Chapter 121: The Limit of Intermediate
Chapter 121: The Limit of Intermediate
Raven’s eyes opened to the same dim ceiling.
The chair creaked softly beneath him as he rose. No rush. No wasted motion. He crossed the room, summoned the Frozen Ender into his hand, and only then allowed himself a slow breath.
Zera’s voice echoed in his mind, sharp with confusion.
[What happened?]
She had never experienced the loop. For her, nothing had reset. For him, this was another death added to the tally.
“There’s no time,” Raven replied flatly.
He lay down on the bed, spear resting across his chest, and closed his eyes.
The illusionary realm swallowed him whole.
…
The blue-skinned knight stood before him once more, spear angled low, golden aura coiling faintly around the blade.
This time—
The pressure was lighter.
Not weaker.
Familiar.
The knight’s footwork no longer blurred into incomprehensible arcs. The feints, the half-steps, the deceptive shifts of weight—Raven could see the rhythm beneath them now. He still wasn’t equal, but the gap had narrowed from a chasm to a steep slope.
Steel clashed.
The first exchange tore skin from his shoulder.
The second forced him back three paces.
By the thirtieth move, Raven’s breathing had already grown rough. By the fiftieth, blood dripped steadily from a gash along his ribs. Even so, his eyes remained steady, tracking every micro-adjustment in the knight’s grip.
Seventieth move.
Eighty.
Ninety.
The knight pivoted, spear thrusting in a vicious spiral meant to collapse Raven’s guard entirely. Raven barely twisted aside, the blade grazing his side. Pain flared—but he did not retreat.
Ninety-seventh move.
The knight overcommitted.
Only slightly.
A fraction of imbalance. A brief misalignment between the hip and the shoulder.
To anyone else, it would have been invisible.
To Raven, it was a door left ajar.
He stepped inside the knight’s range instead of backing away.
The Frozen Ender drove forward.
The spear pierced through the alien’s armor and into his chest. Aura erupted outward in jagged veins as the blade punched through his back.
The knight froze mid-motion before falling on his knees.
Raven didn’t pause to savor it.
“Rapid Regeneration.”
Green vitality surged through his body, knitting torn muscle, sealing ruptured veins, and forcing warmth back into his limbs. The wounds that had crippled him moments earlier closed under the spell’s effect.
He hadn’t used it before.
He had saved it.
Now, he needed to move.
…
The dirt path stretched ahead, silent beneath a gray sky.
Then—
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
A rhythmic tremor rolled across the ground.
Raven’s gaze lifted.
Golden lights appeared over the distant ridge. Within seconds, more than twenty horses surged into view, hooves pounding like war drums. Upon them rode the same blue-skinned warriors clad in heavy armor.
Among them—
The leader.
Older now, sterner, but unmistakable.
The same man Raven had once watched practicing spearmanship in the first illusion world.
Several carried bows. The rest bore spears and swords.
Every weapon was wrapped in a yellowish aura.
The leader’s aura burned darker—deep yellow edged with faint red.
He was one step away from Advanced Spearman.
Raven’s fingers tightened around his spear.
No fear surfaced.
Only calculation.
He exhaled once.
Then dashed forward.
The cavalry responded instantly, kicking their mounts into a full charge. The ground trembled as the distance between them collapsed with terrifying speed.
He couldn’t defeat even one of them easily.
Against twenty—
There was no victory.
But that did not mean surrender.
Five meters.
Four.
Raven opened his mouth.
“Ice Breath.”
A torrent of dense, freezing elemental energy exploded outward. Frost swallowed the path in an instant. The earth crystallized into jagged ice. Nearby walls turned white. Horses and riders alike were engulfed in a thick layer of frost.
The charge faltered.
Hooves slipped.
Mounts screamed as they lost footing, crashing into one another. Riders collided, their formation collapsing into chaos.
Cracks splintered through the ice as aura flared.
The blue-skinned warriors shattered the frost encasing them. Even as their horses bucked wildly, none showed panic. In perfect coordination, they leaped from their mounts, landing upon the frozen ground.
Ice fractured beneath their boots.
The moment Raven shifted his weight forward, the formation reacted.
Four archers released their arrows in the same breath, bowstrings snapping in perfect unison. At the same time, a spearman in the second row stepped into a wide stance and hurled his weapon with brutal precision, the shaft cutting through the air like a drawn line aimed straight at Raven’s skull.
