“You’re trying to make something strange again, aren’t you?”
What Suho set out to make, while soothing the grumbling Rabi, was a spear.
Of course, it wasn’t an ordinary spear.
It was a spear shaped like an enormous sharpened pencil, ten meters in diameter and two hundred meters long. Most of its body, including the downward-shifted center of gravity, was made of Obelun, while the tip was sharply overlaid with Magrite.
The most important point was the film wrapped around the pointed end almost like a coating. It was an “Aether Field Neutralizing Coating” Suho had plastered on using alchemy and various enchantment techniques.
Since it was made of Obelun and enormous in size, each one was a supermassive spear weighing thirty million tons.
For the time being, he made about a hundred of those spears.
Rabi could carve Obelun and Magrite in the blink of an eye, but it took Suho quite some time to make the Aether Field Neutralizing Coating, so the work continued for a full week.
“Rabi, can you drop these precisely on the points I want and hit the targets I tell you to hit?”
“That sort of thing is my specialty. Have I ever dropped anything in the wrong place before?”
“Right, right, you haven’t. I’m counting on you.”
“Leave it to me.”
“Now then, we’re going outside, but I’d like you to help me with one more thing. This is something you’ll have to interfere with in Earth’s dimension for. Like when you shaved down mountains to make the new city before.”
Rabi frowned at those words, but—
“I’ll give you runes for this.”
Her expression quickly smoothed out.
Leading Rabi after feeding her runes, Suho dug a trench around the tower in the area where the monsters would gush out.
It was empty land several kilometers wide, since all troops had already been pulled back so that they could rain down the surface-to-surface missiles known as “Perseus 2040.”
It was filled with beautiful buildings that made up the city of Basel, but in any case, the moment a super-giant monster appeared, that civilization would vanish.
The same would happen if high-yield missiles fell there...
So there was no need to feel too burdened.
The trench Suho asked Rabi to dig was of an astonishing scale, one kilometer wide and one kilometer deep.
“...What the hell am I looking at...”
“......”
“...Jeong Suho seems to have long since surpassed the bounds of humanity...”
The gazes of the response forces, looking at the abyss-like trench that had appeared around the tower in an instant, were dyed with awe.
It was only natural.
Things they simply could not understand were happening before their eyes far too lightly, far too easily.
* * *
“This is suffocating...”
Five scheduled hours passed, and then two more hours passed on top of that, yet the monsters still did not emerge.
But neither the troops nor the Admittees could let their guard down for even a single moment, so every minute and every second was filled with a tension so thick it felt like choking.
The only one waiting leisurely for the Break while humming to himself was Suho.
Wearing his powered armor and Tempestbane Wing, Suho circled the area around the tower, and from afar he looked like a single gnat.
“What on earth is the boss thinking...”
“Seeing as he dug that trench, maybe he’s planning a mass-body attack?”
“Even so, this isn’t a limited space like inside the tower...”
“What are you worried about? Let’s just do our part and make sure none of them slip through.”
As anxiety began to creep in, Thomas bit his lip, and the rest of the clan members wore the same grave expressions.
Suho had moved Ultimate Line and all the troops even farther back, repeatedly warning them never to come close.
He had merely asked them to wait outside the marked safe distance of five kilometers and deal with any small monsters that might appear.
“That’s right. The clan leader already said he would strike the boss monster with a large-scale mass-body attack. He must have pulled the front line back because he was worried we’d get caught in the shock wave. As we’ve seen until now, the clan leader’s—”
“Uh, uh, uh..!!”
“Uuuaagh!”
“I-It’s out!!!”
“Finally—uuaagh!”
“Holy shit...!”
Cutting off Ava Mitchell’s words, everyone cried out in shock at the same time.
At last, the monster of the ninety-eighth floor revealed itself before the tower: a super-giant biological humanoid beast.
The response team’s analysis team confirmed through laser rangefinders that the creature’s height exceeded 350 meters and relayed the information.
“Three hundred and fifty meters......”
It was almost the size of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier standing upright. Its enormous body was clearly visible even from five kilometers away.
“How in the world... I can’t believe it... My God... that kind of... creature...”
