Too Stubborn to Die Chapter 47

Tutorial days elapsed: 56.25 (225 Days in Trial time)

What a little cheat, Aaron thought as he revived in the hallway. The dirty move only made him that much more determined to see his fist through the face of the backstabber.

Charging straight back into the trial, Aaron used the lessons he had learned to speedrun the first parts of the trial.

He didn’t waste time dueling with the spearmen, quickly landing shots to their weak spots and beating them down as he worked on the ceremony master.

Unfortunately, the damn backstabber kept getting in the way. It seemed all too content letting Aaron beat its ally up, but before he could land a finishing blow, the daggers came.

If he couldn’t see the dagger coming, how could he ever finish this fight?

As with toad, Aaron couldn’t read the threads of fate if the backstabber was invisible, and without them, he had no special means of predicting its attacks.

[ Thick Skinned ] was activated, but there wasn’t much else he could do as he waited for the assassin to attack. Time dilation was too mana costly to maintain the entire time, especially whilst fighting the ceremony master, since he didn’t know when exactly the attack would come. However, he did keep a finger on the trigger.

I can’t just wait for it to attack.

Even if he did find a way to beat it, Aaron knew that his victory would be flawed at best if he allowed the axolotl assassin to pick its moment. No, that was fighting on his enemy’s terms, and he would not allow that.

Assassination was clearly this guy's thing, and if he let the backstabber choose when and how their confrontation would take place, he would be letting his enemy dictate the terms of their battle.

There was [ Oozagh's Breath], though, he reminded himself. He just needed something to ignite his flammable breath. Oh, and he had something for that, too, he remembered.

In his pouch was the pot of flaming breath. It sounded a little redundant, but the pot could create flames, and that was all that mattered.

Bouncing out of range mid-fight against the ceremony master, Aaron proceeded to activate the Skill and blow against the opening of the pot. And it worked like a charm. Flames shot out in all directions, filling the space around him.

I’m like a freaking dragon! Take it, bitches!

The flames weren’t particularly powerful and were essentially just raw fire, not empowered by mana. Compared to real fire magic, they would be very weak. But they did reveal a hidden figure only a few meters away. The flames were cast around an invisible figure that looked to be shielding itself as the fire washed over it. However, the ceremony master was barely fazed by the weak flames.

“Gotcha!”

Aaron didn’t wait, instantly reactivating [ Relentless Scourge ] and [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] as he closed the distance.

There was a problem, though. The backstabber was no caster. This was an Agility and speed-based light combatant, and it moved fast. His little trick with the flames had exposed it, but within less than a second, it had disappeared once more.

The ceremony master was left behind as Aaron took chase, but against the much higher-leveled rogue, he didn’t even get close to catching up.

And only a moment later, it reappeared, but this time behind Aaron and with its poisoned dagger through the back of his neck.

He had actually managed to survive for a moment. He was getting stronger, and boon-providing food had made him hardy. But the backstabber attacked very quickly and was able to stab him several times before he could do anything about it.

Thinking back on the confrontation as he lay on the tiles of the hallway, Aaron remembered how he had seen a faint outline around the axolotl backstabber for a short moment before it disappeared.

There was something to that outline, Aaron knew. He kept that in mind as he re-entered the trial.

The first fights went similarly as before, though he was more attuned to what to expect, and so they were even easier than the first time.

Now, then, he fought the ceremony master; he didn’t even try to kill it. He knew doing so would only force the backstabber to attack sooner, so instead, he crippled it. He landed haymakers to its joints, slowing it so much he could then focus his concentration entirely on the assassin when it made its move.

When facing down the backstabber, he doubled down on focusing his attention on its stealth abilities. Even if he revealed it with his fiery breath, the backstabber had a smoke bomb Skill and reactivated its stealth, making it impossible to follow with his eyes. He could blow flames again, and if he got lucky, he could once more reveal the lizardman rogue. And after several attempts, he saw it. The faint outline of his attacker, and he followed it with his eyes.

Unfortunately, barely a second later, he had lost it again. He attempted to reveal the lizardman again with his fiery breath, but that only worked so many times, and every second he wasted brought him closer to a dagger in his back.

One thought was to practice perfecting his timing so that he could kill the lizard assassin the moment he revealed it with his fiery breath. The problem with that was that he would still be vulnerable to stealth attacks.

This was an opportunity, Aaron realized. If he could figure out how to reliably reveal the assassin, then he could overcome a glaringly obvious weakness in his style.

So, in his usual style, Aaron persisted against the rogue. Charging straight through the trial, death after death, to such an extent that he nearly effortlessly cut down the other lizards as he fought his way back to the assassin.

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He now crippled even the ceremony master with practiced ease. He knew every move the lizardmen would make, and every time they attacked, he countered, landing on a weak spot and breaking them down strike by strike.

And it was all so he could practice following the shadowy backstabber as it turned invisible.

On his twentieth attempt, Aaron realized something that made him feel like punching himself in the face. He could cycle stamina through his eyes like any other part of his body, giving his perception a boost, and allowing him to follow the backstabber into invisibility a little longer.

However, this didn’t solve his problem. It did, however, explain what the issue was. He wasn’t certain of the exact boost to his perception provided by his stamina veins and stamina cycling, but he was fairly certain that high enough perception would reveal the invisible stalker.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a bunch of free points lying around that he could throw into Perception and pass the trial with. However, it was an idea that he banked on for later.

For now, however, he needed an alternative plan.

Aaron thought about how his stamina could be used as energy to push his physical stats further. It was an internal energy and it could be used to help power any part of his body, while the stats themselves were an embodiment of what they could achieve, regardless of whether that was Strength, Agility, or now Perception.

