Chapter 136 Willpower
Nial had 10 days left before he had to leave the darkness portal.
However, he wanted to finish the torture of completing the primary Trial as quickly as possible.
It might be an advantage that he had more time inside the darkness portal than outside, but that was not especially helpful if Nial was not allowed to have a longer break.
A long break would allow him to digest all the pieces of information he had received throughout the last 20 days, and make use of it to help him have a much higher combat prowess.
Unfortunately, Nial understood that he should be patient and that a break was something he could receive once he was done with the primary Trial.
Patience was something he had gained by enduring every single death, without trying to rush completing the Trial before he understood the crux behind the Darkness Doppelganger's abilities.
The Darkness Doppelganger was an exact replica of Nial's traits, with the sole difference being their experiences and comprehension.
Due to this glaring difference in their strengths, Nial had lots of things to learn, and understand while fighting the Darkness Doppelganger.
Because Nial's mind had been rattling wildly for the last 20 days, it was possible for him to get to know lots of things and to fight for more than five minutes within the darkness portal without succumbing to death.
The Darkness Doppelganger was a fierce opponent, which was why Nial was quite satisfied with himself for lasting in the fight for five minutes.
This was the longest he had been able to fight and stay up on his feet. At the same time, it was the time when he had been overwhelmed the most.
It was a humiliating feeling to be easily defeated, and killed by someone, who was a copy of oneself.
As such, Nial's determination to defeat the Darkness Doppelganger had increased manifold.
He not only wanted to become stronger than the Darkness Doppelganger overall but defeat it just once.
Defeating it once was certainly possible, but Nial presumed that the Darkness Doppelganger was already an existence that had been enhanced to the limits of the given characteristics.
That would be great because it indicated that his own strength had yet to reach its limits!
With various thoughts running through his mind, Nial stood in front of his opponent, calmly breathing as he wielded the Viper spear around his entire body.
This seemed to help him be calm and focussed, which Nial made use of as he shot ahead all of a sudden.
The Viper spear halted in his right hand in an instant, before he pierced it out with a rapid pace.
Releasing both black miasma and dark energy currents, Nial was trying various techniques which he had seen the Darkness Doppelganger make use of.
Unfortunately, it was not easy to copy them, which was why he was unable to jump through the dark energy currents as easily as the Darkness Doppelganger.
But that was not even necessary because his black miasma and dark energy were able to intertwine with one another.
They turned into a lethal force that decayed Nial's opponent, while rapidly deteriorating its strength
It even looked like he could restrict his opponent's movements, which was quite advantageous.
The Darkness Doppelganger was able to do the very same, and even more.
That made it quite difficult for Nial to gain the momentum to initiate a lethal blow.
In fact, Nial was quite sure that he had yet to land a single serious blow on the Darkness Doppelganger.
Having been defeated countless times without being able to even seriously injure his opponent made him try harder yet again.
He wasn't blinded by rage owing to the repeated failures and understood that he had to improve much more.
When he blasted the intertwined dark energy and black miasma out, the resulting dark miasma shrouded the Darkness Doppelganger at once.
A moment later, Nial diverted his first attack.
He turned the thrust in a slash which allowed him to move rapidly to the side before he appeared beside the Doppelganger and attacked once again.
Restricting the Doppelganger's ability to jump through the darkness with the use of the dark miasma gave Nial a tremendous advantage.
Issuing one attack after another, he felt that his movements finally gained speed.
Nial was slowly getting more comfortable with using the dark energy. Its former tremendous influence on his body and mind had disappeared because he had already overwhelmed it.
His mind had grown much stronger and so had his willpower in the last 20 days.
Each death would make him think hard if his resolve was strong enough, and if dying was truly worth everything.
And each time, the answers he gave himself were overflowing with his intention to reunite with his family and protect them.
This was the only goal that kept him going, forcing him to get up every single time after dying and try again. He could not even imagine their death.
Nial would rather die protecting them than helplessly watch them die right in front of his eyes.
Thus, he kept pushing himself and didn't even realize that his entire body had released the dark miasma, that the mana within him was churning, and that his movement speed approached the same speed as the Darkness Doppelganger possessed.
His only goal was to exceed his own limits, break through all of them, and gain full control over the dark miasma.
Individually, both were quite powerful means to attack and defend himself.
However once merged, Nial felt as if the dark miasma was a ferocious and uncontrollable beast.
