The moment their lips touched and parted, Eileen’s image completely blurred.

‘It was an honor to meet you.’

She momentarily read Eileen’s lip movements, but wasn’t certain if those were the exact words.

However, there was no way to confirm it again.

Because the ‘past’ Eileen had vanished just like that.

The moment she decided not to use the final 〈Deviation〉, it seemed the ‘past’ Eileen accepted her death.

‘The past Eileen didn’t even regret no longer being able to exist.’

Rather, she seemed to be happy about it. It was as if she looked relieved to finally let everything go.

Everything felt like an illusion. Even more so because the lips that touched hers didn’t feel like they had any warmth, only haziness.

The moment her vision flipped back into focus, she was above the blue sky.

Her body was falling downward.

As she lightly whistled, the unicorn that came flying up from below caught her body.

Settled on the unicorn’s back, she looked up and saw her teammates falling together in a cluster through the large, torn rift.

Boom! Thud!

At the same thunderous noise she heard inside the tower, but this time from much farther away, she quickly turned her head downward.

It seemed like the 〈Tower of Sage〉 itself was starting to collapse.

Enormous chunks of stone, not standardized in size, plummeted to the ground from the black, tall tower that stretched to the sky. Clouds of dust rose from the ground.

When they were inside the 100th floor, she thought it was an event limited to that floor. It was common for boss monsters to make the floor crumble and collapse during battles, leaving hunters with nowhere to stand.

But this time, it was the tower itself that was disappearing.

Suji swiftly snatched Eileen’s neck from amidst her entangled teammates and seated her behind the unicorn, circling around the tower.

A peculiar sentiment arose.

It was a space they had been together for a long time.

She was glad there was no need to enter that damned tower again, but still. It was a place she had dedicated most of her teens to.

She felt oddly refreshed and at the same time, a bit wistful.

Fortunately, there were no other hunters around.

It seemed anyone with even a bit of energy left had been mobilized to handle the simultaneously occurring waves.

Only a ‘No Entry’ sign remained on the 1st floor where a long line used to stretch.

‘Did Aunt do this? Or did the Dedicated Manager take care of it?’

Either way, it was fortunate.

If someone had entered the tower by chance, they would have been caught up in the aftermath.

As she was deep in thought, Eileen, dangling from her hand, asked.

“Daphne, are you alright?”

Suji blinked her eyes.

She belatedly felt the tears that had welled up in her eyes flowing down her cheeks.

Suji pondered for a moment on how to answer.

It’s because I’m sad.

Sad that the place she, her mother, and countless hunters had nicknamed the 〈Tower of Sage〉 was collapsing so easily, and that the past Eileen who confessed to her on behalf of the present Eileen was disappearing like that.

Sad about everything.

But there were good things about living in the present too.

Eileen was right.

Among the numerous cycles they had gone through, this might be the one with the most possibility.

“My rank is EXS.”

Eileen made a slightly surprised face and grabbed Suji’s arm, springing up like a bow onto the unicorn’s back.

“Really? I thought you must have had something in mind to suddenly take the user test, but…”

“Why would I lie? That was the condition for using the scythe.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“There are many things even Eileen doesn’t know.”

“It must have been immediately reflected in the world rankings. The world will be in an uproar.”

Suji smiled faintly.

She didn’t care about things like rankings.

There was a time when she was swayed by people’s reactions.

But now, whether people cheered for it or were jealous, such things weren’t a big issue.

It was hard enough just staying alive.

Why bother with such things?

In any case, the number of people she could personally know and comfortably talk to was limited, and she just needed to live happily with them.

If she had received help from many people in the world, she just needed to return the favor.

“If you think about it, Eileen, the reason I became EXS rank now is because I didn’t choose 〈Deviation〉.”

“…You mean.”

“If I had chosen 〈Deviation〉, 〈Demiurge〉 would have immediately sent me to another timeline. And we would have had to desperately strive to become as strong as possible while living a new timeline again.”

