I overheard many more things, but only a few were useful. It was about the Tower of Heroes. The Tower of Heroes was the trial grounds created by Eden to find her disciple or disciples whom she would train to fight the next Maou. Namely, me. The rewards for clearing were as follows: dual specialization, which allowed players to have a second job; three myth points, which unlocked skills from skill trees; five black enhancement stones, which boosted the properties of items by ten percent, stacking up to a hundred; and might, which upgraded strength into might that, in addition to increasing physical damage and weight capacity, also directly increased attack power. Only these were known because, as of today, only four floors had been cleared. And last but not least, the difficulty was insane. That must have been why Adam told me to get a carry.
It was finally my turn.
"You are entering alone?" I was stopped by Sigurd, a royal knight of Eden, standing at the entrance of the Tower of Heroes. Clad in full plate silver armor, I couldn't see his face, but by his build, he was the type that generally made women salivate. Even I, who was waiting for Drake to grow some balls, was not immune. Sorry, that was crass of me. "I don't recall the last time someone entered by themselves," he smiled. "Good luck to you."
"Thank you," I said, entering the Tower of Heroes while blushing faintly.
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The first floor of the Tower of Heroes was expansive; a very pleasing to the ear voice of a woman reverberated throughout, "To reach the Maou, I had to first kill six of his generals. You will be doing the same." In the center of the floor stood a goblin: an ugly creature with moss-colored green skin, pointy ears, and a long, wart-covered nose. He was short and fat, too. But at the very least, he was clothed, wearing those of a rich noble.
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"Xanda, will your blessing work against the echo of the goblin king?" I asked, because there was no way in hell I was beating that.
"It will, but even if it didn't, you would be fine as he is the general of the previous Maou."
"How do you mean?"
"Fanatical loyalty."
Nodding my head, I began walking toward him.
When he saw me, he took a knee. "I am yours to command, Maou!"
"Give me your sword!" This was me running away, as what I should have said instead was – kill yourself! But I didn't. Why? Because telling someone to kill themselves was wrong, yet killing somehow wasn't? Thinking about it, why was I okay with killing? Was it because this was a game? No, not because of that. It was because I was defending myself. And then I was getting revenge. After that, I didn't think about it. But now, now that I am thinking about it—screw it—my hands were already dyed with blood. So what's one or countless more?
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I am going to be here for a while, but only after the first strike,
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"Ah, to die at the hands of the Maou!" he closed his eyes. "What bliss!"
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I got what I came to the Tower of Heroes for; however, there was no reason for me to stop. I ascended to the second floor only to find another Maou's general waiting for me. But this time around, I just said, "Kill yourself!" And he did it. The same situation repeated on floors three through six. From the fifth floor, I received ascendance, which upgraded intelligence into ascendance that, in addition to increasing skill damage and maximum mana, also allowed for the infusion of element affinities into basic attacks and skills. And from the sixth one – chaos, which upgraded luck into chaos that, in addition to increasing critical strike chance and luck in general, unlocked the chaos element affinity.
Now I was on the seventh floor, and the very pleasing to the ear voice of a woman reverberated once more, "After I killed the six generals… came his allies... I won't ask the impossible of killing them as even I wasn't able to accomplish such a feat. You will have to survive for a minute against each."
"I suggest you leave now if you don't want to die," Xanda said. "Those three are not monsters, and my blessing won't work against them. Neither will your status as the Maou. They were his allies, yes. However, only because they shared a common goal."
"I always wanted to fight you, nameless one!" I couldn't even see who he or she was, as in the next moment, which came like a clap of thunder, I was dead. "Disappointing!"
I was back here again in the depths of chaos, an unpleasant place with thirteen black suns hanging in the colorless sky, casting an unsettling light over everything. Fortunately, my level didn't drop, but I had far fewer experience points. And Xanda stood before me. "I told you to leave, didn't I?"
"Who was that?" I asked.
"Tiamat, also known as the strongest creature…"
"Is she the one that I have to get the heart of for Drakul?"
Xanda nodded her head in confirmation.