As the giant gate opened, Kiri's eyes opened wide. The thing that Kiri saw inside was a lush garden with green grass and trees but nothing was there except plants. This was unexpected as he thought that the shadow queen's lair would be more towards the dark side but it turned out otherwise.
The trees were all filled with leaves and the plants were almost all flowering. In the middle was a path which seem to lead towards a small castle. The castle was on the middle of the garden. On top of the castle was a black cloud and was the only place that resembled what Kuri had imagined.
Kiri in awe.
"I never thought the shadow empress would love flowers"
Kuri says briefly after the gate fully opens
"Surprised?"
The shadow empress replies
"And also, stop calling me shadow empress! I have a name you know, it's Kurayami"
Kurayami says in somewhat a childish tone while pouting. (Not going to lie, this should be a cute moment XD)
"I didn't expect to see a garden in here, how does this even exist and how is there sunlight coming here when the weather outside is so stormy?"
Kuri somewhat ignores the pouting Shadow empress
Kiri's inner thoughts were this(If you have not already figured out, Kurayami has the same exact appearance of Kiri's sister)
"Hmmmpphh!! Ignoring my complains, well nevermind since you'll be more than dead after the trials I'll explain"
Kurayami starts to walk inside the fortress and takes the path which leads to her castle. Kiri follows right after.
As they entered Kurayami explains the various machenism of the fortress. The gate closes by it's own after they both entered the fortress, Kiri turns back in surprise but was relieved that there were no ambush and he continues to listen to Kurayami.
"There is a special magic used for the sunlight to reach the fortress's insides. The magic was used by the previous Shadow Empress so I don't know much about that magic also, the plants here are magical and can grow on magic particles in the fortress. Amazing isn't it?"
Kurayami says in a somewhat proud tone with her chest up.
Kurayami has a short stature and also(you guessed it right) flat chest. She has blackish silver hair which was not so short, the length of her hair was down to her shoulders. She wore a somewhat shabby looking kimono type outfit black in color with a red ribbon which had long sleeves but was a perfect fit on her. She wore a hair accessory which was shaped like several snowflakes pasted together.
"It does sound awesome, but aren't you almost clueless about your own fortress?"
Kiri with a sigh
"That's not it! It's just because I inherited this place from my master not a long time ago so I just don't have much information"
Kurayami panics and blurts out some words which she shouldn't have said. She covers her mouth soon after.
"I see so you're a newbie Shadow Empress. So what are the trials you were talking about earlier"
Kuri asks Kurayami. Kuri became a bit comfortable after seeing Kurayami's childish side. It reminded him of his sister and he somewhat felt comfortable around her.
"Oh yea the trials!!"
Kurayami says!
They both reach the door of the castle by that time. It suddenly became dark due to the cloud on top of the castle.
"There are three trials you must complete to finish this quest! but I'll warn you, since I like your personality quite a bit, the trials are quite dangerous. The first trial may not be life-threatening but it will leave some serious injuries if you're not careful and the second trial is the deadliest one, there is high chances of death in the second trial"
Kurayami's expression turns serious as she explains the trial's details to Kiri. Kuri listens carefully trying to grasp even a little loophole to the trials.
As Kurayami explains they enter the castle and they start walking on the hallway.
"Well, I expected the risk, can you tell me the details of the trials?"
Kuri replies with a calm expression
Kurayami thinks
"aheeemm! Okay so I'll tell you about the first trial"
"In the first trial, you'll be faced with invisible slash projectiles. There will be intent there so you can sense it, you have to predict and sense the slashes and dodge them 5000 times inorder to pass the first trial. You won't have access to any of your skills except sensing or prediction skills or passive buffs during this trial."
Kurayami explains in a serious tone as they walk towards a wooden door at the end of the hallway.
"What? 5000!!!??"
Kiri with a surprised face and a somewhat uneasy expression.
"What? You can't even handle that much? After the confident way you were talking earlier."
Kurayami says stopping infront of the wooden door
"It's not that! I just thought it would be like fighting a monster or so. And why won't I be able to use my skills?"
Kiri asks panicked.
"It's not that you won't be able to use your skills, but if you do you fail the trial. You have 3 tries for every trial, once you fail three times then your level will be reset to zero and all your skills will be transfered to me."
Kurayami excitedly tells that to Kiri
"Eh? What the heck?"
Kiri with a cold sweat dripping down.
"Well if you don't have anymore questions then let's start the trials."
Kurayami says as the wooden door opens.
Inside the wooden door was a room the size of an olympic swimming pool but it was dark and Kiri could hardly see anything in the room, it was empty.
Kiri thinks as he enters the room with his fist closed.
