Chapter 171: The Trial
“Kyaaaaaak!”
“Huaaaaah!”
“Aaagh!”
“Ughhh…….”
The ones who had been sprawled on the floor sprang to their feet as though they had been flung upward.
They gasped repeatedly as they felt around their chests.
“My chest…… is fine?”
“I definitely got hit by an arrow…….”
“Weren’t we dead?”
They were half-panicking.
It was understandable.
No matter how many times one came back to life, death was never something one could get used to.
Especially the sensation of feeling one’s heart stop—it was utterly disgusting.
“You awake now?”
“What the hell was that? Weren’t we dead?”
“I told you. I said it would be hard enough to kill you.”
I explained this trial to them.
Their faces turned dumbfounded after hearing my explanation.
“So, you’re saying the five of us have to defeat someone with the specs of a Top-ranking Hero?”
“Get it straight. Four of you. And eventually, you’ll have to reach the point where you can beat it alone.”
Defeating the trial’s clone with five people was, quite literally, only the minimum requirement.
But I had no intention of being satisfied with merely meeting the minimum requirement.
Back when I was a player, I had cleared the Fragment Trials several times.
In truth, passing through the trial itself and reaching the Gate wasn’t particularly difficult.
The difficulty of the Fragment was certainly high, but with sufficient specs and items, it wasn’t unreasonable.
It wasn’t as though there weren’t tricks one could exploit, either.
But characters who moved forward while obsessing over solving only the immediate problems in front of them could never see a Normal Ending, much less a Happy Ending.
More importantly, if they trained sufficiently here and grew properly, clearing the remaining trials would be nothing.
And so, the hellish training began.
The next clone that appeared wielded a sword.
They did their best, but they died before even lasting five minutes.
The next time, too.
And the time after that.
About three hours passed like that.
Eventually, they stopped screaming whenever they revived from death.
It wasn’t a sensation they could get used to.
They had simply grown numb to it.
The ones sprawled across the floor didn’t even twitch.
There was no life left in their eyes.
How many times had they died?
They had spent the last three hours doing nothing but fighting without a single break.
It must have been around fifty times.
They were no match for the clone.
Their specs and techniques were all significantly inferior to the clone’s.
If they managed to last five minutes, that alone could be considered the best possible result.
To make matters worse, the clone continued attacking while constantly changing its form.
There was no way for them to adapt.
Park Siwoo looked at me.
“Seongwoo…… this is no different from trying to break a boulder with an egg. There’s no answer.”
“That’s right. We’ve died forty-seven times in the past few hours!”
I knew.
At their current level, there was no method they could use to defeat the trial’s clone.
Even so, I had done nothing but watch.
The first reason was to gauge their current level.
The second was because I wanted them to be driven into a corner.
Until now, they had grown like flowers in a greenhouse.
They had trained and accumulated experience in their own way, but none of it could truly be called hardship capable of making them stronger.
After all, I had taught them every strategy for clearing the Fragments, and even their battles against Demons had been far too shallow.
They lacked a sense of crisis.
They had only ever faced enemies around their own level and had never tasted true despair.
That was why I wanted them to use this opportunity to experience real despair.
Only after facing an enormous wall they truly could not overcome, collapsing before it, and falling into despair could they gain the strength to rise again.
We called that strength hope.
“It’s too early to start whining. Now that we’ve entered the Fragment Trial, we can’t leave. The only way out is to defeat the clone. It’s only been a few hours. We don’t know whether this will take days or months.”
“…….”
Along with an enormous beam of light, another new clone appeared.
The trial’s clone that appeared this time was holding a staff.
It was a mage.
Park Siwoo and the others raised their weapons once again.
Truthfully, they couldn’t understand Yoo Seongwoo’s actions.
Why had they come here in the first place?
Wasn’t it to search for Baek Hyun-joong?
Of course, Yoo Seongwoo had warned them that the process wouldn’t be easy.
But this was far too different from anything they had expected.
Countless Magic Circles created by the clone covered the air.
Helena’s roar interrupted its incantation for a moment, but that lasted only an instant.
The ensuing magical bombardment swallowed them whole.
Their consciousness went dark as though a switch had been flipped, and when they opened their eyes, Yoo Seongwoo’s face was the first thing they saw.
“Again.”
At his words, hell began once more.
How many hours had passed?
How many times had they died?
The clone was summoned, and Park Siwoo and his friends charged at it with everything they had.
Yet they were killed without managing to put up any meaningful resistance against its attacks.
As time passed, Park Siwoo and the others were gradually worn away, their wills steadily breaking.
Whenever that happened, Yoo Seongwoo’s furious shout rang out.
“Get your heads straight! The more you fight, the shorter each battle is getting!”
“Fuck…….”
A woman’s voice they had never heard before rang out.
Yoo Seongwoo’s eyes widened at the sound.
The very first words Eunha ever spoke to the others were none other than a curse.
And it was a word that perfectly represented how Park Siwoo and the others felt.
Park Siwoo’s gaze turned toward Yoo Seongwoo.
His eyes were slightly twisted.
Anger surged from deep within his chest.
‘What the hell am I doing here?’
He hated everything in front of him.
Irritation surged through him, and he couldn’t understand why he was even doing this.
