Conquering the Tower Even Regressors Couldn't-Chapter 440: Ninety-Second Floor, The Feast’s End (6)

[Eliminate the third-class god ‘Eternal Feast’ alongside the other apostles. Time remaining: 46 hours 58 minutes.]

Poong-Wol surged forth from the silver rift that split open the ashen world. The azure dragon coiled around Wan in a protective embrace.

On the other side of the battlefield, Gehenna descended while sending down a pillar of flame to shield Sdeeka. The winds conjured by Poong-Wol fanned that inferno and magnified it into something grander. For an instant, the gray world was painted crimson.

At least that buys us some time.

However, it hardly restored the balance.

Poong-Wol wasn’t weak, but he couldn’t rival an apostle. Moreover, Sdeeka served a fourth-class god, whereas all their opponents served third-class gods. At least they wouldn’t be crushed one-sidedly, especially since they were here to support me and not to overpower the enemy. Maintaining even a fragile equilibrium was sufficient.

Gehenna had already stood at a remarkable level when I first met her. From what she had shared, her creator was a second-class god. Although it was true that her god had practically abandoned her—which set her apart from most apostles—with my divinity, she should stand at least on par with a third-class apostle.

I don’t know what the traitors plan to do if they succeed in defeating my other allies.

Regardless, preventing that outcome was good enough.

Both Gehenna and Poong-Wol had keen instincts. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be drawn into reckless gambits. If luck favored us, they could even fell one opponent and then come to my aid.

That was overly hopeful, however, and it didn’t make me feel any more at ease.

After all, the traitors had forced me to reveal my hand. I had held back my full strength at the cost of injuries because there were still too many unknowns.

I still don’t fully know Eternal Feast’s full strength and the traitors’ true designs.

Seo Ho-Su had once told me that a warrior should always conceal thirty percent of their power. He claimed it was a maxim from martial arts light novels, but I found it to be sound advice.

Against the unknown, restraint is crucial. On the other hand, once an enemy is completely known, one can go all out. Only then is it possible to overturn all of my opponent’s expectations when an opening arrives.

That was exactly the situation I found myself in.

Eternal Feast will want to end this quickly, before the restrictions ruin him.

There was no way he had shown me all of his cards so far, though.

He could have hidden aces, just like Endless Furnace had. Considering the nature of his divinity, I would have to keep a watch out for acts of deception and misdirection. Truth be told, that was partly why I hadn’t attacked with all my might at the outset.

The Primeval Forest, Poong-Wol, and Gehenna. Of these three, I had revealed two. That gave me the room to let him grow impatient, to force him into using more of his strength.

“Tsk.”

Perhaps because one of his ploys had failed, Eternal Feast grimaced as he swung his blade. His expression practically screamed annoyance.

For now, I resolved to leave Poong-Wol and Gehenna to their own devices.

Perhaps the shift in balance had affected him more than I realized, but Eternal Feast suddenly pressed harder. His tempo quickened, and the force behind his blows mounted with every strike. I would have to match him, at least in part.

The cage of lashes bound me in place, but it wasn’t a true domain—it had gaps I could exploit. As I evaded the whirlwind of whips and sword strikes, I drew on both my mana and divinity. Blue-gold lightning crackled to life, flickering within my grasp. Eternal Feast tensed slightly, but I wasn’t aiming for him. Multiple bolts surged into the heavens.

Across the ashen city, lightning split the sky. Thunder followed a heartbeat later.

Rumble— Boom!

The lightning would bolster both me and my allies. If Eternal Feast wanted to use whips and beams to bother me, then he could suffer under my lightning. Additionally, my bolts carried causality, so even a god couldn’t take them without injury.

I overlaid my domain a second time. Densely woven, it expanded to fill Eternal Feast’s cage of lashes. Sparks crackled everywhere, countless tiny arcs leaping from one whip section to the next. Those currents alone would torment Eternal Feast, not to mention they also bolstered the power and speed of the thunderbolts above.

I stamped against the ground as some whips flailed my way. Twisting and ducking, I slipped through the gaps. My side and calf ached faintly, but they didn't hinder me.

My back isn’t hurting at all.

Dozens of exchanges passed like this. As I increased my power output, Eternal Feast’s pressure escalated. Without doing the same, I wouldn’t endure. My wind spirit supported my movements, lightning countered the whips, yet in some moments, I still barely scraped by.

Out of nowhere, Eternal Feast stopped, causing me to freeze in confusion.

He growled, “You are such a nuisance.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I answered boldly, though my heart whispered otherwise.

However, the moment I spoke, the atmosphere shifted. The very air seemed crushed beneath his presence—something was wrong. Eternal Feast wore a cold expression, and though he had called me a nuisance, he didn’t appear the slightest bit fatigued.

Now I was starting to doubt whether I could outlast him. In an instant, the situation had reversed. He had trapped me and was revealing his true power. The crimson-gold whip in his hand began to glow with a pure golden radiance.

Shhhhk!

He had somehow torn the very air itself.

What the hell?

My senses screamed out in warning as invisible strikes rained down on me from every direction. It didn’t make sense; neither Eternal Feast nor the visible whiplines had moved. That made me realize I had been tricked.

Unfortunately, the invisible attacks were incredibly fast. By the time I had heard the air split, it was already too late. I hastily cloaked myself in divinity and drove a foot into the ground. A chill swept the back of my neck.

Damn it!

No golden light heralded the strikes. I invoked causality right as dozens of blows descended simultaneously.

Boom!

The impact hurled me into the air and sent me crashing across the ground. Everything stopped cold against the causality I had hastily spread around myself.

Invisible lashes, followed by invisible beams, cascaded through the air.

