[ Attempt ??? ]

  In the beginning, I kept track. Counted every failed attempt, every inch I thought I'd gained, every wound, every brief moment of hope snuffed out by his blade. The numbers were my anchor — to sanity, to progress, to the vague idea that if I just kept going, I'd eventually break through.

  But now? I've lost count. Attempt ??? is what my mind tells me. I don't even know if I've been here days, months, or years.

  Somewhere in the thousands, my sword would shatter every few swings. His was forged for this — mine was a frail tool by comparison, doomed to break over and over again. Sometimes mid-swing, and I'd hear that telltale snap a heartbeat before his blade tore through me. My bones broke as often as my sword did, splintering under the weight of every blow he landed. Heal, reform, repeat.

  A few hundred thousand attempts in, the counter started to fade into meaninglessness. The pain grew dull, almost background noise, replaced by something else — not panic or anger anymore, but a calm, relentless focus. There was nothing left but this duel.

  His strikes were unchanging. Practiced. Flawless. In the beginning I could barely survive three of them before I was skewered and thrown back to start over. He was perfect — a monument of unyielding precision — and I was barely a shadow at his feet, mimicking his movements in vain.

  Then, with enough time and enough deaths, something changed.

  Slowly, I started to mimic him. His exact stance, every faint twist of his wrist, every subtle shift in his weight. It became muscle memory — beyond instinct, beyond learned reflex. I stopped thinking before dodging or parrying. I just moved.

  But even after hundreds of thousands of deaths, I still died.

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  Then at some point — maybe several hundred thousand attempts later — I stopped fighting altogether and just watched him. Ashkart moved like water, each motion as smooth and inevitable as the last, his blade a continuous flow. Every stroke was a controlled release, not a single ounce of force wasted. He didn't rely on raw power. He wielded finesse — the kind that could shape mountains, command rivers.

  I started moving with him. Within the invisible rhythm of his strikes, following the current of his attacks. And somewhere around the hundred-thousandth imitation, I could almost feel the pulse of it. His heartbeat in every strike.

  His style was no longer alien to me. It had etched itself into my bones.

  I couldn't say when exactly I stopped trying to keep up and started dancing alongside him, matching his tempo beat for beat. My mind — once sharp with frustration and desperation — had gone quiet. I existed in the void between thoughts, flowing as he did, lost in the rhythm of our blades, relentless and eternal.

  The fight became something else. Something beyond survival.

  My grip on the sword had become ironclad, natural, like it had always been mine. With every step I absorbed more of his technique, melding with it, until the movements were no longer his alone.

  They were ours.

  By the time the counter was beyond my comprehension, our swords were almost indistinguishable. He moved with aura, and I pulled from my own — wielding my energy in arcs of the same lethal grace. Somewhere in the infinite deaths, I'd found something I'd never felt even with all my magical prowess.

  Mastery.

  I was no longer a mage wielding a blade out of desperation. I was something else. Something refined and sharpened by every failed attempt, every wound, every fragment of time I'd spent in this corridor.

  I was my own weapon.

  I didn't hesitate anymore. Didn't feel the sting of doubt. Aura moved in rhythm with mana and ki, each one balanced and honed to precision — a force far more fundamental than any spell I'd ever cast. This wasn't something I wielded.

  It was something I became.

  And now it was Ashkart who seemed to notice.

  A glimmer of recognition passed through his gaze — almost imperceptible, but enough. A flicker of awareness beyond his mindless duty, something stirring beneath that unbreakable, relentless will.

  His blade descended and as I met him again, I felt it — that faintest hesitation as he faced the mirror of himself, perfected.

  I didn't know if this would be the attempt that broke through. Maybe it would take a million more. Maybe a billion.

  But for the first time, I didn't care.