TL: DDTL
The instant I saw the ssage, I stopped ti and gathered my thoughts.
[A Penalty is being imposed!]
[The number of summoned enemy monsters is doubled!]
[Enemy monsters gain Tier 1 Resistance!]
The enemy had a total of three Nexuses.
So apparently I couldn’t just smash them in whatever order I felt like; there was a correct sequence.
And getting it wrong slapped with a penalty like this.
‘Doubled…’
So now Ogres were going to spawn six at a ti?
Not catastrophic yet, but if the count kept doubling every ti I got it wrong…
‘A few more wrong guesses and I’m fucked.’
Once dozens of Ogres started swarming each lane, there was no way I’d hold the line.
And what was Tier 1 Resistance, anyway?
Increased defense, presumably.
Either way, the enemy was getting so kind of buff, and that was bad news.
Let think.
Lane 1 wasn’t the answer, so it was either Lane 2 or Lane 3. Fifty-fifty.
If I got that wrong too, the last one would be confird by elimination, and I could just smash that.
But if I got it wrong on the second guess as well…
Counting the one I’d just blown, that ant I could be wrong up to three tis total.
Which would put the Ogre count at twenty-four per lane.
And of course, all of that was assuming the order was actually fixed.
What if the order reset every ti I got it wrong?
Hmm… that would be pretty hopeless.
Please, just don’t be a reset.
‘So I’m gambling on luck again?’
Or maybe there was a clue sowhere that would let figure out the order.
For now, I unfroze ti.
Pop.
Six freshly-spawned Ogres.
I split a Fla Strike across them and wiped them all out, then sprinted back toward my own base.
On the way, I noticed the destroyed Turrets hadn’t regenerated. Small rcies.
I headed to Lane 2 to check the situation.
The Ogres had doubled to six, but Plli was handling them without breaking a sweat. This side was fine.
I checked Lane 3 right after.
Scorching Zone was burning the Ogres beautifully, refusing to let any of them get near the Turret.
Good. Six was still manageable.
I stopped ti again and thought.
‘Which one do I push…’
I had to pick between Lane 2 and Lane 3.
I couldn’t afford to be careless.
Get it wrong and the monsters doubled again. The Resistance would tick up another level too.
…Rather than just calling a coin flip, I decided to scour the field a bit more first.
Maybe there was a hint hidden sowhere that would tell the order.
‘Better push down all the Turrets first.’
Wrong order regenerated the Nexus, but not the Turrets.
So I’d flatten every Turret across all three lanes before committing to anything.
I went back to Lane 1.
I pushed all the way into the enemy base and laid down a fresh Scorching Zone right on the Portal where the Ogres spawned.
Whoosh!
The newly-summoned Ogres burst into flas and collapsed.
That handled spawn-killing on Lane 1.
I bolted back to Lane 3, where my Scorching Zone would have expired by now. Busy, busy.
After mowing down the Ogres approaching our First Turret, I demolished the enemy’s First Turret.
[Lane 3 First Turret destroyed!]
[Lane 3 Second Turret destroyed!]
First Turret down, then straight through to the Second Turret.
Lane 3 was fully cleared of Turrets.
I dashed over to Lane 2.
“Now go cover that bridge, Plli.”
I shipped Plli, who’d been holding Lane 2, off to Lane 3.
[Lane 2 First Turret destroyed!]
[Lane 2 Second Turret destroyed!]
Lane 2’s First and Second Turrets ca down too.
Alternating between Plli and Scorching Zone to plug the remaining two lanes, I finished pushing every Turret on the field.
After breaching Lane 2’s enemy base, I studied the Nexus carefully.
Hmm…
Obviously it didn’t have sothing convenient like a number written on it.
Killing the Ogres as they spawned, I scanned the base.
Nothing visibly different from our own.
Aside from the obvious fact that ours had a blue tint and theirs was bathed in red.
Swapping Plli and Scorching Zone around again, I checked the bases of Lanes 1 and 3, and our own base too, the sa way.
I road every corner of the field, observing for a long ti, but…
I ca up empty.
