While the two waves of dark petals were confronting each other, Linus observed his and Nyx's copies' movements. The copies were the same as them in power and form, but they lacked life and spirituality in their eyes like the devils. Linus had Nyx copy the copy's actions at the beginning resulting in waves of dark petals clashing while both duos moved around.
He also noticed that the copies had endless energy and if the stalemate were to continue, then He and Nyx would lose. They had to kill the copies, before exhausting their energy and reserve. After making this observation, Linus changed up the pace and started instructing Nyx seriously.
He had Nyx abandon the charming petals skill to conserve energy while having Nyx create a wall of dark petals as a defence which was continuously attacked and pushed back by the copy's attacks. Linus used the time gained by the defence to have Nyx split her attention and slowly create a very small and concentrated bundle of dark petals which were sharpened and imbued multiple times by darkness energy.
When the bundle was formed and the defensive wall which only had Nyx's partial attention was breached, Linus had Nyx exploit the gaps to attack her copy. This had taken the copies off guard and the small concentrated bundle of dark petals hit the copy's body leaving many deeper slashes onto its body.
Linus and Nyx hadn't come out of it unscathed, but the copy had been more heavily damaged slowing its attack speed down. Linus instructed Nyx to take the offensive and they slowly started pressuring the two copies. The defensive dark petals were slowly breached bit by bit with every attack coming from Nyx.
Though Linus wasn't happy as the copy was slowly healing using the enhanced dark cells skill which converts darkness energy into life force. He had Nyx try to form another concentrated small bundle, but the copies noticed and responded by weakening their defence injuring themselves only slightly to interrupt and prevent Nyx from doing the same as last time. They succeeded and Linus began the offensive again while thinking of a plan.
He wasn't capable of coming up with something after taking into consideration Nyx's skills and their current opponents. The only thing that had given him an idea was that was already used to fighting against herself but stronger due to the shadow avatar. Unfortunately, they don't know how to win and have mostly focused on how to improve defence and last longer while refining techniques, the only offensive Nyx had learned was the concentrated bundle of dark petals that required time and multiple uses of the dark petal skill and the sharp blossoming skill.
Linus was the real expert here though as those spars inside his contract space weren't instructed and all followed by him. If they continued as they did now, then they would lose due to exhaustion thus he decided to gamble and trust Nyx. He ordered her to change tactics and fight as she liked with the goal being the death of the two copies.
Nyx agreed to his order and started fighting slightly different. Every newly launched wave of dark petals was a bit weaker than before, but they were faster and more concentrated albeit only slighter.
The copy used this as a chance to reinforce its defence while continuing its healing process. While the copy healed, the attacks became faster and faster while also becoming more consolidated and less spread out. The copy didn't mind and even welcomed the change as it only had to make the defence smaller and stronger. As time passed, it slowly healed until no wounds remained. It then continued its defence as before while looking for an opportunity for a counterattack.
It and its trainer copy maintained their current strategy as they were assured victory as they and their AI calculated at the moment. The stand-off continued until something changed. Their strongest defence started not being capable of taking the faster and more concentrated attacks from Nyx anymore. They wanted to change their situation before their defence was breached, but counterattacking would leave them open for attack and the current attacks could immediately kill and incapacitate the trainer and pet copy after only three hits.
This made the controller AI not to action and continue the deteriorating stale mate until the defensive wall of dark petal waves was breached and the copies torn apart by Nyx's swift and condensed attacks. Linus and Nyx had completed the third realm, they didn't enter the fourth immediately though. Nyx had exhausted almost all her energy and had to recover in Linus's contract space before they would continue.
While Nyx was recovering, Linus was reflecting upon the fight. He hadn't been capable of making a plan to win, but Nyx did. He had learned two things one about skills and another about the limits of this third trial realm. Skills couldn't only be combined and used in a versatile manner, but also have much greater power by changing subtle things during the execution to change the nature and strength of the skill.
Nyx had used something, that her shadow avatar had once used against her when he didn't pay attention to one of their spars. Nyx had used the dark petal skill to create waves of dark petals with sharp blossoming to make wave after wave of dark petals that impacted the copy's defensive wall of dark petals.
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Those waves impacted each other and created a certain airflow allowing the waves to become more condensed and swifter allowing for greater strength until the copy's defence was overwhelmed. The change was slow and unusable in most circumstances but Linus had learned an important lesson from it. Combat didn't only rely on the pets and their skills, but also on how everything in the environment is used. Even the wind and air can be used to supplement skills when influenced correctly.
