The “sprint on knives” path was chosen. With one strike of his harpsisword, Dallion broke the thick layer of stones, revealing a long corridor. Instantly, light crystals lit up on either side, illuminating the darkness.

“Thanks, harp,” Dallion whispered.

It was almost just now that he found how exceptional the weapon was. In the past, he had used aspects of it, focusing on the aspects of attack and music, but rarely had he combined them, and certainly not like this. Now, it was clear why the nymph guardian was so disappointed in him, choosing for focus on other, flashier weapons in his arsenal. For the moment, he was only able to use the harpsisword’s properties in the realms, but with enough practice and dedication, he could learn now to slice through stone in real life as well. The sad part was that had he focused on this, he could have mastered it months ago, if not sooner; and all the time Harp had been forced to watch and be ignored.

“Gleam, keep an eye out,” Dallion said. “Nox, you too. If there are any cracklings near, I want to know.”

The corridor continued forward into infinity. There didn’t seem to be any turns or bends. On several occasions, Dallion looked back with one of his instances, just to make sure the entrance hadn’t vanished. It was all still there, reminding him how close to the start he was.

It might be a good idea to check the walls and floor for other hidden signs, dear boy, Nil suggested.

“Nil, I’m not that stupid,” Dallion replied. He had been using his layer of vision ever since he’d stepped through the archway. So far, the only thing he’d seen was complete smoothness, as if the trial was telling him not to waste his time on this any further. That only made Dallion all the more vigilant.

Minutes passed. There didn’t seem to be any changes. Nox could still feel the general presence of cracklings, although they weren’t getting any closer. After half an hour, Dallion stopped. The entrance was still visible, but just barely.

This isn’t right, Dallion thought.

The trial had to have started, which meant he was focusing on the wrong question. Continuing on, he slid the harpsisword along the right wall. It was solid, just as Gleam had assured him it would be.

Sprint on knives, Dallion said to himself. What if that wasn’t a difficulty, but an explanation? There were no knives, which meant…

Splitting into three instances, Dallion dashed forward with one of them, running as fast as he could. He was just about to use his athletic skills to run along one of the walls when the corridor changed. It wasn’t a subtle change, but one that only occurred in the instance which was sprinting. Apparently, it was related to sprinting, which suggested—

TERMINAL WOUND

Your health has been reduced by 100%

The sprinting instance vanished, leaving the other two intact. Immediately, Dallion stopped, splitting into half a dozen more instances. Nothing changed. Clearly, it was the sprinting that brought on the “knives.” Come to think of it, the trial was remarkably close to Dallion’s real life situation. If so, the Moons had a twisted sense of humor.

Half of his instances dashed forward. Each time one would reach the appropriate speed, a red rectangle would emerge, displaying their death. As hard as Dallion tried, he still couldn’t see the lethal blow. He tried looking on either side, up, down, even stack multiple instances together in the hopes of locating the threat. Nothing seemed to work. To make things even more annoying, whenever he resorted to using Lux or the armadil shield, things got back to nothing happening at all. Clearly, it wasn’t the speed alone that was the factor, but the process of running.

“I guess a line attack will be out of the question,” Dallion said, stopping to catch his breath after a while. Sprinting hundreds of times, even for an awakened of his level, was exhausting.

I wouldn’t recommend it, dear boy, Nil said.

“Great. And just when I thought I had gotten past the mind-twisting trials.” He looked at the entrance. “Is it too late to choose another path?”

You can do anything you wish. It won’t guarantee success.

It had to do with knives, or the effect of knives. That was a solid assumption, though there wasn’t any evidence whatsoever to confirm it.

“Nox, any changes?”

Nope. The crackling replied in a lazy fashion.

“I’ll need your help on this one, buddy. Up for it?”

A deep purr suggested that the puma was all too eager. Moments later, the familiar leapt out of Dallion and onto the floor. At his current level, he was a lot bigger than when Dallion had first found him.

“Split up, then climb onto me,” Dallion said.

Nox tilted his head, somewhat confused. Even in his kitten size, clinging to Dallion was going to be uncomfortable, not to mention painful.

“Don’t worry it won’t be for long. I just want to figure out where the attack’s coming from. You won’t get hurt. I’ll switch the instance.”

No further convincing was necessary. The crackling split into seven cublings, which rushed onto Dallion. Once they had settled in, Dallion burst into instances and started running again. Miniature scars formed and healed, subjected to the simultaneous effects of Lux’s flames and Nox’s claws. Only Dallion’s arm kept on bleeding continuously. At one point, without warning, the attack struck again. Several red rectangles stacked up, marking Dallion’s terminal wound, as well as three critical wounds to Nox. That was good: it gave Dallion a direction. Now he knew that the attack targeted the upper part of his torso.

The trials continued. Next, it was discovered that the attack always came from the opposite direction Dallion was looking at. It was like an invisible line attack the struck at a precise moment, though not a location. If Dallion had had several scrolls of paper along the walls, he would have discovered that instantly. Still, in this fashion, he had found the question of the trial. Now all that remained was to find an answer. Since shields and additional speed didn’t help, the only thing left was to evade or parry. Combining his guard and acrobatic skills, Dallion decided to try both.

