Entering Apocalypse in Easy-Mode-Chapter 579: The Tower

The horde closed in from every side. Clyde planted his feet and took a deep breath slowly. He was able to stay calm in this situation.

The ground beneath him squelched, flesh compressing under his boots.

His spear moved faster than before. Thrusts became blurs. Sweeps tore through clustered bodies. Those attacks sent ripples through the mass, but the tower behind them continued to breathe and pulsing as if alive.

The fog thickened the closer he got. It poured from the tower in steady waves, carrying a deeper pressure than before.

This was not just poison. It carried intent and malice layered with authority. Clyde could feel it clearly.

Then suddenly, the monsters began to change in the middle of their charge. Their limbs hardened, their jaws split wider.

Some detonated into clouds of spores when killed, trying to drown him through sheer volume of the greenish smoke.

Clyde pushed through it with no problem because he had the ney awakened [Toxic Resistance].

His muscles burned, but his movements stayed precise. [Toxic Resistance] skill held. The fog gnawed at him but it no longer dictated his limits.

He stepped over dissolving corpses and forced a path straight toward the tower’s base.

Then he felt it more clearly. The pulse.

Demonic energy surged from within the tower, stronger and clearer than before. It was no longer distant. It was close. Buried deep, but unmistakable.

"That’s really where you’re hiding," Clyde muttered under his breath.

The flesh at the tower’s base began to part, reacting to his presence.

A wet and uneven crude opening formed, as if the structure was acknowledging him.

The monsters shrieked and they rushed him all at once.

Clyde lowered his spear, leaned forward, and charged straight into the opening. With his speed he disappeared into the tower as the horde crashed in behind him.

The moment Clyde crossed the threshold, the flesh closed behind him.

The opening sealed with a wet sound, cutting off the outside noise in an instant.

The shrieks, chaos, and endless horde were gone. Thick and unnatural silence pressed in.

Clyde slowed and lifted his gaze.

The interior of the tower was a vertical hollow formed from fused concrete, steel beams, and layers of living tissue.

The walls pulsed with veins of green light running through them like a circulatory system. Broken staircases spiraled upward, half organic and half ruined architecture.

Floors were uneven, grown over with hardened flesh that flexed subtly beneath his weight, as if reacting to his steps.

There were no monsters. That was what bothered him.

"This is strange," Clyde thought.

The air inside was dense with Demonic residue, far more concentrated than outside, yet nothing moved. No breathing, crawling, or hidden ambush. Just the steady pulse of the tower itself.

He tightened his grip on the spear and began to move.

With each step upward, the pull grew clearer. The Demonic energy was above him, drawing him higher. The tower had at least ten levels. He could feel it instinctively.

And he knew something else just as clearly.

He would not be allowed to climb it freely. He would need to kill his ways upwards.

The second floor greeted him with monsters, but it was weak and not as many as outside.

The third followed the same. Mutated creatures emerged from the walls and floor, crude and unfinished, easily dispatched.

By the fourth and fifth floors, the pattern was obvious. This was an ascent trial, but so far, nothing slowed him down.

Clyde continued upward without stopping. His spear stained and his eyes sharp.

By the time Clyde reached the sixth floor, the pressure changed again.

The pulsing walls swelled outward, and the floor widened into a crude chamber. At its center stood a single figure that was once a human.

Its body was massive, swollen with distorted muscle, proportions stretched far beyond anything natural.

Its arms dragged along the ground, fingers fused together into blunt, claw-like masses. Its head was little more than a vertical mouth split open across its torso, lined with uneven teeth.

From that opening, thick greenish smoke poured endlessly, rolling across the floor.

The creature locked onto Clyde the moment he stepped forward.

It attacked without hesitation.

The monster inhaled deeply, its chest expanding, then expelled a violent surge of poison.

BWOOOSH!!!

The smoke flooded the chamber in an instant. Dense enough to obscure the walls. The pressure of it slammed into Clyde like a wave.

He didn’t stop. His [Toxic Resistance] skill made the smoke have so little effect on him.

The poison scraped against his skin and lungs but failed to breach him.

Clyde burst through the cloud and drove his spear straight into the center of the creature’s open mouth.

The impact landed. But a sharp crack rang out.

Clyde’s eyes narrowed as fractures spread along the shaft of his spear, green corrosion crawling across the metal where it had made contact. The poison was eating into it.

"Is this poison that strong?" he thought grimly.

A weapon forged with magic damaged by a single strike.

That was bad. But Clyde did not panic.

He tightened his grip, stance steady, eyes cold and focused as the monster reeled back.

Even with its poison, the monster itself was crude.

Its movements were slow and heavy, driven by instinct rather than skill.

Clyde could see it clearly that the creature relied entirely on its smoke to attack.

Without that advantage, it was nothing more than a bloated mass of flesh.

Clyde knew he was faster and stronger.

He withdrew his spear before the corrosion could spread further and shifted his footing.

The monster swung a massive arm toward him. Clyde slipped past it and drove the spear into its side, avoiding the mouth this time.

The shaft hissed as the poison brushed against it, but he didn’t give the creature time to react.

He pressed the attack.

Thrust after thrust landed in rapid succession. Joints shattered. Muscles tore. His attacks were deliberately aimed at structural points rather than vital ones.

The monster staggered, its smoke sputtering and thinning as its body failed to keep up.

With a final burst of speed, Clyde vaulted forward and rammed the spear through the base of its neck, pinning it to the floor.

He twisted hard and tore the weapon free.

The abomination convulsed then collapsed inward into foul sludge.

A familiar chime echoed in his mind.

[Level Up!]

[Level: 125]

Clyde sighed.

He glanced at the cracked spear, then at the stairway of flesh forming along the wall.

Without wasting another second, he stepped past the remains and ascended to the seventh floor.

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