"Convergent Detonation" was the upgraded form of Spirit Burst.
Its enhancement direction was straightforward.
Greater destructive power.Higher soul-conversion efficiency.
A single sacrificed soul could now unleash a far greater effect.
At the same time, the explosion itself could be compressed into a much denser area, concentrating massive damage into a smaller radius.
200,000 souls sacrificed!
The detonation erupted instantly.
The blood vessel was blown apart in a single violent blast.
The moment the vessel ruptured, a large region of flesh surrounding it immediately turned ashen gray, then slowly darkened to black.
The flesh stopped writhing.
Stopped pulsing.
Everything in that area sagged lifelessly.
So it really was a weak point.
Even as this thought crossed Rei's mind, the two Void Pillar Guardians beside him suddenly had their legs seized by writhing masses of flesh.
Blood and muscle dragged them toward the city interior.
Rei ignored the two captured Void Pillar Guardians, keeping his gaze fixed on the colossal monster before him.
The weakness had already been identified.
The key points were the massive blood vessels scattered throughout the flesh-covered land.
But there were simply too many of them.
They were distributed across every direction of the living terrain. Destroying them one by one would take an enormous amount of time.
Far too troublesome.
These vessels probably all led to one critical location…
At this moment, Rei still hadn't entered the sky above the city itself.
He hovered outside, observing from afar.
Charging in recklessly was risky.
After all, dying would merely eject him from the tower—
But if he could avoid dying, it was still better not to.
Rei's gaze followed the blood vessel he had just destroyed.
It extended downward into the earth…
Perhaps the greatest weakness wasn't exposed on the surface.
Maybe it was hidden underground.
Since the entire city was composed of flesh, its body might extend not only across the surface, but deep beneath the ground as well.
Rei raised his staff.
Thunder Resonance Field (Fourth Tier)
Hummm—BOOM!
The spell erupted first as a violent sonic shockwave, followed by a lightning storm striking every region affected by the sound.
At the fourth tier, spells increasingly became hybrid attacks, combining multiple effects.
Crackle—
Electric arcs surged from the ground as flesh churned and twisted.
But the effect was limited to only that small region.
And in terms of actual damage…
It barely seemed to matter.
"As expected…"
Striking a tiny area of something the size of an entire city resulted in negligible damage.
But the feedback from Thunder Resonance Field allowed Rei to sense the structure beneath the ground.
The surface itself was indeed composed of flesh.
If he were a monster like this, the most logical move would be to hide his fatal weakness deep underground, somewhere unreachable.
"Too bad I don't have intelligence data."
"If there were a Scholar or Observer here, things would probably be much easier."
A Scholar's knowledge might identify the monster immediately.
An Observer could detect subtle details and reveal a solution.
Rei glanced at the two Void Pillar Guardians near the flesh wall.
They had already been dragged inside the city's flesh and seemed to be in the process of being devoured.
He dismissed the summons.
Whoosh—
Both Void Pillar Guardians dissolved into purple-black mana.
The strands of flesh that had been devouring them suddenly seemed confused, grabbing at the air as though searching for prey that had vanished.
Rei immediately summoned two new ones.
Then a speck of Source rose from the tip of his staff into the sky.
RUMBLE—
Source · Awakening the Void
Across the sky, multicolored rifts split open.
From within them, Void creatures awakened, summoned, descending into this world under Rei's command.
These newly summoned Void beings were no longer purple-black.
Instead, they shimmered with radiant prismatic light.
They possessed stronger bodies, faster speed, more specialized skill sets, and the attribute of all elements.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—
Soon, sixteen prismatic Void Pillar Guardians joined the battlefield.
With the original four, the total reached twenty Void Pillar Guardians, advancing toward the city walls.
Behind them, the Headless Berserkers charged as well.
Axes raised high—
CLANG!
They smashed the city wall, carving deep craters as flesh scattered into the air.
Ice and fire erupted from the impact.
This was the effect of Root Magic, granting them all elemental attributes.
Since exploration was necessary, it made sense to send the army first.
Inside the armor of these summons, numerous monster corpses were stored.
Leaving corpses scattered across flesh-covered ground was risky.
It was far safer to carry them on the summons themselves.