I stopped ti again and sank into thought.
…Was the answer really just to guess?
Hah, I really hated that.
The PTSD from Floor 4 had made genuinely allergic to anything that ca down to luck.
But if there was no other way, what could I do.
Without dwelling on it too long, I decided to destroy Nexus 3… actually, hold on, let think again.
No, no.
Let try to read the Tower’s intent.
The fact that I’d picked Lane 1 first?
That might also have been part of the Tower’s design.
Given options 1, 2, and 3, most people would default to picking 1 without much thought.
So what ca next?
Human psychology being what it is, after picking 1 out of 1, 2, 3 and being wrong…
Most people probably wouldn’t go to 2 next; they’d skip to 3, wouldn’t they?
But what if even that line of thinking was exactly what the Tower wanted to fall into?
…Forget it, this is just making my head spin.
It wasn’t rock-paper-scissors. Agonizing over it was pointless. No use trying to play mind gas.
If I switched and was wrong, I’d be even more pissed, so I decided to stick with my original call: Nexus 3.
Before smashing Nexus 3, I moved to Nexus 2 first.
If I knocked Nexus 2’s HP down in advance, I’d save a ton of ti later.
I chipped Nexus 2’s HP down to nearly 1%.
Then I charged the Warp Device and designated this spot as my warp point.
With this setup, if Nexus 3 turned out to be wrong, I could warp straight back here and finish off Nexus 2.
[9:59]
I activated the Warp Device.
Lane 2 was held by Scorching Zone, Lane 1 by Plli, and I moved to Nexus 3.
I’d need to lay down a fresh Scorching Zone on Lane 3 before warping back to Nexus 2, so…
Factoring in the ti to break the Nexus and the Scorching Zone cooldown, I started attacking Nexus 3 with about 160 seconds left on the Warp Device tir.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I wasn’t asking for much.
It was a fifty-fifty. Let at least catch a break this ti…!
I dealt with the Ogres as they spawned and soon brought Nexus 3 down.
[Wrong order!]
[A Penalty is being imposed!]
[The number of summoned enemy monsters is doubled!]
[Enemy monsters gain Tier 2 Resistance!]
“Fuck.”
The curse slipped out the mont I read the ssage.
Nothing was ever going to be easy, was it.
The shattered Nexus 3 regenerated.
I imdiately deactivated the Scorching Zone on Lane 2, waited for the cooldown, and laid down a new one on Lane 3.
[0:01]
Right on cue, the tir hit and I warped to Nexus 2.
“…?”
Except when I got there.
The HP I’d carefully worn down to 1% was back to full.
Oh, co on, don’t tell …
If the order was wrong, all the other Nexuses’ HP regenerated too?
I clicked my tongue once and started battering the Nexus with my mace.
Whatever. This is the last shot.
If the order hadn’t reset, then Nexus 2 had to be the answer.
Ogres spawned from the Portal.
Doubled again, so now there were a full twelve.
The Ogres charged at as I hamred the Nexus.
I retaliated with my skills. But…
‘…They got tougher?’
I could feel that the Ogres were a bit harder to drop now.
So Resistance really did an increased defense?
Still, I cleared them without too much trouble and kept smashing the Nexus.
It was the empty lanes I was worried about now.
At this rate Plli was going to start struggling soon… was Plli getting overrun?
I couldn’t exactly run over to check, so all I could do was break this Nexus as fast as possible.
‘…This has gotta be the right answer, right?’
It couldn’t actually be resetting the order every ti I missed, could it? Right?
That’d be so next-level bullshit, honestly.
I crushed the unease and pounded Nexus 2 until it shattered.
And then…
[Wrong order!]
[A Penalty is being imposed!]
[The number of summoned enemy monsters is doubled!]
[Enemy monsters gain Tier 3 Resistance!]
“…”
Bad feelings always seed to be right.
I stopped ti at once.
I’m gonna lose my mind, seriously…
So the order really did reset every ti I got it wrong?
Now there were twenty-four Ogres. Tier 3 Resistance.
Things were sliding into territory I couldn’t possibly handle.
