[Defeat your future self from fifty years later. Time remaining: 9 years 359 days.]

Less than ten years remained, and in fact, today marked my first day in this trial’s last decade.

Despite what I considered to be a noteworthy date, nothing miraculous occurred. The dramatic scene of defeating another version of myself didn’t occur. I had certainly prepared extensively, but preparation alone couldn't bridge the fundamental disparity between us. Besides, my preparations hadn’t aimed for overpowering him in the first place.

My foremost goal was survival.

Our last confrontation had shifted entirely into close-quarters combat, a development that carried its own significance. The longer a battle like that stretched on, the more I could observe and dissect his techniques.

I will inevitably come to learn more.

Therefore, I had launched attacks only sparingly, mainly striking to maintain rhythm rather than to inflict damage. Every engagement had revolved around defense, and nothing more. Since Thunderbird enhanced my cognition to an even greater extent than Flash Strike, I had analyzed his movements closely, even down to the individual twitches of his muscles.

Then, just before Thunderbird dissipated, I had shifted to an all-out offensive, hurling myself at him like a violent storm. Most of my strikes had been feints and lacked real intent, but some had landed, inflicting wounds, however minor. Of course, that had prompted him to activate Thunderbird as well.

Even that wasn’t enough to overwhelm me in an instant, however. I managed to withstand two more exchanges. During that brief window, a faint impression of something came to me, much like a thread leading to an impending realization.

Unfortunately, it left me with a new problem.

I still haven’t fully understood what it is.

Even after reflecting on it for a while post-battle, I still couldn’t define what had brushed against my mind. Something had drawn close, but never quite reached me. If I were to guess, it was a revelation several steps ahead of my current state. If the journey of mastery were a staircase, then this sensation lay approximately four steps higher than my current level.

I considered the matter a little longer before releasing it.

Regret arrives far too late.

The insight was far too advanced for where I stood, and since it had slipped through my grasp, it wasn’t something that would return simply because I lingered on it.

I withdrew from my inner world and opened my eyes. Some time had passed due to the failure, but the loss was negligible, almost insignificant in the grand scheme of my training.

Roughly ten years still remained.

I can do this.

Even though I had fought defensively, it was the first time I had sustained a prolonged exchange with him. I recalled everything I had absorbed from the recent fight, which was an almost excessive amount compared to previous attempts. Countless insights awaited dissection and absorption. My next confrontation with him would likely be far down the line.

***

[Defeat your future self from fifty years later. Time remaining: 7 years 81 days.]

The gap was narrowing.

I was finally certain of that fact. After the battle that marked a decade remaining, I had spent nearly three additional years immersed exclusively in cultivation. During that time, I hadn’t engaged in a single fight. Nearly all my time had been spent within my inner world, holding Soulbound as I painstakingly internalized every movement I had witnessed. In total, I probably spent less than a month actually swinging my axe.

In my subsequent challenge, I achieved modest progress—I succeeded in delivering a meaningful strike.

That doesn’t mean I have learned everything there is to learn.

When the other me felt threatened, his movements changed. He deviated noticeably from his usual rhythm.

Of course, even discounting his new style, I still haven’t figured out everything leading up to it.

Reflecting on it now filled me with quiet emotion. There had been a time when I couldn't even track his movements with my eyes, but such days were long behind me. I could scarcely believe how far I had come. Other things made me optimistic, as well. Just as I had once hypothesized, the stronger and more skilled I grew, the faster I closed the distance between us.

Maybe I will finish this trial even faster than expected.

I still had no concrete forecast for when I would finally leave, but my progress stunned me. Ever since glimpsing that faint shimmer of hope, I no longer suffered from cultivation deviation. My mind still strained under the weight of the training, but I understood what needed to be done. The destination finally felt visible.

In time, another significant span passed. Once again, I stood before the other me. This time, I didn’t plan to use Thunderbird.

I believe I can manage without it.

