The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 109

Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Snail’s Pace

“Trust in your body, Arthur. As long as you are able, your body will be the only thing that will not fail you.” As Kordri’s words rang softly in my ears, a piercing pain had forced my eyes open as I looked down to see Kordri’s hand jutted out of my chest, unbloodied.

“Dammit.” As the word left my tongue, the all too familiar sensation of being sucked out of the soul realm, once again, overwhelmed me.

As soon as I awoke back in the cave, my hands shot to my chest, prodding for a hole that wasn’t there.

I fell to my back in the shallow pool. “How long this time, Windsom?”

“Two minutes,” he replied. “Arthur, the more you are forced out of the soul realm, the more time is wasted in your training. Even if an hour out here equates to about roughly twelve in there, it will not be enough if you are expelled every few minutes.”

“Don’t blame me, blame your friend that is killing me once every those few minutes,” I groaned. It was impossible to get used to the sensation of dying. Even if my physical body wasn’t getting injured, the trauma-inducing stress on my mind would be enough to make even veteran fighters go insane.

I’m not exactly sure what the two asuras were thinking, putting a teen through this sort of nightmarish training.

“I am doing only what you are able to handle,” Kordri responded, almost as if reading my mind. “The child is resilient, though. It makes me curious why that is. Even young asuras who don’t die nearly as often as you do have a hard time coping with the stress.”

If I had to guess, it was probably due to the fact that my mental strength was a combination of two lives, but even with that, this training was beginning to take a toll on me.

Windsom nodded in acknowledgment. “Even I grew worried at first by the number of times Arthur had been expelled from the soul realm due to deaths.”

“Well, time to get training again. Are you ready, Kordri?” I gave my body one last stretch before sitting back up.

Letting out an amused chuckle, he gave me a nod. “I will always be ready, Greenhorn.”

“Remember, Arthur, while you are training in the soul realm, your physical body will also be refining your mana core. The longer you are able to last in the soul realm, the faster your cultivation will go. Don’t overexert yourself; it has only been a week into your training. We still have some leeway, but not if you take on more than you can handle,” Windsom cautioned as he activated the Aether Orb.

Kordri and I were, once again, in the same gra.s.sy field that expanded endlessly into the horizon. It’s been eight days since I had started this tortu—training. Since one hour outside equates to twelve in here, that means a full twenty-four hours out there translates to twelve days in here. Even counting the time spent out in the physical realm eating, sleeping and resting after dying too many times in the soul realm, I have spent over a few months in this gra.s.sland training with the even-tempered and patient monk, Kordri.

“I can tell you are well-versed in physical combat, Arthur, but you have become overly reliant on the usage of mana arts, or what you lesser races call magic. By my guess, you are much more accustomed to shorter battles and duels. Proper conservation and distribution of mana was never a priority, right?” Kordri speculated.

“More or less. I’m only thirteen, remember?” I countered innocently.

“Sure.” The asura shrugged, shooting me a look that told me he didn’t buy it. “You are only human, meaning you are bound by the limitations that follow. You are a long way from reaching white-core stage let alone the integration stage. Because of that, my job is to train your body. After all, the less mana you expend on protecting yourself, the more leeway you have in other areas of use. Now let us begin, I’ve wasted enough time with my rambling.”

“Yes sir,” I answered, getting into a defensive stance. Kordri’s figure vanished and reappeared arms length in front of me.

The first time I had come to the soul realm for training, I was killed in the first blow, unable to even react. Even when I wasn’t killed, I jolted awake at the slightest blow because my soul wasn’t used to taking on injuries. The second, third, fourth, all the way up to the twenty-eighth time, I had been thrown out of the soul realm in the first hit. But on the twenty-ninth time, I was able to dodge, just barely... well... enough to persist until the second hit. Residing and training in the soul realm was difficult, to say the least. Only after a few weeks of dying in the soul realm was I able to last long enough to actually call it training.

Kordri followed up his left jab to my neck with a right elbow to my sternum. It was only when we fought that I was reminded of how terrifying Kordri was. His meek temperament disappeared, replaced by a cold, ruthless warrior capable of killing me over a hundred times in the span of a few seconds.

The asura’s limbs seemingly vanished due to the high speed in which they were moving. The only reason I was able to dodge was because Kordri’s attack pattern was always the same. Of course this was done on purpose; the asura had explicitly told me the ch.o.r.eography of his strikes, never once deviating from that since the beginning of our training. It was pathetic that I was barely able to dodge an attack that I already knew was coming, but that was the difference between us.

Beads of sweat flew off my face and body as I was scantily able to keep up with Kordri’s onslaught. Seconds melded together increasingly slower to form minutes as my sense of time dulled. Desperation was evident as I progressively made more mistakes the longer we fought. I had yet to land a single blow on him since the beginning of the training. In the months I spent fighting Kordri, all my strikes had met with thin air.

“Good! you are keeping up longer than usual. Do not get sloppy, Arthur. Remain patient and bide for time if you do not see an opening,” the asura shouted as he simultaneously continued striking and easily dodging all of my feeble attempts to land a hit.

I made a blunder at that moment. Kordri’s sequence of attacks were strategically placed so that if I didn’t dodge it by just a hair’s breadth, I wouldn’t be able to avoid the next attack.

While I did dodge his spinning elbow, my movement had been too large. I was instantly met with a low sweep that I couldn’t avoid due to leaning too far back to dodge his previous blow.

I chose to give up my left foot in response, knowing I wouldn’t be able to completely dodge the sweep. As expected, the crunching blow shattered my left ankle but I continued dodging.