Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Chapter 95: Nightmare, 7th Floor (2)

Novel: Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability Author: AlexD Updated: Jun 08, 2026

Font Size

18px

Now reading: Chapter 95: Nightmare, 7th Floor (2) from Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability, a Adventure novel by AlexD.

After I passed through the door to the next place.

Boom!

The stone door slamd shut behind .

I stopped ti.

It was a cavern no different from the one before.

Arrow holes pocked the walls on every side, and another door stood at the far end.

But there was no way it was the exact sa stage.

The difficulty had obviously been bumped up…

Just glancing around, I couldn’t tell what was different.

I let ti resu and moved to the center of the cavern.

At that mont.

Whoosh.

Every torch lighting the cavern went out at once.

Pitch-black darkness dropped over , so thick I couldn’t see an inch ahead.

‘Aha…’

So that was it?

I caught on to this stage’s concept right away.

Looked like it was cutting off my sight.

But that wasn’t a problem for .

‘Diul.’

I activated Dark Vision.

The alarm bell of Sixth Sense rang, and an arrow ca flying from straight ahead.

I sidestepped the arrow, which I could see plain as day.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The arrows’ size and speed weren’t much different from before.

aning I could dodge them with room to spare.

Even without sight I probably would’ve gotten by on Sixth Sense alone, and with Dark Vision on top of that, there was no chance I’d take a hit.

The arrows fired at shorter and shorter intervals, and then…

Just as it seed about to wind down, Sixth Sense flagged the ceiling.

Not just one.

I looked up.

The instant I saw the arrows launch, I stopped ti.

A rain of arrows blanketed a wide radius, falling toward the ground.

Let’s see…

‘I can just slip through over there.’

Dozens of arrows were plunging toward the floor all at once, but…

I took my ti pinpointing a gap I could squeeze through, then released ti and lunged for it.

Kaboom!

The floor was obliterated.

That must’ve been the last of it, because after I dodged that, no more arrows ca.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…

The torches flared back to life, and the stone door to the next stage opened.

Stage 2 cleared without much trouble.

I walked toward the door.

Bang!

This ti the surprise arrow ca from behind, not in front.

Of course, I’d seen it coming and dodged.

‘So far it’s been pretty h…’

Stage 1 was just dodging.

Stage 2 was dodging in the dark.

Sure, expecting soone to handle this blind on their first try was already pretty shaless, but…

Everything was relative.

For Nightmare difficulty, this was still on the gentle side so far.

I started toward the door, then hesitated.

…Should I look around a bit before moving on?

Obviously each stage would get harder than the last, but…

Floor 4 ca to mind. I felt that old unease creeping back in.

There might be so hidden chanic that screwed later on if I didn’t catch it early.

I decided to give the cavern another sweep before crossing over.

I spent a good while combing through the cavern, but…

I couldn’t find anything notable.

I walked over to the door from Stage 1.

Going back to the previous stage seed impossible; the firmly shut door didn’t react at all.

I tried firing a Full Charging Destruction Ray at it.

But the door took the Destruction Ray and was perfectly fine. Not a scratch.

“Hm.”

So the door was flagged as indestructible too.

Made sense. If it broke, I could just smash everything and skip the stage outright.

In the end, there was nothing for it but to move on to the next stage.

Thud.

The door shut behind .

Stage 3 was the exact sa cavern.

But one thing was different.

A massive pattern was carved into the cavern floor.

Two arrows chasing each other’s tails, rotating clockwise.

What did it an?

It obviously wasn’t there for no reason.

I stopped ti for a mont and thought it over.

…Move in a circle?

Or maybe sothing gets swapped?

I wasn’t Detective Conan; there were limits to what I could guess just from looking.

‘Any idea what this ans, Demon King?’

I tried asking the Demon King too.

– Figure it out yourself.

The Demon King scoffed, though he didn’t seem to know either.

Guess I’d have to learn by doing.

I released ti.

For now, I kept clear of the pattern and stood off to one side of the cavern.

Right then.

Flash.

The pattern began to glow like a magic circle.

“…?!”

Huh?

I tried to move, lost my balance, and toppled over.

Bewildered, I stopped ti at once.

‘…What the hell?’

That alien feeling in my body.

What just happened?

I’d clearly ant to move my right leg, but my left leg had moved instead.

Then when I tried to recover my balance, my body moved every which way and I went down.

I released ti.

I tried moving my right hand.

My left hand moved.

‘No way…’

I got it right away.

The left and right controls of my body had been swapped?

Try to move the right side, the left side moved. Try the left, the right side moved. Like the nerves of my left and right brain had been switched…

So that was what the arrow pattern ant.

…It’s fine. No reason to panic.

I just had to move in reverse, right?

I planted both hands on the floor and pushed myself up unsteadily.

Sixth Sense sounded the alarm.

An arrow was coming from the left.

I stopped ti again.

I worked out how I’d move, then released ti and moved.

I aid diagonally left; my body went diagonally right instead.

I dodged the arrow but lost my balance again and fell.

‘Goddammit.’

One movent at a ti, I could pull off.

But trying to chain movents together inevitably tied my body in knots.

No matter how well I understood it in my head, left-right inversion wasn’t sothing I could adapt to on the fly.

This ti, an arrow ca in from behind.

I stopped ti again.

Sure, instantly adapting was out of the question, but…

I had Ti Stop.

