Odyssey of the Blind God

The Darkness Doppelganger's spear pierced right through the center of his chest.

This led to Nial puking blood, while his expression worsened gradually.

But his opponent wasn't done yet and it was just a moment later that the spear in his chest was twisted before it was pulled out abruptly.

What was left behind was a large hole in Nial's chest, and him writhing on the ground in unbearable pain.

His facial expression clearly depicted the feeling of being tortured.

Nial couldn't even breathe properly owing to the pressure he felt.

Blood spurted out of him, while he felt his heartbeat slowing down.

Time seemed to have come to a standstill, and Nial felt as if he would never die.

Fortunately, he succumbed to his fate just a moment later but was resurrected a minute after his death.

Nial's body twitched several times before he regained consciousness.

His muscles moved without him wanting them to.

However, Nial was unable to stand up for a moment and continued breathing heavily.

But he was unable to remain idle because his body moved the moment the Darkness Doppelganger made the slightest move.

Forcing himself to fight again, he jumped up from the ground in an instant and prepared himself to be killed once again.

It was only at this moment that Nial noticed that his legs were trembling a bit.

There was not even the need for him to search for an explanation about the reason for his legs to act like this because he was fully aware of the same.

'Why is every single way in which the Darkness Doppelganger kills me so painful?!?'

Of course, Nial understood that dying was painful in most cases, but he couldn't help but think that the Darkness Doppelganger worked especially hard in order to make him go through new and inventive ways of dying while feeling hellish pain.

That was possible, and Nial could even understand why it did this, even if he didn't like it.

'The weaker my will grows, the easier it will be for the Fragment of the Darkness God to initiate the process of his reincarnation!'

Nial was not yet sure if the Darkness God's desire to reincarnate was truly close to zero, or if everything was but a joke in his mind.

However, even if it was just a child's play for him, Nial was pretty sure that it shouldn't really affect him, at least, not if the voice of the Darkness God didn't lie to him about various other topics.

Nial didn't even want to think about the possibility of every single word and memory he had witnessed inside the darkness portal being a lie.

This would probably be a lot worse than being killed a few times.

And that meant a lot, considering that the Darkness Doppelganger had given its utmost efforts to reap his life in painful ways.

Nial realized that there wasn't much time left before the Darkness Doppelganger would start fighting him once again.

As such, his stance changed in an instant, while he regained some control over his body.

It was obvious for his mind to be utterly shocked as he died three times in a matter of a mere few minutes.

However, the fact that he was still not even remotely close to losing his sense of reasoning, or giving up on himself gave him the confidence to strive for more and give his utmost efforts.

With that in mind, Nial waited for the moment in which the Darkness Doppelganger would attack him once again.

He was patient and fully focused and his opponent made his first move not long after.

Dark energy shrouded the Darkness Doppelganger, and it catapulted himself towards him in a shocking pace.

Precisely controlling the mana within its body, the Doppelganger was able to reach a higher strength than Nial owing to the simple fact that the young blind man had yet to find the best ways to enhance specific body parts of his body using mana.

This was something Nial had to focus on pretty soon, but there was something more important for now, surviving and defeating the Darkness Doppelganger.

The moment his opponent shot ahead, Nial released his own dark energy.

He didn't show a single sign of hesitation as he used a large amount of mana to receive access to the dark energy within the Odyssey seed.

Shooting out of his body at once, the dark energy currents smashed in all directions with a terrifically high velocity.

If there were to be a single solid object in his surroundings, everything around him would have been destroyed in an instant.

However, right now, the only thing that could be considered semi-solid was the Darkness Doppelganger.

And this kind of existence was not afraid of the dark energy current because it was able to use them as well, with much more control than Nial at that.

Thus, it made use of some of the shroud of darkness around it to build a wall of protection at the locations it would be hit by Nial's uncontrollable attacks.

After the first batch of attacks was blocked off, the Darkness Doppelganger reached in front of Nial.

It pierced out without hesitation, aiming for Nial's throat.

Yet, instead of reaching the designated target, the tip of the spear brushed past his neck and through empty air.

Right now, Nial noticed that his Odyssey seed was not required to pulsate in order to break through his limits, to make use of the dark energy and to feel the soothing sensation that the seed's third pulse caused.

There was no mana in the surroundings as well, which meant that he couldn't make use of the seed's first pulse in a perfect manner.

