Thinking about his path proved insanely difficult, it seemed like he hadn't gone anywhere in all this time, his only realizations were that he didn't want to be enslaved and should live his life as he saw fit.
"Do you hear that, Kayden?" To stay conscious, the boy developed the strange habit of talking to himself, it was better to confirm his ideas to himself mainly because he had recently started to hear noises that sounded like voices.
'That's it', Kayden finally gave up, he felt that if he stayed another second inside this illusion he would end up losing his sanity permanently. '17 days', the boy sighed as he woke up facing the stairs again.
Now he understood why this time the test had no time limit, it was simply a matter of mental recovery, he knew he had no chance of challenging the next step like this.
This time he sat down and decided to rest, surprising the boy, an officer dressed in white and red appeared above him offering food and restorative potions.
Talking to the man a little, he discovered that everyone was getting this after spending a certain amount of days on floor 60, as it was one of the most mentally exhausting.
After an hour, Kayden finally stood up, he was ready to move forward, not in peak condition, but prepared enough to be able to think and act correctly.
As soon as he stepped on the next step... nothing happened, the boy even waited a few seconds, but nothing was happening, shrugging his shoulder, Kayden continued to advance, this pattern repeated itself.
He managed to walk 17 steps before being trapped in another illusion. This time it was something more realistic, Kayden found himself on a huge battlefield, and dozens of corpses were being eaten by birds on all sides.
The earth was stained with blood, death was not something abstract, it was practically palpable in the air, and thousands of people were still fighting without using mana, Kayden quickly realized that the fighters' capabilities were not above human limits.
It looked like a war from before the emergence of mana and technology.
SWISH!
A quick blow came down on Kayden, snapping him out of his state of confusion, reacting quickly, he countered the blow with his katana, and his enemy was destabilized by the force of the impact.
Without wasting time, his katana passed like lightning through his opponent's neck, the force was so great that his neck was separated from his skull, for a second, Kayden didn't know what to do, he didn't remember being that strong.
Looking at himself, he saw himself in the body of a Goliath, he was at least 2 meters tall and was completely dressed in iron armor that seemed to not weight his body.
'It makes sense, they wouldn't give a test that only mages could pass', Kayden thought to himself as he defended himself from another attacker, he didn't know what the purpose of this test was, but he decided to take advantage of it.
Fighting against different types of people, the boy began training with the katana, without putting force into his strikes, as he aimed to improve his technique, it also seemed that his body did not get tired, no matter how many blows he exchanged.
Another thing he decided to try to learn was killing intent, in about an hour, he killed more than 40 people and he wasn't even tired and since he was in an illusion, he didn't feel anything.
Close to 100 murders, he finally started to feel something different, his attacks now seemed more violent, but it was a barely visible detail in itself, Kayden only noticed it because it seemed to cause fear in his opponents.
5 hours later, he passed the 400 people killed by his katana, this time, his killing intent was already palpable, his opponents barely dared to go against him and needed to gather in groups to feel confident.
But he realized that it no longer made a difference against strong opponents, since he passed the number 200, the gains were minimal, so now he was just walking around the battlefield looking for the strongest opponents.
Kayden was just afraid he wouldn't pass this test for a very silly reason... he was killing everyone he thought was a good opponent, no matter if they seemed to be on his side.
But still, the boy continued, this was too good an opportunity for him to waste. After a few more hours, he reached an incredible number of 1000 people, the majority of whom were average soldiers.
Few people could exchange more than a few blows with Kayden, but the boy still learned a lot. Those few hours were better than weeks of individual training.
It was like the old saying, life is the best teacher. The experience he gained fighting there was invaluable, it didn't even feel like a test but rather a reward, especially since he didn't get tired.
A day later, the number of people killed by his blade was approaching 5,000. There came a time when even the strongest weren't helping much, so he decided to carry out a genocide and started killing everyone.
Even so, it didn't seem like this war was close to ending. There were still thousands and thousands of people fighting. Kayden also realized that this illusion was much more realistic.
The humans there could speak and think to a certain extent. For example, when Kayden came towards him, they shouted his new nickname, "mister Death", and were also capable of shouting for mercy or help, not that he minded.
Another day passed and Kayden passed 10 thousand deaths. This time, the battle was beginning to change character. What was once a large gathering of shouts of bravery and endless fights was now becoming a more silent and depressive environment.
Only the sound of clashing weapons could be heard. Kayden didn't care and happily continued his massacre. His killing intent had reached the stage of being visible on his weapon.
A small red cloud seemed to cover his blade, it was practically invisible and Kayden was only able to see it when he concentrated very much on his sword, but he couldn't say exactly what it was.
"THOMAS!" A scream resounded throughout the battlefield, causing most of the small battles to be halted. Kayden looked at a tall, fat man carrying a large axe.
He looked like an authentic Viking with golden braided hair and chain mail. All he needed was a wooden mug and he would be identical. The boy also realized that he was coming towards him.
"What are you doing, Thomas!?" His tone was filled with anger. "Why are you killing our allies?" Ah, Kayden was again surprised by the level of realism of this illusion.
The boy didn't even respond as he ran towards the fat man with his katana. The man realized that something was wrong with his friend and also positioned himself to fight him.