Bus Incident (2)

Toudou Shizuka took a deep breath and tried moving his hands and feet. The body's feedback was indistinguishable from reality. He could even feel the fabric of his school uniform rubbing against his skin, hear his own slightly hurried breathing echoing through the deathly silent space. So this was the Involution System's Virtual Training Ground? A massive difference in time flow?

Before the thought could settle, the "Ayanokoji" ahead moved!

No warning, no killing intent, no preparatory motion. One moment he stood still as a statue; the next, that figure had torn through ten meters of distance, appearing before Toudou Shizuka like a ghost! The speed was so great that his retina couldn't even capture the full trajectory—only a blurry afterimage remained!

An icy, bone-piercing sense of death seized Toudou Shizuka's heart! He relied purely on instinct, trying to raise his arm to block.

Too slow!

Crack!

A crisp, tooth-screeching sound of bone breaking exploded through the empty training ground! Toudou Shizuka only saw a palm rapidly enlarging before his eyes, faster than thought, then pressing with pinpoint precision against his Adam's apple. An indescribable, pure, destructive force erupted instantly!

His vision was suddenly dyed blood-red, then swallowed by boundless darkness and agony enough to tear his soul apart! He couldn't even let out a full scream; his consciousness shattered like glass struck by a heavy hammer, disintegrating in an instant.

[Training Failed. Death Count: 1.]

The cold system prompt tone sounded in the void.

Toudou Shizuka's figure re-formed ten meters away from "Ayanokoji." He gasped for air, his face pale as paper, his forehead covered in fine cold sweat, his hands trembling uncontrollably. The terrifying sensation and pain of his throat being instantly destroyed clung to his nerve endings like a parasitic worm, vividly branded, maddeningly real.

So this was S-rank? The pinnacle of human martial arts skill? One exchange—no, not even an exchange; he hadn't even qualified to see the opponent's movements before being one-shot?

"Again!" A nearly insane flame burned in Toudou Shizuka's eyes—that unquenchable, extreme craving and resentment for "power" that had never died even when he was ground down in his past life. He stared fixedly at the indifferent virtual projection ahead and forced out two words through gritted teeth.

The figure lunged again like a ghost!

This time, Toudou Shizuka locked onto the subtle shifts in the opponent's shoulders and leg muscles, trying to predict. But the opponent's movement trajectory defied all common sense, too fast for any logic. He threw himself sideways with all his might, attempting to dodge the lethal hand blade.

Thud!

The hand blade cut through his blocking arm muscles like a hot knife through butter, unstoppable, and plunged into his left chest! The cold and agony of his heart being instantly pierced swallowed him again.

[Training Failed. Death Count: 2.]

Re-formed, gasping, eyes fiercer.

He charged in, only to have his shin shattered by an impossibly fast low sweep, losing balance, then his throat crushed under a stomp.

[Training Failed. Death Count: 3.]

He tried to create distance, but the opponent stuck like a shadow. A seemingly simple straight punch, upon contact, unleashed a terrifying inch-force that shattered his internal organs.

[Training Failed. Death Count: 4.]

Each death brought a different, yet equally bone-deep, extreme pain. Each rebirth, Toudou Shizuka forced himself to recall and analyze that fleeting, almost nonexistent exchange. Ayanokoji's moves had no flair; every attack struck the body's most fragile, lethal points with precision—simple, efficient to the point of despair. His power generation, footwork, distance control, timing... all reached a peak beyond Toudou Shizuka's comprehension—a killing art honed by countless repetitions, merged into instinct.

Time lost meaning here. Maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days...

Toudou Shizuka had lost count of how many times he had "died." Ten? Fifty? A hundred? The pain and fear from each death were real enough to break an ordinary person's mind. But with each rebirth, the madness and focus in his eyes settled a layer deeper, replaced by a near-numb calm and a desperate, all-or-nothing ferocity born from being pushed into a corner.

His body still couldn't keep up, but his "eyes," through countless deaths, were forcibly elevated to a new level. He began to vaguely catch the imperceptible signs before "Ayanokoji" launched an attack—maybe a momentary contraction of the scapular muscles, maybe a subtle shift of the ankle during a center-of-gravity transition by a fraction of a millimeter.

After who knew how many rebirths, when "Ayanokoji" once again lunged with that ghostly speed, his right fist striking straight at Toudou Shizuka's heart like a poisonous snake's tongue, Toudou Shizuka moved!

He didn't try to block that killing blow—he knew he couldn't; the speed gap was too vast. The moment the pre-motion sign appeared, he executed the only survival path distilled from countless deaths: abandoning all balance, throwing himself backward with all his strength! At the same time, his left foot kicked upward with everything he had, not to attack, but to disrupt the opponent's center of gravity!

Rip!

The icy wind of the fist grazed his nose tip, tearing a gash in the front of his school uniform. And his upward-kicking foot barely scraped the outer side of "Ayanokoji's" support leg during the lunge.

That negligible scrape caused the virtual projection, perfect as a killing machine, to falter by a ten-thousandth of a second—almost imperceptible!

Toudou Shizuka crashed heavily onto the cold black ground, pain flaring in his back, but his eyes blazed with unprecedented light! He had done it! For the first time, he hadn't been instantly killed under an S-rank attack! Even if it was just a scrape, even if it cost him a fall, this tiny breakthrough tore a crack in the desperate darkness!

[Combat Skill (Military-Grade Mixed Martial Arts) Comprehension: 0.01% → 1.37%]

A tiny line flashed in the corner of his vision.

"Ha... haha..." Lying on the ground, staring at the false white light above, ignoring the pain in his back, Toudou Shizuka laughed hoarsely, the sound filled with the wild joy of surviving a calamity and a morbid excitement. He struggled to his feet, his eyes locked onto the now-indifferent "Ayanokoji."

"Again!"

Death, rebirth, observation, attempts...

Every tiny improvement came with dozens or even hundreds of brutal deaths.

Comprehension crawled from 1.37% to 5.21%, then to 11.78%...

He began to occasionally make effective dodges, though still utterly clumsy.