Even more terrifying: I still hadn’t taken down a single Nexus.
…As always, a Nightmare run that made my skin crawl.
I steadied my heart and kept thinking calmly.
It was fine. When I’d flubbed the gacha on Floor 4, things had been even more hopeless than this.
But I’d found a way through in the end.
‘Think.’
Let think, think it through.
Did the order really reset every ti?
If so, three consecutive wrong answers ant I was already as good as done.
One more miss and I’d be completely finished.
Unless I nailed every single guess from here on out, there was no way I was clearing this…
I’d rather it be that I was missing sothing.
But despite all the ti I’d spent scouring the field, I hadn’t found a single hint about the order.
‘…Destroy all three Nexuses at once?’
What if I used Plli and Scorching Zone to break all three Nexuses at the exact sa instant?
…There was no way that was going to work.
How was I supposed to ti three simultaneous destructions with zero margin of error, and even if I pulled it off, who knew if the system would even count it as a correct answer.
A misstep there would just hit with three wrong answers in rapid succession.
I thought and thought inside frozen ti.
I needed a flash of inspiration, desperately.
Co on, brain cells, neurons, give sothing.
If I can’t co up with sothing, I’m actually going to die!
Subjectively it felt like I’d spent half a day standing inside frozen ti, thinking…
But still nothing ca to .
Just as I was starting to think I’d have to leave it all to luck…
‘…?’
Suddenly.
Across the bridge, far in the distance, the Nexus inside our ally base caught my eye.
A red Nexus.
…Now that I thought about it.
Why was our Nexus red?
Looking around, our side and the enemy’s side were inverted in color throughout.
Our base was blue, our Portal was blue, our Turrets were blue.
The enemy’s were all red.
And yet our Nexus, alone, was red, just like the enemy’s.
I’d registered it earlier in passing, but I’d just shrugged and moved on without giving it a second thought…
‘…Could it be?’
The thought crept in: surely not, but…
What if that wasn’t our Nexus but one of the enemy’s?
It was an absurd idea, but Nightmare difficulty was never normal to begin with.
The thing sitting smack in the middle of our base, the one I’d assud was our Nexus, was actually an enemy Nexus.
A shitty trick like that… I couldn’t entirely rule it out.
In fact, the more I chewed on it, the more plausible it sounded.
Because it was weird, wasn’t it… everything else was blue, so why was the Nexus, of all things, red?
‘Then where’s our actual Nexus?’
I had no idea.
Either way, I had to make a choice.
Whether or not to try smashing it.
The decision wasn’t easy.
What if it really was just my imagination? What if that genuinely was our Nexus?
Then I’d be blowing myself up like an idiot and the run would be over.
I agonized for a long ti.
And then I made up my mind.
…There was no real path forward anyway.
Better than praying I’d guess all three resetting Nexuses correctly without another miss, I’d pray that this was the right answer.
I unfroze ti and sprinted toward our base.
I closed the distance in monts and started hamring the Nexus with my mace.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Nexus’s HP ticked down little by little.
Ah… wait, no, am I wrong?
Is this actually right?
Even mid-swing, my conviction wavered back and forth.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I was doing sothing completely insane.
But then again, Nightmare was never sothing to be cleared with one’s sanity intact.
Whatever, fuck it.
If I’m wrong, my apologies, humanity.
[Lane 2 First Turret has been destroyed!]
A ssage popped up mid-swing.
‘…Already?’
Our Turret had fallen.
Lane 2’s empty First Turret had already been overrun, apparently.
With twenty-four Ogres pouring in, of course it couldn’t hold…
I didn’t stop. I kept smashing the Nexus.
One percent HP left.
My hand hesitated for an instant, but I shut my eyes and brought the final blow down.
And then…
Crack!
The red Nexus crumbled and collapsed.
What erged from inside was a small Nexus glowing blue.
[Enemy Nexus destroyed!]
[Nexuses destroyed (1/4)]
“…Hah.”
I let out a dry laugh as I read the ssage.
What a complete lunatic, this Nightmare bastard was.
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