Hell Difficulty Tutorial Chapter 588: Lioren

POV Lioren

I’ll never understand humans. They're strange and tend to be weak, but every now and then, one turns out to be crazy enough to surprise even a demon.

Adrian used to be like that. He had his own rules, rules I could never understand. Following them, he broke through Beyond floors at a speed that left even the handlers speechless. Nathaniel is similar. He also has that spark that makes want to destroy him, but even more so, I want to fan it further just to see how brightly it will burn before dying out.

Sotis, I saw his disciple telling him sothing, but Nathaniel didn’t seem to understand. Especially when that little girl acted more like a demon than many full demons I once knew, and every ti it happened, he just seed confused.

Perhaps he just thought of it as a funny quirk, a simple eccentricity on the part of his disciple, but just as I do not fully understand him, he does not fully understand us demons. But out of all the humans whose minds I could’ve ended up trapped in, this petty little shit was not that bad.

There’s one thing I’ll never tell him or let him see in my mories, but sotis I think he could be more terrifying than any demon I’ve ever known. And yet, there are monts when he’s so soft it makes want to punch him.

But isn’t that why little Vega and I didn’t mind becoming his friends? What drew us to the light he keeps hidden inside?

Demons like us aren’t used to that. We hate those kinds of feelings. But like everything else among us, strength decides everything. And if he’s going to be the strongest, then no demon would ever speak against his rules or behavior, no matter how soft they might seem.

Because the strongest have that right.

Funnily enough, I am currently much stronger than Nathaniel. I have access to more kinetic energy than I’ve ever held. That disgusting amount of mana is transford into it imdiately, to the point that I have trouble using it all and feel a constant desire to use it wastefully.

My body is healthy and moves the way I want without requiring constant infusions of kinetic energy. And I don’t have to worry about my heart breaking apart every ti I channel a bit more kinetic energy.

His physical stats are not as high as mine used to be. His strength, dexterity, and constitution are pathetically low, and I have to rely on kinetic energy to enhance them. Even a single hit could be dangerous to if I were to let it pass. If it were anyone else in this situation, they'd be in trouble.

But not .

I’m soone who beca a Champion candidate barely a few months into the tutorial, even with my fucked-up body. I’m soone multiple Champions said could have beco an Absolute candidate, were it not for my broken body.

Using kinetic energy is sothing I can do very well. And his body helps too; it almost instinctively channels these huge amounts of kinetic energy without breaking. Every ti I reach for more, I do it with hesitation in the back of my mind. I expect sothing to break or tear. But it does not happen.

I ask for more kinetic energy, I channel it, and I get it. My skill, along with the instinct of this body developed over two years of stopping his insane level of mana from breaking it apart, makes that possible.

He always says there are geniuses he could’ve never matched without discipline and effort, and he genuinely believes that. But he also believes that if he puts in the work, he can achieve whatever he sets his mind to.

Until now, I’ve been fighting that mute, nimble girl using only what I’d be capable of even without Nathaniel. But the longer we clash, the more I watch her move, the faster my heart beats. She pushes her speed until I can no longer track her with my eyes, yet another monster from this tutorial.

So I stop relying on sight. I don’t even try to follow her movents. I focus on the space around , on the vibrations and their absence in the areas she passes through with her field.

I move to the side, I dance around her blade, I slow her movent with a spike of restrictive force, and attack in turn.

She ducks, she jumps, she spins. Her perception turns out to be exactly what you’d expect from soone so new to the system. It’s still lacking, and she barely manages to predict my attacks. But she has sothing else. Instinct. A kind of pulse that tells her to move before her mind can catch up. It’s hard to pull off, but she’s one of the rare people who can.

I trail her movent and follow behind her, weaving paths between the gathered attendees. Waves of kinetic energy explode out from , detonating the droplets in her path to direct her movents, and I use even more of that imnse kinetic energy currently being channeled through my body.

And that body handles it.

So I use more. And more.

I catch up to her. I dodge under her attacks. My needlepoint pierces where her head was re monts ago.

More.

I appear in front of her. She seems so slow that, for the first ti in my life, my body and my kinetic energy move quickly enough to match my senses, one of my best qualities.

I grab her left arm and tear it off. Sothing to amuse that guy, I’m sure, is watching.

Her avatar swings at the sa ti I do. I catch her hand before my other one strikes, punching a hole through where her heart should be. Even then, she rips herself away, leaving her right arm behind in my grasp. Armless, she drops low and charges with incredible speed, nearly headbutting before I switch to Breaker Style and completely destroy her avatar’s body.

I expand my senses and move again. My body pushes forward, craving more of this feeling.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Rooms flash in front of my eyes as I pass by them. I ignore the attendees, destroy avatars, and make my way deeper into the labyrinth. Each room is different, so are bigger, others are smaller, and each has its own traps. The rooms are indestructible, even to soone of Champion rank. The Labyrinth of Xyphos is a real place that exists outside of the tutorial, sothing I heard about in Beyond.

Then I reach a simple room. No traps, no avatars, just a hundred attendees trapped inside by a barrier that allows entry but not exit. The temperature in the room keeps increasing while they do everything they can to destroy the door that is slightly different from the previous ones. The "test" here is to destroy the door.