Though my barrier blocked them from piercing into me, the shock still tore through me. Every spot that a strike landed on ached, and even my organs quivered. Blood surged up my throat, and the metallic taste coated my taste buds.

For a moment, it felt like I was fighting an entirely different being.

Is this his way of saying he has gauged my strength?

Eternal Feast’s assault didn’t relent. Before I could even spit the blood aside, I rolled again. I needed to create an opening, so I layered Flash Strike three times.

With a bit more time to react, I poured causality-laced divinity into the lightning that formed my domain. Sparks erupted everywhere, bright enough to sear vision, until the whole domain blazed with light.

As I spat blood and struggled to catch my breath, something slammed into my chest. My vision went dark for an instant. Feeling dazed, I recoiled again as his whips struck me again and again.

Boom!

I suffered another heavy impact, and debris rained down across me.

The left side of my chest felt hollow. My breathing was ragged, hot blood spilling freely from me. I had miscalculated. I thought I could evade, conserve strength, and wear him down.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Endless Furnace couldn't even be compared to a third-class god. If it continued like this, I would die. Stuck beneath the rubble, I tightened my grip on Soulbound.

I haven’t perfected it yet... but it is the only way.

My thoughts accelerated. I recalled my battle against Saboden, every memory and emotion from that clash surfacing more vividly than ever. I moved in harmony with that recollection, muscles contracting just as they had when I had cleaved through him.

I drew forth my remaining causality within me. It was more precious than divinity, but I couldn’t afford to conserve it any longer.

Then, divinity surged in from somewhere out of sight.

***

Kwon Su-Hyeok’s instinct had been right—Eternal Feast had finished measuring Kwon Su-Hyeok’s strength. Only fools who lived and died for battle bared everything against an unknown opponent. The wise hid their true strength, as well as their final trump card.

His deliberate pressure had aimed to probe what Kwon Su-Hyeok was concealing. When Kwon Su-Hyeok finally revealed his trump cards, Eternal Feast confirmed his assessment of the budding god.

Fast, but no more than that.

Speed was troublesome, yes, but it was still within the realm of what a third-class god could respond to. That was the natural limitation of Lightning Essence.

True, the Lightning Spirit King inhabiting Kwon Su-Hyeok increased the lightning’s destructive force, but Kwon Su-Hyeok’s rate of growth far outpaced Flash Strike’s improvement. He had solved that by layering the technique on top of itself. Even so, it was still limited. Stacking Flash Strike twice didn't double the boost given by the skill. The fact that Eternal Feast had struck him despite his employment of the technique proved that much.

Even if Kwon Su-Hyeok had infused his lightning with causality, it only proved a mild nuisance for Eternal Feast. Since he possessed causality as well, with measured expenditure, he could counter it.

Eternal Feast raised his sword.

Kwon Su-Hyeok, battered by beams and lashed by whips, had already sunk deep beneath a collapsed high-rise. Half the building had come down, and though he lay buried beneath its wreckage, still trapped within Eternal Feast’s domain. Inevitably, he would return to the surface soon.

Eternal Feast felt a strange hollowness, but of course, not at the battle itself.

Kwon Su-Hyeok was formidable, especially for a challenger, and he even carried causality. Rather, the disparity in their tiers had made the outcome predictable. Kwon Su-Hyeok had possessed nothing to bridge that gulf.

The emptiness came from the terror he had felt when the tower caught him extracting causality. Centuries, even millennia of labor had seemingly crumbled in that moment. He tightened his grip on the sword, ready to cut Kwon Su-Hyeok down the instant he rose again.

Instinctively, he twisted to the side abruptly.

Crack!

A heavy, sickening crack echoed through the empty city.

That sound... came from my own arm?

Even upon realizing something had severed his arm, he couldn’t believe it until he lowered his gaze. A beat later, the arm dropped to the ground with a dull thud. Eternal Feast stood in mid-air, confused.

How?

Then it hit him. Someone who had mastered the Heart Sword had attacked him. He knew of this fabled realm of mastery through the gods who pursued nothingness. Those who reached the pinnacle could sometimes unlock it.

If he had anticipated it, he could have responded. Even if the Heart Sword cut at a spiritual level and couldn’t be entirely avoided, it could be resisted. His arm would’t have been severed.

Not once had he considered that Kwon Su-Hyeok’s hidden card would be the Heart Sword, however. Not every god who sought nothingness could wield it, and even among those who could, the quality varied greatly.

This attack was far beyond the crude imitations he had seen before.

Instead of cleaving downward with the sword in his right hand, Eternal Feast recoiled in horror. He retreated as golden radiance fell over the stump of his arm. Even so, not even divinity could immediately regrow a lost limb.

Emerging from the rubble, Kwon Su-Hyeok swung his axe. Blood poured freely from the hole in his chest, but his strikes were razor-sharp.

Eternal Feast invoked causality. He blocked the Heart Sword, but the shock reverberated deeply within him. He ground his teeth. At this rate, he was spending far too much causality and divinity. A decision had to be made.

Eternal Feast realized the time had come for him to collect every debt owed to him.

It was no coincidence that he had once behaved so freely while managing the City of Revelry, granting and lending to other gods. Even Wrath of All Creation, whom Skyalf served, had once offered support in exchange for debt forgiveness.

There were greater debts still outstanding.

Originally, he had intended to reserve them for a more crucial moment. However, if not now, he could potentially never get another chance.

When the tower had caught him, such things had been useless. Here, one misstep meant death—not from being overpowered, but from a simple lack of divine energy.

Closing his eyes, Eternal Feast focused on the pacts bound to his divinity.

***

「Invisible message: The third-class god ‘Eternal Feast’ has called on every god indebted to him to pay their dues.」