607 – Guardian of the Tower that Pierces the Sky

I manage to shake off the ymir with [Roll], and fly up to a branch to rest.
If we stayed on the ground, there’d be no telling what might suddenly appear.
I’ve been managing with [Presence Perception] up to now, but there’s no guarantee it’ll work on all the monsters here… Something could also charge towards us crazy fast like the ymir.

『I don’t want to run into that monster ever again…』

Aro and the treant are both exhausted from the [Roll].
At any rate, the battle with the plague toads raised the treant’s level from【Lv: 1/130】to【Lv: 69/130】and Aro’s from【Lv: 72/130】to【Lv: 76/130】.

The ymir got in the way and stopped us early, but this is a great result.

Both of them have managed to raise their level fairly high.
Raising them much further will be hard, but now they’ve both reached the point of having proper A+ strength.

It can be said that we’ve achieved the objective of raising their levels now.
If an opportunity presents itself, then we can do some more levelling, but it should be okay to deprioritise it for now.

Next is finding a way to evolve…and a way to escape from this world.

『Still… What is this tower?』

We’ve gotten quite close to the sky-piercing tower.
I’m finally able to get a sense of how big it is.
The height still looks endless, but the diameter is about a hundred metres wide.
It’s much bigger than I had expected.
From a distance, it looked relatively thin… Well, compared to its height, I suppose it could be called thin.

The tower is one thing, but the problem is the creepy statue standing in front of the tower’s giant door.

The statue is around ten metres tall, and is wearing armour.
It has about thirty arms, and it looks like its head has snapped off.
A gigantic sword is held in one of its arms.

It’s completely motionless, but… It’s a monster, isn’t it?

【[Hecatoncheir]:[1] L (Legendary) rank monster】
【An unattractive giant statue.
The shadow of what used to be a Hero.】
【Having lost sight of his mission to protect humanity, he lost his head and replaced it with countless arms as a symbol of his outstanding strength.】
【Having lost everything, he wished for the strength to protect others, and that wish came true.】
【But, he no longer had anything to protect.】

A-another Legendary… It looks like it’s protecting the tower.
Fighting it might be unavoidable.

The species explanation sounds strangely specific though…

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
[Hecatoncheir]

Species: Hecatoncheir
Condition: God of Madness
Lv: 140/140 (MAX)
HP: 10000/10000
MP: 10000/10000
Attack: 1500+200
Defence: 4000
Magic: 1500
Speed: 1500
Rank: L (Legendary)

Equipment:
Hand: [Greatsword of the Giant Statue: L]

Divine Skills:
[Human Realm (replica): Lv-] [Asura Realm (replica): Lv-] [Hungry Ghost Realm (replica): Lv-]

Characteristic Skills:
[Grisha Language: Lv5] [Presence Perception: LvMAX] [Automatic HP Recovery: LvMAX] [Automatic MP Recovery: LvMAX] [Ultraregeneration: LvMAX] [Hyper Recovery: LvMAX] [Sixth Sense: LvMAX] [Swordsman Talent: LvMAX] [God of Madness: Lv-]

Resistance Skills:
[Physical Resistance: LvMAX] [Magic Resistance: LvMAX] [Magic Decomposition: LvMAX] [Physical Damage Halving: Lv-] [Status Condition Nullification: Lv-] [Seven Attribute Resistance: LvMAX]

Normal Skills:
[High Rest: LvMAX] [Autoregeneration: LvMAX] [Dimension Rend: LvMAX] [High Jump: LvMAX] [Exorcising Blade: LvMAX] [Meditation: LvMAX] [Shadow Dance: LvMAX] [Mana of Nature: LvMAX]

Title Skills:
[Guardian of the Tower that Pierces the Sky: Lv-] [Unwavering and Unbeaten: Lv-] [Final Evolution: Lv-] [Former Hero: Lv-] [Former Demon Lord: Lv-]
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

 W-w-what is this insanity!? Those stats are way too strange.
They’re so strange that I’m not sure how to interpret them.

It’s my first time seeing a stat in the quintuple digits.
No matter how you cut it, its stat total is way too high.
There’s no way mine will be as high when I reach my maximum level.
It’s so clearly cheat level…

But, I’m ahead in everything other than HP, MP, and defence.
Its attack and magic stats are low for a Legendary.

It would be tough for Aro, but treant could survive taking a few hits from it.
Of course, there’s no way he could deal any damage to it though…

As a rule of thumb, an attack of at least half the defence damage is needed to deal any damage.
It has 4000 defence, so an attack of at least 2000 is needed to leave a mark.

It’d be tough even for Aro’s magic attacks.
It’s at the point that if she were to power up by absorbing my mana and launch her strongest attack, she might just barely be able to scratch it.
But with those crazy resistance skills too, it probably wouldn’t amount to anything.

If I fight it, can I win…? Its resistance skills are clearly bad, but it doesn’t have any particularly scary attacks.
It might actually be a relatively safe fight for a Legendary rank.
It doesn’t have any outrageous attack skills that could kill me in an instant if I let my guard down like, unlike a holy naga or origin matter.

Should we try a [Meteor Stamp] from high up…? No, to get through its defence, we’d have to go too high.
Its speed isn’t incredible, but it’s still Legendary class.
I doubt it’d stand still and let us hit it so easily.
It also has [High Jump], so it might react to us getting close to the tower from the air.

Trying to defeat it from here with [Dimension Claw] is probably a bad idea.
[Dimension Claw] is ultimately just a long range skill.
It’s doubtful whether something even tougher than the treant could be defeated with [Dimension Claw] alone.
It might be worth a try, but the hecatoncheir also has [Dimension Rend].
Rather than trying to wear it down from a distance, aiming to defeat it quickly in close quarters is probably better.

『Aro, treant… Wait here for a bit.
I’m going to go knock down that statue.
If any monsters you can’t handle show up, shoot magic into the air and I’ll quickly come back.
』

I say to the pair.
They still aren’t strong enough to deal damage to the hecatoncheir, and yet its attacks could be lethal to them.
On the other hand, its attacks shouldn’t hurt me much.
It’s unsettling how strange its stats are… But this shouldn’t be too hard a fight.

[1] – The Hundred-Handed Ones of Greek mythology, involved in the overthrowing of the Titans – wiki