Ebony was 'spawned' here with a full mana capacity. Dusk was fully compressed but with no internal power source, his Domain was short on mana since that was the case.

The trial seemed simple enough: kill everything he had killed before once more.

Except Saint Soldier, Ebony didn't think much of the army of Tetramyth he would have to kill again. Or any creature, really. He had done it before, and he could do it again.

But this Saint was a problem.

Ebony didn't kill it himself. There was no world-ending-sized sword slicing down at it, or Ven,t who could help send attacks across vast distances. This problem was right above his head.

The roof of his house was mostly gone, despite the durability of the materials it was made from, and his compressed mana being part of the material.

That was all the time that he bought before his mind could conjure and manipulate a defence. Thanks to Dusk.

Funnily enough, the sandblasting killed more of the army surrounding his house than it harmed them.

One good thing was that he killed very few people, all things considered.

Be it Journeymen or King, Ebony let his overflowing Wisdom free and magnified gravity with his cube's gravity mana. He instantly squashed most creatures under the ranks of an Emperor within 50 kilometres into meat paste.

Except, the Grand Stygian-Frost Elementals weren't even bothered by his mana and could deal with these levels of gravity.

"Soldier feels a lot weaker. Did the trial not copy it fully?" Taking on a direct hit, Ebony didn't think he would survive a point-blank sandblasting from the Saint.

It must have been weakened. Perhaps the Trial took into account that he was only a part of the reason the Saint Soldier was killed and not the sole fighter.

Ebony counter evaluated the Trial and determined that the difficulty was, at best, requiring some effort from him.

Until he saw the Elementals working with the skeletal Saint.

"MOUNTAIN RENDDD!!!" A roar called out behind the sharp winds.

Ebony sensed Gao'Larg, riding an Emperor-ranked Tetramyth with a small number of Troll Shamans chasing and buffing him with Vitality-based sorcery.

He smiled in nostalgia, seeing his greatsword teacher once more. The shockwave and slice of manifested life force didn't even get past the vibrational layer of mana, much less the Mantle of Reservation.

It might be a fake house, but he wasn't planning on letting it fall so easily.

Within his house were all surviving Apparitions, but One was a Clone with memories only up to what Ebony knew it had. He conjured a new Apparition body for his first clone.

Rimeforged Apparition base, Perennial Everfrost Armament body, a compounded version of Tolerant Stalwart Foundation for enhancement.

All of his Apparitions got to work.

Seven personally faced Gao' Larg.

"Ebony! Show me the heights you've reached!"

"Mmm." Seven replied and swung Icicle that he borrowed from Ebony. His Crystalline Avalanche met Gao' Larg's Rend.

The Troll smiled in satisfaction when he felt his very flesh tear away after his slash crumbled without slowing Crystalline Avalanche at all. The force of Crystalline Avalanche moved on to slice apart all the Shamans and their mounts that were in its path.

The Numbers methodically hunted every creature that appeared from the endless meadows. Tetramyths are the most abundant.

'I didn't kill that much.' Ebony honestly thought so.

He tried not to kill people whenever he could. The noble assassin girl that he recently killed had already been flattened, so he didn't see her.

As for monsters…

The horde of Emperor-ranked Jetfins weren't very happy about not being able to shoot water jets through Dusk's Mantle of Reservation. The reflected water jets were used to slice more of the generated creatures than they did to reach Ebony.

'Dusk's mana pool will run dry at this rate.' Ebony had long noticed that he had not evolved yet.

Still a Grandmaster without the new Fortifications and stats that he should have given himself.

Resolve's Cadence kicked in, and his mana regeneration spiked. It dipped into his Will, so he didn't push it to the limit.

The point-blank sandblasting had already stopped, and the Saint was sitting on its claws and many skeletal limbs on the open roof.

As much as Ebony disliked his possessions getting touched like that, he also didn't see how he could fend off the giant.

Ebony killed this creature after it was mostly dead and trapped, using mana to break it down. It took weeks.

It may be weakened, but the undead skeleton was not injured in any way.

One thing was for sure, it wasn't trying to kill Ebony as aggressively as many of the other creatures present.

As the Numbers slayed his past kills, the Saint eyed Ebony with its empty eye sockets the entire way.

