CH796

He forced himself up, his guard unable to be raised any higher than it already was as he took his first real look around, not just for any new attacks but to get a lay of the land, taking in all he saw.

It was an empty, white space, one that looked like it went on forever with the only thing it obviously contained being hundreds of square pillars jutting up into the sky within his immediate line of site, all of them gently gliding and moving about in a way that was constantly obstructing his vision of anything that might come his direction but no more attacks to be seen, at least not yet.

“But then, who says they’ll be coming head-on?” He muttered, looking behind him and finding a long, almost straight wall, with a curve so gentle it would have been easy enough for anyone without the eye for it to miss, telling him that they were at least contained without the risk of someone going backwards, giving no option but to go in.

But while the attack came from in front of me, there’s no reason to assume that they aren’t fired from the wall, nor that I won’t be shot at from behind once I start going in there.

It was the exact sort of scenario where having clairvoyance would have been ideal but even if it wouldn’t be perfect, it wasn’t like he didn’t have options to fall back on himself, with mana to be spent as he materialized a few small mirrors and kept them suspended in the air around him, giving him a constant view of his back as he started to move forward, going to the closest pillar.

Like everything around him, it looked white but on closer examination, that was because the structure itself was translucent, making what shone through the other side of it indistinct and fuzzy.

Another way to obscure attacks then? He thought as he knocked on it with his one good arm. But the pillars… these are definitely mana constructs. If there’s a bunch of magic nullifying attacks flying around then aren’t these going to break pretty fast? Unless they were built to be immune to them? Mmh, not liking this, let’s get going already.

Despite the pain and injury, with the way he was constantly swearing at every god that world held in his thoughts he was getting the full benefits of his ill intent, the skill buffing his attributes significantly and letting him race through that floor of the trial as he started to move, watching the pillars pass in a flash and only stopping when he saw something else zip by him.

It was the only thing that had any colour in that white world, appearing as a bright red and as he examined it while it passed a few feet from his head, the world froze in the face of his thoughts.

The most immediately obvious aspects were that no matter how fast it was moving, it wasn’t more than he could react to and even more importantly, it wasn’t invisible, with those two points combining to a single fact. If it had been within his line of sight before he’d been hit, he should have been able to react to it.

Which means the millisecond I came into this stupid fucking place it had to already have been right at my chest which is why I didn’t see it and how the fuck was I supposed to ever defend against a stupid surprise attack like that you stupid fucking NO GOOD FUCKING ASSHOLE GODDAMN BITCH-

Another mind lost to being angry at the gods while the ones he had left instead continued their examination of the ball that was trapped in his frame of reference.

He’d been correct about the size it seemed, being about as big as a fist and leaving only the question of what he’d be able to do about it from there, with the first option that presented itself feeling the most likely. While it may have been made to nullify magic attacks and despite the empty nature of the floor he found himself on, he could pull off something far more physical and he materialized a metal pellet to test it, shooting it at the red ball and watching as it disappeared under the power of his blow.

…That was easy. That was so fucking easy. OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHY WAS THERE ONE LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME THE SECOND I GOT IN HERE I HATE THS STUPID FUCKING PLANET SO FUCKING-

With a simple solution for dealing with them, getting through the rest was going to be a breeze though, despite the growing cacophony in his head only ever becoming louder as he did his best to control his more vindictive thoughts. While he had his blindspots that were admittedly going to be at a small risk, even with his best efforts, it was all something he could manage and let him continue on through with confidence, moving through the floor until he saw something else to make him pause after only a few minutes more. A pillar missing one of its four sides.

…Okay, I get what’s happening here. The pillars don’t just obstruct us, they also protect us to an extent and when they get hit the protection ends. And given how few shots I’ve seen so far, I have to assume they’ll build up with time which means the longer we’re in here the easier it will be to find the exit but the harder it will be to manage all of the shots around us. Okay, whatever, this is manageable.

A very large part of him continued to grumble that it would have been even more manageable if the trial had played fair but he did his best to ignore that constant nagging thought as he went on, already knowing he could handle what was left.

---

It was after over an hour of running that he judged there were half as many pillars as they started with, or at least that was around what it worked out to with all of the partial ones that remained. He was seeing plenty that were just one or two walls still standing, likely adding some protection but not a significant amount while the amount of attacks only grew, with at least nine of them in his sight at almost all times by that point, all of them being destroyed by the shots he’d fire.

He didn’t know how long they’d go on for but leaving them potentially meant allowing them to continue on and hit one of his friends, making destroying them the easy choice as he continued to go through, not slowing his pace even when he found the door out with Vasta already waiting there.