Chapter 67: The Seventeenth Floor
[You have entered the 17th floor.]
[Destroy the Herman Temple.]
The Herman Temple was an old temple built on a wide plain. The place felt familiar to Lee Shin, as if he was on Earth. There were blue skies and fresh air, as well as weathered stones and mosses all over the place as well.
"The Herman Temple?"
"Do we just need to defeat those monks?”
Besides Lee Shin, there were many other challengers who had also been teleported to this large temple. On this floor, several challengers had to cooperate to destroy the Herman Temple. However, as much as there was cooperation, competition was inevitable. Some of the challengers had already made their moves, starting to approach the monks who were cleaning the surroundings of the temple.
"Who are you guys?" a monk asked.
"Of course we are challengers!” the challengers replied.
"The temple is not accepting any guests right now, so please go back,” the monk explained.
"Well, what if I don’t want to do that?” one of the challengers said.
At the challenger's provocative words, not only the aura of the monk whom they were talking to changed in an instant, but the other monks who were sweeping the temple floor too.
"So, these were uninvited guests," the monk muttered.
The monks were just wearing light clothes and holding brooms in their hands. However, just because they were of the lowest rank in the temple did not mean that they were people to be trifled with.
Babababam!
The monk launched a series of surprise attacks against the challenger. The challenger, who had been provoking the monk a while ago, started to panic and was pushed back.
"Kill them all!" The challenger shouted.
After hearing the cry, the challengers who were in the same group joined the fight. Unfortunately, the monks outnumbered the challengers. The challengers, who quickly began to lose ground, then retreated from the temple.
"What kind of monks are so strong?"
"Weren’t we just at the entrance though?”
"Shit, then how much stronger would those guys that are actually in there be?”
The monks did not even bother to chase them away. In fact, they did not even pay attention to the challengers who retreated. They just stood there like robots which had one instruction—to stay where they were and protect their spot. As long as the challengers stayed out of the boundaries in the temple, the monks did not care much about them.
"Hey there! You wizard with the silver wand! Why don’t you come over here and join us?”
"Yeah right, don't just stand there alone."
"Besides, what can a wizard even do alone? If a monk goes after you, you will probably run away without being able to use your magic properly.”
How did such similar people get together again? The three had called out to Lee Shin, the only human being that was around them, but Lee Shin did not even try to pretend to hear them.
"Hey! Can't you hear me?" one of the men shouted with anger.
When one of the men was annoyed by Lee Shin’s disregard, he tried to approach Lee Shin. At that moment, Lee Shin took a step forward because he had finished identifying all the challengers that were around him.
Most of the challengers were humans with high intelligence, but there were also many different species such as Elves, Beastmen, Orcs, and Trolls.
Among them, Lee Shin could detect one of the challengers who exuded an outstanding wave of mana. That one had already entered the temple. Lee Shin ignored the other challengers and walked into the temple, because if he took his time outside, Lee Shin might lose the chance to become the patriarch of the temple.
"Are you also an uninvited guest?" the monk asked, blocking Lee Shin’s path.
Still, Lee Shin tried to ignore him and just pass him by. However, the monk grabbed Lee Shin by the shoulder and stopped him. When other challengers saw what Lee Shin was doing, they thought Lee Shin was reckless and that he would soon be beaten up the monk. The other challengers all expected Lee Shin to return to them soon.
"We don't just let anyone into the temple,” the monk explained to Lee Shin.
"Get out of the way," said Lee Shin.
A powerful grip pressed down on Lee Shin's shoulder, but Lee Shin easily pushed the monk's hand away and continued walking. The monk seemed puzzled for a moment. He tried to catch up to Lee Shin again, but a sword from Lee Shin’s shadow space rose up in between the monk and Lee Shin.
"What? What's that?" "Is that an undead?"
"Wait, so he was a necromancer?”
The other challengers watched the scene with surprised looks. Even at a glance, they could see that this undead was giving off an unusual aura, because the black mana was flowing all over the sword of the red-eyed undead.
