Chapter 133:
Torture Technique.
One of the skills acquired from the 13th floor challenges’ achievement reward.
This skill, originally thought to be not as useful, had a good ability.
It becomes easier to instil fear for the receiver of the torture, while the effectiveness of the torture improves….
A skill developed for torture including the increase of pain perception created a desirable result.
“P-please kill….. Stop….. This, this is enough……”
The process of torture was troublesome and bothersome.
Occasionally, Seindal would threaten me saying how he was going to kill every single being in this country.
And every time, he had to demonstrate an unsightly appearance due to the torture techniques.
Luckily, Seindal’s will were not as sturdy as I thought.
As the torture continued on, he became more vulnerable and answered all the asked questions.
Divinity, magic, god of proof, god of battle, the Ares dimension and more…..
He even confessed the information I didn’t ask. It was a torture in itself listening to every bit of information he spewed.
‘What a labor this is.’
It was like my body was becoming tired after the continuous, boring and bothersome torture sessions.
Of course, in real time, only 7 hours has passed,
Thanks to the two torture effects, it ended faster than expected.
But, since this was my first time conducting an actual torture, it look a lot out of my mentality.
Thankfully, I managed to acquire a lot.
‘I learned a lot about divine powers.’
Previously, I couldn’t grasp the concept of divinity despite hearing my ears off about it…..
I managed to learn many things just now.
First of all, this divinity does not mean you immediately get treated as god by possessing it.
What the Murim calls mid-energy center, or what the Ares calls mana circle heart needs to be available to start accumulating divine powers.
It’s an energy more pure than anything else, and the easiest to resonate to any will. According to Seindal, the most pure basic form of mana is divine powers, a type of disassembled mana.
And
The knights of magicians that accumulated these types of divine powers could ascend easily.
It seemed like the importance of will was significant once you reach a certain level both in magic and swordsmanship.…….
Since the most basic form of mana reacted easily to any type of will, one could demonstrate a higher level of proficiency than the user’s ability.
‘But apparently, it is quite difficult to disassemble mana to accumulate as divinity within the heart.’
But, there was another method of accumulating divine powers within the heart other than the aforementioned disassemblement of mana.
And that was through Faith.
Whether it came in the form of worship or fear, with enough faith, the receiver of that faith will accumulate divine powers in their heart.
Through that, they could advance in their skills which is what caused Seindal to cause a mass annihilation in what he deemed a puny dimension.
‘He failed though.’
And this is what Seindal learned through the ancient ruin’s documents.
This is the extent of the knowledge gained regarding divinity, but I managed to learn more about the god of proof and battle.
―T-there was a divine revelation! A revelation that must never be disclosed…!”
And that came in the most unexpected form of information.
―I-it said that if a certain ancient ruin can be found, I can become the third great magician of the empire…….
―The apostle of god of battle visited me and gave me that revelation. I-I’m not lying!
―A-and so I followed that revelation to find the ancient ruins and the documents.
God of battle.
The divine revelations that I’ve only felt through the messages on the 13th floor were real.
The wicked divine revelation that manipulated Seindal to come to Earth.
‘Just like what the god of proof said, other gods seem to have a dislike for me.’
To have the god of battle directly involved in this……….
My mood turned sour seeing the god of battle display their disapproval of me learning divinity by myself.
It was not a light matter seeing them go beyond expressing their displease but also cause an entire massacre in London.
The god of battle was now my nemesis.
I have no idea why a god that acknowledged my presence by a single message decided to make me their enemy…..
But what was certain was that the god of battle was a being that could act in such way just from their disagreement over my acquisition of divine powers.
“……right, so you want a piece of me?”
The god of battle clearly had hostility towards me and expressed that through Seindal.
Even if that being was a god, I no longer felt the need to lower myself to it.
Get strong, stronger, and even stronger than anyone to never be oppressed.
I climbed the tower with that sentiment thus I too, built up my own hostility towards gods.
I quietly organized my thoughts.
‘……I need my divine powers to grow stronger.’
