I woke up with a scream and quickly looked around.

There was nothing there.

Just an empty room with a red door and the two entrances blocked with crystals.

I took a few labored breaths and then slowly settled down again.

God… Even if nothing attacked me in my sleep…

Of course I would get nightmares. Of course I would! As if living through it once hadn't been enough, I just had to dream about… about…

I didn't even remember what I'd dreamed about. But I was sure there were insects involved.

"I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place," I chanted under my breath with a raspy voice as I pressed my palms against my eyes.

Part of me had thought that this Limit Break might take multiple days to weeks, sure. But I hadn't really realized just what that meant. If this was just a quick expedition then maybe it wouldn't have been this bad, but I had been in this shitty place for at least an entire day already – I wasn't sure how long exactly, the time on my bracelet was frozen and I was too afraid to ask chat – which was way too long.

How long was it anyway? How long would it take for me to pass? Weeks? Months? Until I broke? Maybe that was it. Maybe there was no set number of trials. Maybe it would just keep going until I fucking snapped!

Fucking Limit Break!

KaiEbikoOfficial: NANA KaiEbikoOfficial: NANA CALM DOWN! KaiEbikoOfficial: YOUR HYPERVENTILATN!

I snapped my teeth – almost biting off my tongue in the process – took a deep breath, arched my head back, and then screamed, letting out all of my built up emotions.

I launched to my feet with an expression of frustrated rage on my face and then proceeded to punch the wall.

It broke my knuckles and didn't even leave any scratches on the wall.

I bellowed louder and directed some of my Ether into my injured hand to ward off the pain on instinct.

My vision was hazy. My head hurt from lack of rest and my abrupt awakening.

I didn't care.

I marched up to one of the entrances reared back with my uninjured hand, covered it in black flames, and then punched straight through the blockage.

KaiEbikoOfficial: NANA WHAT?!?!! KaiEbikoOfficial: aARE OUY DOING?!?!

If I was a space-time abomination designing torture chambers for people wanting to get stronger, where would I place an exit out of such a torture chamber?

All the way at the top or bottom? Ha! Hell no! That would be way too simple! No, I bet this whole place was a horrible non-euclidean amalgamation that warped space so that if you ever reached the bottom, you would appear at the top and vise versa. With how the first trial and the dungeons had been designed, it was almost laughably obvious that that would be the case.

But that meant that the exit had to be closer than we'd thought. Maybe even somewhere I'd overlooked this whole time.

My eyes wandered to the underside of a bridge I could see in the distance and all the needles sticking out of it.

Somewhere right in front of my fucking face.

I stepped out into the mist and the heaviness immediately assaulted me.

I strangled the heaviness with my own Ether and then tried to convert it in the same way I'd converted the poison with mixed results. It was definitely better than before, but not enough.

But I didn't care.

I stomped my way over to the edge of the bridge–

KaiEbikoOfficial: DONTNTNT

–then crouched, grabbed the edge, grit my teeth, and lowered my head down below this unrealistically thin bridge.

There were needles, of course.

I breathed in, and without thinking, attempted to use my gun self's Combination Breath from my mouth.

A blast of water came out. Weaker than if I'd used it with my gun self, but still… I didn't have any kind of Water Breath skill. I had actually used a skill in a way that broke the boundaries of what it was supposed to be capable of.

I was momentarily stunned by my own feat, but then I understood.

Motherfucking Limit Break!

It wasn't just to break me mentally, this was literally about breaking my own limits! Going above and beyond my normal capabilities! Defying the shitty rules of this world!

This wasn't even the first time, was it? I had been using Featherfall to counteract the mist's heaviness curse this whole time and even used the surface sticking with my hands instead of feet once.

This was it. This was the trick.

I stuck my hands on the – now needle-free – underside of the bridge and then pulled one of my legs around to stick to it as well. I didn't even think about just how far I would fall if I failed at this, my body moved on its own, invigorated by this discovery.

Naturally, as soon as I got my whole body to the underside of the thing, the needles that I'd blasted off suddenly gained wings and fluttered back up to the underside of the bridge. They converged into one spot, forming a disturbing-looking ball of wings and needles, before it expanded… into the shape of a spider.

