I Don't Need To Log Out-Chapter 277: Floor 100 (3)

Arlon was flying.

No, not flying.

He was being thrown.

The next thing he knew, his back slammed into the wall. Stone cracked. Blood sprayed from his mouth. His health—what remained of it—dropped like a stone.

Almost gone.

He slumped, pinned to the wall like a ragdoll.

His limbs refused to move. His sword was gone. His thoughts struggled to stay coherent.

But his eyes flicked forward.

And the creature?

Still in the center of the room.

As if it hadn't moved at all.

But Arlon knew it had.

His sword—just barely—had connected.

He had aimed for his chest.

But the creature had swatted his attack aside.

A reverse slap. Not even a full swing. Just a lazy motion of its hand, like brushing away a fly.

But the sword had grazed it.

A scratch. A thin line along the creature's arm.

It bled.

But he didn't react.

He didn't even look at the wound.

Arlon wasn't sure if that was arrogance or simple indifference.

Either way, it made no move to follow up.

It just stood there.

While Arlon…

Arlon couldn't move.

His body had nothing left. Even with the pain reduced, he was breaking apart.

He was at the end of his wits.

But his mind still worked.

Thoughts spun, desperate, wild.

He couldn't win this.

A single gust of wind could kill him right now.

He needed a way out.

And he had one.

There was only one theory left.

If he killed himself here—if he died now—maybe he'd wake up.

Maybe he'd return to Trion.

Maybe the Tower would release him.

Normally, if a monster killed him, he would log out, never to log back in again.

His Zeno would break, and all his efforts in both his life would go in vain.

Especially the decades he spent in this Tower.

But there was no guarantee that killing himself would change this fate.

Maybe Zeno would still decide that he had been eliminated since he died in the Tower.

In that case, all his efforts would still go in vain.

He couldn't let that happen.

He couldn't gamble everything on hope.

So he thought.

Desperately.

Frantically.

He needed to find a way.

Before the monster decided he wasn't worth the space he occupied.

Before it moved again.

Before it killed him.

He had to act.

And fast.

Arlon stood there, thinking.

He still couldn't move, not properly. His body remained slumped against the wall, limbs heavy with the weight of broken bones and bruised muscle.

But the creature hadn't moved either.

So long as it stayed that way—so long as it didn't kill him—he could recover. Bit by bit. Enough to stand. Enough to try something.

His sword wasn't close. It had landed a few meters away when he'd been sent flying like a toy.

Retrieving it by hand would have been suicidal, but spatial magic could do the trick. Eventually. He just needed to regenerate some mana.

Killing this creature was out of the question.

Dying… was out of the question too.

So, what else was there?

Running?

No. The room was sealed. As always.

He'd known that even before he landed here. From Floor 1 to Floor 90, he'd searched everything—every wall, every crack, every corner.

Not once had he found a secret passage, a hidden gate, or even a false wall that hinted at another way.

But… no. That wasn't entirely true.

There was one way.

A single path.

The only option that remained.

Escape.

It sounded impossible. Laughable, even. But not if he played it right. Not if the creature remained still, unbothered by his presence.

Arlon could only hope—pray—that it continued to act like he didn't exist.

Because he needed time.

Time to breathe. Time to heal. Time to act.

So he stayed there.

Unmoving.

Embedded into the wall.

Two days passed.

He didn't eat. He didn't sleep. He didn't risk moving a muscle more than he had to.

And in all that time… the creature didn't budge.

They both knew the truth. That even if Arlon trained for ten years straight, he wouldn't win. The creature knew that, too.

That was why it didn't bother finishing him off. Why it stood there, unmoved, uninterested.

Because to it, Arlon was a fly. Harmless. Pitiful.

But a fly could be tolerated… until it got close. Until it buzzed too loudly in your ear. Until it dared to challenge your presence.

Then, the fly died.

And if it didn't die the first time, if it came back again and again, it would be hunted. No matter how small. No matter how weak.

So Arlon knew.

He had maybe one or two more chances. That was it.

After that, he'd be gone.

So he waited. Healed. Recovered.

Not all the way. He couldn't. His full passive regeneration, the one gifted by EVR to mimic the mechanics of a game, hadn't kicked in.

He was still "in combat." Still considered part of the fight.

But that didn't mean he was helpless.

Little by little, his natural regeneration kicked in.

After one day, he began casting minor healing spells. Simple things. Underwhelming at his level.

Normally, they wouldn't do much—but now, every little bit helped. Every drop of recovery mattered.

And then, when his mana pool was stable enough, he cast spatial magic to retrieve his blade.

His sword vanished from where it had landed and blinked into his hand with a faint flicker of light.

And in that moment—the exact instant the blade touched his palm—the creature's head turned.

It looked at him.

Not with curiosity. Not even with acknowledgment.

It simply turned, registering that something had moved.

Its gaze lingered for a second, eyes glowing like coal. The scratch Arlon had left on its arm—his one success—was gone. Completely healed.

It turned back.

That was the only reaction.

It had felt him recover. He had felt the spell. He knew exactly what was coming.

But it still didn't care.

That was fine.

Because Arlon wasn't here to fight anymore.

He was here to escape.

He activated his skills again.

Mana surged through his limbs, feeding strength into his battered body.

Haste flared across his muscles.

But this time, he didn't charge.

He blinked.

A single, short-range teleport. Not beside the creature, but directly in front of it. He crouched low, just within striking range.

And then—

Jumped back.

Instantly.

He vanished from the spot before he could be struck.

A second later, the ground where he had stood shattered. A crater exploded beneath the creature's hand.

The force of its strike warped the stone, sending cracks spidering across the floor in all directions.

That was what he needed.

He hadn't gone there to attack.

He'd gone to lure the creature into breaking the floor.

Because Arlon knew something about this Tower that few did.

The walls, the ceilings, the ground—they were layered.

Multiple enchantments. Reinforcements. Barriers.

Arlon couldn't break them. Not yet. Not on his own.

But this creature?

It could.

And now, the floor was broken. A jagged hole had formed at the edge of the crater.

Beneath it—faintly, like the veins under the creature's skin—there was a flow of mana.

Raw. Pure. Unstable.

The mana that fed the Tower.

Arlon's eyes locked onto it.

He focused everything he had—his will, his mana, his mind—into that stream. Into syncing with it. Communing with it.

The creature tilted its head slightly, watching the flow for the first time.

Then, it turned back to Arlon.

It was interested now.

But it was already too late.

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Arlon couldn't take control of the floor. Not completely. He wasn't strong enough. Not yet.

But he didn't need complete control.

Because there was one thing he could do.

One feature he could activate.

Since he had trained time magic for a long time in the Tower and since he had already done it once, he didn't need a year to connect to the flow.

He poured everything into activating one normal control.

And the Tower rumbled.