BFBT 17

Chapter 17

The Impending Storm

“What did you say?”

“Are you truly sure about this, Yu-min?”

The man who had climbed higher than anyone else on Earth—the world’s Rank 1 challenger and the idol of humanity—had never spent a full year on Earth since entering the Tower.

For high-rankers, time was currency. A one-year absence from the Tower was more than enough time for everything they had built to crumble. While he wasted time on Earth, rival rankers would continue their ascent, growing stronger by the day. Even without clearing new floors, the Tower offered countless methods to gain power, which was why virtually no high-level challengers ever lingered on Earth for long.

“We need to clearly identify friend from foe, build absolute trust, and establish a firm alliance ahead of time,” Cha Yu-min replied calmly. “The most critical issue is still ahead of us—and that is precisely why I am staying behind.”

“The most critical issue?”

Just what kind of future was approaching to make him take such extreme measures?

“Everyone is currently being deceived by the Tower. I am remaining behind to stop it.”

“Deceived? What on earth does that mean…?”

“Stop talking in riddles and spit it out!” Jeon Jae-yong and Shin Hyun-woo blurted out, their frustration boiling over.

“Within the next five years, the Tower will permanently close the Dimension Gates. And…”

“…At the exact same time, it will begin scattering new gates across Earth. No—in truth, the warning signs will begin long before that.”

Lee Shin took a slow sip of tea as old memories resurfaced.

The grand lie that humanity—or rather, the gods—had foisted upon the world was the illusion that the Tower and Earth would remain connected forever.

In the early days after the Tower first appeared, most people refrained from stepping inside. The sudden appearance of the system interface bred confusion and fear, especially as people began vanishing.

Then, one year later, the Tower began broadcasting video footage back to Earth. The streams depicted early challengers climbing the Tower, navigating a fantasy landscape, wielding miraculous powers, and growing exponentially stronger. It ignited a burning desire in people trapped in their dull, powerless daily lives.

The world inside the Tower looked like a realm straight out of movies and comic books—and the challengers were its main characters.

One by one, skeptical onlookers began entering the Tower, only to discover that every frame of the broadcast was real. And when the first challenger to reach the 50th floor finally returned to Earth, it acted as the ultimate catalyst.

That challenger could use all of their Tower-acquired abilities on Earth and brought back extraordinary artifacts to show the world. It marked the beginning of Earth’s great upheaval.

From that moment on, Earth flooded with people desperate to enter the Tower. Though the broadcasts eventually ceased, the influx of challengers never truly slowed down—it merely paused. Returnees from the 50th floor continued to release vital information, confirming the ongoing link between Earth and the Tower.

However, the 50th floor’s Dimension Gate proved to be a double-edged sword.

Only a small minority possessed the resolve to climb all the way to the top. As the difficulty skyrocketed to lethal levels and survival rates plummeted, the public’s fighting spirit steadily withered. Eventually, the vast majority of challengers abandoned their climb altogether, choosing instead to return to Earth permanently.

Unsatisfied with this trend, the gods who created the Tower simply closed the Dimension Gates—forcing challengers to push toward the 100th floor whether they wanted to or not.

And then, while releasing hordes of Tower monsters directly onto Earth, they opened a broadcast feed inside the Tower.

“Fucking bastards.”

Just remembering it made a curse slip through Lee Shin’s teeth.

Trapped inside the Tower, challengers could do nothing but watch helplessly as their home countries, colleagues, friends, and families were slaughtered by monsters. People on Earth were powerlessly butchered even by lowest-rank creatures like goblins and kobolds.

Shortly after the Dimension Gates were sealed, a small gate opened in a quiet, remote countryside village inhabited mostly by elderly villagers.

A single Orc strolled out of the gate—just as an elderly couple happened to walk by.

Even now, the scene remained vivid in Lee Shin’s mind. He could still vividly recall the sheer brutality with which the Orc slaughtered that couple.

Virtually every challenger in the Tower had witnessed that broadcast.

Right after the event, a post by a 55th-floor challenger set the community forums ablaze.

He revealed that he was the elderly couple’s son. He had originally climbed the Tower for his parents’ sake; upon reaching the 50th floor, he had provided them with enough wealth to live comfortably before returning to the Tower to climb further.

It was a greed shared by nearly every challenger—just one more floor, just a little more strength.

That lingering ambition bound him to the Tower for two additional years. But just as he finally decided to return home for good, the Dimension Gates were suddenly locked shut.

Because of his own greed, his parents had been brutally killed by an Orc right before his eyes, while he watched in total powerlessness.

He wept openly in his post, desperately asking why they hadn’t used the money he sent to move into a big, safe city—why they had kept living like that after telling him in letters that they were doing well and were grateful for his help.

Countless challengers grieved alongside him.

Every challenger in the Tower was someone’s child, parent, or partner. No one could view the horrors unfolding on the screen as a distant tragedy.

If only they were back on Earth right now.