“That’s right.”

“So it wasn’t something that could be reached. Becoming EXS rank.”

Eileen nodded with a pensive expression.

“That’s definitely true. Too many things have changed. Especially you, Daphne.”

Suji swung one leg over the unicorn’s back to sit sideways, then turned to look at Eileen sitting behind her.

In Eileen’s black eyes, there was a clear will instead of sorrow.

The will to survive.

The will to protect the present.

Suji smiled, pleased with him.

“Now there is no 〈Deviation〉. So there are no other options either, you know?”

“I know.”

He nodded without hesitation.

Unlike the times when he acted as if he wouldn’t regret dying soon.

“It’s really do or die. Either we kill the final boss, or we die.”

“I know.”

“So let’s survive this hell together.”

Behind the nodding Eileen, Peace and Saint soared high and fished out a figure from somewhere on the upper floors of the tower.

Even in the midst of this, Nature’s unconscious body limply hanging in Peace’s hand was amusing.

Still, they had somehow overcome a hurdle.

At that moment, the terminal rang.

It seemed to be a call from the Dedicated Manager Kim Ha-young.

The moment Suji reached out her hand to the terminal.

Woong.

A sound like a small insect vibrating was heard, and her head felt dizzy.

When she came to her senses and stood up straight, no one was left around her. She wasn’t on the unicorn’s back anymore, and Eileen wasn’t by her side either.

It was inside a white space that looked like an empty box.

‘I’m quite used to such sudden events now.’

Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

As Suji grumbled inwardly and waited for the status window, a notification popped up before long.

Please open one of the following boxes.

You can open 2 out of 3, and choose one of the two.

The Second Wave event will begin as soon as the trait selection is completed.]

As expected.

Suji nodded.

She had thought they might wait for the promised period until the 〈Messiah〉 event started after reaching the 100th floor, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

It seemed those who ran out of things to see couldn’t bear to wait for the main match to start quickly.

‘Well, there’s nowhere else to get stronger anyway.’

There had to be monsters to fight in order to receive rewards.

The only thing left would be dungeons, but Suji had grown too much to be affected by defeating the monsters there.

The other team members seemed to have been summoned to different spaces as well.

If she had known they would be separated so suddenly like this, she would have at least made a strategy.

But it didn’t seem like a strategy would work anyway when meeting the ‘final boss’ they had never succeeded against.

Suji closed her eyes tightly then opened them.

‘Outside, not even the 11 waves have been fully dealt with yet.’

If they were going to settle this, she wanted to end it as quickly and cleanly as possible without burdening the other hunters.

Of course, she knew that was just greed.

But somehow, as fast as possible.

For her mother’s sake too.

Now, even the path she ran for her mother’s revenge had lost its clear goal.

Still, she was determined to make it work.

Both the Messiah and the ‘Great Beings’.

She would make them regret it.

With that, Suji turned her fear into determination and checked all her equipment.

She hadn’t heard anything from Eileen about the reward for the 100th floor, so she needed to be careful in choosing the boxes.

Once she made her choice, she would immediately go to meet the ‘Messiah’.

Evacuating civilians was necessary, support for other gates had to be dispatched…

Such thoughts kept filling her head, but each time, she shook her head.

She could think about those things later as much as she wanted, so now was the time to do what needed to be done now.

After finishing her equipment check, Suji swung the unexpectedly obtained 〈Scythe of Demiurge〉 this way and that.

When creating the rift on the 100th floor, she only thought about escaping the tower, but now that she thought about it, she wondered if there was a way to utilize this in battle.

She would have to use it more to know if she could freely connect it in the desired direction.

The starting point could obviously be created as intended, but the issue was how the connection point linked.

‘Would it be faster to try it directly?’

As Suji suddenly stood up and began swinging the scythe in front of the three boxes, the impatient ‘Great Beings’ spoke to her.

− Hey, what are you doing now?