The first dozen times ended in failure. The next, he felt the haprsisword hit against something. The strength of the attack was such that Dallion almost lost balance. Sadly, fractions of a second later, another attack followed that caused his instance to die yet again.

“So, that’s it.” Dallion smiled. Sprint of knives: a series of non-stop attacks that only occurred when he was sprinting at full speed. It was similar to the shardfly’s attack, but also different. The corridor wasn’t playing with Dallion, it was just deathly efficient.

One deflected strike turned into two, then three. At that point Dallion hit a wall. Even with a high reaction stat, he couldn’t blindly defend against the attacks. He had to find a pattern, but it kept changing. In order to predict it he needed something more than body speed and reflexes. If Euryale were here, she’d probably say something about sensing the attack before it came. Then again, she didn’t have any issue looking in every direction at once. Maybe that was why she was so much closer to the gate than him.

“Lux,” Dallion began, after pausing for some more rest. “Can you feel the attacks before they happen?”

“No, boss,” the firebird let out a sad chirp. “They’re too fast.”

Dallion looked at the tunnel. The distance between the walls was three meters. Given that the initial attack was always aimed at the torso, it was safe to assume that the strikes came from the sides, moving in towards the center.

“I can cover you,” Gleam suggested. “That’ll be one less side for you to worry about.”

“No,” Dallion said. “That’s not the point.”

“Looks like the point to me.”

“This is a trial. The attacks either won’t occur or they’ll slice through you. This is different.”

“If you say so. You sure you don’t want some illusions? I can do that.”

Instead of answering, Dallion played a few chords on his harpsisword. A sense of calm filled the air. In the real world, that was everything that it would do, but in the awakened realms, one was able to see sound as long as one knew how to look. Thousands of minuscule tendrils emanated from the weapon, spreading throughout the space.

While the sound was still reverberating in the corridor, Dallion split into instances and dashed forward. There didn’t seem to be any difference from all the previous attempts… until the attack struck. The blade sliced through dozens of the fading tendrils, changing the sound by a minuscule degree. This time Dallion didn’t have to see the direction of the strike to know where it was coming from. Spinning around, he deflected it with a swift strike, causing the weapon to vibrate in the process. No sooner had he done so than the second attack commenced. It was like a dance of blades, one that Dallion hadn’t even seen before. All of a sudden, deflecting the invisible was no longer impossible, just extremely difficult. Instances vanished in the dozens, yet Dallion was still able to deflect seven consecutive attacks, then eight, then nine.

By the tenth deflection, the tunnel suddenly came to an end, entering a large chamber. The moment Dallion entered, the attacks stopped. That wasn’t a relief, though, for the chamber wasn’t entirely empty.

There’s here, Nox said.

“I see that,” Dallion said as his remaining instances faded away, leaving one left.

“Didn’t expect to see me again?” An echo of Dallion asked. There was something different this time, though. The echo was half enveloped in crackling matter.

“You’re a chainling now?”

“Chainling, overseer, does it matter?” The echo shrugged. “Good effort getting here. I thought it would take you a few times.”

“I can’t afford a few times. But you know that.”

“As usual. Wasn’t a good decision to take half of the Star’s offer.”

“I didn’t.”

The echo smirked.

“The both of us know better than that. Not that I’m judging, but you should have either taken the offer or refused, not gone halfway. Now no one can really trust you.”

“Beats joining him outright.”

“If you thought that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’re worried that you’ll end up joining the Star, just like that rogue mage.”

“I thought all the remaining trials were skill trials.”

“Why not both? Besides, didn’t Nil explain that trials changed? The fear has been growing for some time. And not only this one, there are a few more up ahead. Good luck going through those.” The echo shook its head. “That would be a treat.”

“I’ll handle them.”

“Dal, in your current state, it’s not certain you’ll be able to handle me. The corridor you went through, did you think that was an accident? I was doing it.”

“There would have been a rectangle.”

“Why? You think I was attacking you? Think again. All you did was go through my defense. I’ve been doing nothing but defending myself. No attack, no red rectangle. But that poses an interesting question. If you had all that trouble reaching me, how difficult would things become if I start attacking?”

Dallion clenched his left fist. While it was the echo saying it, Dallion was thinking the exact same thing. The trial was an exaggeration of his fears, and one of his current fears was facing himself after joining the Star’s side. That was only part of it, though. The bigger question was whether he had made the right choice: should he have rejected the Star’s offer? As much as the Moons had promised, they had also said they wouldn’t interfere anymore, and seeing the freedom the Star cultists had throughout the world, they didn’t.

“You’re free to decide what to do,” the echo said. “But just think about it for a moment. The blondes can merge with the void without losing themselves. That means that any human should be able to, especially anotherworlder.”

“The Star will never allow that.” There was doubt in Dallion’s voice.

“The Star’s petty, but he treats those that help him well. Otherwise, he’d never get any more volunteers. Remember, people are only willing to betray someone as long as they trust the side they’re switching to. So, which side do you trust?”