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Above the Heavens of the Tower’s First Floor, there ace made of eternal brilliand glittering gold. Despite being the weakest world iire tower, this world was still guarded and protected by two Gods. Por opposites of one another. One of them embodied the eternal brilliance of light, life, and day, and the other embodied the eternal darkness of shadows, night, ah.
Both were born from the primordial mythical essence p from the very depths of the world’s core, bined with the faith and beliefs of billions of living beings. A entities whose sole purpose was to fulfill their mortal’s wishes, but that slowly developed their own egos and selfishness.
Ihe golden pace above the skies, the figure of a beautiful and voluptuous woman, covered by a long veil of eternal golden brilliance, walked through her throne room. Her appearand other features were impossible to dis; she looked as if she were made of pure light itself.
In front of her, there were dozens of angelic spirits prostrating themselves before his divine brilliance. However, despite how powerful and almighty she was, She had taken a deep wound. And even now, she could feel the stinging pain, something she had never felt before.
“How she… How did she… This is not… possible.”
“No, wait… Ah!”
“The light… Why does she wield the light?”
“Heaven’s chosen? Impossible.”
“No, but…”
She kept talking stantly. A God was a being above mortals in many ways. The goddess possessed tless minds within her own; she was a y of thoughts aions. Born from the faith and belief of billions, she was more than just a single individual, but the bination of all believer’s “ideal” of a goddess.
“How is it possible for someone below Level 500 to defeat a Level 500 heavenly spirit?!” She cried. “ any of you ahis question, my useless creations?!”
Her thoughts and minds suddenly merged together as a single emotion was equally shared between all of them, and that was frustration.
“Goddess, that being is not a human.”
“She’s not even bound by the system; we’ve checked.”
“It has beeed that she… killed administrators, a feat not even we do.”
“She what?!”
The Goddess stepped back, her hands trembling. All her minds were now overtaken by a ion.
Fear!
“I haven’t even harvested enough Souls from Earth to further asd, and a monster like that has already appeared! Could this be a scheme from one of the Gods from a higher Floor?!” She screamed. “No, I ot have my position iower taken away! I ’t! I must cw my ; I must tear through anything. Increase the bounty to another hundred millios! Add more items too; whatever those mortals want, I’ll give it to them. I need her dead! I want her dead! I’ll even lift the restris fher-floor Pyers to e down. Anybody below Level 500 has no ce. Call Pyers from Floors 20 and above!”
To bahe tower, pyers above a certain level would receive penalties for their stats and skills when they desded from higher floors, something the Tods of each Floor set to maintain pead bance. So it wouldn’t be possible for them to easily destroy everything if they ever desired.
Of course, this didn’t work most of the time wheods themselves waged war against one another, something that, despite humanity knowing very little about it, was fairly on, especially on the higher Floors.
Depending on the amount of Souls and Energy they steal from each World, the Worlds of each Floor would stantly shift. The higher they are, the strohe World is, and the lower they are, the weaker they are.
Naturally, those that lose when they are at the bottom will get expelled from the Tower. And that doesn’t necessarily meaing their world destroyed or something, but much like Earth, they will bee “open grounds” for the Tower itself to appear within them and fates to flood over.
Inhabitants will be forced to climb the tower and stop the gates from appearing. This is an endless loop that has happened before; almost every world iower went through something simir. The Goddess knew all of this; although she didn’t feel bad uilty about killing humans oh at all, she k was necessary to maintain her power and her world’s position.
And this woman, Bing Xue, someone unfathomably powerful, parable to the stro Rankers in all of the Tower, was something that o be eliminated right away.
“She might have killed my Level 500 Holy Spirits, but she beat Level 1000 or 2000 foes? How about Level 3000 foes from the higher floors?” The Goddess smiled with a wicked expression on her face, made of pure light. “Once a being as strong as she dies, my world could even climb a few Floors as well; that rich essence she possesses, I !”
Greed, avarice, and desire for power—all of these corrupt emotions—ied the goddess's once pure heart. The existence of the tower had ged her from her humble and kied ins. She was onown as a merciful and moddess, but now the only thing she could think about ower and more power.