There was no hesitation. No wasted movement.
Every attack targeted a vital point.
Raven’s senses sharpened. He saw the arrows not as projectiles, but as lines—converging paths meant to cage him. His spear flashed twice, knocking two shafts aside with tight, economical motions. He twisted his torso to evade another, but steel still kissed flesh. One arrow tore a deep groove along his neck; another grazed his shoulder.
Pain flared, but he ignored it.
The thrown spear was already upon him.
Raven pivoted and raised his weapon, catching the incoming spearhead at the last instant. The impact traveled down his arms like a hammer blow, forcing him half a step back. Even as he deflected it, he saw two more figures break from the formation—a swordsman and another spearman—closing the distance with terrifying speed.
Behind them, three more arrows were already in flight.
There was no room left to maneuver.
He tried anyway.
He shifted his footing, dragged his spear across a descending blade, and leaned just enough to avoid being skewered outright—but it wasn’t enough. One arrow drove cleanly through his heart. Another punched into his forehead. The third lodged deep in his chest.
The world dimmed.
It had been decided the moment they moved.
Raven did not curse. He did not rage.
Instead, he laughed.
A low, breathless sound escaped him as he collapsed onto the frozen ground. The cavalry advanced without expression as his vision fractured into shards of light.
The Illusionary World shattered.
…
He woke again.
And entered again.
He killed the lone knight more cleanly this time. No wasted regeneration. No reckless trades. The duel felt almost methodical now, as if he were repeating a familiar drill.
Then came the cavalry.
The first exchange lasted longer.
He deflected more arrows. Slipped past a thrown spear. Even managed to wound one of the advancing spearmen before a swordsman split his guard and cut him down.
Reset.
Again.
And again.
The pattern etched itself into his mind. Arrows from the flanks. Spear from mid-line. Two melee attackers were exploiting the forced block. The leader holding the position, observing.
With each loop, he survived a second longer.
Another half-step cleaner and another angle sharper.
His body died. His mind endured.
Fatigue began to creep in—not of flesh, but of thought. His consciousness felt scraped raw from repetition. The moment of impact. The sting of steel. The sensation of bone breaking. The abrupt collapse into darkness.
Over and over.
The pain dulled with time. Not because it lessened—but because he stopped reacting to it.
What drove him forward was not madness.
It was progress.
Every death carried information.
Every failure revealed a sliver of structure.
Another reset.
Another clash.
Another improvement too small for anyone else to notice.
During the fortieth loop, Raven was almost broken inside due to the endless pain and despair of repetition. He even acted out of anger and madness, causing him to stumble pathetically before getting killed.
‘I’m losing my mind…’ Raven’s eyes swelled without him even knowing as he woke up from the loop.
His legs trembled as he smashed the table in anger.
[What happened, kid? Your tone feels angry and tired.]
Silence answered.
Raven couldn’t control his emotions and finally talked to her about all the loops he faced until now.
He didn’t care about defeating Jace or other assassins. He wanted to wake up from this damned loop!
[I understand your situation very well, kid. If someone else were in your situation, they would’ve already gone mad. I’m surprised that you are talking to me without losing yourself.] Zera said in an understanding tone and then added.
[But isn’t this also the opportunity you need? Though your talent in spearmanship is pathetic, you are improving slowly. Also, you only spent around 100 hours on this whole loop. But due to endless deaths and near-death experiences, your spearmanship has already surpassed many intermediate knights and is nearing peak rank. That itself is the greatest achievement. By normal means, how many years do you need to improve your spearmanship to this level?] Her question startled him.
Raven thought deeply for a moment and soon spoke.
‘A decade or two.’
[Yes. But when you are constantly battling and reaching near-death experiences, your senses reach an abnormal level, resulting in this rapid improvement. Do not despair, lad. Every death you experience gives you an improvement in spearmanship.]Zera’s words made him realize even dangers could be turned into opportunities.
‘But at this rate, I might lose myself and become a madman, though.’
Shaking his head, Raven rose from the chair and went to face Jace.
Obviously, he died without giving him any fatal wound, and felt anger.
‘No. I can’t lose myself here.’ His sister’s face and his aunt’s face flashed before his eyes.
