His vision fractured, for a brief second, the world went still. Then he understood.

He was dying…

The realisation came to him quite calmly; the world narrowed. He noted the sensations, lungs failing, blood flowing inwardly, and his nerves puncturing. Time slowed down, not in a fantasy or mystical way, but because his brain was working overtime through his final moments at an insane speed.

Then it happened, darkness swallowed him whole.

…

He awoke standing in the same place. He hadn't felt any pain, nor were there any blood stains on his clothes.

Rahu exhaled slightly and sighed. "This one's a bit…troublesome, he muttered softly. His memories were still as perfect as ever. Unnerving clarity, that force, the sensation of his heart slowing down and…dying.

Rahu narrowed his eyes, and he instantly figured out the goal of this trial. It was a trial that resets the body but preserves and keeps the mind intact.

An incredibly dangerous and eerie trial.

The problem here wasn't dying; Rahu was in confusion because he didn't understand if he was truly dying or if it was some overpowered illusion.

He hoped for the latter because…just thinking of something or someone is capable of killing him, and reassuring him in a flash sent a chill down his spine.

But soon, he closed his eyes and shrugged. "In times like these, the best way is to shut your brain and focus on your will. It will guide us to the other side."

"The count starts at…One!"

He snapped open his eyes. For a few seconds, nothing happened until his shadow slowly detached from his feet.

It suddenly rose like darkness and wrapped around his neck like a vice grip. Rahu made no struggle, no drama. It was just…pressure. His airway closed, and his vision began to dim.

Rahu didn't thrash; his arrogant soul refused to budge, and slowly, approximately twelve seconds later, he became unconscious and finally, under a minute of darkness, embraced him again.

…

He awoke. Again

"Two"

By the tenth death, he stopped reacting, cut down, crushed beneath a collapsing stone and drowned in darkness.

"48"

By the fiftieth, the deaths were getting harsher and harsher. This time, even Rahu frowned a bit as he was burned alive, frozen solid, bled out slowly and torn apart by unseen hands.

"97"

By the hundredth, he understood something fundamental; he had died silent, resisting, surrendering, alone…meaningless.

This trial wasn't to be beaten or gone against. It was about the endurance of his will without distorting the reality around him. By the hundredth death, Rahu stopped counting out loud. It was meaningless, but he still counted it in his mind regardless. Each death of his drilled itself into his awareness with clarity.y.

The trial was really brutal, even according to Rahu's standards. This was probably the toughest and most challenging stuff he had been thrown into.

Soon, deaths lost their spectacle.

Rahu even choked on water that drowned him. Sometimes, he slipped and stuck the back of his head, and felt his consciousness snap like a threat.t.

He lay on the cold ground as sickness affected him from inside, organs failing one by one, while nothing in the world stopped.

"Now…these are becoming annoying" Thick veins popped on his forehead, but he endured them. These deaths were really infuriating him to no end.

Because it simply lacked opposition,

There was no enemy to face, no force to resist or any mistakes to correct. It was just meaningless…deaths.

So, he did the thing in which he was the most capable…Adaptation.

He adapted. He stopped giving any value to death. Whether crushed under a stone or coughing blood alone, he treated each outcome the same. He also watched how his awareness slipped away, measuring how long before his body reacted in fear and how even 'that' reaction could be suppressed.

From two hundred deaths, it climbed up, and two hundred and fifty came as swiftly as his first death.

Now things were becoming complicated as he lived for days before dying, sometimes for just a few seconds. He…he even lived an entire life of an average human, only to collapse without cause, surrounded by strangers who did not even know his name. The trial was straight up using illusions this time.

He noted that too, but by the three hundredth death. The trial began to repeat itself, not in the exact sense, but it was close enough.

He came back to the familiar corridor, the familiar scream and the same way his vision blurred.

At this point, he didn't even know how many days, months, or even years had passed.

At first, Rahu assumed it was just a mere coincidence. After all, the nature of death was finite, and repetition was inevitable.

But when the sensation of falling at the same angle, same fractures occurred again with no deviation whatsoever, he paused. Not in fear, but in tiredness and realisation.

"This damn trial is recycling now," he murmured, just moments before another death. But the trial didn't respond to his words.

It was cold and relentless, he understood that it wasn't measuring courage, pain tolerance or, heck. He even went as far as to say that it wasn't even measuring his will in the conventional sense.

It was adamant on…breaking him. Breaking his will and principles.

To see if it would still cling to significance, or his existence would demand a purpose.

But Rahu did none of that; he just died and returned only to die again and again.

​By the four hundredth death, the notion of fear was almost erased from his existence. It was both a blessing and a curse.

But he still felt pain, but it did not linger. The repeated moment of death became incredibly familiar.

And finally, he hit the five hundred. He had officially died five hundred times.

It was just repetition, persistence and will.

But the most monstrous thing throughout all of this was that Rahu's mind still remained intact.

He was unbent and unbroken; the trial hadn't defeated him, but it had not yet acknowledged him either.

And now, finally, after the five hundredth death, Rahu knew with absolute certainty that…the real trial had not even begun!

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