Landing nearby, I slow to a walk. As if knowing my intentions, the heart beating inside this body increases its output. Each heartbeat sends a huge surge of kinetic energy through and shakes the air. It’s audible. It is raw and makes the tips of my fingers tingle.

I wait.

More and more energy courses through , an amount I have never held in my life, an amount he handles so casually and wastefully at all tis.

Then more of it. I grab it, I move it, I feel it.

It’s sothing I feel an urge to do slowly, making sure the guy whose body I currently possess can feel every part of it. So that with his own body, he can rember the proper way to move kinetic energy.

Then I release it toward the door.

There’s no shockwave. No side effects to hurt the others in the room. All of it is perfectly directed ahead, not a speck wasted. The wooden door explodes outward, turning into a shower of huge shards, spraying into the room beyond.

I move in, eager as I sense another presence, but then I halt my movent.

A silver-haired woman stands there; the wooden shrapnel from the door is deflected by a short burst of mana. And for the first ti, I am thankful it’s not an avatar.

She looks at with that typical expression, but she does not say anything until I reach the door in front of her.

Only then she calls, "I wouldn't open that. My avatar is in there."

I stop moving, and when I turn back to her, she’s smiling. "Run, little demon. You unfortunate Absolute Candidate, born only to never reach the true height of your potential. You have three seconds."

The mont the words leave her mouth, everything shifts. My body reacts before I can think. I turn and explode forward. Air tears around . Rooms whip past in a blur. Walls stretch and sar like streaks of paint. My feet hit the ground faster than my eyes can process. I feel the pressure building in my limbs, the force of my speed pushing against my bones. My senses struggle to keep up, and I move on pure instinct, catching only fragnts of the things around .

In the first second, I pass by four rooms.

In the next second, I pass by seven more rooms.

In the final second, I pass by twelve more rooms.

And even there, the mana radiation still reaches . The labyrinth, impossible to be damaged by any Champion, shakes and cracks. A thousand avatars and attendees are wiped out in a split second as the two monsters begin their fight. The sheer pressure blows dozens of doors open. The otherwise impenetrable barriers vanish, and the rooms themselves break.

I move away from that place for the next few hours, never stopping for too long, and collecting as many points as possible.

I find a low arcane greatsword that I use for a while before throwing it away. I test the avatars of the other Beyonders. And I move my body and use kinetic energy as much as possible. I revel in that feeling, and I teach the owner of this body by letting him experience it all.

Then, finally, I find him, an avatar with gray and brown eyes and a crown floating above his head, guarding the labyrinth’s exit.

So we fight.

During that fight, I show him every weakness I have noticed he possesses, as well as those mirrored by his avatar. So are caused by a lack of experience, and so are due to the bad habits he’s built over ti and will need to change.

His avatar is the toughest fight yet, even more difficult than that girl. He can fly, he’s difficult to catch, does not seem to tire, and only grows stronger the longer the fight lasts. His eyes and mind analyze the opponent, creating counterasures using the multitude of specializations at his disposal to face .

But at the sa ti, it’s just so easy. So fucking easy.

I unleash the full output of this body and channel it with every trick I know. The mana around freezes as I bring it to a stop. It doesn’t matter how much the avatar releases, I shut it all down.

His crown turns black, but even that is useless against , because I do not rely on mana. His speed increases, his reactions increase, and his damage increases. And I go all out; I match his output, and even here I show Nathaniel what it feels like to fight against him. He is, at tis, a smart human; he will notice even things I might have missed.

In a final spiteful, petty move, the avatar does sothing Nathaniel had not done until now and fully lifts one of the seals on its Ignition Heart, and the amount of thermal energy he releases matches the amount of mana he currently possesses.

The heat fills the room; the air dries up and cracks as if it were about to shatter. The avatar moves that heat and these golden flas around, manipulating them as if they were water. They are reminiscent of waves, seeping out, crashing, devouring everything in their path, including his body.

I'm sure that if it were not an avatar but Nathaniel, he would be smiling. I can feel the sa smile on my face.

I phase through the flas; I even halt their movent for a brief mont, sothing I did not even think I would be capable of.

Then I defeat him completely, leaving no doubt about who is stronger.

When I stand there, breathing heavily, I unleash that heart once more. Each heartbeat fills with more and more kinetic energy. It builds up to the point that even this ridiculous body fails to channel it all, but I am cruel, so I push further.

The body finally starts breaking; tears appear on the heart, and the construct etched into it begins evaporating.

And all of that kinetic energy moves around in a way I have been in love with ever since I was a child. It’s this energy that saved my life, that allowed to live normally even with all the disabilities I was born with, and I have never once stopped being thankful for it.

"Beautiful," I whisper as I observe that ever so chaotic movent one last ti.

And in that mont, understanding cos, clearer than ever. With newfound confidence, I reach for it, and as naturally as breathing, I grasp all that kinetic energy like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Then it all unravels. That vast power collapses in on itself, vanishing in a cascading chain of motion, like a castle of sand washed away by the sea.

I think of one last thing I could say to that guy, but only cheap words co to mind, nothing satisfactory. So I just stay quiet and leave behind the mory of a feeling.

My mories and my being start to dissipate as I let go, but I don't hesitate. Without fear, I step toward the door and exit the labyrinth.

This past year... was fun.