"Told ya to give me the rifle," said Gabriel, retreating his hand from the man's thorax. It was the eleventh, the last one would be the sniper, but he had already planned for the boy's death.

Yes, the sniper was a little boy. Fucking Tyrant…

The way the previous man's blood was consumed from the Mana protecting his hand made him realize a cleansing method, not only himself but his unusable and filthy armor and bag. It had to be done fast, not to damage them, and with as low output as possible, but it could be done.

Who knows, he thought, strolling through the sniper, evading the first shot by slightly shifting to the right, maybe if I dress up with my armor, I can bring it over here, with me. Why didn't I think of trying to bring the spear? He shook his head. He was still too slow on the uptake.

Liz assaulted the sniper from the side, she was still enough to kill it herself, but sometimes the sniper would be fast enough to react with his knife. Gabriel would not take any chances. He threw the machete at the boy; it embedded on his forehead.

The lizard took out the blade from the boy and, machete in mouth, she strolled over to him, wagging her tail, to prepare for the Skill users' assault.

It had been three soulscape days since they restarted training once again.

There had been two major improvements. The first was their kill records. They now managed to almost entirely kill the first batch of six, of the second dozen pursuers. They kept dying at the hands of the eighteenth one, though.

Fucking bitch, she's fast as shit-fuck! Only thinking about her makes me rage!

The second news was that they now managed to separate their consciousness fully. Once again, they could act as two separate individuals, even in the soulscape.

They were still improving on it since, at first, it took a big slice of their mental reserves, almost as if they were multitasking. It was straining. Fortunately, the more they used it, the easier it got.

They were intelligent in which they used the separation when it was time to battle, gaining time to recover some mental resources before splitting once again.

It didn't look much of a change, yet it really was. They were now capable of double constructive thinking, acting as two entities, instead of an entity that was massively loaded by twice the mental input it usually should have.

Another thing they noticed was the increase in the power of their will. Pushing and pushing on the veil that separated them from the Anchor, they were not only awarded with a notification that they had been waiting for a while; they even managed to have a little success in activating Meridians.

There was still no luck with activating any Skills. Or Analyze for what mattered. But pushing with their full mental power, they could split and activate Meridians effect.

The difference was that they had, even if lasting for barely a moment, access to superhuman strength.

The notification they received was instead the following.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Your natural Power has increased by 1 through training.

You have reached your maximum natural Power.

When he read the notification, Gabriel was a little taken aback. Power should have been tied to his body, so why did it increase with the power of his will? Or maybe the two things were not as detached as he had thought? He couldn't say, however, he was damn grateful for it.

Gabriel and Liz breathed for what was to come. At this point, they didn't even need to prepare by robbing the corpses for belts or disposable weapons anymore. They mostly fought with their hands and the Kata of the Tempest and Foam. They only prepared one weapon, the machete to which he had grown rather fond of to throw for distraction.

Though, Gabriel was starting to think about finding another name for the Kata of the Foam. The way he applied it had begun to change ever since he had begun developing his own Kata.

The Kata of the Foam revolved around tanking the hits by adapting to the opponent's pressure and reallocating the opponent's weight and forces through the use of gentle movements.

What he started doing was quite different. It was a counterstrike stance that instantaneously answered to each blow, effectively evading instead of tanking.

In the distance, the silver armored knight, which launched wind sickles with his sword, appeared in front of his group. He recognized him as Greg, the shielded cosplayer, but not as tall.

Or was it Fred? He shrugged.

Behind him stood, the short bow equipped dwarf, very much the copy of Commodo, a female orc monk with knuckles the likes of Garena, two casters, one of which uses instantaneously striking lightning magic, and looked a lot, really a lot like Olivia, the other one used plantlife related Skills and was practically Varcivald copy. And behind them was the bitch.

She wasn't only a healer; the Indian frog girl he had once met with the group of cosplayers had taken a much darker side in the soulscape. She was a demon. Fast as the wind and slippery as water. And she had become much taller.

He had yet to kill her before the arrival of the next batch.

When the next batch arrived, she instantly became stronger, he did not know why, and she killed him. While that happened, he managed to look at some of them; they were a mix of Royal Guards and the assaulters that had attacked the Feldur city.

Even if he won against her, he had no idea how in hell he could face those monsters. If they had their original strength, then any fight against them would be meaningless.

But he did not think about that for now; what he wanted was getting rid of the bitch.

Gabriel breathed in, moving to the side.

The wind sickle had a wide splash range but had a cooldown of three seconds.

Liz had already disappeared. The lightning Olivia would always aim to kill her, sure that the knight in shiny armor would be able to kill Gabriel in one hit.

Fuck you.

He was already halfway toward them, running at full sprint. The faster he took out Commodo, the better for the whole fight. The casters were squishy, but he was tough, even in close combat.

Left hand enveloped in corruption-tainted Mana, he threw the machete at Varcivald.

Shield and sword Greg, threw himself forward to intercept it, positioning between Gabriel and Varcivald, effectively blocking both the elf's vision and Commodo, exactly as routine.