Despite that, every single time he got defeated, his mana simply recuperated as if it had never been used, to begin with.

Thus, Nial couldn't even try to outsmart the Darkness Doppelganger by absorbing mana before enlarging his mana core once again.

Yet, all of this seemed to become insignificant because Nial had been able to push the Doppelganger's spear aside with the use of his own spear and the dark energy currents which he had managed to tame.

Nicely put, his control over the dark energy currents was crude.

It bordered on being worse but he was simply miserable with the control.

Somehow, it was still enough to evade the Darkness Doppelganger's first attack.

Unfortunately, the Darkness Doppelganger was not playing games, let alone holding back in its attempts to kill Nial.

As such, its spear disappeared the moment he missed just to reappear a moment later.

It was now floating a meter above Nial's head, and he was clearly able to perceive that the spear was being controlled by the Darkness Doppelganger's dark energy currents.

'Even teleporting other objects is possible?!' This was the only thing Nial could think of as the spear of the Darkness doppelganger swooped down on his head, piercing through it easily.

With the powerful thrust that sliced into his brain, Nial died once again, just to be resurrected not long after.

After taking a deep breath, Nial shuddered.

"This is just disgusting… if there is someone who likes feeling pain or death over and over again somewhere out there, this person has to be insane…"

The feeling of his skull breaking and his brain being pierced was certainly not something he wanted to ever feel again.

As such, Nial knew that he had to change his way of thinking.

He might still be in a state of shock, but the last fight was a good first approach.

His control over the dark energy was laughable, and its influence was far stronger than before, but all of this was fine.

'I should probably start with forcing my way through by learning how to properly control the dark energy within me…'

There were many things Nial needed to improve, and fighting against the Darkness Doppelganger allowed him to realize that his current fighting style was restricted to some simple moves.

Whether it was his control over mana or the dark energy, Nial knew that both had room for improvement.

His strength was oddly restricted right now, and it didn't even have to do with the fact that he was currently unable to enlarge his mana core.

There were simply too many things one had to consider in one's strength other than the number of enlargings the mana core had undergone, or the number of Origin rings one possessed!

Taking that into consideration, Nial's mind was rattling, trying to process all the deaths he had undergone.

Followed by that, it was necessary for him to come up with a proper plan on how to approach controlling the dark energy within him.

Meanwhile, there were also other factors such as the black miasma, the proper use of mana, his combat experience, tactics, and much more.

'Are 30 days really enough…?' Nial suddenly wondered, not sure if it was possible for him to improve everything to end up being on par with the Darkness Doppelganger that seemed to be a perfect existence.

With the question of how to achieve his goals in the given time frame, 20 days passed.

It was like the blink of an eye, yet it seemed as if years had passed.

But Nial's mind was too fogged to keep track of time because Nial died far more than a hundred times.

In fact, it might have been a thousand times as well but he simply lost count of the numerous times he died.

The mere thought of having died more than a hundred times in less than three weeks was simply ridiculous.

However, the gains were tremendous, which was even more important, in Nial's opinion.

Because it didn't seem necessary to sleep, eat, drink or rest after an exhausting battle, Nial fought, lost, and died for 20 days straight.

The biggest break he received was never higher than five minutes.

But that was something Nial didn't even make use of anymore as he simply continued to fight which was akin to breathing now.

He was fighting even without actively noticing it as if it was now a subconscious reflex.

Dying seemed to have become a joke to him, and Nial couldn't even deny that this was the case.

This kind of mindset worried him a little bit because he would have died outside the darkness portal if he had fought the Darkness Doppelganger outside it.

It sounded logical, but not inside the darkness portal!

However, Nial also understood that if he didn't allow anyone to be as strong as him, nobody would be capable of killing him, to begin with.

To his misfortune, it was easier to say that he would become stronger than anyone else, to prevent his influenced mindset from accepting that he could be reckless because death wouldn't be forever.

Because it was a fact that death was something, one couldn't reverse…at least not in a natural way.

But Nial was currently quite calm about the situation outside the darkness portal.

After all, his mind had already recognized that the deaths inside the darkness were different to the real world.

The primary Trial of Gods was certainly fierce, but his willpower had only been strengthened since he was shrouded in darkness.

He was powerful and headstrong as never before, and his goals were now deeply ingrained in his mind.

Nial was ready to go all-in!!