He had to tame it, and take it under his control.
But for that, he first had to witness the potency and lethality of the dark miasma.
This was exactly what Nial was doing right now, issuing one thrust after another, while the Darkness Doppelganger tried to block them using both his spear and the very same dark miasma.
Yet, the moment Nial used his own dark miasma to fight against that of the Darkness Doppelganger, it looked like they tried to devour one another.
Both miasma were trying to dominate the other while desiring to devour one another and to grow stronger.
Wanting to do the same to his opponent, Nial's movement accelerated once again.
All of a sudden, the side blade on the Viper spear was released before he slashed out with all his might.
The Viper spear had turned into the glaive form, which gave Nial the opportunity he required to initiate a blow with all of his might.
Both the Darkness Doppelganger and Nial had the very same strength.
However, what Nial had noticed not too long ago was the fact that the Darkness Doppelganger's weapon was not the Viper spear's replica, but simply a spear made of darkness!
Turning this to his advantage, Nial slashed the Viper glaive at the Darkness Doppelganger.
At the same time, he pushed ahead, using his weight to increase the force he was able to slash with.
Upon colliding with the shaft of the darkness spear, the Viper glaive was forcefully put to a halt.
But Nial noticed something interesting, which led him to smile brightly as he concentrated the released dark miasma around the Viper spear's glaive.
The blades were instantaneously shrouded in dark miasma, enhancing their sharpness, and endurance, while providing them with additional destructive and corrosive characteristics.
Using his own weight to leverage the force, Nial could clearly perceive a crack in the darkness spear's shaft.
Especially because the darkness spear was not a proper solid object it was quite easy to destroy it making use of all his might.
Forcing his way through everything and everyone, the darkness spear broke.
Its one and only means of defense had been broken, and the Viper spear in the glaive form continued to cut through the remaining space, reaching the Darkness Doppelganger.
It took merely a moment but Nial finally managed to cut through the Darkness Doppelganger.
However, something was weird…
'Why did it feel as if I just cut through the air?!'
Nial was aware that the Darkness Doppelganger was fond of playing tricks.
To gain the highest possible combat prowess at a specific rank, tricks were just one more means to defeat stronger opponents, to outwit them and to gain an advantage over them.
But even then, Nial didn't expect to encounter what was about to happen.
He had been too sure of his victory.
All of a sudden, the Darkness Doppelganger turned into millions of strands of darkness, just to manifest behind Nial.
The unscathed darkness spear manifested in the Darkness Doppelganger's right hand before he thrust it forward, aiming for Nial's heart.
Owing to his high mana perception, Nial was able to sense the change in the Darkness Doppelganger's position.
As such, he was able to twist his body at once, and evade the spear thrust.
It had been a close call and left Nial with a minor scratch as the tip of the spear grazed his skin.
Ignoring it, Nial was able to counterattack using the momentum he had gained while twisting his body.
Piercing out with the Viper spear that had regained its original appearance after retracting the side blade, Nial also released his dark miasma.
But contrary to his previous tactic, Nial didn't concentrate the dark miasma around the blade of his spear.
Instead, he shackled the Darkness Doppelganger, preventing it from jumping through the darkness, or dispersing into countless strands of darkness as it did before to trick him.
Using all of his might and the vast majority of his mana to accelerate the speed and strength of his attack, Nial lashed out again, knowing that he would lose if this attack didn't work.
Yet, even though his attack worked as it pierced into the Darkness Doppelganger's half-solid body, there was one thing Nial noticed.
'It's unaffected!!'
The Darkness Doppelganger had twisted its body to prevent Nial from piercing into his flesh and around the area of its heart.
This made Nial realize that it was protecting its heart because it was not immortal!
It was great to finally figure out one weakness of his opponent as it helped him to continue fighting.
But even then Nial had hoped for a slight restriction in the Darkness Doppelganger's movement or combat prowess.
After all, it had been pierced by a razor-sharp blade that was stuck in its chest.
Nial knew that the blade would severely restrict his opponent from fighting freely.
As such, he simply endured the pain while trying his best to defeat the Darkness Doppelganger.
Because of that, he released the side blade of the Viper spear once again.
Through the sudden release of the blade, the 'injury' of the Darkness Doppelganger deepened further.
A moment later, he used all his might as he tried to push the spear deeper and tear open its entire body in order to reach the Darkness Doppelganger's heart!!
**
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