Like the fucking water park's secret boss, huh?

Armor Break.

I spat out a Flame Bullet straight at the abomination, silently cursing myself for not trying Armor Break on them before.

Somehow, it managed to dodge by twisting its prickly body, despite there not being that much space to move, since I'd only cleared the spikes in a small area here.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The thing then dashed at me and I roared as I pulled out my axe. I pulled it back, lit it on fire, and prepared to swing it…

And then fired off an Rend empowered with Mind Breaker… as well as Armor Break and Guided Shot as well because why the fuck not?!

This close and with an aimbot attached to it, my mental bullet hit the amalgamation head on, making it explode into needles away from me.

But not all of it. Something had been left behind, floating in space where its center used to be.

A green key-shaped sword.

I growled and dashed forward, always careful to keep at least one foot on the ground so that I wouldn't fall off.

I reached out for the Trial Key, but before I could grab it, the needles suddenly came flying back like torpedoes.

They were way too fast. I didn't have time to dodge or think of a way to neutralize them.

They stabbed into every part of body, making me howl in pain and almost lose my grip on the 'ground'. I crouched down, slammed my hands down to make barrier out of crystal, and immediately covered myself in black flames, hoping to destroy the needles stabbed into me.

The crystal blocked more of the needles, but my fire didn't do anything about the needles that had already hit me.

My skin was turning blue and I was already starting to feel nauseous. The needles stabbed in my face were not helping things.

I did my best to fight back against the fucking poison, but with so much of it, and with the needles still stuck inside me, I couldn't keep up.

I grit my teeth so hard that they almost cracked and let out a pained growl, before aggressively crawling forward, mashing the crystals I'd created in front of myself, and through my screaming muscles, reached out for the Trial Key once more.

My vision was floating, everything hurt, but I didn't care.

I grabbed the Trial Key.

At the same time, my surface sticking trick finally failed and I found myself falling.

I screamed in pain and frustration even as I found myself uncontrollably plummeting into the mist below me. My grip on the Trial Key tightened, I adjusted my body, and out of desperation, I slashed with it below me, hoping it would do something.

Just like when I'd been inside the Millenipede, the Trail Key let out a huge burst of green light, splitting the scenery in two and somehow even ejecting the needles out of my body.

The mist itself parted in front of me and I belatedly realized just how gray and depressing this place had been with the mist. More importantly, though, with the mist in front of me gone, I could now see further, all the way to the surface toward which I was plummeting.

I let out a war cry and swung the Trail Key again, demolishing more of the mist and somehow even erasing some of the poison the needles had left inside me – or at least easing the pain. Was this like the tiny bugs on the previous Trial Key?

The ground was getting closer and I could see it now. The green trapdoor with a lock, exactly the same as the one I'd found under the mucus pool in the previous trial.

It was there, on the surface. Fuck, I'd been right the first time!

Whatever, at least I'd found it. Now I just need to figure out how to cushion my fall–

I activated Featherfall.

My velocity instantly dropped, letting me peacefully float down. With the mist gone, I didn't have to worry about fighting back against the heaviness curse.

This was it.

I had done it.

It had been so simple too!

Just climb on the underside, kill the needle abomination, and grab the key. Why hadn't I done it sooner?

Someone was laughing.

It was me.

I was hysterically giggling even as my feet touched the ground and I stumbled my way to the trapdoor.

The giggles turned into raspy chuckles.

I slammed the Trail Key into the trapdoor and watched it as it disappeared and revealed the stairway.

I stumbled down four stairs before I collapsed and leaned my back on the wall that had appeared behind me.

My chuckles escalated into a full blown hysterical laughter.

I laughed and laughed and…

Chat was probably saying stuff. Ebiko seemed concerned.

I ignored everything and everyone and continued laughing even as I began coughing with how sore my throat was getting.

This was all just a dream.

The Limit Break.

The dungeons.

The reincarnation.

All of it.

I wasn't really here. And because I wasn't really here, I didn't need to care about dying, about people's opinions – they weren't real anyway – about consequences of my actions.

I was probably in a coma somewhere in a hospital!

None of this mattered!

Everything was fake!

FUCK YOU, FATE WEAVER!