Ebony finally understood the creature's intent.

It was waiting for him to finish everything else.

Ebony acted like the good mana generator he was and sustained Dusk and his Apparitions.

His main body had to deal with the Elementals and Jetfins that were a bit beyond what his Apparitions can handle efficiently.

The Elementals could take his Apparitions down for good, and the Jetfins couldn't get frozen or hurt by his Apparitions. It was a waste of mana against the Jetfins, while facing the elementals could kill his Apparitions for good.

The Jetfins surprisingly had their Domain as well, it seemed like the trial made sure his opponents were in their peak form and territory effects.

The Jetfin's Domain, outside of the ocean, was a large bubble of compressed water mana. It couldn't be frozen due to the influence of a few thousand Jetfin's accumulated Will.

His wife wasn't present to filet sashimi for him. It took quite a lot of effort to take them down.

Ebony charged into their Domain, covering himself with his own and bringing along the Grand Stygian-Frost Elementals to try to use their frost to pressure the Jetfins.

What he didn't expect was for them to work together instead.

'I'm pretty sure Jetfins are as territorial as the Apex Apes…guess the trial didn't just generate them as a complete copy.' Fighting creatures that he'd already fought before, in extended battles, didn't add anything new to his methods.

Slaying them once more, even when they ganged up, was as easy as recounting the steps he took before.

'Surely there must be more to a combat trial than achieving what I've achieved before.' He knew there was still an undead Saint waiting for him below the floating bubble Domain.

Ebony took more time and mana than he'd like to take the Jetfins down and the Elementals were just as hard to take down as before, even with his improvements since he'd last fought them.

'They are different from the originals…their teamwork is oddly human.' He was dry even within the Jetfin's Domain, but the Domain collapsed when the last Jetfin had its brains pulverised by a palm strike that sent intense vibrations into its head.

That placed the Elementals back into Ebony's Domain as Dusk was reaching its Will out for a reasonably sized control around 5 kilometres, a waste of Will but sustainable for mana.

Despite better teamwork, Ebony managed to dispatch them faster than when he had Apa supporting him. He got noticeably stronger since then.

Like a dragon resting on its nest, the skeletal Saint looked up from its rest on top of Ebony's house, the mere waking shook of Dusk's Ice-Lightning Respite as if it was never cast.

'As expected, without Vent and that giant sword injuring it I can't seal it properly even if it's a weakened version.'

The skeletal beast continued to wait.

Ebony used the chance to recover his mana pool; fighting the Elementals and Jetfins wasn't something he could do and remain a full mana pool.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

More importantly, he even had to dip into his Will capacity below 70%, reducing its regeneration.

Ebony tried to have Will above 90% at all times in a fight, it would have his Will regeneration as high as possible which allows him to send spells consistently imbued with Will but his Apparitions were consuming more than usual due to having all of them including the Numbers that should have been hibernating on Cinderash.

Their mana consumption to annihilate all other creatures besides strong specimens was not even worth considering.

A large majority of Grandmaster and below creatures die from a blast of mana into their heads and don't even require any fighting. Slightly more mana resistant ones just need the same blast of mana, just punched or sliced into them.

'My regeneration is high but if I can't put it down or weaken it. No amount of regeneration can help me take this undead down. I need to hit it hard enough that it can't break my seal.' Ebony already realised that he didn't have any 'finishers'.

His plum bombs were a lot weaker without Xin's magic. Her elements were all more violent than his.

Gravity could be more far more violent, but he didn't have gravity spells that hit hard enough. Between Tier 3 and 4, even backed by all the compression he could offer, it was pathetic compared to many other attacks he could pull off.

The main problem with his gravity magic was how little gravity mana he had. Not being able to conjure it like his ice was limiting what he could do with them. He should've taken more of the gravity cubes from Teheil. By his estimation, the gravity cubes will continue to develop and a higher-rarity cube will form in time.

He'll have to return to pick it up before someone else takes it.

Adding flames helps its destructive capabilities, but the force of gravity itself was too weak against a Saint, most Emperors and a few of the stronger Kings. Even Tikal Entras could break free from his gravity spell if he wasn't focusing on the spell and what the man was doing to counter the escape.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of King ranked Tetramyth were planted in the ground just by magnified gravity. The difference between specimens was incredibly large as one goes up the evolutionary ranks.