“I’ll send my Avatars for now; they should be useful for something, right- Ugh?!”
However, as she was thinking about that, she vomited golden-colored blood from her innards. She fell to her knees in agony as she realized she was incapable of retrieving the Divine Blessings she had jured on one of her Avatars, the Pope of Nexus City!
“W-What’s happening?! My power! Why ’t I get it back?! It feels like… It was eaten?!”
Her eyes widened as she looked down, her pretty face below her veil of light quickly dist into an ugly, demonic face full of fury and rage!
“THAT DAMN WOMAN!”
.
.
.
Ding!
[You have sin [Pope of The Church of Light: Madeus: Lv300+], [Priests of the Church of Light: Lv150+], and [Padins of the Church of Light: LV180+]!]
[You have sin [Holy Angelic Divine Spirit: Lv500 (SSS Rank)]!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[…]
[Your Level has increased from Level 50 to Level 403/999!]
[All your Stats have increased. You earned Bonus Stat Points and Skill Points.]
[Several Skills have Leveled Up!]
[You earned +200.000 Credits for sying a Level 500 Monster cataloged as “Boss-type”]
[You have mercilessly killed almost a hundred church members and their pope, you acquired the [Enemy Of The Church Of The Brilliant Mother Of Light] Title!]
[You have bee an official enemy of the Church of a Tod; any ally will seek to hunt you down. There’s also a big bounty for your head, be careful!]
[The Skill: [God Predator (SSS): Lv1] Skill effects have been activated. You have devoured the Divinity Fragments of the Avatar of the {The Brilliant Mother Of Light}!]
[All your Stats have increased by +2.000!]
[You have unlocked the [Divinity] Stat! You gained +1.000 Divinity.]
[Divinity]: [A Stat that signifies your e to the Divine. Your existence is slowly being more than physical, but ceptual. O grows high enough, you may be able to choose aal Divinity to develop through Faith, Belief, and prehension of the Element.]
[You acquired the Magic Skill: [Divine Brilliant Light Magic: Lv1]!]
[The Tod {The Brilliant Mother Of Light} is groaning in agony that you’ve eaten a piece of her Divinity!]
[She furiously asks you to give it back! It belongs to her and was only given temporarily to her Avatar!]
[The Skill: [God Predator (SSS): Lv1] Skill effects have been activated. You have devoured the Divine Power of the {The Brilliant Mother Of Light} tained within her Holy Divine Spirit!]
[You gained +500 Divinity.]
[The acquired Magic Skill: [Divine Light Spirit Summon: Lv1]!]
[The Skill: [God Predator (SSS): Lv1] has Leveled up to Level 2!]
Once I fully ed what I had eaten, my strength rose rapidly. The cries of a “Goddess” didn’t really mean anything to me. But that whole battle was quite amusing, if not way too easy. I half-expected followers of a Goddess to be at least within the level of an Immortal, but they were still pitiful mortals.
The Pope, despite being “level 300” died in an instant after I infused his body with Immortal Esse least a strong Mortal Cultivator of Murim would have resisted it for a few more minutes or could have eve it bae if they were smart enough.
But that mae boasting such power, died in an instant. How disappointing. That giant Spirit was quite iing, but ultimately died without much effort as well. Although its abilities were much fshier, I liked that it was gigantic.
The city was now safe, and using my Veil Skill, I camoufged all of us and quickly lost the chasers that were watg over us as we moved back to the Inn aid for before ing to the church to get a Css ge.
And like this, while below the strong stares of my mother and my sister, I had to slowly expin to them why I suddenly became the First Floor’s churemy.
“So that’s what happened… I ’t believe you possess so much power that you easily mess with the system in such a way, Katherine! I… Well, sihis world has goo sh*t, I’ve also fought. And although Ruby didn’t know until now, I’ve also killed people too, so I suppose this wasn’t as surprising to me.” Mother admitted.
“What? You’ve killed people before, Mom?!” Ruby panicked a bit. “No, wait, I just killed like two priests and a Padin myself. They gave some nice EXP though.”