Grit.
Without realizing it, Park Siwoo ground his teeth.
He hated Yoo Seongwoo, who looked down at them with a cold expression as though he knew everything and simply uttered the word ‘again.’
The Fragment Trial granted its challengers Immortality, but it neither diminished the pain of death nor healed their worn-down minds.
Every one of them had experienced pain far beyond their limits and had been pushed to the brink mentally.
Perhaps that was why sides of themselves that differed from their usual personalities began to emerge.
Dan Chun-woo grew silent, Helena became hysterical, and Eunha became more like a beast.
Their initial teamwork disappeared, and before they knew it, they had begun tearing into one another.
And finally, their anger exploded.
“Goddammit! I can’t do this. No, I won’t! What the hell is the point of this meaningless bullshit?!”
“That’s right. I can’t do this anymore either. This is practically torture.”
Their gazes turned toward Yoo Seongwoo.
Every one of them harbored dissatisfaction and anger toward him.
Helena was the first to speak.
“Why are you just standing by and giving us advice? Aren’t we supposed to overcome this trial together?”
“We entered the Fragment to find Hero Baek Hyun-joong, not to do this hopeless, insane shit.”
At those words, Yoo Seongwoo nodded as though he understood.
He had expected complaints to emerge around this point.
‘No, if anything, they endured longer than I expected.’
Had they tasted enough helplessness by now?
One thing was certain.
At the very least, the groundwork seemed to have been laid.
“So, you’re upset because I’ve just been standing by?”
“Yes! Do you even know how disgusting it feels to have your heart pierced and die? Of course you don’t! All you’ve done is stand there and lecture us.”
At those words, Yoo Seongwoo let out a ‘snicker.’
“Let’s go through this one thing at a time. You don’t like that I’m standing by? You think you could win if I helped you? Of course you could. I’m strong enough to fight the clone on equal footing. But can you really call that ‘help’?”
“What are you…….”
“That wouldn’t be help. It’d be a carry—no, I’d be doing it for you. There’s one thing you’re misunderstanding. Just because we’re friends, don’t make the mistake of thinking you and I stand on equal ground.”
At Yoo Seongwoo’s mockery, Park Siwoo clenched his fist tightly.
It was humiliating and shameful.
But what made it so infuriating was that Yoo Seongwoo wasn’t wrong.
He was strong.
Extremely so.
He had dueled the Sword Emperor and earned his acknowledgment, and he had even fought Oliver Raiders on equal footing.
“You’re weak. Do you know what could happen outside right now? We have no idea when Pandemonium might lead the entire army of Demons and invade. And at your current level, do you really think you can survive that war? You want to know why I’m standing by? You come back to life even if you die here. Reality isn’t like that.”
“…….”
“I will never watch you get torn apart and killed by Demons.”
Countless emotions were mixed into those words.
The atmosphere among the group became solemn.
His words had been like cold daggers, but the sincerity behind them came from his concern for them.
“And secondly. To correct another misunderstanding of yours, I’ve been experiencing exactly the same pain as all of you.”
For those who died during the trial to revive and for a new clone to appear, every challenger had to be dead.
In other words, Yoo Seongwoo had died alongside them every single time they died.
They had failed to realize it because they always died before Yoo Seongwoo and regained consciousness after him.
After hearing that, Park Siwoo and the others could no longer voice any complaints.
The reason they were suffering this much was ultimately their own weakness, and the fear of death they had thought only they were experiencing was something he had endured alongside them.
Suddenly, Yoo Seongwoo standing before them looked different.
“This place is an opportunity for all of you. Make the most of it.”
As Yoo Seongwoo spoke, Infernal Flame surged from his body.
Until now, after Park Siwoo and the others died, Yoo Seongwoo had continued dueling the clone.
With Park Siwoo’s countless possibilities refined to their absolute limits, the clone was an exceptionally suitable sparring opponent.
“And I never intended to just stand by from the beginning. At this rate, even a hundred years wouldn’t be enough to pass the trial.”
After saying that, Yoo Seongwoo stopped the others as they raised their weapons and prepared to fight again.
“How does it feel after dying a few hundred times? You still can’t get used to it, but aren’t you starting to see its movements little by little?”
“Well, yeah…….”
“Then from now on, keep your eyes wide open and watch. Watch how I fight. And watch how that thing moves.”
Watching an opponent while being the one fighting was fundamentally different from observing the battle from afar as a third party.
Naturally, when one was personally engaged in combat, their field of vision inevitably narrowed.
But when one became a third party and observed the battle from a distance, there was far more to see.
The flow of battle.
Their movements and even their thoughts revealed themselves through combat.
And only now were Park Siwoo and the others finally ready to perceive that flow.
As the Asura Divine Art circulated, Yoo Seongwoo’s body became red-hot.
Even so, the heat radiating from him did not escape outward.
Along with a pillar of light, the trial’s clone appeared.
A smile spread across Yoo Seongwoo’s face when he saw the weapon in the clone’s hand.
“Hey, Park Siwoo. Consider yourself lucky. Watch more carefully than the others. And especially watch the clone, not me.”
Park Siwoo nodded with a grave expression.
A single spear was gripped in the clone’s hand.