There were measures he'd taken that showed some success. That was the Will Relay Buffers extending his mental reach. Technically allowing him to control vastly more gravity mana at the cost of a more mentally and mana intensive to cast. But this was a time consuming process and cast durations were lengthy.

Since it was taking too much time, his Apparitions began to create gravitational vortexes all over the meadow plains and crushed every moving animation but themselves into a sphere of compressed mass.

'Gravity magic's effectiveness is either to the death, or resisted as if my spell isn't working….did I not kill anything with powers in between the two extremes?' It might have been unfair of him to think that, since some monsters that resisted the pull could only do so until they ran out of mana or life force. Or an Apparition Flicker to them and directly kicked them to the centre of a Vortex.

When that didn't work, a simple touch of petals usually froze them to the bone.

'As I thought, I'll have to rely on this experiment.' Ebony sensed all three of his Coreflames that were works in progress.

None of them had Unfading Will, hence, none were Domain cores.

Their forms as a bundle of flames were unsuitable, unlike Dusk's tree form. He was sure forms didn't matter; he just wasn't good enough with either the flame or his Will at the moment.

However, they were compressed to the limits and constantly burned Mana Chassis Implosions of coagulated mana to feed their flame.

At least, that was what he simulated them to be in his mindspace. It wasn't a spell manifested inside his head but, the Will imbued into these simulated flames was real and constantly took up a small portion of his Will regeneration.

Core Flame of Preservation wouldn't help; sealing wasn't going to work unless the Saint was weak or tired. He could rule out tired for an undead.

Core Flame of Diametric Unity was mostly useless without Xin. He could use pure mana, sound magic to generate heat, create a 'fire' of hot mana, but it took more effort than the results it would produce.

That left him with his main form of offence which he created the last Core Flame around.

Core Flame of Sequester.

There was one problem, it was the one that was the earliest in the prototype stage. Ebony hasn't reached any success with it holding a property it was supposed to have.

However, there was no better time to get it working.

Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment didn't carry Sequester's Will.

Ebony dragged this hypothetical Coreflame out and recast Woven Frostblaze Melding into Icicle with flames carrying the Will of Core Flame of Sequester.

"Let's see if this works."

Ebony Flickered and danced across the Saint's body with every step a Quaking Impact, every sword swing whipping around a Crystalline Avalanche as Ethereal Fluid Blitz built up. As he danced, more and more Shades chased after him, landing a blow a fraction of a second after every blow he landed.

3 seconds of this dance later, hundreds of blows later. He Flickered away from the Saint.

'Does it not have any intent to fight at all? It sent killing intent at me, but hasn't moved or countered at all.' Admittedly, he was a little confused.

This trial was supposed to test his combat proficiency as he understood it.

Everything should be trying to kill him if that were the case.

'If the copies are accurate, it should be targeting me—no. Wasn't this Soldier influenced by the Worldcore? The Worldcore is not here to toss commands, and this is the Undead Saint's actual personality?'

Even so, he was under the assumption that he needed to show that he was a 'King' of combat.

He didn't see how killing everything he'd killed before once more would express that intention. Even if it was all at once, he'd already achieved that except this Saint.

When his opponent didn't move, Ebony found himself not moving either.

Using the time to recover Will, build Dusk and his Core Flame of Sequester up further.

He started to think.

He might have some difficulty with the Elementals and Jetfins but all things considered, the trial has been easy. His Apparitions were still cleaning up due to the large number of monsters he'd killed, but it wasn't like they were facing difficulty.

Their numbers might be intimidating if he were a sole warrior, but it was completely different for an artillery mage. Multiplied over all his Apparitions that could do what he could, connected to Dusk for Will, and him for mana.

Individual monsters that were powerful just needed Ebony's main body to Flicker over for a short exchange before he decapitated them. But those were complete hours ago.

All the danger left came from this unmoving Saint.

A few possibilities came to mind.

One was that it was waiting for all other monsters to be cleaned up. His Apparitions were still doing that; nothing came close to his house.

Another was that it wasn't something Ebony was supposed to fight.

