Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Karra———

<???>

“<Extra Battle has been selected for simulation. Selection: Herma, the Angel of Silence of the World of Petals. Extra Condition: Started in [Angel Decree]. Embrace lethality.>” Wait what? Where the hell am I? What is this circular white platform? Is this some sort of battle arena? There’s nothing else aside from this platform other than the depths that seem to stretch on forever, having patterns on its white surface that repeat forever. Despite being able to see the ground at the very bottom of this depth, it feels like I could never comprehend how long the fall will be.

A large amount of dark fog suddenly descended from up high, with the sky barely having any discernable clouds and looking way too dark for the amount of visibility I have right now.

It slowly formed into a shape that’s more recognizable than a bunch of black smog. It starts to form a silhouette that I can barely make out, but it seems to be humanoid in shape.

Two bright burning eyes emerged from the shadows, way too bright despite being obscured in this concentrated black mass.

The black smoke cloud then clears and reveals the humanoid monster inside. A tall humanoid being covered entirely in black oriental armor, wearing a black skull-like mask with sharp teeth and two horns growing out of its forehead. Inside its eyesockets are two glowing red eyes with completely black sclera, or if it’s white then I can’t discern it. Its black hair is long and wild, looking like it’s covering its backside completely. The main weapons seem to be the two black gauntlets that act as sharp claws.

My feet feel heavy, and I feel overwhelmed by this presence before me.

*Dash* *Crush*

…

“Ah!” I screamed out and opened my eyes again. What in the… Where am I now? Some sort of weird… blue realm with invisible floors.

“Oooh… Getting your neck crushed into paste… That’s definitely not pretty.” Wiina suddenly appeared from behind me with a rather condescending remark. “For the first try, it’s about what I expected.”

“Wiina, where the hell are we? What is that thing?” I asked, still feeling spooked out by everything that just happened in what feels like a minute or two max.

“We’re in a… modified version of EX-VR, let’s just say that. Call it a private server.” She explained. When did she even get me logged in? My headset is still left in my house and I haven’t touched it in a while. Does she even have two headsets?

“Why are we even in here then?” I asked, before remembering that arena and the monster in the middle of it. “Wait, I thought training was off today! Won’t we be late to see the fireworks?”

“Not to worry. I put the Time-Acceleration at sixty times today.” …Sixty?

“Huh? Can it even go that high? I thought there was a limit?” I said, feeling flabbergasted. It never went past fifteen times on a normal day which was already absurd. Max it ever goes was thirty times. “Is that even okay? Do I need to worry about some weird time lag?”

“There’s a lot of time shenanigans you could do to make it go past even a hundred times without causing much issue, especially in a realm where you don’t need to worry about your physical body being torn apart.” She explained. Does that last part really need to be added?

“Anyway, go and try to beat that thing. It’s more than triple the strength of yours, and would be the strongest thing you’ve ever fought.”

“You expect me to beat that!?” I said, wondering if she’s out of her mind. That means that thing is stronger than even Emmie! And that freak of nature is outpacing me by quite a lot at this point!

“You can have as many tries as you want, and I even set the pain setting to a quarter. I have a time limit set for when you can log out anyway, so don’t be too worried. You won’t miss anything important in the real world.” She said with a very reassuring-looking smile despite what she just said. “Also, the pattern of these extra bosses are mostly predictable, making them not as formidable as the real thing.”

“Real thing? Excuse me?” What in the world does she mean by that?

“They’re all based on a real person. What else could it mean?” She said while putting her hands on her waist. Now that’s just terrifying. “Not to worry, the people presented as these extra bosses that were replicated into the game don't exist in our world. They exist in one of the other two main worlds.”

“...Should I ask about that as well?” I asked, feeling a bit annoyed at the length of this conversation.

“You’d better not.” She said with her arms crossed. “Just go fight that thing. This is one of the easier ones of these extra bosses, you know?”

“...This game is such a massive can of worms.” I said before turning around and seeing a podium with the retry button. “Do I have any weapon on me right now?”

“A knife and horseshoe shoes, just like the usual.” She answered. The knife is strapped to my waist this whole time and I never noticed.

“Alright. Guess it’s time for a retry.” I said before walking over to the button… I need to steel myself for this.

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

“<Retry confirmed.>” The system voice rang out once more.

And now I’m back in the arena again, the same scenery as the last time. Time to take out my knife and fight.

This shadow creature appeared once more. Alright, this time, I need to actually prepare to fight…

*Dash* *Evade*

Alright! First attack do-

*Smash*

…

“...What the hell.” It immediately followed up with a swing of its gauntlet that’s basically impossible to dodge, right towards my head. I can’t even tell what happened to it, it was so fast.

“Maybe try to be extra aggressive or defensive next time?” Wiina said playfully. Is she gonna stick around in this waiting area the entire time?

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

“<Retry confirmed. Second retry.>” …Did this feature need to be here?

Alright, time to try again. I’m more than prepared!

*Dash* *Evade* *Swing* *Grab* *Crush* *Rip*

“Agh!” My hand! It’s-

*Smash*

…

“I guess playing for the counter isn’t the play. You’re best off looking for a better opening.” She advised. How is this even fair?