The god of battle attempted to create an issue out of my possession of divine powers.
Of course I deemed it as a ludicrous thing before….
Seeing the god display their hostility, it gave me the certainty that there was more to divinity than meets the eye.
I was not sure of what that was just yet, but it was not normal.
‘Pure divinity is said to ascend the level of being.’
An energy said to be the purest form of mana disassembled, never created through the normal means.
If the divinity really had a transcendent ability, then my next course of actions were already set in stone.
‘…..if there are towers, and divine powers exist, could I become strong enough to kill a god?’
This could be a path without an answer, and I might never be able to turn back.
But there was no hesitation.
Since I’ve never walked through a path that could be reversed.
Slash!
「You have absorbed the soul of the challenger ‘Seindal’.」
「Proficiency increased by 4.4%.」
The moment a chilling sound rang out, the Blood Demon Sword absorbed all the blood spilt on the ground.
「Activating True Blood Demon Sword(A-)’s exclusive skill ‘Blood Eat’.」
「Item’s rank raises to A- (1,400/1,400) from absorbing challenger ‘Nam GungHyuk’s blood.」
「The rank of the item reached a ceiling. The item will now ascend from A- rank to A rank. 」
「<imprint skill="" :="" soul="" ego="" enhancement(b+)=""> is imprinted on the Blood Eat’s exclusive slot from absorbing challenger ‘Seindal’s blood.」</imprint>
The time to return to the tower approached.
»————- ★ ————-«
The subjugation mission ended too fast to the point where it felt like a waste to have bought that return stone.
After an hour of Seindal’s death, the futility area broke down.
And the UK hunters association confirmed that Seindal’s magic area completely disappeared.
Afterwards, the UK hunters association asked many bothersome questions of attending the press conference, or moving to the UK.
They tried to lure me with tax exemption, or other benefits….
To tell the truth, the wealth or status of Earth no longer attracted me.
Growth.
My only focus was on how much I could grow.
I had no intention of getting involved with bothersome events.
So I asked Lee HaYeon with the task of taking care of the follow-up events.
Which she took care of with a sad face.
And……
「Hunter Han Sungyeun」
「Rank : A」
「Type : Close Combat」
「Category : Challenger」
「Issued Date : 2026 – 01 – 21」
I received the newly provided hunter license while I was residing in the hotel getting ready for the swarm of reporters.
“A rank hunter, huh…….”
Back then, I dreamed of becoming an A ranked hunter…….
The newly provided hunter license did not invoke any new sentiments in me.
Expect that maybe the dungeon access would become easier in the future.
‘I changed so much.’
It felt like yesterday training each day aiming to become a hunter.
Despite becoming an A ranked hunter, I did not even feel excitement over it.
I put away the hunter license and sat with my legs crossed ignoring the thoughts.
‘Seindal said that divine powers are the result of disassembling the mana into its purest form…….’
I was attempting to use the newly acquired information about divine powers.
Testing if mana can be turned into divine powers by refining it like a centrifuge.
I attempted many different hypotheses to refine the mana…..
After multiple attempts, I declared that mana had limits on how much it could be disassembled.
‘No. at this rate, mana can’t be turned into divine powers.’
As if proving that Seindal was not lying, the more the mana was refined, the more sensitive it became to will.
But that was the extent of it.
No matter how many times I tried to purity the mana into its purest form, once it reached a point, it stopped purifying as if it reached a wall.
‘This is hard.’
I almost understand why Seindal was trying to accumulate divine powers through mass annihilation.
Without an extraordinary caliber, divine powers would never be created.
But that did not disappoint me.
Because…..
「Activating the power ‘Divinity’」
I already possessed divine powers.
Fwoosh!
Once surrounding myself with the divine powers, a dim light filled the hotel room.
I tilted my head after trying out different things.
“Hm, just because you can use divine powers, doesn’t mean that you can create sword ki or magic….. What is it?”
Seindal said that divine powers are the most refined versions of mana.
But no matter how much thought was poured into the divine powers, it was immovable. And without the power of Hero’s Protection, manipulation would be impossible.