Whenever my body tangled up, I’d just stop ti, think it through, then move.

I released ti and threw myself to the left to dodge the second arrow.

I didn’t bother getting up, keeping both hands planted on the ground.

Better than trying to stand on two feet.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dodge, stop ti, dodge, stop ti.

I hopped around on all fours like a frog, dodging arrow after arrow.

‘Doable.’

A little undignified, sure, but whatever. This was way more efficient.

No need to burn a skill, just as I thought.

Using a skill would make it easier, sure, but…

No telling what else might pop up; I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.

Dodge what could be dodged, save skills for when they were needed. That was the right call.

Kaboom!

The final arrow barrage.

I stopped ti.

This ti, a swarm of arrows ca at all at once, blanketing the entire front.

There was a gap I could slip through, but…

My body wasn’t responding to fine control right now. I didn’t trust myself to thread the needle.

No need to take that risk.

I finished my ntal Concentration and used the Teleportation I’d been saving.

The arrows whistled through empty air and slamd into the far wall with a deafening crash.

No more arrows ca.

The light from the arrow pattern on the floor faded.

I rose to my feet.

Only then did my inverted body return to normal.

“Phew.”

Stage 3 cleared.

A liiittle bit rough, sure.

Honestly, without Ti Stop, I wouldn’t have even been able to control my body properly, and I might’ve gotten pretty seriously screwed…

Either way, it was starting to feel like a proper Nightmare, the bullshit getting denser.

How many stages did this thing have, anyway?

I recovered the bit of stamina I’d lost and headed for the door to the next stage.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…

No more cheap surprise-arrow ambushes.

I moved on to Stage 4.

“…?”

Stage 4 was the sa cavern again.

And again, a large pattern lay on the floor.

A pattern of a human foot, with an arrow next to it pointing downward.

What was that supposed to an…

The intuitive read was that it slowed movent.

Beyond the pattern, there was sothing else.

Several swords were planted in the floor at the center of the cavern.

‘Rainbow?’

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Seven swords in seven colors.

I walked closer.

No warning from Sixth Sense.

I picked one up. Just an ordinary longsword. Aside from the color.

Out of nowhere, the Tower was handing weapons…?

And not just one, but a whole set of identical ones? Why the colors?

Just as I was thinking they had to serve so purpose.

Bang!

I dodged.

An arrow plunged down from above and shattered the floor.

The shockwave sent the swords flying noisily in every direction.

Arrows started coming in.

No different from the previous stages. I dodged them easily.

But then.

“…?”

One arrow in the mix was different.

Unlike the missile-sized arrows, this one was normal-sized. And blue.

I dodged it for now.

When the missed blue arrow embedded itself in the floor…

The pattern on the floor suddenly began to glow.

“…!”

Sothing else was coming.

Bang!

The next arrow gave no ti to rest.

The second I dodged it, I noticed sothing off about my body.

‘My body…’

A little sluggish?

I stopped ti.

I needed ti to think.

For starters, the pattern ant exactly what I’d guessed: so kind of Slow debuff.

Seven swords in rainbow colors.

A colored arrow, unlike the others.

And the pattern activated when the arrow embedded in the floor…?

As I pieced the information together, a thought struck .

‘Am I supposed to deflect the arrows with the swords?’

Colored swords, colored arrows.

The connection ca naturally.

And the fact that only the colored arrows were normal-sized, unlike the absurdly huge ones, lined up too…

Maybe I had to deflect each arrow with a sword of the matching color, or the Slow debuff would trigger?

And if I failed to deflect, my body would keep getting slower.

I needed to grab the swords.

The mont I released ti, I sprinted to gather the swords scattered everywhere.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dodging arrows, picking up the swords one by one.

This ti, a violet arrow flew in.

‘Shit.’

The speed wasn’t too hard to deflect.

But I hadn’t grabbed the violet sword yet, so I parried it with the blue sword I was holding.

Fwoosh.

The pattern’s glow grew stronger.

My body felt a little more sluggish.

Just as I thought: the colors had to match.

I soon had all the swords gathered up.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Two stacks of Slow now, but still not enough to seriously get in the way.

The Exaltation skill offset it sowhat too.

But if it kept piling on, that’d be dangerous.

If my body slowed to the point I couldn’t dodge, I’d just have to take every hit.

I had to deflect the next colored arrow. But…

‘…This is kinda rough.’

Seven swords, two hands.

Right now, I had them all bundled at my waist.

In that state, picking the matching color and swinging on cue, no matter how I thought about it, wasn’t going to work.

…Hold on.

I could just use Subspace, then?

[Skill: Subspace (Epic)]

Creates a subspace where objects can be stored and retrieved. Objects must be touched directly to be stored, and can be retrieved within a 1-ter radius. Living beings and spirits cannot be stored. Up to 100 kilograms of storage capacity. Casting requires 3 minutes of ntal concentration.

Type: Magic

Willpower Cost: 300

Cooldown: None

Stopping ti as I went, I stuffed all the swords into Subspace.

Subspace had no cooldown on storing or retrieving objects.

Pulling out the matching sword to deflect each arrow as it ca was perfectly doable.

I dodged arrows with my slightly slowed body, and then.

‘Red.’

Another one snuck into the mix: a red arrow.

I stopped ti, pulled out the red sword, and parried the arrow.

Clang!

This ti, the pattern’s glow didn’t intensify.