Even if I didn’t win, it was worth trying. Wasting time didn’t concern me anymore. Moreover, if the situation deteriorated greatly, I could simply activate Thunderbird.

Before battle, I did something I had learned from him—a breathing routine. While we did move almost identically, there was a subtle difference. When I realized that, I focused on the remaining details. By watching him exhale and tracking the delicate shifts of the muscles along his throat, I deduced and learned his breathing patterns.

It wasn’t some esoteric breathing method as described in martial arts novels. It was simply the natural rhythm of inhaling and exhaling that accompanied a human. Sometimes the breath was short, sometimes long, and at times absent entirely. The balance between breathing and exertion was a vital element of combat. Although I had paid attention to my breathing long before, the version of myself fifty years ahead had refined that discipline to a far higher degree.

I locked eyes with the other me. He didn’t move unless I acted. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t force him to move another way.

Killing intent.

A blade honed razor-sharp within my inner world aimed squarely at him. It wasn't simply the desire to triumph. It was the will to kill.

In the next heartbeat, the other me moved. I moved as well. We lunged toward one another almost simultaneously. The distance between us vanished, seventy meters collapsing into nothing within half a breath. Neither of us had activated Thunderbird.

Rather than relying solely on sight, I had to anticipate and use my instincts.

Since discovering how to provoke him with killing intent, I had attempted this only a handful of times, but had managed to confirm four of his attack patterns. His favored strike seemed to be a diagonal strike from the upper left.

The way his shoulder moved before the strike was unmistakable. I instinctively raised Soulbound to intercept. The instant our weapons clashed and rebounded, I twisted my wrist, blocking the weapon swinging in from the opposite side.

Clang, clang!

Shockwaves exploded a beat after the strikes, the rate at which we struck outspeeding the violent air-tearing sounds erupting right in front of me.

Not bad for a first attempt.

Up to this point, I had always relied on Thunderbird—I hadn’t fought without it up to this point. Through it, I had endured fierce clashes and even forced the other me into invoking it as well. I had expected to manage reasonably well, but it was going better than anticipated. Of course, he still wasn’t using his full strength.

He had always behaved this way. He gradually raised his tempo to match my level. First, he unleashed a simple Heart Sword, followed by a series of connected attacks, then engaged in close combat, and finally, his own Thunderbird.

It was the only way for the trial to be conquerable. If he had used his complete power, I wouldn’t have learned a single thing.

Hmm.

I exhaled softly.

As time passed, the intervals between our clashes grew shorter. He pressed forward relentlessly, to the point I was forced to put all of my attention into defending. Even when I had used Thunderbird, I had fought at roughly the same pace, but something was distinctly different this time. Perhaps I had simply been too weak and had been far too occupied chasing his movements to notice such nuances, but I could tell I was on the verge of something.

That was it. I was close to grasping a concept, but the other me wasn’t giving me the space to capitalize on the opportunity.

Our fight is so intense that I can’t even string a series of thoughts.

We approached a speed where relying on my senses and previous experiences wasn’t enough to keep up. My defense gradually began to slow. Though I moved purely on instinct at times, the foundation of my fighting style had always relied upon deep deliberation.

Flash Strike, Lightning Transformation, Thunderbird.

Generally, with those three techniques, I could accelerate my thoughts and search for the single most optimal movement available to me. During this stage of the fight, I didn’t even have the freedom to do that. Through the way the other me swung Soulbound, it felt as though he were telling me that I was drowning myself in thought.

Ah.

At that moment, a realization struck me with the force of a thunderbolt. No, it wasn’t just like a thunderbolt. It was thunder itself. A single streak of lightning erupted within my mind, driving itself deep into the depths of my inner world. Even without activating Thunderbird, the flow of time wavered unnaturally, as if its course had been bent or distorted.

At the end of that sensation, the world stopped.

However, my focus wasn’t on the phenomenon itself. My attention was locked upon the realization that had taken the form of lightning as it pierced my inner world.

The other me hasn’t thought.

