Chapter 12: Transcendence

Chapter 12: Transcendence

Neave had initially believed that letting loose and using his life force would make the fifth wave easy. He was sorely wrong. Even with weapons, he still failed to beat the fifth wave initially. The main problem was that these demons had exceptional teamwork. They used the simple strategy of swordsman chasing Neave, shieldsman covering the archer, and the archer pelting Neave with arrows. However, Neave wouldn’t suffer this much if that was all they were doing.

He had attempted several times to skip over the shieldsman and kill the archer first. However, the archer seemed to have a supernatural instinct for what Neave was about to do. Before Neave could even reach the archer, it was already jumping back over the shieldsman. It was quick, too, but it didn’t need to be particularly fast.

It never moved far from the shieldsman, after all. Getting to the other side didn’t take more than a single jump.

Neave gave it several attempts, but he started getting rather frustrated after a while. He had tried movement techniques to get to the archer, spending life force to brute force past the shieldsman. He even tried letting them tire themselves out. It always felt like he was losing on technicalities or stupid mistakes.

He appeared behind the sword demon. The demon wasn’t attacking in that direction, but it just happened to be pulling its sword back into a swing. And Neave moved right into the path of the sword.

Restart.

Neave used a movement technique to dodge the swordsman. And moved into the path of an incoming arrow.

Restart.

Dashed and bumped into the shield demon.

Restart.

Used a movement technique to get into the air, where he effectively became a clay pigeon as the archer nailed him right in the head

Restart.

Failed a movement technique and got impaled.

Restart.

Failed a true strike and suffered a counterattack.

Restart.

Tripped. Somehow miraculously recovered. And then failed to dodge the sword.

Restart.

Again and again, he kept making idiotic mistakes. And he couldn’t comprehend why he kept failing like this.

He found himself in a fight where he attempted to use a movement technique to dodge an attack and put himself in a position to use a true strike. He simply failed to connect the steps.

It was only then that it hit him. He quite literally could have just jumped forward and achieved the same result. It was true that he had the power now. But dear heavens, did he suck at utilizing it. Worse, he kept stubbornly trying to fight by chaining as many complex steps as possible, but this was rarely necessary.

He took a step back. He would develop a proper fighting style without any complex stuff first. Then he would slowly add movement techniques and true strikes to his repertoire.

It was time to go back to the start. Step one. Dodging.

***

Neave fought his way to the fifth wave as efficiently as he could. Simple strikes straight into weak points. And then, when he reached the fifth wave, he dodged.

This time, however, he wasn’t practicing dodging the same way he practiced it with Jillean. Rather than just focusing on not getting hit, Neave was trying to always be in the best position to strike.

He didn’t just dodge the attacks that came flying his way. He also moved to where he believed he would be in the optimal position to strike.

All he was doing was maintaining that position as long as he could.

Neave had done a lot of work to optimize his movement techniques. He’d noticed that only some of the movement techniques, or less than twenty of the ones he had learned, were good. The rest were either too specialized, redundant or just bad.

Some among the specialized ones he believed he could use in certain scenarios, but those made for only a handful of techniques. He’d counted all of the techniques he knew; there were four hundred and seventy-seven. That meant that only less than five percent of the techniques were good. It didn't necessarily feel like a waste since it was too many to even really use effectively.

Demon ten: Exceptionally tiny build, uses twin daggers. Tricky and possesses several attack techniques and a very reliable movement technique.

Demon eleven: Morbidly obese build, has a spiky metal ball tethered to a chain. It barely ever moves from where it appears. All it does is throw the spiky ball and pull it back. The weapon is lethal.

Demon twelve: Inhuman build, walks on all fours, has spikes growing all over its body. It charges at me at full speed and leaps in an attempt to impale me.

Demon thirteen: Above average height, male build, strangely muscular (?), wields a scythe. This demon is relatively harmless. All it does is swing its scythe around slowly. However, it tends to remain where it's pretty difficult to reach. I’m keeping an eye on it.

Demon fourteen: Slightly short, muscular male build, uses a spear. Has a high-speed attack technique with an extensive range. Keeping distance is advisable.

Demon fifteen: Moderately tall, stocky male build, uses a halberd. It doesn’t have powerful techniques, but it wields the halberd with decent skill.

Demon sixteen: Average male build, uses a mace and a shield. Has a potent defensive technique.

Demon seventeen: Tall female build, uses throwing javelins. Its ranged attacks aren’t very precise, but it can dual-wield the javelins with incredible skill.

Demon eighteen: Inhuman build, has no arms, is very tall, bites. Its saliva is exceptionally corrosive and poisonous. Occasionally uses a spit attack.

Demon nineteen: Is shaped vaguely like a strange demon horse. It doesn’t possess any special attacks besides a charge

Demon twenty: Average male build, wears armor and rides on top of demon nineteen, uses an executioner's sword as a weapon.

Neave felt stuck fighting against this ragtag army of demons. The sheer number of different attacks and techniques they could throw at him made it impossible to keep track of everything.

After being put back to the start for what had probably been several hundred times at this point, Neave knew he would have to change his approach to fighting the demons if he wanted to see success. He tried doing the same old ‘dodge until you die from exhaustion’ strategy, but that was a lost cause. The problem was that unless he dealt with some of the demons immediately, the moment they surrounded him, he was utterly screwed.

He could use movement techniques and practice all he wanted, but the sheer density and frequency of different attacks meant that he spent almost all his qi at a rapid pace. So the choice was either ‘get surrounded and crushed by countless attacks’ or ‘perpetually use movement techniques to get some distance but run out of qi.’

Neave had decided that, at least initially, he would focus on optimizing his fighting style against the three demons of wave five. All he had done so far was get relatively decent at dodging. He could delegate the dodging practice to wave six while he moved on to step two with wave five.

After a while of working under this quite intensive training regime, he realized something potentially useful. He didn’t know any attack or defense techniques, but didn’t he have plenty of role models for that?

Neave spent a ton of time observing the swordsman demon of wave five, hoping to figure out his sword technique. That was a completely lost cause.

If it were possible to observe someone wielding a technique and then replicate it, nobody could keep their techniques a secret.

But Neave wasn’t someone who gave up easily. Instead, he took care of the swordsman, grabbed his sword, killed the archer, and left the shieldsman to its devices. He would learn a damn technique himself.

After all, how hard could it possibly be?

...

Impossible.

Neave had already gotten proficient at wielding the demon's sword, which was a sturdy and reliable iron sword. However, after he swung it millions, if not billions of times, he was starting to lose hope it was possible to learn a qi technique.

He knew this was another case of not knowing that he didn’t know something. He could imbue the sword with qi, but this wasn’t a real qi technique. It was wildly inefficient, after all. He was seriously close to giving up, so he decided to take a break and focus on learning to use the sword without any qi techniques. He was doing a simple downward swing and was getting pretty good at it.

Then he lifted the sword, preparing to strike. Then he felt a deep resonance in the blade, whistling as golden runes lit up around him. He swung the blade with incredible force, cutting the air apart and sending a flying strike that left a shallow cut in the soil several meters before him.

...?

It took his brain several seconds to catch up with what had just happened. And Neave grinned. Indeed, he may not be able to learn any qi techniques, but did he need them?

No, he didn’t. If it took him a million years, he vowed that he would transcend beyond the need for petty attack or defense techniques. After all, he might as well save the qi for his movement techniques.

He lifted the sword again to keep practicing. Immediately afterward, he once again heard the same resonant whistle.

Neave laughed and swung the sword down, deepening the cut in the soil.