They had left behind families, friends, and comrades, sacrificing so much to climb the Tower. They had never regretted their choice because the Tower had been a place of boundless allure.

Yet they had never felt a deeper, more agonizing regret than in that moment.

Many had entered the Tower specifically to gain the strength to protect their loved ones. For them, this situation was a living hell. They had come to protect, only to be rendered completely incapable of protecting anyone.

In the frenzied cruelty of that Orc, Lee Shin had seen the reflection of the gods themselves. It was not the madness of a monster—it was the madness of the gods.

After that incident, Lee Shin never looked at the broadcast screens again. He stopped checking the community forums altogether.

He simply couldn’t stomach it.

Why broadcast such horrific scenes to challengers on every floor?

Human life meant nothing to the gods; it wasn’t even entertainment. All they cared about was driving challengers to reach the top of the Tower. They orchestrated the massacre to instill deep, burning hatred in humanity—knowing that rage was a potent driver.

They manipulated that rage, using a single broadcast to ignite fury in every Korean challenger.

And that was only the beginning. Endless live streams of Earth’s devastation followed, driving every challenger into a frenzied climb up the Tower.

The son of that elderly couple climbed with relentless, vengeful fury after that day. But blind rage only blinded a challenger to their surroundings.

His updates stopped entirely after he crossed the 70th floor.

“Scumbags, every last one of them.”

The gods were exceptionally gracious toward outstanding challengers, seeking to turn them into their personal Apostles.

Even when all of humanity burned with rage after the closure of the Dimension Gates, certain gods approached challengers without a trace of remorse. They were delusional enough to believe that even if humans reached the top out of sheer vengeance, they would ultimately succumb to divine power and crawl before them as servants.

Entities that neither understood nor cared to understand humanity.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.I do not forget.Which means I will never forget your atrocities.

[A challenger has entered.]

— It’s Hwang Kang-ung, May’s voice echoed through the communication channel. He says he found it.

“Let him in,” Lee Shin instructed.

Hwang Kang-ung took a seat and handed a stack of documents and photos over to Lee Shin.

“Take a look here.”

Hwang Kang-ung pointed to a specific photo depicting a square stone monument.

“This monument…” Lee Shin murmured.

It bore a striking resemblance to the steles erected on altars dedicated to the gods. In fact, it very likely was one.

“This stele was what was disrupting the surrounding mana,” Hwang Kang-ung explained.

“Where was it?”

Hwang Kang-ung pointed his index finger downward.

“Underground?”

“Yeah. We found it while excavating limestone at the edge of the rocky zone.”

“How did you spot it?”

“One of the workers digging up limestone felt something strange near the border of the rocky area. I went over and dug deeper myself. The further down we dug, the more drained of energy I felt. That’s when I remembered what you said.”

“Where magic scatters.”

“Exactly. A single person couldn’t possibly dig all the way to where the stele was located. With the mana scattering, it was exhausting, so I gathered a crew to carry out the excavation together.”

“That must have taken a while. Why are you only telling me now?”

“Hahaha! Honestly, I thought about telling you right away, but you looked quite busy, and I wanted to make sure I had concrete results first. Until we hit the stele, nothing was certain.”

It was classic Hwang Kang-ung—thorough, methodical, and committed to delivering verified results.

Lee Shin nodded and took a slow sip of tea. “That must have been tough.”

“Tell me about it. For a moment, I felt like I was back to being a fragile regular human. I thought I was going to pass out!”

“Did you try digging any further below it?”

“We tried. To cut a long story short, we failed. The ground down there is ridiculously hard. Even if we had full access to our mana, I doubt we could have broken through. It feels like there’s an extremely durable structure connected directly to the stele.”

Lee Shin nodded in agreement.

They would never be able to dig any further on their own.

That was simply the nature of a divine altar.

Examining the photo in his hand, Lee Shin confirmed that it was unmistakably a stele built for a divine altar. The inscriptions carved into its surface closely mirrored the ancient text found in Jin Ivryum’s worn-out research notes.

“You did great work, Boss Hwang. It looks like I’ll need to decipher the inscriptions carved into this stele. I’ll take over from here.”

“Understood. Is there anything else you need me to do?”

“Just focus on your training. It won’t take me long.”

After Hwang Kang-ung left the room, Lee Shin leaned back and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

On the plain stone ceiling, the images of the gods he had confronted on the 100th floor seemed to overlay his vision.

A bitter smile touched his lips.

It really won’t be long now.

The 1st Floor was a blind spot completely out of the gods’ sight—the perfect place to hone a dagger to thrust into their hearts.

“You don’t have the slightest clue that a blade is being sharpened right beneath your chins.”

It wouldn’t just be him. Countless humans would rise to tear the gods down—the very humans they had dismissed as mere tools.

He would crush them, trample them into the dust, and drag them down from their lofty heights to the absolute bottom.

I’ll make sure you get a full taste of what it feels like to be bitten by the dogs you raised.