Aside from that, he learned that the AI's rigidness limits this trial in using skills and that for a trainer to pass, flexibility is required in the usage of skills to achieve victory over a copy with endless energy. This flexibility was learned by Nyx from observing her shadow avatar and fighting against it. Compared to sparring or surviving the survival test, her shadow avatar is cruel, vicious and wild. It is, however, not low in intelligence like low-rank beasts but more like cunning intelligent humans. This has made Nyx used to face a stronger and more cunning opponent whose senses eclipse even wild beasts.
This experience has trained her to be cunning and vicious like her avatar while improving her combat intelligence making her even better than Linus in planning one on one battles. Linus who had now learned this point would leverage this advantage in his shadow kingdom ability to train his pets by giving them more autonomy.
After Nyx had recovered all her energy both entered the portal of the fourth realm before disappearing from the third realm. After they disappeared outside the trial portal, the fourth statue lighted up like the first three indicating that someone had passed the third realm which surprised those who returned from the trial or came to challenge it. The people wondered which young master, scion or disciple had come to challenge the nine realms of hell again.
While this happened outside, Linus and Nyx had entered the fourth realm and were facing two devils who had started explaining the fourth realm and what they had to do to complete it.
The fourth realm is many times more difficult than the first three which the two devils explained that the first tested the quality of the pet trainer's pets, the second the pet trainer's tactical ability together with the pet or pets versatility. The third realm tested a pet trainer's ability to overturn unfavourable situations by exploiting any weakness found like the rigidness in the copies.
Now, however, the pet trainer wouldn't be tested for those simple requirements any qualified pet trainer should have, but a pet trainer's will and talent. Linus was informed about all the coming trials which he hadn't expected and was also the reason information about the first three realms was only found online as the other information would be taught in the fourth realm after a pet trainer has proven his qualifications.
The Blood Shura wants to have a disciple and uses the nine realms of hell as his selection method. The first three realms screen the qualifications of the pet trainers as a pet trainers while the other six determine the required talent and will that the Shura's disciple would be required to have.
The fourth to sixth realms test a pet trainer's will while the seventh to ninth realms test a pet trainer's talent according to the Blood Shura's standards. The fourth realm which Linus and Nyx found themselves in required the pet trainer to traverse and reach the end of a road filled with hazards like deserts, ice plains, storms, oceans and more. The will to endure and go forward will be tested.
The fifth realm requires a pet trainer to fight and win against ten types of beasts that are of a higher racial rank than his strongest pet which will grow stronger with each defeated beast until the alpha is defeated as the tenth opponent of its type. The will to conquer and win will be tested.
The sixth realm requires a pet trainer to escape from a jungle filled with stronger beasts where any monster can kill the pet trainer and all his pets. The will to survive and escape death will be tested.
The seventh realm tests a pet trainer's body talent. The eighth realm tests a pet trainer's soul talent and the ninth realm tests a pet trainer's heart talent. The specific trials weren't explained due to the devils informing him that the three last realms are of no concern to the current him while after reaching them, he will have to sign a document not allowing information about the three last trials to be spread.
Linus and Nyx then started the fourth realm's trial by traversing the road of hazards. The first hazard they found themselves in was a desert under the scorching sun's gaze and ruled by the sand storms. Linus and Nyx had many difficulties traversing the desert, resisting the heat and escaping the sand storms. When they reached the end, they found an ocean to be crossed which Linus did after having Nyx return to his contract space.
He started swimming to cross the ocean and its hazardous storms and waves barely surviving its disaster while clinging to his only means, his ability to float and swim. He didn't have time to rest though as he had reached the third hazard which was a plain of ice and snow.
Linus had Nyx come back out to help shield him from some of the dangers using her dark petals, but they eventually both fell to the cold from the icy wind returning them outside the trial before the statues indicating his failure in passing the fourth realm. Linus and Nyx had frozen to death after their bodies and mind gave up to the cold.
Linus then realised the difficulty of the fourth realm didn't only lie in the mental fortitude but the ability to will through even deathly hazards was required by breaking the limits of both body and mind.
After understanding what he currently lacked, he and Nyx left the entrance and Blood City. He planned on regularly returning and even if he couldn't complete all nine realms, he swore to at least complete the first six which could be trained with effort and grit. After leaving, the Blood City he made his way to the battle coliseum where he would first watch before challenging the iron rank.