He had always stared at me with dead, emotionless eyes, so dry and empty that there was no trace of thought in them. He only moved when I moved. Though I had studied the meaning contained within his movements, the actual thinking had always been left solely to me. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Until now, I had believed his lack of emotion and thought was simply because he was an imitation, a construct.

Except...

A faint suspicion rose inside me. Perhaps this was the thread that led toward the revelation I was meant to attain on the ninety-ninth floor. Even if I had realized it earlier, I still wouldn’t have been able to clear the trial immediately.

I had agonized over something similar long ago. When I focused on a single idea, I often failed to see anything outside that line of thinking. The same held true in battle. It had always been both my strength and my weakness. I had decided it would be difficult to correct within the tower because the trait had given me many advantages.

Yet no matter how useful it had been, that didn’t mean it would remain advantageous in the long run—especially not in combat.

All this time, I had survived by relying on that same pattern. However, even now, I could clearly see that such a strategy had reached its limit. I could think faster than others, and Flash Strike, along with my other skills, bought me time to think. Of course, when facing an overwhelmingly superior opponent, the situation changed entirely.

That wasn’t the only issue.

I haven’t always followed through, even when given the extra time to think. In crucial moments, I have failed to choose the optimal decision.

There were times when I should have trusted my judgment, but I moved according to impulse instead. Whether the results had been right or wrong didn’t matter.

The fifty-fourth floor and the Abyss were much the same. Even though I should have rescued people or pursued the fleeing gods, I had remained still. Although the first earned me a hidden mission and the second allowed me to form ties with innumerable gods, the fact remained the same. Rational judgment alone wasn’t always the true answer.

Especially on the ninety-fourth floor, where I gained more than one revelation.

From the first floor onward, I had repeatedly emptied my mind and entered a state of no-self. Within that void, I had found revelation after revelation. Perhaps my greatest insights had occurred during that time. There were likely countless others that slipped from my immediate memory.

My line of thought had become tangled and intricate, but the conclusion itself was simple. I needed to eliminate that unnecessary thinking.

That blind spot had been hiding within the very quality that had been both my strength and my weakness. If I could discard the flawed portion that posed as a strength and refine what remained into something wholly positive, I could rise several levels higher.

As I had said before, this tendency for my heart and brain to conflict wasn’t limited to battle alone. It applied to everything. Throughout my climb of the tower, I had confronted countless dilemmas. Very few of them had ever possessed a perfectly clear answer.

That was simply the nature of existence. There was no absolute good and no absolute evil. I was no exception. Even on Earth, the same pattern held true. Democracy decided by majority rule wasn’t always correct. Any decision made would inevitably harm someone.

To become the sovereign of a world and a god in whom people place their trust.

Perhaps it didn’t require rigid rationality but intuition. There could never be a perfect result for everyone.

Even the gods themselves proved that. None of them had mastered every domain. Each embodied a single belief and walked a single path. Rather than chasing an answer through logic, perhaps I needed to follow a path shaped by the beliefs I had upheld through my life.

In battle and in everyday decisions, I have to think less and act according to my judgment, to my heart.

Whether it was correct, I couldn’t know.

The lightning bolt that had struck my inner world was simply a crystallization of my own thoughts. Even so, pondering it further would be meaningless. My heart told me that I had reached the right realization, and that alone made me feel that I no longer needed to hesitate. The fact that I continued thinking in this way proved the point all over again.

I opened my eyes.

I erased the countless thoughts drifting through my mind.

Everything until this moment carried no significance here.

Instead, I summoned the sensation I had felt upon entering no-self on the ninety-fourth floor. I left Soulbound suspended within my inner world and erased every facet of myself.

A complete absence of self.

Heat surged deep within my chest as if something inside me were beginning to boil, but I didn’t pay attention to it. I corrected my grip on Soulbound and stared at the other me. I shone with brilliant radiance. The universe itself seemed to brighten around me, expanding outward from me.

Time resumed its flow.

Wait.

In that instant, the other me smiled faintly.