"You are..." The monk started to panic.
"You play with me," said Warrie to the monk.
The monk, having avoided Warrie's sword, got into a fighting stance with a determined look on his face. Several monks had gathered around. However, when two of the monks tried to grab Lee Shin, Warrie quickly disappeared and stood behind Lee Shin once again.
"I said, you’re playing with me," said Warrie.
Right after Warrie had finished saying that, the monks launched a series of attacks to get Warrie. However, Warrie was able to avoid their cooperative attacks pretty easily. The series of cooperative attacks made by the monks was a perfect match for Warrie’s ability, because the trajectory of the enemy’s attacks were clearly visible for Warrie’s red eyes.
"Keugh!"?
Swoosh—! Thump!
"Keuahhh!"
"Keaugh…"
The monks collapsed one by one. Even though they were struck by Warrie’s sword, stabbed in the abdomen, and lost their arms, they did not give up.
"Shit..."
"That's how strong the one who had just been summoned?”
"Is a necromancer usually that strong? All I’ve seen so far was them summoning goblins and a few stupid Orcs."
As the challengers watched the unbelievable scene, chills went down their spines and they were instantly jolted alert. They suddenly remembered the words that they had said to Lee Shin a while ago.
"Let's just stay quiet until he clears that place.”
"Yeah, we should just do that.”
"I agree."
While Warrie blocked the monks, Lee Shin entered the temple. There were monks inside. Among them, there was a Buddhist man who was wearing a different costume.
"How did you get in here?" the Buddhist man asked Lee Shin.
"I just came in," Lee Shin replied.
When Lee Shin replied, the Buddhist man looked at Lee Shin with eyes slightly opened. The Buddhist man then activated his power, realising that what Lee Shin said meant he had already knocked out all the other monks who were outside. Yet, there was no sign of battle on Lee Shin’s clothes.
Even the Buddisht man himself, who had been teaching martial arts to the monks, was not at all confident that he could fight all the monks outside and emerge completely unscathed. That meant that the opponent, Lee Shin, was more skilled than himself.
"Stop him with all your might," the Buddhist man ordered.
"Wow, you're quick to judge the situation," Lee Shin muttered.
There were three ascetics and seven monks against Lee Shin. In total, there were ten Buddhist men who were blocking Lee Shin and standing in front of him. However, Lee Shin did not feel nervous at all. Lee Shin had recently knocked out ten of them who were several times stronger than these Buddhist men. Therefore, these Buddhist men were nothing to be scared of.
"Bark and Gundo," Lee Shin called out.
When Lee Shin called their names, a Skeleton Orc and a Lizardman Guardian Warrior were summoned through the mana of the bracelet and they appeared from the shadow space. The aura of the two giant monsters was enough to make the monks, who had done a lot of spiritual training, flinch.
"You use magic." The Buddhist man seemed surprised.
"Try to stop me," Lee Shin said.
Wooong— Bam!
Without any notice, Bark struck the floor with the club, cracking the floor.
Following Bark’s attack, Gundo punched a monk and sent him flying; but a moment later, Gundo was pushed back slightly by an ascetic’s attack.
Again, Lee Shin tried to move on to the next room, leaving this place to the two undead. Since there were three ascetics in this battle, Lee Shin could not guarantee that they would win for sure. However, considering Warrie who would soon join them after defeating all the monks who were outside, Lee Shin thought there was enough combat power.
As Lee Shin moved on to the next room, there were sixteen ascetics who were in the middle of a training using dummies.
‘The number is getting bigger and bigger.’
"Beltia... Hmm?" Lee Shin was surprised.
When Lee Shin was about to send Beltiar to deal with this area, someone came in from the other entrance. After noticing their presence, Lee Shin hurriedly withdrew the wave of mana power and hid behind a pillar.
It was a group of challengers consisting of one from the Miao tribe, two humans and an elf. The group of four came out of nowhere and began attacking the ascetics.
