The first wave was supposed to end at ten kills.
That was the requirement.
That was the "Perfect Clear" standard for most aspiring rankers.
But as the tenth Fallen Demonic Goblin's head imploded under the weight of Kang Min's [Focus], something inside him didn't click shut and instead it tore wide open.
He wasn't in the Floor 2 Trial Zone anymore.
In his mind, the vast blue sky had turned the color of rusted iron.
The dry grass beneath his feet was no longer yellow and was soaked in the warm, iron-scented blood of people.
'I was so small then.'
A goblin lunged from his left.
Without looking, he gripped the air.
The space around the monster's throat condensed, and with a sickening crunch, its vertebrae exploded.
'I stood there with a rusted dagger...
'I only survived because they stood in front of me.'
[Exchange] flickered constantly.
Every time a goblin entered his five-meter radius, he swapped with his blade, the steel edge carving through collarbones and skulls before the monsters could even register his scent.
Eleven. Fifteen. Twenty-four.
The system windows began to flicker in the periphery of his vision, flashing a cautionary yellow.
『WARNING: TRIAL OBJECTIVE EXCEEDED.』
『WARNING: ABNORMAL AGGRESSION DETECTED.』
'Would you have done it differently? If you had the strength I have now, would you have let them pull you along?
Or would you have slaughtered the world so they didn't have to bleed?'
He gripped a goblin's face, his fingers sinking into the sockets.
"I should have been faster."
"I should have been the monster from the start."
---
In the central hub of the Tower's base lobby, where hundreds of players, scouts, and porters gathered to watch the daily trials, a sudden red filled the place.
The massive central broadcast screen suddenly bled into a deep, violent crimson.
『FLOOR 2 TRIAL ZONE 04』
『PLAYER: [SINGULARITY]』
『STATUS: LOGICAL OVERLOAD IN PROGRESS』
"What the hell is that?"
A player shouted, dropping his drink.
"Singularity?
Isn't that the guy who held the auction?"
The screen flickered, and the live feed of Floor 2 expanded to fill the entire wall.
The crowd went silent.
They saw a lone man in a black mask and a hoodie moving through a sea of goblins.
It was more of a butcher shop than a fight to say the least.
The speed of the [Exchange] was so high that it looked like there were ten versions of the player on the screen at once.
"He's already killed fifty..."
"The respawn rate can't keep up.
Look at the summoning circles!"
[LIVE STREAM CHAT]
@gurlboom: The system must be struggling to calculate his kill-contribution! He's breaking the Floor 2 cooldown!
@Salt_Lord: He's gone mad
The yellow light that usually descended to spawn the goblins suddenly turned a chaotic, flickering orange.
The ground vibrated with the mechanical groan of a system being pushed past its limits.
『NOTICE: SPAWN COOLDOWN DEPLETED.』
『SYSTEM ERROR: DEMAND FOR TARGETS EXCEEDS SUPPLY.』
『COMPENSATING... INITIATING "OVERLOAD PROTOCOL."』
Min stopped mid-stride, his blade dripping with blue ichor.
The air felt heavy and electric.
『WAVE 2 COMMENCING.』
『ADDITIONAL CONDITION: [INFINITE MALICE].』
『THE TOTAL SUM OF PENDING KILLS HAS BEEN CONSOLIDATED.』
『OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT 100 FALLEN DEMONIC GOBLINS.』
『FAILURE CONDITION: IF ALL 100 ARE NOT ELIMINATED WITHIN THE TIME LIMIT, THE SPAWN RATE WILL BECOME EXPONENTIAL TILL PLAYER DIES!』
From the sky, a literal rain of yellow light hit the ground.
One hundred circles formed a ring around Kang Min.
The goblins that emerged weren't the confused runts from before.
These were [Enraged].
Their skin was a darker shade of bruised purple, and their eyes glowed with a frantic, suicidal hunger.
"A hundred?"
He felt a sudden, violent heat in his chest.
『NOTIFICATION: SKILL [SINGULARITY LV.1 - FOCUS] HAS REACHED THE THRESHOLD OF UNDERSTANDING.』
『EVOLUTION INITIATED...』
『SKILL LEVEL UP!』
『UNLOCKED: [SINGULARITY LV.2 - GRAVITATIONAL PRESSURE]』
『UNLOCKED: [SINGULARITY LV.3 - COMPRESSION]』
As the hundred goblins screeched and lunged forward like a wave of violet meat, Min slammed his open palm toward the ground.
[Gravitational Pressure].