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

“<Retry confirmed. Third retry.>” …This is annoying already.

*Dash* *Leap* *Sizz* *Boom*

I jumped out of the way instead and cast a massive fire spell at it immediately.

*Leap* *Swing* *Block*

It jumped out of the flames and pursued me, but I reacted just right in time to hit it away, though it doesn’t look like I did any actual damage.

It landed back down first while I did second.

*Dim*

It suddenly spawned something in its hand. Some sort of multi-faced dice? Maybe at least sixteen?

*Throw* *Leap* *Burst*

I jumped out of the way of whatever this is. Some sort of uncomfortable energy seemed to come out of it.

*Dash* *Crush*

…

“Is this even beatable? Over triple my strength seems rather absurd.” I said, feeling the need to sit back and think things through a bit more.

“It’s possible. You are getting a bit closer each time. Remember that they are much more predictable than their real counterparts.” She said with a smile. “Just be frame perfect… No, this game doesn’t exactly have frames now, does it?”

“Get outta here.” I said before walking over to the button again.

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

> 3 MINUTES Later >

*Grab* *Twist*

“AGGGHH!!!” It’s twisting my arms!

*Rip* *Crush*

> 7 MINUTES Later >

*Chill* *Crackle*

I managed to encase it in ice, but it’ll probably break out in a flash, so I need to prepare a powerful spell quickly.

*Sizz* *Crack*

The ice prison is starting to break already! I need to hurry!

*Shatter* *Blast*

“Aough!” The resulting explosion caused me to be sent flying back and even hit the invisible wall that would’ve plunged me into the depths otherwise.

*Dash* *Evade* *Zap*

It tried to ambush me through the smoke again but I quickly moved out of the way and hit it straight in the chest with a lightning attack.

Now a knife to the ey-

*Grab* *Rip* *Punch*

…

“...Why is this thing’s finisher so brutal every damn time?” I can’t help but say with how many gory deaths I suffered. Thankfully it’s not recorded and replayed, but damn… Why is it like this?

“Whicher world they are in, they’re a natural born assassin through and through.” She vaguely said. I thought the system said it’s an angel…

“Hold on, is that thing related to that other angel you talked about?” I asked since that person is basically the only other thing she had attributed an angel to.

“Just keep training and don’t ask anymore questions.” She said while shooing me away. Is it that important to keep those kinds of discussion low? Whatever. I guess getting involved with those types of people in the first place is already asking a lot.

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

“<Retry confirmed. Fourteenth retry.>” Yeah yeah just keep rubbing it in my face…

> 2 MINUTES Later >

*Parry* *Kick* *Crash*

“H-Huh?” I managed to actually push it far enough to hit another side of the arena with a kick?

*Leap* *Swing* *Evade*

“Crap!” It’s so fast that even being pushed to the other side of the arena it can still close the gap in a second. This is a massive arena too!

*Grab* *Slam* *Punch* *Splat*

> 4 MINUTES Later >

“...How about this!” I screamed out while this thing ran towards me at full speed.

*Kick* *Crash*

I kicked it right into its neck and sent it flying. How do you like that! Payback for all those time it crushed or snapped my neck open.

Heh, got quite a dislocated neck there, you little… wait what?

*Snap*

I-It snapped its neck back in place. How in the world? That kind of-

*Dash* *Pierce*

…

“Okay, what sort of hax was that?” I asked with my eyes squinted at her. “How is that fair? Something like that would’ve killed me.”

“That thing is a freak of nature. What could you have expected?” She said, being dismissive of what feels like something I should’ve known already. “Better to wear it down through sheer grit instead of trying to hit it somewhere important. You don’t have the firepower to hit through its head and chest right now.”

“Could’ve used that info earlier…” I said before walking back up to the button.

*Press* *Shine* *Zoom*

> 9 MINUTES Later >

*Stab*

“[Broken Flame]!” I shouted out in pure frustration more than anything else!

*BOOM* *Tumble*

“Agh!” The resulting explosion sent me flying. Did that at least do a bit of damage? I can’t even tell. Anyway, my knife is completely destroyed, guess I need to rely on my legs for this.

*Dash* *Kick*

I somehow managed to kick it away that time and cause it to stagger slightly.

*Bang*

I then shot a fast moving projectile at it to keep up the pressure.

*Kick*

Another kick for good measure.

*Punch*

And a pu-

*Grab* *Twist*

“Ack!” I screamed out as my right arm was twisted and mangled.

*Grab* *Crush*

…

“Your punch is nowhere near as strong as your kick, I’m afraid.” Wiina said.

“Yeah. I get it.” I didn’t realize that was that much of a difference. I guess I don’t really have a weapon in my hand anymore, unlike my feet. “How do you even equip them on me anyway?”

“Just a bit of file editing. It took less than a second.” She casually said. I thought this was supposed to be some sort of weird magic game made of magic? “Don’t give me that look, I’m just trying to explain it in the simplest way. A lot of technology-related jargon works for magic anyway. The two are more similar than you think.”

“Whatever… How close was I last time anyway? I got it on the ropes for a bit.” I had to be close, right? I don’t see any visible damage, but it should be a bit winded at least, right? “Wiina? Why aren’t you saying anything? Stop looking away!”