Gabriel did not stop his dash, pushing through the gap Greg had created by shielding the elf.

It was Garena's turn to intervene now.

Poor Garena, he thought. The hot, mature orc was always the first to die.

Expecting to visibly best the man coming at her in terms of pure speed, strength, and techniques, the orc swung her knuckle equipped fist in a wide whipping punch, too wide for her own good.

Gabriel prepared his hand in a cut, jutting it right inside the she-orc' stern, penetrating her defenses with a studied set of steps. It had become an extremely well-rehearsed dance to him, after those innumerable deaths.

Her beautiful face corrupted into an expression of inaudible pain. Because the moment Gabriel's hand penetrated her, he spread his Mana from his finger, producing a thirty inches long blade, which then spread like a cross, destroying her lungs.

The whole effort took less than a second and consumed exactly two Mana. This left him with 22 points of Mana to use, not wasting even one point against the unskilled endowed enemies.

The she-orc was yet to die when the frog bitch cast her healing, but the attack had been fast enough to spread a short second of panic among them.

It was all in Gabriel's plans still. After all, his real target was the Commodo for now.

Being at the center of the close enemy circles, making them unable to go all out, they could hit each other; the only one who could afford to not be extra careful was Varcivald. He could trap him even in that position; the only problem was that his Skills were extremely inefficient against Gabriel's corruption Mana.

In the meanwhile, Liz was coming at them from the right, her objective the physically Lightning Olive. She was the one that, at this point, would never see her coming.

Having broken effectively through their ranks, Gabriel, propelled by Garena's weight, moved against Commodo. His hand now emitted a film of Mana invisible to the groups' senses. All they knew was that their enemy had effectively perforated their companion's body and was running forward, using her as a Shield.

Feet. Gabriel thought at that moment.

The corruption spread from his nude feet, freeing him of the roots that were about to wrap against them the next instant.

He was finally on top of his target. Commodo tried to evade, not to be invested by his rush.

The dwarf was dextrous, tough, but not agile, not even remotely enough to evade the suicidal assault. Thus, with a slight of his left hand, he took Commodo's head off his shoulder.

Two dead, four to go.

He knew, though, the enemies he was fighting could only be Tier 1, Tier 2 at best. Their Attributes subpar, probably to equal his own. If they had been higher, he doubted that his Mana enhanced flat hand attack would be able to take anybody's head with such ease.

He would go for the frog girl at that moment if he could. Her surprising speed and healing skills still troubled him.

But in the past three days, he had made improvements by leaps and bounds. He could even think during his assault now, not only a rehearsed dance of carefully planned death anymore.

Now that they were four, in fact, he could start varying his approach.

Liz's turn usually came at this moment. Matter of factly, he could already feel her about to approach Olivia.

Gabriel cut to the left, pushing his need to slaughter the girl six feet in front of him. He headed to Varcivald. The elf, the most useless of the bunch, at least in a fight against him.

Of course, Greg or Fred, Really, was it Ted? Placed, once again, in between them. He was the second most troublesome of the bunch, but only because of his fucking shield and armor. But he wouldn't have to face him directly; after all, he would take Varcivald's life before doing that.

As Liz attacked an already about to cast her lightning's Olive, snapping her neck in two seconds, he did a big Kata of the Tempest strike, the biggest he heaviest he could manage to produce.

The whole of his weight shifted through his body, Meridians empowering his push for barely a moment.

He had to sweat a lot to master the move. At some point, he didn't even know where the hell he took all the mental fortitude to push through this continuous barrage of fights, yet in the end, Gabriel noticed that his mental power reset every time he died. The little detail made his damn training possible.

Gabriel struck with his left leg, mustering it from his right.

Ned took the hit with his shield, he wanted to strike back with a slash of his sword, but he could not because he started flying through the air for a good four yards.

The man crashed into the elf, and both fell to the ground.

At that point, the Indian speedster would start toward him. If only it wasn't for Liz, she would need to heal lightning Olive before she died. Yet, even for that, she would be too late.

The indecision making her lose both her bolt caster and her other two party members.

Gabriel was already on top of Varcivald.

The elf didn't even guess how he died since Gabriel simply stomped on him, a blade of tainted Mana eroding his eyes and brain. Building on that, Gabriel knelt, driving another Mana tainted blade, this time coming out of his left hand, through the man's barely exposed neck.

Killing the five bastards, since the moment he entered inside their ranks, took barely seven seconds.

The trouble started now.

The girl would make him waste time. She was fast and would move away, escape, or turn around him, waiting for the other party's arrival.

Every time he tried shaking things up, it would always end with him having to sacrifice, whether power, mobility, too much Mana, or a combination of them.

There wasn't much he hadn't tried, and every time, he tried some new trick to trigger the girl in fighting him up close.

I guess this run is gonna be… disrespecting the fallen.

The girl had already disappeared. Gabriel needed to draw her in before the arrival of the others, so he bent forward and took Jed's sword from his dead grip, and without an ounce of gusto, he started playing with the man's face, stabbing it with the sword's tip, as if he was poking a dead jellyfish with a stick. When he had done with the knight, he turned to the much squishier Varcivald. The damage he could do to his cadaver would be way nastier that way.