A translucent, purple dome-the "Heavy Zone" expanded instantly, covering a twenty-meter radius.
The effect was horrifying.
The goblins that were mid-leap were slammed into the dirt so hard their ribcages shattered.
The sound was like a hundred dry branches snapping at once.
Those on the ground were pinned flat, their faces pressed into the dead grass, their limbs splayed out as if an invisible giant was standing on their backs.
They were carrying ten times their body weight to the point they couldn't even breathe.
『LIVE STREAM CHAT』
@Hype_Train: HE PINNED ALL OF THEM! AOE GRAVITY?! IS HE EVEN A HUMAN?!
@Mage_Main: That's at least a Grade-A Mana manipulation!
@Noob_Climber: Look at him walking... he's the only one who can move in that zone!
Min walked through the field of pinned, squirming monsters.
He looked down at a goblin struggling to lift its head, its eyes bulging from the pressure.
"You wanted to see how long I waited?"
Min asked the goblin, but he was looking through it, into the past.
"I waited long enough to realize that mercy is just a lack of power."
He reached out his hand, palm open, and then slowly began to close his fist.
[Compression].
The goblin's body suddenly folded.
Not like a corpse, but like a piece of paper being crumpled by a malicious hand.
Its armor, its bones, its very organs were sucked into a central point in its chest.
Within three seconds, a three-foot-tall monster had been reduced to a ball of gore the size of a baseball.
POP.
Blue blood exploded from it.
He used [Exchange] to teleport into the clusters of pinned goblins, and with every closing of his hand, another three or four monsters were sucked into themselves, their bones grinding into powder before they could even scream.
Forty dead. Sixty dead.
The mana drain was astronomical.
Min could feel his veins burning, the blue energy of his mana pool dipping into the red zone.
'Not enough.'
He looked at the remaining forty goblins.
They were struggling against the [Gravitational Pressure], their enraged status allowing them to slowly crawl toward him despite the crushing weight.
"Fine."
Everything...I'll give you everything."
He deactivated the Heavy Zone.
The sudden release of pressure made the goblins spring up, their instincts driving them into a final, desperate swarm.
Min threw his blade into the sky.
『SKILL: [EXCHANGE]』
He appeared a hundred feet in the air, looking down at the circle of forty monsters.
He spread both arms wide, his fingers clawing at the air.
[SINGULARITY LV.3: MASS COMPRESSION]
"Collapse," he commanded.
The world seemed to turn inside out.
The forty living goblins were yanked off their feet, sucked toward the center along with the sixty corpses he had already slaughtered.
It was a sphere of meat, bone, and blue blood.
It grew larger and larger, rotating at a violent speed, a literal planet of corpses hovering ten feet above the ground.
Min's mana hit 5 MP.
His heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold hand.
He gritted his teeth, forcing the last drop of his soul into the skill.
He slammed his fists together.
The massive ball of a hundred goblins condensed.
The density was so high that the space around it began to warp and crackle with black electricity.
Then, the pressure became too much for reality to hold.
BOOM!
The ball exploded.
A shockwave of blue ichor and pulverized remains blasted outward in every direction.
The sky, which had been a clear blue, was suddenly obscured.
A heavy, dark rain began to fall.
It was cold and thick.
The blood of a hundred monsters, falling in a torrential downpour.
Kang Min hit the ground, his legs giving out.
He fell to his knees in the center of the crater he had created.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The only sound was the steady patter-patter of blue blood hitting his black mask, his hoodie, and the dry, dead grass that was now a swamp of violet mud.
He tilted his head back, looking up through the rain of gore.
His chest heaved, his lungs burning with every breath of the metallic air.
Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a cascade of system windows...so many they blocked his view of the sky.
『!!! ABYSSAL TOWER GLOBAL SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT !!!』
『PLAYER [SINGULARITY] HAS ACHIEVED AN IMPOSSIBLE FEAT.』
『TOTAL ACHIEVEMENTS EARNED: 20』
『[UNSTOPPABLE BUTCHER], [ONE AGAINST A HUNDRED], [SYSTEM BREAKER], [GRAVITY'S MASTER], [BLOOD RAIN PROGENITOR]...』
『CALCULATING FINAL SCORE...』
『...』
『...』
『GRADE: EX (EXISTENTIAL EXCEPTION)』
『NOTICE: THIS IS THE FIRST "EX-RANK" CLEAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE TOWER'S LOWER FLOORS.』
In the live stream, the chat was frozen. Not a single word moved.