The advancing legion formed an arrowhead formation, smashing through the wall and charging inward.
Meanwhile, Rei activated the enchantments on his robe.
His presence vanished.
His aura was concealed.
His existence was obscured by Shadow Veil (Third Tier) (LV: 301).
Then he layered it with:
Phantom Mist Sea (Third Tier)
Dense fog spread across the sky, completely hiding him.
Compared to the brutal advance of the army below, Rei hovered silently in the mist-filled heavens, leaving almost no trace of his presence.
BOOM!
The Thousand-Tendril Maw spewed corrosive acid, which proved extremely effective against the flesh.
Flesh-type monsters usually didn't possess particularly high elemental resistance.
Their true strength lay in rapid regeneration.
As the army pushed forward, countless flesh masses below churned violently, attempting to block the advance of the Nation-Destroyer army.
Many fragile Buzzing Hunters were crushed or devoured in the process.
Watching the flesh city slaughter fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer summons so efficiently, Rei couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
If he truly failed to locate the enemy's weakness and simply continued destroying things like this—
Even a hundred Nation-Destroyer summons wouldn't be enough for this monster to kill.
The gap between fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer and fifth-tier Nation-Destroyer was truly enormous.
The classification of fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer likely meant:
Even if a nation only possessed Level 4 adventurers, they could never stop it from destroying their country.
Then the meaning of fifth-tier Nation-Destroyer probably implied that—
Even if a nation possessed Level 5 adventuring parties, they still wouldn't be able to halt its destruction.
The army advanced ten kilometers into the city.
More than fifty Buzzing Hunters had already been killed.
Buzzing Hunters were the most fragile summons in his arsenal.
Once entangled, they died quickly.
But every time the flesh city killed one, Rei simply summoned another.
Endless.
The Void Pillar Guardians continuously emitted their Void Attraction Aura, drawing the monster's attention.
Rei could feel that the creature's massive sensory perception was almost entirely focused on the Guardians.
Very little attention swept toward him.
With his concealment spells active, the monster didn't notice him at all.
Perception was powerful—but it also required concentration.
"Over here."
Finally, after penetrating deep into the enemy's body, Rei arrived at the location of the severed blood vessel.
This region of flesh had already completely died.
Once he reached it, Rei dispatched all the Buzzing Hunters, ordering them to follow the vessel deeper.
SWISH!
Ahead lay the point where the blood vessel entered the ground.
SLASH!
Twenty Buzzing Hunters struck simultaneously.
Blood sprayed through the air as they carved open a fleshy tunnel through the ground, exposing the vessel's continuation below.
Rei extended his perception inward.
Inside, the tunnel was filled with writhing flesh buds.
"Clear the path."
The Buzzing Hunters rushed forward.
Rei shared senses with them—they functioned like his eyes.
Working together, they carved a path through the flesh, following the blood vessel deeper.
SWISH—
But suddenly—
A blindingly fast tentacle burst from the wall.
In an instant, it dragged more than a dozen Buzzing Hunters into the surrounding flesh walls.
Their connection vanished.
They had been eaten.
Rei immediately resummoned replacements.
Soon the Headless Berserker legion arrived behind them.
These warriors were far less fragile.
Tentacles lashed out from the walls, wrapping around their ankles.
The Berserkers simply tore free through brute force and continued forward without slowing.
Deeper.
Deeper still.
The deeper they went, the stronger the resistance became.
Eventually, fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer flesh monsters appeared as symbiotic defenders within the tunnels.
Unfortunately for them—
They were nothing more than casual targets for Rei.
Rei himself did not enter the tunnels.
Instead, he hovered high above, following the exploration through his perception.
Whenever a summon died, he immediately resummoned another at the nearest point and sent it inside.
Only two types of summons entered the tunnels:
Buzzing HuntersHeadless Berserkers
Both were relatively small.
The Void Pillar Guardians and other large summons were simply too massive.
It wasn't impossible to dig larger tunnels—but that would dramatically increase the workload.
Being huge wasn't always an advantage.
After digging forward roughly another ten kilometers, losing about 100 Buzzing Hunters and 12 Headless Berserkers, they finally reached the end of the blood vessel.
The flesh wall burst open.
Inside a cramped, blood-soaked chamber—about the size of a small villa—was a pulsating brain mass.