It was a battle of sixteen to four. Moreover, these Buddhist men were all ascetics, not just ordinary monks. Even though the group of four already knew about this, they still fought them without hesitation. In other words, they were confident they would win this fight.
This room with sixteen ascetics was not meant to be cleared by only four challengers. Nearly forty challengers had entered the stage, and this was a room that was hard to clear unless there were many of them who worked together.
However, these four seemed poised to win the battle relatively easily. In particular, the elf swordsman was showing unrivaled skills. It was this one whom Lee Shin had detected earlier on.
Whenever the ascetics tried to get into their formation, the elf swordsman dug in precisely and prevented that from happening. The elf swordsman also used his sword at the right timing, so more and more ascetics were wounded.
‘Based on what I just saw, he's practically as good as Warrie.’
Lee Shin could have been wrong, because he did not know much about the swords. However, Lee Shin could tell that the elf swordsman’s exquisite mana operation and efficiency were as good as Warrie’s.
The elf, who had just struck down one of the ascetics with a sword, suddenly turned around and ran toward Lee Shin, activating his mana. Then using his sword, the elf cut down an entire pillar. The pillar collapsed, and at that very moment, Lee Shin walked out of the dust.
"I didn't expect him to attack me like this all of a sudden,” Lee Shin muttered.
Lee Shin was quite startled. It was amazing that he had noticed Lee Shin’s presence, but his determination to kill Lee Shin without hesitation was even more amazing. If Lee Shin had not detected the elf’s mana with precision, Lee Shin could have been injured by such a powerful sword attack.
As soon as Lee Shin had sensed the mana wave of the elf, Lee Shin overlay the extremely small shields. By making a structured connection in the shields, Lee Shin was able to disperse the impact of the attack.
Nevertheless, the shields were almost broken. The sense of death that Lee Shin had not felt in a long time came back to Lee Shin once again. To be honest, over the time since he had started climbing the tower, there had not been any enemies who were a real threat, so his sense of alertness was diminished. However, this time, with this elf, Lee Shin had to stay alert.
‘That's incredible.’
The elf was also shocked, because simply a shield was able to block his sword attack.
The elf’s sword attack was something he was confident could break through any defense magic. He could not believe that simply a shield could stop such an attack.
Not only was Lee Shin hiding, making him less noticeable by others, but he could not believe that Lee Shin was also able to block one of his admirable performances—vision—using simply a shield, which was a common magic of the first rank.
Honestly, the elf swordsman was not afraid of the ascetics, whether there were sixteen of them or thirty-two of them. However, he was afraid of the challenger who stood in front of him this moment.
"What’s going on, Vuela?” the woman of the Miao tribe asked the elf swordsman.
The woman of the Miao tribe who had killed all the monks approached Vuela, the elf swordsman.
"There’s a monster hiding here," said Vuela.
Vuela’s face was stiff and he seemed very nervous. When the woman of the Miao tribe noticed how sensitive he was, she could not even talk to him because she thought she might be slashed if she got on his nerves.
"What was that technique just now?" Lee Shin asked.
When Lee Shin asked that question to Vuela, he frowned because he thought Lee Shin was mocking him.
"Don't deceive me," said Vuela.
"I've never done that," Lee Shin replied.
"Why would you be curious about the technique that was blocked with just a shield?" Vuela shouted.
When he shouted at Lee Shin, he decided to stop talking. The elf was hot-tempered. Lee Shin simply blocked the attack because he had been attacked first, but Vuela was getting angry at Lee Shin.
'Ha… I don't want to kill him though.'
Lee Shin thought Vuela was at the level of Decan, perhaps even better. He thought that outstanding challengers like them must remain standing, because this tower was a place where no matter how highly skilled, one could never know when they would die. Every resource was valuable.
"That technique you used just now… There is a two percent deficiency in that technique you know?” Lee Shin said.
"What did you say…?” Veula asked, glaring at Lee Shin.
. One of the barbarian tribes in China.