Thora pushed herself to the limit as she climbed upward, her physical strength and condition draining more severely with every foot she gained. Her current body wasn't her real one—all her stats had fixed caps. With the continuous fighting and movement, her physical strength and various attributes kept depleting. If she didn't replenish them in time, once those numbers hit zero, she'd completely lose the ability to move. And if her HP dropped to nothing, that meant true death. The wind at the edge of the game world howled with savage fury, lashing against her cheeks until they stung, nearly ripping her right off the iron ladder. The scattered monsters climbing below her were mostly blown straight off by the gale, splattering against the ground and dissolving into fading clusters of data fragments. Thora used every last ounce of strength to haul herself through the window at the top of the tower. The moment she landed, she collapsed onto the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, gasping for breath in ragged heaves. The climb alone had taken nearly five minutes. Combined with the high-intensity battle she'd fought across a mile of terrain beforehand, it was only thanks to her powerful base stats that she'd barely held on until now. "Boss, did you make it?" Luke's voice came through the squad channel. Thora rested for a moment, waiting until her condition recovered slightly before sitting up and surveying her surroundings. "I'm here." Hearing those words, everyone in the channel finally exhaled in relief. She was now in the attic at the very top of the tower—the only accessible area in the entire structure. The sole entrance was the small window she'd just climbed through. "Boss, the virus file is hidden somewhere in that attic. When you destroy it, I'll receive a notification on my end and initiate the cleanup protocol," Luke said in a low voice. "Got it." Thora rose to her feet and began searching the attic. The attic wasn't large—maybe 15 feet across at most. Apart from a few dust-covered, broken-down tables and chairs and a pile of junk, there was nothing else of note. She tore the entire attic apart but still couldn't find any clues related to the virus file. All she'd managed to do was coat her hands in thick layers of dust, leaving herself looking like she'd crawled out of a coal mine. Thora bit her lower lip lightly. If Luke was certain the file was here, he wouldn't be wrong. Since she couldn't find it, she'd use the most direct method—blow it all up. As long as she destroyed the entire attic, the virus file would be wiped out along with it—quick and efficient.Thora checked her equipment bag. Besides a few guns and her remaining ammunition, she had two grenades left. The combined power of two grenades was more than enough to level this small attic. But the problem was—after the explosion, how was she supposed to get down? "Luke." "Boss." His response came through the channel immediately. "If the virus file is destroyed, can you make all the monsters stop moving for a few minutes?" Once the virus was eliminated, the game would return to normal operation. As the person controlling the game's core program, Luke should be capable of that. Luke frowned at her words, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Only after reviewing the data did he respond, "Five minutes max. But only if the virus file is completely destroyed and I've finished the cleanup on my end—clearing the residual junk files will take five to ten minutes. The exact timing can't be manually controlled.""Mm." Thora gave a simple acknowledgment. That brief response instantly triggered a bad feeling in Luke—he had a sense the boss was about to pull something insane again. "Once the virus is cleaned up, immediately freeze all monster activity outside the perimeter fence." Thora paused, then added, "Whether I make it back alive is on you." Luke fell silent for a moment. Just as he'd suspected, his heart raced with a mix of tension and excitement, but his voice remained calm. "Understood." The others listening in the channel felt their expressions shift the moment they heard those words. ... The instant she finished speaking, Thora sprang into action. She raised her machine gun and opened fire on the floor, blasting a massive hole through it in seconds. The space below was hollow and open—she could see straight down to the base of the tower. Next, she secured one high-powered grenade to the attic wall, then pulled the pin on the other one and dropped it through the hole. The moment she finished, she scrambled out the window and onto the iron ladder on the outside of the tower. Boom! A violent explosion erupted from the tower's base. The grenade detonated just before hitting the bottom, and the entire tower began to shudder and sway. Almost simultaneously, Thora raised her gun and fired at the grenade fixed to the attic wall. Boom! Another thunderous blast tore the attic and the top of the tower into a shower of debris. Thora gripped the iron ladder at the tower's midsection with white-knuckled hands, nearly thrown off by the shockwave. At the same time, the tower—severed at its base by the explosion—began to tilt slowly, like a felled skyscraper crashing toward the ground. Thora clung desperately to the ladder on the falling side of the tower, plummeting toward the ground along with it!