“…….”
I stopped the manipulation of divine powers to think.
It does not react to will, but only demonstrates its effect when multiple myths are activated…..
Perhaps divine powers reacted to something else.
‘Faith? Belief? I wonder if those are what moves it?”
Perhaps faiths like <reversal hero=""> or <vampire slayer=""> are catalysts to activate divinity.
‘I’m not so sure, but divine powers seem to be only usable as they are right now.’
With no amount of thinking providing a solution, I stopped thinking further.
Instead, I started to absorb Seindal’s soul that I’ve put off.</vampire></reversal>
「Permanently increasing your stats using the soul of the challenger ‘Seindal’.」
「Strength increased by 2.」
「Agility increased by 1」
「Stamina increased by 2.」
「Mana increased by 7.」
「Tenacity increased by 2.」
Just like last time I absorbed Nam GungHyuk’s soul, I received no skills this time either.
‘……oh well, I managed to absorb Seindal’s skill in Blood Eat’s exclusive slot.’
There were no lingering attachments since I managed to get some nice skills by using the Blood Demon Sword.
And the miniscule raised physical stats made me feel good too.
It was far better than getting a headache over the divinity.
‘Even if I try to figure things out alone, I’ll end up in the same spot.’
Since divinity was not something that I can learn to use just because I want to.
With no advisers and limited intel on Earth, there was an unbreakable boundary.
So…….
「Time up.」
「Returning to the tower.」
The real study on divine powers would continue back at the tower.
»————- ★ ————-«
With the remainder of time used up, I returned to the tower and put the dimensional pocket inside the inventory.
And created a portal using the towers command.
The two days on Earth before returning were plenty of a rest.
There were no more rewards to be checked either.
And no other rewards to be used beforehand.
And the rewards that I received under the pretense of offerings were not something I was eager to receive as I was a high ranking challenger even among the hard difficulty levels.
Skill proficiency potion, random skill book, Body Fortifying Potion etc..
There were many different items, but having them made no difference.
To the point it would be better to give them out to others at an appropriate timing.
‘Of course, skill proficiency potions could be used in the future for myself.’
However, the skill proficiency potion was unusable at this point in time.
After all.
Just because I raised my skill proficiency, my rank would not be raised so there was no large profit from it.
Therefore, it would be much more efficient to use it right before the skill proficiency reached ranking up level.
There was no need to waste time since there was no worthy item.
‘Resting peacefully in the tower is a luxury.’
This was the perfect timing to continue to climb the tower.
「Entering Tower of Trials floor 15.」
「 Difficulty – Hard 」
「The objective of the following trial is ‘War.’」
「We wish the challenger a satisfactory ending to their choice.」
A momentary pause of seeing the familiar trial message.
I looked towards the scenery beyond the portal and attempted to understand the trial.
What is the purpose of the trial and what I can do to get better rewards….
But I flinched at the sight of the scenery for the trial.
‘And what is this now…?’
After all.
This was my first time starting the trial inside a dark and eerie tent.
Furthermore…..
“mercenaries, we got the order to be in the battle!”
I did not expect the trial to start by being ordered by a man wearing a black robe.
“Kill those damned cultists defiling our god of dark!”
There was no time to even think about the situation I was in.
After all.
The robed man was standing by the tent’s entrance gritting his teeth, shouting in anger.
“Money or status! You will be honored if you achieve victory in this holy war!”
Holy war.
A battle based on religious beliefs…..
“It’s time to bring judgment to those cultists serving the god of battle!”
Now the story of the 15th floor made sense.
「The 15th floor trial is starting.」
「Remaining time – 17 day」
「Trial success condition – Lead the holy war into victory within the time limit.」
「Trial fail condition – Challenger’s death or the end of remainder of time.」
「 Trial success reward – ‘Protection Bracelet of a God without Name(S+)’」
「Trial fail penalty – Death」
“God of battle…….”
My gaze turned cold while muttering quietly.
It would seem like the 15th floors’ trial would be quite interesting.
[To be continued.]
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