FUUUCK YOUUUUUU!

Crystals erupted around me, then promptly got swallowed by a surge of orange and black flames, before the space around me shuddered, and my Intra reserves emptied all in one go.

I blacked out.

When I came to, my head was killing me and I felt weak.

I lay there, crumpled on the stairs, staring down, my mind blank.

I spent a good few minutes like that, even as people in chat swarmed to tell me what I'd done wrong in the last trial or ask me if I was okay.

I twitched.

Then I banned everyone who dared to voice anything negative at all.

Because they probably weren't real anyway.

Fuck everything.

Fuck the Fate Weaver.

God, I was tired.

I pulled out my pillow and pinned it to the wall behind me with my head.

I had been trying way too hard.

The key was to stop overthinking.

Just do whatever seemed the most insane.

In the first one, I'd gone inside the monster and then wrecked it from the inside.

In the second one, I I'd gone to the the needle-filled underside of a bridge that looked like it was meant to discourage doing exactly that.

That was the whole trick.

Whatever came next, I just had to think of the most insane thing I could do and just do that.

Stop eating those red herrings the fucking trials presented to me.

Break them instead.

I was laughing again.

That was fine.

Laughter was the best medicine and I needed to heal up before continuing.

The pillow was great for that.

It let me heal up faster and keep going earlier so that I wouldn't have time to think too hard about all of this.

I snapped my fingers and created a little flame on them.

I did not have Flameguard equipped.

I laughed.

Finally, this shitty dream turned lucid.

Now I could do whatever I wanted.

I created some water from my sleeves – the holes in them had already repaired – and directed it toward the flame.

It sizzled and extinguished the flame.

I created more fire, heating up the water I was controlling, trying to turn it into steam.

It took a minute, but eventually the water began to boil and white gas started to rise from the blob of water.

I tried to grab it with my hydrokinesis – because it was still water – and it proved very tricky.

Not impossible though.

I could somewhat direct it around, but couldn't stop it from dispersing.

I laughed again.

Then I raised my other hand and flicked the puff of steam, turning it into shards of crystals that scattered over the stairs.

I giggled.

Next up, I fired off Rend empowered with Guided Shot… while setting myself as the target.

I couldn't quite see it without the goggles, but I could sort of feel it doing a one-eighty mid-air and then slamming–

^&%&#$Fhdbfd

Cocoa djin. Master oh five.

Hesitron negative five.

And it was exactly the same as Echo's mental attack.

I laughed.

A tentacle grew out of my waist and then curled around it at blinding speed. It tried to lift me into the air while still attached to me.

It didn't work.

The tentacle went away.

I looked down the stairs and attempted to Aquaport.

There was no conduit to travel through, though.

I took a breath and then spat out a huge surge of flames that engulfed the entire staircase including myself.

I tried to Aquaport.

I suddenly found myself slamming into a sidewall.

The flames receded.

I laughed.

And laughed… and laughed.

Then I slapped my hand on the stair I was sitting on, creating some crystals.

I headbutted the crystal and then tried to Aquaport.

There was a loud glass-breaking sound and I found myself slamming into the opposite wall as shards of the crystal I'd broken through rained all around me.

I laughed even more hysterically before I pulled out my flask, took a swig, and then rolled over to lay on the pillow that had been scorched and pierced by crystals.

Then my eyes fell down the staircase and I paused.

There were no more stairs.

It led somewhere outside now, just like last time.

I stared at it for a few moments in silence as my Ether and Intra recovered.

Then I lazily got up, put the pillow into my pocket, and then wandered out.

There was a very tall wall right in front of me.

When I looked back, the stairs were gone and in their place was an identical big wall, putting me in a bit of a cramped space between the two.

Looking up, the walls didn't actually seem infinite and… there was actual sunlight above them, surprisingly.

When I looked around, I saw that there were no more walls to either my left or right, so I was free to leave.

I barely hesitated before walking right and out of the cramped passageway.

The moment I made it out though, I froze in place and my breath hitched.

What…?

No way.

How… What?!

My eyes darted around in shock and I instantly recognized several landmarks.

There was no mistaking it.

I was in Khilow.

The city I'd lived in before my reincarnation.

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