General Klein, the commander, who was seeing a super-giant monster in person for the first time, had his jaw trembling uncontrollably.
“Whoa... this is way more thrilling...?”
Diego Hernandez, the greatsword swordsman, raised his eyes ferociously and gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.
It was definitely larger than Karnoas, the final boss Ultimate Line had faced in the ninety-sixth-floor tower before.
The helplessness and despair he had felt back then seemed to surge back like PTSD.
Moreover, unlike Karnoas, who had been a rock spirit, this biological humanoid monster, with parts of it resembling a human body here and there, felt far more grotesque and sinister.
It was then.
“!!!”
“Wh-Where did it go?”
“Below! It fell into the trench!”
The monster had seemed to take a single step as soon as it emerged from the tower, then vanished somewhere.
To the Admittees looking around in confusion, those with sharp eyes and those holding binoculars explained what had happened.
Just how large and deep did a trench have to be to make such a gigantic monster fall into it?
There was no time to think further about that. Something had begun to fall into the trench.
The moment an enormous pillar appeared in the sky and plummeted down came almost simultaneously with the super-giant monster falling into the deep trench.
Kwa-r-r-r-r-rung────!!
Something shining black, with enough force to split the entire earth, pierced through the clouds and slammed down from the sky.
Not one but five pillars fell in succession onto the monster that had fallen into the one-kilometer-deep trench.
They were the Obelun-plus-Magrite supermassive spears that Rabi dropped at Suho’s request.
Kukukukukugugugugugu────
The soil and rock of the deep trench absorbed the kinetic energy of the spears, reducing their destructive force at the surface, but the still-enormous residual energy produced a massive shock wave and an earthquake.
Urrrrrrrr────
Along with terrifying roars that seemed to shake the whole world, broad cracks and further collapses occurred all around the trench.
“Uaaaagh!”
“Hold on tight!”
The shock wave swept all the way to the defensive line five kilometers away without fail, and with the ground dancing like waves, not a single person could stand properly.
Fortunately, everyone had been in combat readiness, so no one was inside any building, and even if there had been structures, they were almost at the level of tents, so there was no danger of collapse.
Chik—
“I-It’s the radio. It’s the clan leader.”
[Is everyone all right? It shook a lot, didn’t it? I got the first one that came out. I’ll move the corpse for now. If you need it, we can talk later.]
At his indifferent words, as if he had merely caught a bug, no one could respond.
Contrary to what the response forces and teams had feared and prepared for, there were no small monsters at all, and the only thing that emerged from the ninety-eighth floor was a single super-giant boss.
And then the second monster, presumed to have come down from the ninety-ninth floor, appeared in succession.
“For some reason, I feel kind of sorry for it. Even if it’s huge, well...”
You cannot kill an elephant with a single bow, but even an elephant would have a hard time surviving if struck by a large crossbow like a ballista.
This monster was exactly like that. It possessed an unbelievable body, but once it was pierced by an unbelievable spear, it was over.
The sight of the giant monster from the ninety-ninth floor lying dead, spraying river-like blood from wounds all over its body, was pitiful.
“Tsk...”
Looking down at the monster that had died after being impaled by Obelun spears like a hedgehog, Suho stored its corpse in his subspace warehouse.
There was no leisure to indulge in sentiment. He had to keep the trap empty for the next guest.
After that, the one hundredth floor, the one hundred first floor, and the one hundred second floor all repeated the same process.
A super-giant monster appeared, fell into the trench, was pierced by giant spears, died, and was stored away...
The calm yet brutal work repeated itself.
* * *
News about the tower break response in Basel was broadcast live all over the world.
As it was an unprecedented tower and an unprecedented Tower Break, people around the world focused on the news with exceptional interest, fear, and anxiety.
In Japan in particular, which had suffered a Tower Break under a similar crisis and had only barely been saved, the news achieved ratings beyond imagination.
The horrifyingly gigantic monster appearing on screen, the spear tearing through the atmosphere as it slammed down, and the tremendous shock wave sweeping outward.
Scenes more spectacular than the special effects in any movie ever shown were being broadcast live through the news.