Gabriel felt emptiness while doing so. He knew he was just playing with an illusion, but… How many did I kill? Gosh, I have no idea… I wonder if I've changed because of this fucking nightmare. What if when I leave this pla-

"Enough, you monster!" Came a voice, breaking him from his reverie. The girl pirouetted at him, an unexpected roundhouse kick aimed at his temples.

Gabriel was taken aback, the girl was fast, but she had never come forward like this. But his reaction was instantaneous, and even more than that, instinctive.

Arching his brows, Gabriel evaded by slightly backing away. He knew the range of her wind abilities. He had been hit many times by them. Gabriel knew she wouldn't be able to reach him with the after effect of her kick if he just moved one step back. Just as he knew that she could not step in mid-air. As soon as the kick's motion passed through the arc of maximum power, he simply took her foot from the air.

Gabriel accessed his Meridians boost in a short moment of excitement, successfully amplifying the power output of his next move.

He took her life just like that, following the grab with a left-handed attack by an instantaneously Mana tainted hand-knife, he ended up entirely splitting her open.

The girl's new inhuman form dropped on the floor, splashing entrails around.

Gabriel looked at her, eyes devoid of interest or repulsion for the gore. Something else instead left a sour metaphorical aftertaste.

That's it? That's all it took?

He couldn't believe it had ended like that. Even Liz, once again joining his side, was a little confused.

Is this for real?

He was in advantage on the schedule, an enormous advantage. The man knew that it would take one minute and a half for the next party to reach him, and at that point, he was still fighting the frog-girl, so he was currently wasting precious seconds.

So Gabriel started running; for the first time since he had begun bringing the fight to the enemies, he started running away from them once more.

What the hell do I do?

Gabriel ran and ran. He wanted to buy time, gaze at some of their Skills, techniques, maybe Perks, weapons, styles. He had to waste as much time as he could, and if possible, he had to draw in some of their fire.

After a couple of minutes of uninterrupted running, he started hearing their hurried steps. They would soon be gaining on him. He could feel their speed in the sounds and spaces between their footsteps. Yet Gabriel kept running until the forest started opening up.

The sun shone through the flourishing crowns of the uninhabited jungle more and more, yet he ran toward it, uncaring.

After another minute, footsteps right behind him, he saw it, and it fucked his mind.

The jungle disappeared, and in front of him, he saw a clearing, a clearing with many big platforms of stone and one giant rock at its center.

That wasn't just a clearing, that was-

The clearing…

Gabriel had no idea what to think. He almost expected to see himself in the middle of the central rock, waiting for the vision inside the vision to end so that he could finally leave and go to sleep, but he was not there.

They lost focus when the lizard, until then following Gabriel, turned toward the jungles. There were no more hurried footsteps following them. What had happened? They wondered.

Gabriel, even trusting the lizard's senses to the fullest, couldn't help but turn his head to check with his body's senses, but the lizard's ones were right; there was no one following them anymore.

Something didn't feel right, said his guts, as he focused once again to keep their entities split, if not to fight, to cover more ground with the inevitable inspection which he would soon start. But no check took place, because as he turned toward the clearing once more, he saw the mayor, he sat on the central rock, bellowing for him to come forward.

What is going on?

Suspicious, Gabriel went forward. Swiftly climbing the rock and standing in front of the sitten Feldur.

"Is this still part of the test?"

"No, Gabriel. And sincerely, you have me baffled," the mayor said. He had, as weird as it sounded, a green teapot and two fuming cups by his side, "I did not take you as the type to reach this level before twelve days even passed. Hell, I would have given you thirty days. I thought they would be enough to teach you that the last batch of adversaries in front of you was unbeatable. It would have to push your desperation even further, but… the way in which you've managed to deal with the third party… and your tenacity to force some of your abilities even through my boundaries… it's surprising, to say the least. I thought the Heralding was just the luck of the draw, for it was like this in the past, but you… something tells me there's something different about you."

"Yeah, sure. I shall change the world." Gabriel said in mockery.

The elder chuckled. Then, once again, he offered him the muck yellow tea.

"What was this for?" Gabriel asked, taking the cup in his hand.

"This was what helped you regain your mental strength after each repetition. Without this, you would have become insane. It's a curse, obviously, but we need it removed now. If you keep that state for too long, you will grow insane, Herald or not."

Gabriel shook his head and brought the drink close to his lips before stopping.

The mayor arched an eyebrow, "Without that, we can't continue any training, drink it."

That last part was… a command, he realized.

It had already happened in the past. The Tyrant or the mayor said something, and he would do it automatically without questioning it. He did not think anything of it but, maybe it was weird after all. And yet, even now, he felt compelled to follow that command, but it wasn't automatic as before. It felt like a push, clearly something from the outside trying to have him do what it wanted.

What was he to do? What could he do?

Roll with it, I guess.

In the end, Gabriel drank, with a smile from the mayor. Then suddenly, the clearing folded on itself, and they were gone.