If he ended up dead, their future would become miserable.
‘I must overcome this trial.’ He steeled his resolve and continued.
Alas, what awaited him was nothing more than death and despair.
Until, somewhere around the fiftieth loop, something shifted.
The duel with the first blue-skinned knight no longer felt like a battle.
It felt like execution.
Raven stepped inside the opening before it fully formed, redirected the spear with a slight turn of his wrist, and drove the Frozen Ender through the gap beneath the armor in fewer than ten exchanges. The knight fell without ever regaining tempo.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
Raven stood over the body, breathing steadily.
The cavalry thundered in the distance once more.
When he turned to face them, his eyes were calm.
This time, the clash with the cavalry was fiercer.
The moment the arrows flew, Raven’s spear moved with crisp precision. He knocked one aside with the shaft, angled another off-course with the butt end, and shifted just enough to let a third scrape past his ribs. When the thrown spear came tearing toward him, he met it cleanly, guiding the shaft away instead of absorbing the force head-on.
The swordsman and spearman reached him an instant later.
Their coordination had sharpened.
Every slash and thrust overlapped. Every retreat masked a setup. Twice Raven glimpsed an opening in the spearman’s guard—an exposed flank, a momentary imbalance—but instinct held him back. He had seen this pattern before. The instant he committed to that gap, an arrow would materialize from the side and bury itself in his throat.
The flaws were deliberate.
Bait.
He adjusted.
Rather than lunging, he began shaving space. He deflected instead of countering, redirected instead of pressing. Steel rang out as he held the two at bay for nearly a minute, his spear weaving tight arcs that nearly opened fatal lines across their chests more than once.
But the formation adapted.
Two more spearmen leapt forward, their boots crushing ice beneath them as they entered the fray. The pressure doubled instantly. Raven was forced onto the defensive, his movements tightening as four weapons pressed from intersecting angles.
The rhythm became suffocating.
Thirty seconds.
That was all he managed under that weight.
A single misalignment in his footwork, half a breath too slow—
A spear pierced through his heart.
As darkness closed in, Raven did not curse.
Instead, clarity flooded him.
He had understood something.
He woke in reality with a quiet exhale.
“I’ve reached the peak of Intermediate Spearmanship,” he murmured.
But even at its peak, it would not be enough for Jace.
So he returned.
…
Death lost its edge.
Loop after loop, Raven advanced through steel and arrows, through crushing coordination and merciless execution. Each time he died, he carried something back—an angle refined, a misstep erased, a rhythm internalized.
By the eightieth loop, he stood at the center of nineteen converging attackers and did not panic.
Arrows cut through the air from three directions. Spears thrust from the flanks. A sword descended from above. Yet his body moved as though guided by an unseen thread. He slipped between trajectories, his spear carving tight, economical paths that dissolved incoming attacks before they could fully form.
His perception sharpened beyond ordinary focus.
He did not simply see movements—he anticipated intention. The tightening of a grip. The subtle shift of weight before a leap. The slight expansion of a chest before release.
Pathfinder illuminated faint golden routes beneath his feet, guiding him away from traps and into narrow corridors of survival. Combined with his sharpened observation, the battlefield no longer felt chaotic.
It felt structured and controlled.
His eyes grew deeper, steady as still water. His spear no longer felt like a weapon in his hand—it felt like an extension of thought itself. Every rotation flowed into the next. Every redirection blended seamlessly with the following thrust.
For a fleeting instant, something aligned.
His mind was completely attuned to the spear.
At the same time, a strange, invisible string that bound him from moving started to loosen.
It was as if his body loosened the string.
When he moved, a faint reddish aura traced along the edges of the Frozen Ender, subtle but unmistakable. It shimmered with restrained intensity, as though acknowledging his comprehension.
He had touched something beyond mere technique.
But enlightenment is fragile.
The familiar blue-skinned knight vanished without warning, his figure dissolving into motion before reappearing behind Raven like a stalking shadow. Raven pivoted to counter, but the other knights recovered their spacing in perfect synchronization, weapons surging inward from every side.
For the first time in dozens of loops, they were not reacting.
They were sealing.
In that fraction of distraction, the cavalry leader stepped forward.
His spear struck cleanly.
The tip plunged into the back of Raven’s neck.
Darkness consumed him once more.
…