Suddenly the door slam shuts on him. Everything became dark and he couldn't see anything. Then suddenly a flash of light started to form infront of him and just after a few seconds the light started coming towards him in the form of a thin line.
Kiri was staring at the light without any movement but when the light seemed to be aimed at him he instinctively dodged the light which came at him at nearly the speed of a bullet shot from a gun.
As Kiri was thinking two more light started shinning, one infront of him and the second behind him.
Kiri this time didn't space out and made sure to calculate the time of the attack.
The lights shot out and Kiri made a back flip to dodge them, the light that hit the ground disappeared with almost no trace.
Four more light sources popped up. This time the left, right, front and back. Kiri uses swift movements to dodge all four of them.
Eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four....
Kiri was dodging them with great difficulty.
Then 2048 lights started shinning the entire room was bright with no room for escape. After the 256 lights, the attacks were not simultaneous but consecutive.
Kiri tried his best to dodge all of them but the consecutive light attacks were too much in number.
< I can't dodge all of them!!>
Kiri gets hit on his right shoulder as he tries to dodge them with his swift movements. He falls to the ground and blood starts dripping from the hit area.
The lights that were left didn't continue the attack, it was almost like a security mechanism made so that the trial goer won't die.
"Aaahhhhh....."
SFX: A falling object
As Kiri fell to the ground a voice started to say
"FIRST ATTEMPT FAILURE!
SECOND ATTEMPT WILL START IN 60 SECONDS!"
"huff huff it seems you're enjoying this huh... just see I WON'T LOSE!!!"
Kiri shouts at the direction where the voice came from.
He grabs a piece of cloth from his inventory and ties it to the wound. He also drinks a potion he got from the achievements just in case.
Kiri thinks as the first light starts to shine infront of him
2,4,8,16,32,...
2048
Kiri swiftly jumps back and forth running around to dodge all the light beams coming towards him consecutively. He had remembered the pattern and dodged all of the beams.
Kiri shouts inside his head with a sense of achievement.
But this time the last of the attacks was to be fired.
There were 2951 lights starting to form consecutively
Kiri's face suddenly turns pale...
"HUFF!! HUFFF! HUFFF! AT LEAST LET ME TAKE A BREAK!!"
Kiri shouts
But no response came and the light beams started to fire at him. Kiri was very tired but he clenched his fists and started to dodge them again.
When he thought he was going to complete it, the last beam hit Kiri on his leg. It was faster then all the other beams.
"Aaahhhhhhhh!!!!"
Kiri falls to the ground again while screeching because of the. extreme pain. He quickly grabs a potion and drinks it.
it was almost the speed of sound, how can I dodge that?> Kiri thinks as the same voice starts to announce again "SECOND ATTEMPT FAIL! THIRD ATTEMPT WILL START IN 60 SECONDS!" Kiri thinks through while talking the potion and covering the would with another bandage. The trial starts again. This time Kiri was thoroughly beat and tired. But he preserved through his willpower. He thought of his sister while doing so and was able to get even a little bit of strength doing that. The rounds which he dodged with ease seemed more difficult to him then before as he was worn out. But he made it to the final barrage of attacks The 2951 light beams. He worked his way throught the 2950 beams that were shooting at him and finally when the last beam showed up, he was lucky to see the source as it was right infront of him. As kiri sees the light source and prepare to dodge it he suddenly felt his body not responding. Kiri had overworked his body and the fatigue was finally starting to kick in. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Kiri shouts at the top of his voice while trying his best to move away from the trajectory of the light beam. And then suddenly when the light beam started to shine brighter, it was ready to launch the beam but then suddenly Kiri saw the light beam forming slowly to shoot out the beam but it was not shooting. He was confused but as he tried to assess the situation he also felt as though his entire body was I. slow motion. He could hardly believe what was happening. #Accelerated thoughts As Kiri desperately thinks of a way to dodge the last attack he acquires a new skill from the system. The skill grants him 100× the thinking speed of a normal person. But he couldn't think of any ways to dodge that attack with the fatigued body of his unless he used shadow steps but that would mean he fails the trial. When Kiri had lost all hopes a voice came to his mind "Onii-chan don't give up!! please!! you have to stay alive!!" Kiri felt a sudden burst of energy and breaks out of his accelerated thoughts and dodged the attack with an unexpectedly high reflex jump towards the right and the beam hits the ground! "FIRST TRIAL CLEARED! SECOND TRIAL WILL START IN 4 HOURS!" The announcement was made and a door appears at the end opposite end of the room. "I DID IT!!!!" Kiri shouts in excitement and also and sense of relieve shot up his mind and as he looked towards the door that had appeared, he suddenly blacked out and fell to the ground with a thump!!