“Tenchisakuyari...”
A Japanese person watching Suho’s supermassive spear butcher the super-giant monster of the ninety-eighth floor on the screen muttered in a trembling voice, “Tenchisakuyari.”
The name he had casually given it, meaning “the spear that tears heaven and earth,” spread across the entire world through the internet in an instant.
[Breaking News! The 100th-Floor Monster Also Taken Down in One Blow by Jeong Suho’s Tenchisakuyari!]
[Breaking News! The Worst Tower in History, an Unprecedented Tower Collapse—Will One Man Resolve It All?]
[Headline: Why Was the Supermassive Spear Tenchisakuyari Able to Pierce the Aether Barrier of a Super-Giant Species?]
— Experts are focusing on the power of the supermassive spear Tenchisakuyari. The concept of a supermassive object implies an energy density that surpasses existing physics, and analysts believe that the only Admittee in the entire world capable of controlling it is Jeong Suho...
[Headline: The Birth of a Hero Beyond the Realm of Legend—“The Tower Collapsed, but Humanity Did Not!”]
— With the range and type of Jeong Suho’s abilities still unidentified, questions continue to arise regarding the fundamental nature of the man who displays terrifying power every time...
* * *
At last, the monster of the final floor appeared.
However, the top-floor monster of the one hundred third floor was completely different in type and form from those of the floors below.
“What is that...”
“A robot...?”
“Is that m-metal armor...?”
In terms of its staggering size, reaching five hundred meters, it was similar to the previous ones, but every part of its exterior looked like gleaming metal.
Its form was not humanoid either, but that of a gigantic four-legged monster that resembled a drake.
Suho flew closer to approach it, and sure enough, it was metal. But it wasn’t mere armor. It was a machine itself.
“What the... this time it’s a machine-type monster...”
He had no way to gauge what kind of metal it was or how thick its armor might be, but one thing was certain.
“Tsk... the spears won’t sink in easily against this...”
Krrrrrrrrooooooar—!
Letting out an enormous roar laced with metallic sounds, the super-giant mech drake began moving blindly as well and nearly fell into the trench.
However, its long tail and wires fired in every direction supported its huge body, and it escaped immediately without falling into the trench.
Watching this, Suho’s eyebrows twitched.
“Not bad. Shall we see whether you can withstand the spears?”
The moment he reached out to pour down supermassive spears, something flashed through Suho’s mind.
“Huh, wait... a machine... If it’s a machine, then maybe...?”
Withdrawing the hand that had been about to manifest the spears, Suho fixed the giant body in his gaze and said quietly,
“Subspace storage.”
Hwaaaat───
In 0.1 seconds, the gigantic mech drake disappeared without a trace.
“!!!!!”
“Wh... what!!”
Everyone watching the situation from afar was shocked out of their wits.
It had already been astonishing to drop enormous giants into an enormous trench and impale them to death with enormous spears, but no one had expected the final boss, presumed to be the strongest, to vanish so emptily.
* * *
U.S. President James Anderson, who had been watching the live response to the Tower Break unfolding on-site in real time, asked in confusion,
“Wh... where did it go...?”
“......”
“P-Perhaps it has some ability to hide somewhere...”
“It may have fallen into that huge trench.”
“What are you talking about? We all clearly saw it disappear above the ground.”
“......”
While all the ministers’ eyes were wholly stolen by the live broadcast of the scene,
President Anderson, who had been grimacing in pain as though he found it hard to breathe, took out his notebook and opened to a page densely filled with writing.
It was a document containing a series of plans: to apply diplomatic pressure to Jeong Suho, isolate him, hold him accountable for taking NASA’s talents and various other matters, and put him before a public tribunal.
He picked up a pen, violently crossed out the relevant contents, stared at the ink-smeared words while breathing heavily, and then began scrawling another note.
“I wanted to express my gratitude for looking favorably upon the talented people of our nation. It is an honor for them to be of use to Jeong Suho, who is active on the front lines for the development of the world and the space industry. As the president of the United States, I feel proud to have raised and trained them.”
No matter how one looked at it, opposing Jeong Suho was the fastest road to national ruin.