The walls around it throbbed rhythmically.
Rei stared at it.
"This… should be the core."
According to Fundamental Monster Theory, almost all monsters possessed a core weakness.
Just like humans would die if their heart or brain were destroyed.
Nearly every monster had a vital organ.
There was a saying:
A single strike to the enemy's heart is better than hundreds against its armored shell.
"Hidden pretty deep."
Buried underground within endless flesh.
A tiny chamber barely the size of a three-story villa.
If he hadn't followed the blood vessel, he might never have found it.
If he had tried destroying every major vessel across the city with the Observer Lens, who knew how long that would have taken?
Breaking one vessel only caused a small nearby region to wither.
If that was the damage rate…
Killing the monster this way would take forever.
With regeneration like this, by the time he destroyed vessels on the west side, the east side might already have healed.
A spark of Source lit at the tip of Rei's staff.
WHOOSH!
The spark shot forward as light, entering the tunnel.
Halfway there it transformed into a Flying Ice Bee, speeding along the carved path.
The route twisted endlessly.
The summons had needed to cut through flesh constantly to move forward.
If Rei had done this himself, it would have been extremely troublesome.
SWISH!
The Flying Ice Bee reached the end of the tunnel.
It arrived inside the chamber filled with brain matter.
At the center, a massive brain pulsed slowly.
Below it lay an enormous blood vessel splitting into over a hundred branches.
Those branches split again and again, spreading throughout the city.
The vessel Rei had followed was merely one of those countless branches.
The prismatic Flying Ice Bee landed directly on the brain.
Source · Convergent Detonation (Second Tier) (LV: 301)
Souls Sacrificed: 50,000,000
This was the most extravagant sacrifice Rei had ever made.
Fifty million souls.
The radiance of the explosion shone brighter than anything before.
High above in the sky, Rei felt as if he could see countless souls rising upward—almost as though they were singing praises.
Did the spells of a Death Priest cause souls to sing when used?
Rei didn't know.
He had never seen another Death Priest besides himself.
Then—
In the next instant—
HUM—
Sound vanished.
For a brief moment, the world itself seemed to lose color.
BOOM!!!
A catastrophic explosion erupted.
Countless souls soared into the heavens.
The shockwave blasted outward, scattering clouds across the sky.
A spherical blast expanded in every direction.
Even Rei had to brace himself against the impact.
When the dust settled—
He looked down.
Where the city once stood…
There was now a gigantic crater with a radius of fifteen kilometers.
Rei had compressed the explosion's radius, drastically amplifying its power.
At the edges of the crater, traces of flesh still remained.
But those remnants rapidly turned pale, then black, losing all vitality.
Like falling dominoes, more and more distant regions of flesh began to rot and darken.
About five minutes later—
The entire city had completely withered into blackened decay.
A familiar portal to the next floor appeared in the distance.
"…It's over."
A fifth-tier Nation-Destroyer monster truly wasn't easy to kill.
This one specialized in regeneration, endurance, and recovery.
Even so, its destructive power had slaughtered his fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer summons like chickens.
Even while targeting the core weakness directly…
He had still lost 452 fourth-tier Nation-Destroyer summons before killing it.
Although most of the casualties had been Buzzing Hunters.
If it hadn't been him…
Could anyone else have killed it?
Rei couldn't help but think of Zhou Xu.
With that guy's strength…
Probably impossible.
Forget the hundredth floor.
He'd probably get stuck somewhere in the nineties.
Which meant—
Luluvi had also cleared Floor 100.
Perhaps his opponent in the War God Cup wouldn't be as simple as he initially thought.
Rei walked toward the portal.
Next should come the reward settlement phase.
The War God Tower calculated all rewards after leaving the tower, based on the highest floor reached.
Of course, challengers could leave after clearing key floors, claim their rewards, and return later to continue climbing.
There was no limit on attempts.
Because when you truly couldn't beat a floor—
You simply couldn't beat it.
No matter what you tried.
Rei approached the portal.
Just as his perception reached it—
He suddenly sensed something unusual.
Secret: Gate
Hidden Object: Hidden War God Inheritance Trial
Activation Method: Break this gate
…There was a hidden challenge too?
..
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