Was the same true for other energies? Mana was different, of course. It was an external energy, something he could push out to create effects beyond his physical form. But could those external effects be linked back to his stats somehow? Could he use his mana in a way to help fuel his Perception?

Aaron tested this theory. Instead of shooting out raw shockwaves of mana, he attempted to form a body of mana and then push it outward. It was no easy task, and the shape of mana he was forming around his body kept collapsing, attempt after attempt.

But finally, after dozens of attempts, he managed to maintain a shape of mana around him. It was far from perfect, and he continued to concentrate and shape this mana until he could form an orb around his body.

Still, in its current state, it was just mana. But as he focused his senses on it, he gradually bound himself to it.

Hours passed as he practiced with this new form of raw mana in the hallway, and finally, he decided it was time to face the backstabber again.

However, the attempt was short-lived. His technique was interesting, but required far too much concentration, and despite feeling a tinge of something, he had nowhere near enough time to react before the dagger stabbed into him.

But death only brought on a grin from ear to ear. He had felt something, and that was all he needed to know that he had a way forward.

Rushing back to the lizardman backstabber, he channeled his Perception and cycled stamina through his eyes as he attempted to connect the senses to the mana forcefield he had created.

Fifteen more deaths followed as he gradually honed the technique. And on the sixteenth attempt since forming his mana forcefield, he felt it. His senses rang with alert as the backstabber stepped into the mana, and he reacted instantly to the intrusion.

[ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] was activated in an instant, slowing his attacker down enough that he could muster a counterattack, and [ Relentless Scourge ] to speed himself up.

With time slowed and his own speed sped up, he watched in slow motion as the assassin raised its dagger to strike. Unlike the other lizardmen, this one was impressively fast, and though it was easy to keep up with mentally, he could tell that the lizard was faster than he was. That wasn’t overly surprising, though, since there was still likely a large Stat gap, although cycling stamina through his body did help to close it a little.

You’re mine now!

In a split second, he forced tremendous amounts of stamina and mana into [ Overclocked Haymaker ]

The slimy assassin wouldn’t escape this attack, a fact it quickly realized. Its moist eyes flickered and widened, and its feathery gills shook with fear.

Unlike the ceremony master, it was immediately clear that the backstabber lacked as high Vitality and Fortitude, and its eye exploded like a confetti-filled balloon as the weight of Aaron’s power blew free from his fist.

But it wasn’t dead. It was squishier than the ceremony master, but it was no caster.

Bleeding out of its eye, the backstabber created distance and reengaged its invisibility with a smoke bomb just as the ceremony master caught up to Aaron.

The engagement was quick and decisive. Aaron landed several crippling strikes and a haymaker to the knees of the ceremony master before escaping.

However, the rogue didn’t attack. It was wounded, and it wouldn’t immediately show itself, Aaron realized.

He immediately used [ Oozagh’s Breath ] again, blowing flames all around, but it was gone. It was smart enough to know what he would do next and had fled.

“I guess you’re mine!” Aaron roared as he engaged the crippled but quickly healing ceremony master.

He had gotten so skilled at taking out the troops that he was still plus-sized, and he thinned himself down as he consumed his energy stores in his adipose tissue.

One-on-one, there was no contest between them. But Aaron was forced to keep his forcefield running, even though it drained his mana. Dropping it would make him a sitting duck for the backstabber.

But thanks to the massive stores of energy in his adipose tissue, Aaron was able to keep blasting off haymakers whenever the opportunity presented itself, all whilst keeping the barrier up.

The ceremony master must have eaten hundreds, maybe thousands of Aaron’s strikes as it fell to its knees, turned into a bloody mess of gore.

But just as he was about to finish the fight once more, he felt the assassin enter his mana barrier. It clearly didn’t want to fight him alone.

Immediately, [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] was activated, and he turned toward his attacker, redirecting the haymaker he had already charged up for the ceremony master.

The backstabber hadn’t managed to fully recover. Its eye was still bloodied shut, and the second haymaker took out the other.

But Aaron didn’t stop there. He had already started charging up a second haymaker with his left, draining the last of his adipose energy and thinning him out to look emaciated with protruding ribs.

The second haymaker slammed into the lizard’s throat, sending it coughing backward with a fountain of blood pouring free, both eyes already shut and mutilated.

The ceremony master could wait, and Aaron shot forward before the backstabber could flee once more, landing an absolutely vicious barrage as he restored just enough mana and stamina to finish it off with another haymaker.

Panting and close to toppling over, he began to stuff his face. To his surprise, the ceremony master was still healing, albeit at a much slower rate. Way too slow to keep up with Aaron’s feeding frenzy, and the amount of mana he recovered from it.

“Sorry mate,” Aaron shrugged, his mouth still filled with food as he flashed over to the ceremony master still on its knees to land another haymaker, and then another, and one last for good measure as the bloodied and bruised body slumped to the ground.

Aaron had to admit he was impressed by the stubborn healing of the lizard, but everything had its limits.

It was kind of amazing, though. It had actually been healing despite all of the damage. He wondered if it would have been able to fully recover had he stopped attacking?

These guys are in the E grade at most, and likely no higher than mid-E grade. If that’s what E-grade Vitality is capable of, I shudder to think of higher grades. However, Aaron couldn’t be sure that there weren’t other factors involved in the lizard’s impressive regen.

Aaron’s mind whirled with the possibility that people and creatures might be able to regrow limbs or more. It was going to make higher-level fights more interesting, at least.