Dyon awoke to a mad cackling. He had assumed that he had somehow died. In fact, his last thoughts were ones of rage toward this supposed supervisor for once again breaking the rules. How could this count as a trial if he didn’t even have the chance to retaliate? These chains weren’t normal by any stretch. Dyon could tell that even if he was a hundred times more powerful, he wouldn’t even be able to put any pressure on them at all.
“Do you like that feeling? The feeling of dying a dog’s death?” The clone continued to laugh. “Here, I’ll let you experience it again!”
Another savage and brutal pain erupted from Dyon’s torso, but this time, he felt his intestines being dug out. He was forced to slowly feel his body shutting down as organ after organ was pulled away, until finally, it could hold on no more.
He died again…
Dyon awoke again, only to hear the same mad laughter. Had this supervisor really lost his mind? What the hell was going on?
Dyon’s guess wasn’t too far from the truth. The clone was an entity that stood at the peak of the world. Even on the transcendent plane, he was someone who commanded respect. Even the laws of the universe had begun to subtly bend to him before he was trapped here.
Yet, now his fate to was to, time and time again, be slaughtered by the likes of pathetic geniuses he would have defeated with a single swipe of his hand even when he was their age? Wasn’t such a fate too cruel?
After millions, no, even hundreds of billions of years – considering the structure of time within the trials – of this repeated time and time again, he had thought that he had gotten used to it. He took some advantages of the rules here and there, but Dyon’s case was an instant where he was unexpectedly able to bend those rules to the point of them breaking, at no expense to himself. So, to vent his anger, he took full advantage.
Who would have known that not only would he fail, he would be humiliated in the end by Dyon?
Of all those who had taken the fourth trial, Dyon was the only one to realize his lofty status. Maybe if he hadn’t known, it would have been easier to forgive. But, knowing that Dyon was aware, and yet still treated him with such contempt and disdain drove him mad.
Now, he had the chance for revenge, so he would take full advantage.
Technically, his only role in this trial was to release trial takers when their minds collapsed. As for the killing, that was the responsibility of the crows in the sky. However, he no longer cared. As long as he followed that rule, and released Dyon when his spirit had given up, he wouldn’t face the punishment of the tower.
So, he killed Dyon again and again, venting his anger. By the time he had done so dozens of times, his mad laughter had finally calmed enough to realize that something was off.
In all of his obscene thoughts, he had been too distracted to notice that from beginning to end, he had yet to hear Dyon make a single sound.
Even worse, one death was enough for 80% of trial takers to give up. Two was enough from 95% to collapse completely. As for geniuses, arrogant in their dispositions, enduring dozens of deaths was well within their abilities. Often times, geniuses of that level wouldn’t consciously give up, but rather, their minds would no longer be able to handle the torture, and thus take it upon itself to subconsciously give up on behalf of itself.
However, even in cases like that, the clone would be able to sense the mind slowly collapsing, would allow him to estimate how many more deaths could be withstood. It was this sensitivity that allowed him to be the supervisor of this trial, because before he was trapped, he was a torture expert. This expertise gave him the ability to toe the line of getting the information he wanted, while also keeping his victim sane.
But… All the clone sensed from the young man chained to this mountain was an endlessly growing killing intent that sent shivers down his spine.
The clone slowly raised its eyes, only to find Dyon staring at him with an unyielding gaze. It was truly an odd situation, because currently, his hand was wrapped around Dyon’s heart. By all logic, there should be some pleading in Dyon’s eyes, shouldn’t there?
Unable to take the gaze, the clone inadvertently squeezed Dyon’s heart to pieces, once again killing him.
In the clone’s life, he was an assassin without match. Everything from his torture tactics, to his cloning abilities, to his power, were top notch and made him feared throughout the lands. He didn’t fear death. In fact, he knew that when that day came, he would embrace it with a smile on his face.
However, the first time he truly tasted death, the experience was completely different from what he expected, because when he opened his eyes he was once again alive, only to experience death once again. After dying so valiantly the first time, it should have been done, no? Hadn’t he gone out in a blaze of glory? The pride of all assassins in existence? So why was he still dying, again and again?
He eventually broke, collapsing within his own misery.
Even he, as the greatest assassin to ever live, had his own mental limit. Anyone who was human should have a limit. If you didn’t have a limit to your perseverance… If you truly didn’t care how much pain you felt, or how often you died… Wouldn’t you be a God?
“I’ll show you a life worst than death. I promise you that.”
Dyon’s voice forcibly awakened the clone from his thoughts. The dense killing intent sent him into a panic, causing flashbacks of the only man he had ever feared in his life to fill his mind.
Without realizing it, Dyon’s every death had deteriorated his own mind, and Dyon’s words were like a wave of water bursting through a paper-thin dam. Somehow, he as the supervisor, had his own mind collapse before Dyon’s.
The fifth trial world rumbled. Without a suitable supervisor, a hidden rule had been enacted, and Dyon disappeared from the world.
In that moment, the fifth ranking stone of the God Trials erupted from a blinding blood-red light as Dyon’s name charged up. In the end, it took its place at the top, but unlike the other names, there was no number of deaths by his name.