With a resounding clatter, the arrow pierced through the magic circle and crashed onto the ground.
Evidently, the magic circle was impervious to physical means of destruction.
Once more, the sixty-second countdown came to an end, and the same humanoid shadow emerged again from the magic circle.
Tyler did not wait for the shadow to reveal itself this time; he promptly aimed an arrow at its head.
To his surprise, the arrow passed right through the shadow as if it were an intangible illusion.
(So, until the darkness subsides, the shadow is non-existent in this space.)
Tyler was quick to understand. He swiftly drew his bow again, waiting for the exact moment when the enemy would shed its darkness, then released the arrow with sudden force!
As he had predicted, the enemy – now revealed – had no time to dodge; an arrow pierced its head instantly, causing it to die on the spot.
.
This was the third time Tyler had killed “himself”, and he had discovered a method to end the battle within a couple of seconds, but he felt no joy.
The atmosphere within the trial space remained the same, which meant that Tyler had not passed the trial yet.
After three consecutive failures, Tyler had now understood the true essence of this trial. The “Level 5 Difficulty – Purple Trial” was not just testing his combat ability, but also his comprehension of the unknown situation.
If Tyler could not figure out how to pass the trial, no matter how effortlessly he killed his “shadow”, sooner or later, he would perish in this meaningless battle.
(So, I shall use the process of elimination.)
(Now, four incorrect answers are excluded.)
(One, killing “myself”.)
(Two, destroying the magic circle.)
(Three, killing the enemy within 60 seconds… no, I had only taken 2 seconds.)
(Four, killing “myself” three times.)
All the while, Tyler collected the arrows from the battlefield and continued his contemplation.
Meanwhile, the enemy’s corpse had turned into a shadow and sunk into the ground, and the magic circle reappeared, initiating a new round of the sixty-second countdown.
.
Tyler thought for a few seconds and then lit a luminous magic stone, attempting to disrupt the integrity of the dark magic circle with light.
However, it had no effect on the countdown, and the humanoid shadow appeared as scheduled when the countdown ended.
Tyler repeated his technique of timing his shot to kill the newly emerged “self” and then continued to think during the transition period.
So far, the losses Tyler had suffered were acceptable. Only five arrows had been broken and he still had thirty-five left. He used six smoke bombs and had fourteen left.
Physically, his life energy was untouched, and he had plenty of endurance and magic energy.
━━━━━━━━━
Tyler 𝒪𝐕𝗅xt.𝓬𝔬𝐦
Life Energy: 300 / 300
Endurance: 259 / 280
Magic Energy: 2436 / 2530
━━━━━━━━━
Through these consecutive four rounds of killing “himself”, Tyler could conclude that each humanoid shadow duplicate had the same pattern of movement.
Moreover, since their memories weren’t shared, each newly emerged “shadow” lacked the experience of the previous death. Hence, Tyler could keep on killing them with the same strategy, until he exhausted himself to death.
Aside from this, these humanoid shadow duplicates were heartless. When Tyler tried to read their minds, he found only darkness. Nothing existed there.
In the following fifth round of the battle, Tyler tried to converse with the shadow enemy, but it did not respond. This led Tyler to eliminate another possible way to pass: finding a “plot” outside of mutual killing through dialogue.
.
While waiting for the countdown of the sixth round, Tyler came to a new conclusion.
Although the shadow is identical to himself in every way, there is one thing that it doesn’t have, and that is the “Divine Eye of Transcendence”.
Otherwise, it cannot be explained why Tyler gained the advantage in the multiple battles against “himself” and this also proves that the Divine Eye of Transcendence is indeed something that comes from a higher dimension.
Then, the countdown ended and Tyler killed “himself” for the sixth time.
Then came the seventh time, the eighth time, and the ninth time.
.
(If I kill “myself” one more time, it will be the tenth time.)
Tyler picked up stones and arranged them on the ground in a row for counting.
If he had to kill a certain number of times to pass the trial, then an integer like “10” is likely to be the correct answer.
But unfortunately, Tyler’s expectation only lasted for a short while before it was shattered with the start of the next countdown.
If ten times were not enough, then does he need to do it twenty times? Fifty times? A hundred times?
Even for Tyler, if he failed to pass the trial after killing “himself” a hundred times, he would be overwhelmed by despair.
Tyler now understands why the death rate of the Purple Trial is almost 100%.
For other challengers who do not have the Divine Eye of Transcendence, they face an enemy that is completely identical to themselves, so the first two rounds of battle are extremely exhausting.
Even after struggling, even if they find the key, they still cannot pass the trial, and they have to ponder over how to get out of this “hell”.
After killing “himself” for the eleventh time, Tyler began to re-examine this world.
Are there any clues on this barren land where there is nothing?
Finally, Tyler’s gaze fell on the towering stone pillar. The words carved on the stone pillar were still there.
“Face fear, live towards death.”
(Are there any clues hidden in these five words?)
At first, Tyler thought that this sentence was only used to set the atmosphere of the trial, but now he thinks otherwise.
In this barren world where there is almost no information, the words on this only stone pillar must contain some kind of clue, guiding challengers to pass the trial.
(Face fear… Does this refer to the courage to fight “oneself”?)
(What does “live towards death” mean? Is it similar to Martin Heidegger’s philosophical concept?)
Clikc paragraph comment for a glance of the concept xD
Tyler was a bit confused. Surely he didn’t have to commit suicide to pass the trial?
He couldn’t take such a risk without absolute certainty.
While thinking like this, Tyler killed “himself” for the twelfth time. The way he killed “himself” was as easy as fixing a bug. Every time the black shadow replica appeared in the same place in the same way, and Tyler only needed to send an arrow at the right time to explode its head.
But after killing “himself” for the twelfth time, Tyler suddenly understood.
(So that’s it…)
(I haven’t really “faced fear” yet…!)