Next was that the evolutionary space can't generate a Saint for a Grandmaster's evolution or the trials aren't supposed to be seemingly impossible.

The last was that Ebony misunderstood the Trial, and the goal wasn't just to slaughter everything.

So he waited.

Waited for every monster to be cleaned up while recharging his mana and Will.

As the monster count reduced, even the scant few Emperors left could be dealt with by his Apparitions since they were unkillable by physical means and had practically unlimited mana and Will with their current expenditure.

Ebony had read a lot about Tetramyths. Much was written about them.

What he could say about the Tetramyths he'd fought was that they were like offshoots of offshoots of their race.

If they were led by any one of the Saints that he'd read about, every Emperor ranked Tetramyth should be strong enough not to lose to any random Emperor with a full set of Tier 5 skills.

The Tetramythian Angels were even stronger.

These Emperors?

They could barely rival an Emperor with Tier 2 to 3 skills, and Emperors like that probably didn't exist.

Only after the very last creature froze and shattered into ice dust did the Saint move. Ebony was ready to move as well.

It stood up on four but then its large, bony wings detached and dropped off its back.

The same thing continued with many of its body parts.

Ebony would've grabbed hold of those parts, freeze them or toss them as far as possible, but the magic body of this Skeleton was so strong that he couldn't touch the skeletal with his mental hold even within his Domain.

If this was a hunt or hunted, Ebony wouldn't be watching his opponent transform but the creature had been kind enough to sit and wait. Ebony could do the same.

The Skeletal beast reduced its size greatly, and it didn't take long to be honest.

Now standing merely over 3 metres tall, curved and hunchbacked with a spiky spine. 4 armed, two-legged humanoid. The curved legs were made for sprinting and forward momentum. In two of its arms was a smaller version of its giant spine lance. Its horrendous-looking skull was long and resembled some kind of canine's skull.

Another skeletal creature was formed by its side, much larger and only slightly smaller than the original frame.

When the skeletal humanoid struck with its spear lance, Ebony was not amused.

'It's not fast?' Ebony saw that the Saint's speed was just about as fast as he was fully augmented, within his Domain.

Ebony hasn't lost many fights where his opponents didn't vastly outspeed him. It was easily countable, really.

If his wife didn't vastly overpower and outspeed him, the chance of beating him in close combat might as well be zero. She wasn't bad in technique or battle instinct, and her Intuition gave her predictive abilities too, but they fell short against his Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Arts.

As for everyone else, even with Tier 5 Sovereign Arts, even if there were 5 people on him with perfect teamwork. They would find it hard to hit him if they had the same speed as him. Even if his legs were rooted to the ground.

If his legs were free, the only hits they would land were those he chose to take because dodging was more energy inefficient.

Ebony casually closed the distance and cross-jabbed around the spear to his face. Casually shifting the wire-like muscles in his arm, back and legs to snap and swing around to whip around after his fist connected.

But he was forced to Flicker back before his fist connected. He saw the spear wiggle, go under his armpits and over his elbow, about to lock him. Then, he saw another thousand variations and permutations of where the spear was about to move and how it was going to 'grab' him to pin him down.

He couldn't say for sure, but that one move had had him overlap his mother's spear style over the Saint's figure.

'Even with Shades, I couldn't keep up with the permutations. This undead didn't have such high skill with the spear in its giant form.'

He didn't falter and got on the offensive this time.

After mere moments, Ebony believed he understood this trial a little better.

He was evaluated as taking the path of repetitive training. Other than showing that he was a 'king' of combat, this was also a training trial.

His Numbers were taking on the other skeleton, but their Will consumption was a bit of a burden, so he had to shut half of them off and keep his Will for himself.

After a minute, Ebony realised that his opponent's skill kept rising.

'The Trial is testing me if I can improve fast enough before this thing gets strong enough to kill me?' Ebony felt like that was it.

If that was the case, he didn't have much time to play around. He didn't think highly of his chances if this Saint got back his actual strength.

In a single minute, Ebony already felt that the Saint was ramping it up.

Time was tight.

He could either keep his Will usage rate constant and not let his capacity drop below 90% or explode out right now and risk emptying himself should he fail to make sure it's down.

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