“Yes, it happens whehieves or bandits appear inside dungeons. They’re Rogue hunters, often called. Criminals take advantage of dungeons being sealed from the outside world to kill and loot the huhat go inside. I’ve gohrough this twice. Both times, I was forced to kill them to survive with my team. Some even died. I remember a good friend I had who got killed before I could do anything…”
“I suppose in that regard, this world, everything, is still quite the same as Murim, huh?” I wondered, feeling slightly mencholic. “Well, at the very least, I have you here. I did tell you what I inteo do. And although I am all for having a rexing life, with the Tower, the Gates, and the Gods here, that’s impossible.”
“I know… But did you have to make such a big fuss?!” Ruby pined.
“I’m… sorry. I apologize. I’ll try to do this while you two aren’t arouime.” I smiled. “Now, it is not like I io destroy everything; by falling for the Gods, I might learn some important information about the true purpose of the tower and the real pn the Gods have. I wonder if any of you have ever wondered what their motives are?”
“I… I hought about it, but sure, there should be something they want, right?” My mother wondered.
“I guess? I thought they just wao see us suffer.” Ruby said.
“It’s not that,” I said. “Or well, maybe that’s some partial eai. But I have seen, through their iions, fragments of their memories. Earth is nothing but a pyground for them, a pce full of Souls and Life Forces, all of us humans, even the animals and the pnts. The p’s core. They want it all.”
“W-What? Really?” My sister asked.
“But I thought the Gods were helping humanity survive somehow?” My mother asked.
“It might look like that at surface level.” I sighed. “But that’s far from the truth. Earth is a big cake, and everyone wants a slice of it. The Gates appeared all the time, and there was an urge for humanity to climb the tower so they would stop appearing. From the very beginning, they never inteo spare humanity. It is a slow death, but humanity and our world will eventually perish. I already calcute that, if things tinue as they are, in the en years, there’ll be a cataclysm that will wipe out the rest of humanity and life oh. Whoever survives will only escape to the tower’s worlds, and the entire world will be devoured, torn to pieces, and disappear in the endless os.”
“T-That’s… no… So everything, all the World Css Hunters, they’ve been w so hard to climb the tower, even then…!” My mother muttered.
“It is all useless. Humanity has taken too long to climb the tower. To even qualify to be saved, you all should have reached Floor 50 by the sed year at the very minimum. None did so.” I sighed. “Now, you see what has happened.”
“So we are just a meal to the Gods, is that what you’re saying? Everything—the peace we thought we achieved, the hunter association, all of it— It will be meaningless in just ten more years." Ruby asked with a trembling voice.
“Yes.” I nodded. “But I am here now. And I won’t let Humanity or Earth suffer such a fate. This is MY world, and I won’t let any God or Tower take it away from me. I don’t want to involve you in this anymore, though. There’ll be times I have to go alone. I hope you uand.”
“I-It’s fine…” My mother nodded, smiling faintly. “I hought my dear Katherine would e back after disappearing for eleven years and suddenly bee our world’s very st hope. But let me tell you that all the suffering you went through, all the bloodshed, all the battles you told me about—it was all for this moment. As your mother, I tell, my daughter. Everything had a purpose.”
“I know.” I smiled back at my mother. “The power I amassed through eleven thousand years of endless battles, bloodshed, suffering, agony… I will use it to end this, all of it.”
“Big sis…” Ruby muttered. “Are you going away again?”
“Not for now, don’t worry.” I giggled. “I pn to plete the missions with you and move forward together. But as I said, there’ll be times I’ll go on my own. Alright? I o just get you tw enough, so I don’t have to worry about you all the time.”
“I’m sorry if I am a burden; you don’t really o…” My mother said.
“No, it’s fine. You’re not my burden; you’re my strength.” I ughed. “Don’t ever dare say such a thing, my dear mother. Anyways! Shall we have a feast and wait until things cool down around the city? I tell there are a lot of guards looking for me now.”
“Y-Yeah, should we go to your Inner Realm thing?” My sister asked.
“Let’s go.” My mom nodded.
“Alright~”
Like that, we entered my Inner Realm and had a bountiful dinner befoing to sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.
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Pach
