322 For Starters, A Thousand Years (2)
As time went on, I could feel myself getting better and better at dodging Noir's attacks. However, for the record, I am still unable to properly move reflexively. I'm slowly approaching my target of perfection with each new death I achieve.
From my count, the 100,000th death was a milestone. Roughly a month had passed time-wise, after all. To celebrate it, I challenged myself to wear a blindfold for a few thousand deaths thereafter.
Of course, I died much faster. However, I did gain something from my little stunt.
"Limiting my vision enhanced my other senses."
With that realization, I ended up doing a "restricted play" instead. One after another, I limited my senses, starting with vision, and fought against Noir. My ass was literally handed to me as I did that!
I focused on increasing my task's difficulty just like that and finally managed to get used to having no vision after 1,227,003 deaths. Although I say "get used to," I didn't mean that I could fight Noir toe-to-toe, but rather that I could finally move the same with or without my vision.
Sixth sense? Well, I probably honed something like that while fighting without my vision.
After my sight, I then started to seal my hearing. Although I could simply close my eyes to restrict my vision, I needed to personally destroy my eardrums to limit my hearing. With both vision and sound completely unreliable, I was forced to "feel" everything around me.
However, doing this is harder than it seems. Even after millions of deaths on top of that, I was still unable to act uninhibited with two of my major senses sealed. Around that time, my body was starting to react based on my instincts, similar to how Death's, the fourth regressor's danger perception, works.
"To think I would be able to replicate his skill... maybe I'm really improving?"
My improvement was going as slow as a snail, however. It took me roughly 10 million deaths before I could finally move around with my vision and hearing sealed.
Now that I could move with or without my senses, everything started to slowly build up from there. I could lessen the attention I pay to each attack as my body moves automatically in response. Due to that, I could focus my mind more on thinking about how to properly injure this tough god-tamer.
I was starting to get the hang of fighting him after my 200 millionth death. By then, other than surprise attacks, nothing else could catch me off guard. The only reason I still died against him was due to my lack of energy.
Even if I focused on saving my energy, the longest I could last while dodging fatal attacks was roughly 10 minutes. I'd like to think of it as an improvement, though, as before, even when I deliberately tried to rest, I would die in under three minutes.
"How long had it been..."
I whispered to the wind as I was dodging the incoming attacks. Based on my average of about two deaths per minute, I'd have stayed here for an equivalent of over 200 years already.
It was a very long time, but my will never faded. After all, unlike the first time, I know that by the time I can finish off my enemy, I will be able to get out of this bland space.
*SPLAT!*
Another new skill came, and, out of surprise, I wasn't able to dodge. I got crushed to death—another death added to the long list.
After I reached 500 million deaths, I was finally able to properly injure Noir. It wasn't fatal in any way, but an injury is an injury. If only destroying his power source could work...
At 900 million deaths, I could finally push him to the limit.
By then, it feels like I'm a speedrunner looking for ways to kill the boss in the most efficient manner. My body had already remembered the motions to counter each and every attack that Noir could dish out. By then, other than running out of energy, I had no other way of dying.
I guess the only perk I got other than ingraining the dodging motions in my body was that all the skills I got from the girls got honed to the limit. I'm worried that even that would end up getting forgotten once I'm out of this place, however.
By the way, the only weapon that could injure Noir in the end was Fang's shadow claws. I guess since he was mainly of the shadow element too, damages from the shadow element could pass through his defenses.
After all, the weakness of the shadow element isn't light but rather a denser, darker shadow.
As our endless fight continued, I reached the level where I could basically kill Noir whenever I wanted. However, I didn't. The dodging motions are mastered by my body, and I know that even if my mind forgets, the procedural memory will still remain.
However, the enhanced skills weren't fully ingrained into my body yet. For that, I spent a hundred million more deaths to let my body recall as many enhanced skills as possible.
And then, the moment finally came. I think it should be equivalent to a thousand years of staying here, give or take a hundred. The amount of training I did was something that my puny mind, in reality, would definitely be unable to take on.
To lessen the risks of going out of this place, I challenged Noir one last time while I sealed most of my own memories from entering this place. The result completely surprised me, however, as Noir fell after just exchanging a few hits.
"... Finally!"
I watched as Noir's virtual body faded into a mix of red and green characters. As it did, the space around me also started to turn from a black one into something like a pure white space.
"Hey! It's been a long while, hasn't it?"
I waved my hand toward that person, who was there to congratulate me for completing the system's 20th function. A smile was on that person's face as they opened their mouth, about to speak. At that point, I...
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SeraphWedd
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