I had magic skills that could attack from outside the turret’s range.

I stopped ti and concentrated for 300 seconds.

Apparently turret defenses were quite tough, taking a fair amount of ti to destroy…

But would the one-click Destruction Ray work on a turret too?

[You have destroyed Lane 1’s First Turret!]

It worked.

When I fired the fully-charged Destruction Ray, the turret crumbled with a hole punched clean through it. And the ssage popped up.

Powerful as ever, Destruction Ray…!

My willpower had drained dry, so I stopped ti again to recover.

With Scorching Zone deployed on Lane 3, willpower drain was significant.

If my willpower hit zero, Scorching Zone would deactivate, so I had to recover at regular intervals.

Once my willpower was full, I advanced on the Second Turret.

The Second Turrets at the bridge entrance stood in a pair, like gatekeepers.

Destruction Ray was on cooldown, so I unleashed Fla Strike and the rest of my arsenal.

KABOOOM!

I couldn’t one-shot it like with Destruction Ray, but seeing fragnts break off, the damage was clearly landing.

While handling ogres along the way, I kept indiscriminately bombarding the turret.

Soon the left turret collapsed, leaving only the right one.

‘Easier than I thought…’

At this rate, I’d cruise through to the nexus and wrap up Lane 1.

Then I could push Lanes 2 and 3 the sa way.

But progress on Nightmare being smooth?

Yeah, no.

Sure, three lanes was plenty Nightmare-flavored bullshit… but I doubted that was the end of it. You’re not just this much, are you.

[You have destroyed Lane 1’s Second Turret!]

Soon the right turret collapsed too, and the Second Turrets were completely destroyed.

I left the bridge and entered the enemy base.

All that remained was the nexus.

The red nexus floating at the center of the enemy base.

Unlike the monsters and turrets, the nexus had a visible HP bar.

Destruction Ray’s cooldown had reset, so I fired off another fully-charged Destruction Ray straight at the nexus…

Unlike the turrets, the nexus didn’t go down even after taking the hit.

Its HP only ticked down by a tiny sliver. 1% knocked off.

So the nexus didn’t go down in one shot either, huh?

I’d already expected this, so I wasn’t fazed.

The other difficulties had also said the nexus couldn’t be destroyed in one hit.

1% of HP per second.

That was the cap on damage that could be dealt to the nexus.

In other words, destroying it took a minimum of 100 seconds, no matter what.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I started pounding the nexus with my mace.

Ogres spawned from a red portal right next to the nexus, drew aggro onto , and ca charging in.

I handled them with Fla Strike and kept attacking the nexus.

The other lanes were holding fine, and as long as I cleared this lane’s ogres while breaking the nexus, the ti it took wasn’t an issue.

So I kept chipping away at the nexus’s HP, 1% per second.

CRACK!

After 100 seconds, the massive nexus split with a fissure and began to collapse.

[You have destroyed Lane 1’s Nexus!]

The ssage appeared.

But…

“…huh?”

My eyes went wide.

It was because the shattered fragnts of the nexus had suddenly risen back into the air.

They condensed and reford, restoring the nexus to its original state in an instant.

[Incorrect order!]

[Destroy the opponent’s nexuses in the designated order!]

[A penalty has been applied!]

[The number of enemy monsters spawned has doubled!]

[Enemy monsters gain Stage 1 resistance!]

Ah…

So there was a designated order?

‘Of course there was.’

Here it ca.

The signature Nightmare bullshit: figure it out, or eat shit for not knowing.