Now, at Normal difficulty, he had 0.3 seconds to move.
His movement time, weighed down by gravity, was 0.14 seconds.
Theoretical margin: 0.16 seconds.
But the fog was thickening, blurring outlines. His detection time increased slightly, shaving 0.06 seconds off his precious margin. And his mind now had to split itself between frantic evasion and memorizing the objects.
There was no time left to play.
Only to survive.
— Yeah… now I really feel the difference, — he growled, dropping into a guarded stance, every trace of lightness gone.
[Session start in 3… 2… 1…]
BAM.
The projectiles came faster, more aggressive, more numerous.
Barely a quarter of a second had passed, and he had already registered ten blue streaks crossing half the distance between them.
0.21 seconds left to move.
His mind calculated and issued commands.
His body—still heavy—obeyed with frustrating slowness.
He twisted, ducked, rolled. The first evasions were tense, clumsy. His body didn't perfectly follow the nerve impulses sharpened by the powder.
And on top of that, he had to spot the objects to memorize.
A vase near the northeast cannon.
A sword suspended from the ceiling.
Every detail had to be engraved into a corner of his already overloaded mind.
He completed the "risky evasion" quest without even trying—simply because every dodge was risky.
After memorizing the first two objects, a fragile rhythm settled in. His muscles began adapting to the weight, his movements grew more efficient. The rest was cleaner—but never comfortable.
Every second was a tightrope walk.
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
[Time elapsed: 5:00. Evasions: Clean. Hits: 0.]
— Haaah…
He dropped to his knees, a rough breath tearing from his chest.
[Quiz: Provide the locations of the objects.]
He listed them, his voice uneven from exertion.
[Final Result: EXCELLENT! Congratulations!]
A thin but persistent layer of sweat covered him.
Normal difficulty had hit like a slap.
Yet under the stimulant's effect, a burning excitement spread through him. The fatigue was there—but drowned beneath a sharp, reckless impatience.
— No time to rest. I'm fired up.
Ignoring all reason, he selected [HARD LEVEL].
[Hard difficulty selected.]
[Gravity: 2G. Projectile speed: 90 km/h (25 m/s).]
[Disruption: Dense fog + Disruptive sound waves.]
[Quest: Memorize 10 holographic objects. Final quiz.]
Everything escalated to a deranged level.
Under 2G, his body weighed twice as much. His movement time dropped to 0.16 seconds. The projectile speed left him 0.25 seconds to detect, react, and move.
0.25s > 0.16s.
Theoretical margin: 0.09 seconds.
And that was without counting the fog that swallowed everything, or the shrill sound waves shredding his hearing, eroding his senses. Without counting the doubled quest load, demanding even more focus.
The safety margin was gone.
He had entered the realm of pure risk.
[Session start in 3… 2… 1…]
At 0s, the shots erupted in a deafening barrage.
With both sight and hearing disrupted, he could only rely on a vague sensation—raw survival instinct.
At 0.19s, he detected the first wave:
around twenty projectiles had already traveled 4.75 meters.
At 0.35s, after a movement that felt eternal (0.16s), he cleared the first trajectory with 0.05 seconds to spare.
The second projectile: 0.048s.
The third: 0.045s.
The margin shrank each time, inexorably, while his body—numb under the weight—responded with desperate latency.
This was barely playable.
Barely human.
Then came the inevitable.
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!
Three holographic objects appeared at once, at different points in the room.
His mind split apart.
One part tracked lethal projectiles.
Another clung to the quest.
He had only those microscopic 0.09-second windows to think about the objects.
But the fog was so dense their shapes blurred, their positions uncertain.
He kept dodging, every movement a struggle.
Five seconds to memorize them.
Five seconds during which he couldn't even afford a proper glance.
One mistake—and it was over.
4 seconds.
Pressure mounted, crushing. The tug-of-war between his body and gravity, between his mind and overload, reached its breaking point.
How?
A reckless idea suddenly pierced his overheated mind.
He focused entirely on the projectiles—not to dodge them at the last moment, but to pre-calculate their trajectories the instant he detected them. He had to predict the impact point and exact movement timing, carving out micro-slivers of cognition.
He would steal time from death and give it to memory.
It was bold.
Dangerous.
One calculation error, and he was hit.
One memory slip, and the quest failed.
3 seconds.
No choice remained. Staying passive meant losing.
He committed.
In a precise pivot, he deliberately turned his head mid-dodge. For 0.09 seconds, his eyes captured the first object's shape and position, burning it into his mind like a mental photograph.
2 seconds.
Back to the projectiles. Analysis. Calculation. A volley barely avoided.
Another movement. Another orientation. The second object was memorized in another flash of concentration.
1 second.
No time left to be clean.
For the third object, he gambled.
He diverted his gaze at the exact moment a new projectile was detected, consuming in advance the razor-thin margin he needed to react.
All in.
0.25s – 0.09s = 0.16s.
Exactly his movement time.
No margin left.
But at that critical instant, his body—pushed beyond its limits—finally began to adapt. Neural signals sharpened. Muscle contractions became just a little more efficient.
The most dangerous projectile was dodged at the very last millisecond, blue energy grazing his skin.
He had done it.
He had surpassed himself.
But there was no time to savor it.
The worst was still ahead.
Seven objects remained.
And two far more insidious factors entered the equation: accumulated fatigue and the backlash of his inhuman mental strain.
Unlike the quest, fatigue and pain didn't want a share of his attention.
They wanted everything.
A crushing wave of exhaustion flooded his limbs. His head grew heavy, thoughts turning woolly. A thin stream of warm, salty blood ran from his nose. His vision doubled, blurring projectiles and objects into a single chaotic mess.
The advantage granted by his sharpened senses and the powder crumbled—neutralized by the limits of his own body.
Under the weight of gravity, pain, and rising confusion, a single, terrible question struck his shredded mind:
How was he supposed to hold on for even thirty more seconds?
Chapter 22 — End