Slaughter Tower, twenty-first floor.
Most people from the Desire Tower stayed below the twentieth floor. Beyond the twentieth floor, there was a chance of encountering targets that were difficult to please.
But the Slaughter Tower was different.
Exploration of the Strange Tower had only just begun, and people knew very little about it. The Slaughter Tower, however, had been explored for years.
There was no such thing as safety in the Slaughter Tower. Every floor carried the risk of death.
Because of the monsters.
These monsters were not entirely impossible to communicate with, but they held an intense hatred for humans.
They practically refused all communication. The moment they met someone, they killed. Show your face, and you were dead.
The twenty-first floor of the Slaughter Tower was already considered a death zone by everyone.
Other than teachers and students from the Tower of Slaughter Academy, almost no independent Bunker climbers came this high.
"Damn it... I'm still seventy short of the mission requirement. But if I don't find a place to light a bonfire and lower my Slaughter Value, I'll turn into a monster."
The tall, blood-soaked second-year senior from the Tower of Slaughter Academy spoke.
His name was Zhang Wei, one of the prominent figures among the academy's second-years. Not long ago, on the seventeenth floor of the Slaughter Tower, he had obtained the powerful Slaughter Sequence 244: Armed Bone.
At the same time, he possessed the tradable Slaughter Sequence 303: Slaughter Will, which he had rented from an academy teacher.
With both of his sequence slots equipped, he had figured he could show off while carrying a freshman, so he foolishly headed for the twenty-first floor.
If he successfully brought his junior through the twenty-first floor, then returned to the Tower of Slaughter Academy, he would be basking in glory.
Ideals were plump; reality was cruel.
Moen City within the Slaughter Tower was practically crawling with mutated creatures.
This celebrated second-year student of the Tower of Slaughter Academy had spent a full four hours killing here...
And all he had killed were one kind of monster: rats.
It was said that on the twenty-first floor of the Desire Tower, someone had once seen an area covered in warning signs reading, "Beware of Rats."
But that was in the Desire Tower, so people in the Slaughter Tower did not care.
Yet here in the Slaughter Tower, these rats were far more terrifying than elite monsters below the tenth floor.
Zhang Wei had a solid foundation and continuously fended off the rats' attacks. But fending them off was all he could do.
"S-Senior, are we going to die here?" a freshman from the class of 2061 asked shakily, his heart full of regret.
The freshman had already noticed something was wrong with his senior's expression—the side effects of Slaughter Will were beginning to show.
With his Slaughter Value too high, Zhang Wei was now doing everything he could to suppress the killing urge in his heart with reason.
He knew very well that if he did not find somewhere to light a bonfire and lower his Slaughter Value...
Then he would become part of the Slaughter Tower.
Zhang Wei regretted it. He should not have underestimated Moen City. A place Xun Hui could enter was not necessarily a place he could enter.
But right now, he could not shake off this pack of incredibly fast rats.
And this was not even the worst part.
He sensed a terrifying presence. Not far away, an enormous rat was slowly approaching.
He could not even inspect any of that rat's status panels... for his current stage, it was a monster utterly beyond reason.
He could neither fight nor flee. These two students of the Tower of Slaughter Academy would likely pay the price for their recklessness today.
Unless... they entered that building.
Jack's Deceptive Building.
Zhang Wei noticed that the rats did not even dare approach the building behind him.
During the battle, he had unknowingly drawn close to it.
But he had heard certain rumors. On some floors, there were hidden monsters that must never be provoked.
These monsters had territories of their own, unlike the monsters that constantly wandered the city.
As long as climbers did not approach or intrude upon those areas, they would not trigger combat with these monsters.
But once they got close, it would become a boss battle with very little chance of victory.
Zhang Wei was one of the second-years' elite, and he would surely become one of humanity's strong in the future.
But he knew very clearly that the building hid something even the teachers of the Tower of Slaughter Academy did not dare provoke.
All of a sudden... Zhang Wei and his junior widened their eyes.
Something moved within the old building. The surrounding rats abruptly retreated several meters.
The old building's door actually opened.
A young girl emerged from the shadows of the old building. She was completely unlike the terrifying monster Zhang Wei had imagined.
She looked... almost like one of the girls from the Tower of Desire Academy. No, she looked even more innocent than them.
Even so, Zhang Wei immediately became vigilant.
Because even the giant rat he had no hope of matching was fleeing in fear.
Zhang Wei stood in front of his junior and took a defensive stance. Of course, he knew he had no chance of winning.
But he had no choice. As the senior, he could not possibly let a junior without even a single sequence go die.
Yet the girl showed no intent to fight. She merely said calmly:
"Would you like to come in and rest for a while? Today, we can allow you to stay briefly. I have some questions I want to ask you."
The junior was terrified. He did not understand what was happening, but he had heard something before...
The monsters in the Tower of Slaughter were humanity's mortal enemies. Do not try to communicate with them.
The girl looked somewhat languid.
"While you're still human, you can come in and take shelter."
"If you don't want to come in, you can stay there. I'm not interested in whether you live or die, but I need to ask you about someone."
"You look like him. You have the same skin color."
Zhang Wei was confused.
He was actually even more shocked than his junior. The more experience one had exploring the Slaughter Tower, the more absurd this situation seemed.
A suspected area boss would never communicate with humans. The moment they detected a human, they would immediately erase them.
But the girl standing at the old building's entrance genuinely seemed to have no killing intent. If she wanted to attack, he probably would not be able to withstand it.
Could killing the rats have triggered a hidden mission?
Zhang Wei could never have imagined that a death row inmate far away in the Strange Tower had saved him after carrying out a Strange Tower mission.
"Y-You... who are you looking for?" Zhang Wei decided to try communicating.
The girl slowly said:
"Do you know Wen Xishu?"
The dizziness and blurred consciousness caused by the frequent spatial transfers felt rather comfortable to Wen Xishu.
It felt like a patient on an operating table after being anesthetized.
One moment, he had been in Jack's old building. The next, when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a strange room.
The room was filled with clocks and doors.
Wristwatches, pocket watches, wall clocks, sundials, hourglasses...
Wooden doors, iron doors, crooked doors, straight doors...
These elements filled the surroundings, making the already woozy Wen Xishu even more disoriented. But when he looked at the figure ahead--
The dizziness and drowsiness immediately vanished, and he became completely alert.
The person ahead had three heads.
The Three Towers Guide.
Everyone who completed their first tower-climbing journey came here to meet it.
Wen Xishu simply had not expected the guide to have such an eccentric appearance.
But the guide was curious as well. From Wen Xishu's reflection in its pupils, it saw something unusual.
"How interesting. Who was the last person to see all three of our heads?"
"That killer, wasn't it?"
"Oh~ I liked that killer. He killed so many people. But the third one stole him away!"
The three different heads actually began conversing.
What surprised Wen Xishu was that their words seemed to suggest--
Not everyone could see the guide's three heads.
"Welcome, welcome, newcomer suited to all three tower systems. I am the guide, the one who will lead you to the summit of the Three Towers."
All three heads spoke at once.
Before you continue