Toudou Shizuka took a deep breath and tried moving his hands and feet. His body responded just as it would in reality. He could even feel his school uniform rubbing against his skin and hear his slightly ragged breathing echo through the deathly silent space. So this was the Involution System's Virtual Training Ground? The difference in time flow was enormous?
Before the thought had even finished, "Ayanokoji" moved!
There was no warning, no killing intent, no preparatory motion. One moment, the figure stood motionless as a statue; the next, it had crossed the ten meters between them and appeared before Toudou Shizuka like a phantom! It moved so fast his retinas couldn't capture its full trajectory, leaving only a blurred afterimage!
An icy premonition of death seized Toudou Shizuka's heart! Almost by instinct, he tried to raise his arms to block.
Too slow!
"Crack!"
A bone-snapping sound, clear enough to make his teeth ache, exploded through the empty training ground! Toudou Shizuka saw a palm rapidly enlarge before his eyes, moving faster than thought, then land with perfect precision on his Adam's apple. An indescribable, pure, destructive force erupted in an instant!
His vision suddenly turned bloodred, followed by boundless darkness and agony enough to tear his soul apart! He couldn't even manage a complete scream before his consciousness shattered and vanished like glass struck by a sledgehammer.
[Training failed. Deaths: 1.]
The system's icy prompt rang out in the void.
Toudou Shizuka's figure re-formed ten meters away from "Ayanokoji." He gasped for breath, his face pale as paper, fine beads of cold sweat covering his forehead as his hands trembled uncontrollably. The horrifying sensation and pain of his throat being destroyed in an instant clung to his nerves like a parasite, so vivid it drove him mad.
So this was S-rank? The pinnacle of human combat skill? In a single exchange—no, it hadn't even been an exchange. He'd been killed without even earning the right to see his opponent's movements?
"Again!" A near-mad flame burned in Toudou Shizuka's eyes: the same desperate, insatiable yearning for "power" that had never gone out, even when he'd been worked to death in his previous life. He glared at the virtual projection, which had returned to its impassive state, and forced the words out through clenched teeth.
The figure charged again like a phantom!
This time, Toudou Shizuka kept his eyes fixed on the subtle changes in his opponent's shoulders and leg muscles, trying to predict his movements. But his opponent's trajectory defied all reason, moving too fast to make any sense. He threw himself sideways with all his might, trying to avoid the deadly knife-hand strike.
"Pfft!"
Like a hot knife through butter, the strike easily pierced the muscles of his raised arm, then plunged into his left chest without losing momentum! The cold and agony of his heart being pierced swallowed him once more.
[Training failed. Deaths: 2.]
He re-formed, gasped for breath, and glared even more fiercely.
He charged in, only for a low sweep, too fast to follow, to instantly snap his shinbone and throw him off balance. Then a foot crushed his throat.
[Training failed. Deaths: 3.]
He tried to create distance, but his opponent stayed glued to him. A seemingly simple straight punch unleashed terrifying short-range power on impact, rupturing his internal organs.
[Training failed. Deaths: 4.]
Every death brought a different kind of pain, each one just as excruciating and bone-deep. Each time he revived, Toudou Shizuka forced himself to remember and analyze those brief exchanges, so short they barely seemed to exist. Ayanokoji's movements were utterly devoid of flourish. Every attack targeted the most vulnerable, most lethal parts of the human body—so simple and efficient that it was despairing. His striking technique, footwork, control of distance, timing... everything had reached a peak beyond Toudou Shizuka's understanding: an art of killing, honed through endless practice until it was instinct.
Time lost all meaning here. Perhaps it was minutes, perhaps hours, perhaps days...
Toudou Shizuka no longer remembered how many times he had "died." Ten? Fifty? A hundred? The pain and terror of each death were real enough to drive an ordinary person insane. Yet with every resurrection, the madness and focus in his eyes settled further, giving way to an almost numb calm and the ruthless resolve of someone driven to the edge with no way back.
His body still couldn't keep up, but through being "killed" countless times, his "eyes" had been forcibly sharpened to a new level. He began to vaguely catch the faintest signs before "Ayanokoji" attacked—perhaps a momentary tightening of the muscles around his shoulder blades, perhaps the barely perceptible shift of his ankle as his weight changed.
After some unknown number of resurrections, "Ayanokoji" charged again at that phantom-like speed, his right fist darting toward Toudou Shizuka's heart like a snake striking. Toudou Shizuka moved!
He didn't try to block the lethal punch—he knew he couldn't. The gap in their speed was too great. The instant he noticed the tell that his opponent was about to move, he chose the only way out he'd found in all those deaths, as awkward as it was: he abandoned all balance and threw himself backward with all his strength! At the same time, he kicked his left foot up as hard as he could—not to attack, but to disrupt his opponent's balance!
"Riiip!"
The icy rush of the punch skimmed past his nose, and the sharp gust of wind tore a slit in the front of his school uniform. His rising foot, by the narrowest margin, brushed the outer side of the lower leg that "Ayanokoji" had planted as he charged.
That negligible brush caused the flawless virtual projection, a killing machine in human form, to falter for one-millionth of a second—so briefly it was almost impossible to notice!
Toudou Shizuka crashed onto the cold black floor, pain lancing through his back, but an unprecedented light blazed in his eyes! He'd done it! For the first time, he hadn't been instantly killed by an S-rank attack! He'd only managed a brush, and he'd paid for it by falling over, but that tiny breakthrough was like a crack torn through the darkness of despair!
[Combat Skill (Military-Grade Mixed Martial Arts) Comprehension: 0.01% → 1.37%]
A small prompt flashed in the corner of his vision.
"Ha... hahaha..." Toudou Shizuka lay on the ground, gazing at the false white light overhead. Ignoring the pain in his back, he rasped out a laugh, his voice filled with the joy of surviving and an almost pathological excitement. He struggled to his feet, his eyes fixed on "Ayanokoji," who had returned to his impassive state.
"Again!"
Death, resurrection, observation, attempts...
Every tiny improvement came at the cost of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of brutal deaths.
His comprehension slowly climbed from 1.37% to 5.21%, then to 11.78%...
He began to occasionally pull off an effective dodge, though he was still a complete mess.
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