One of the phantoms halted, switching stances to slashing, while the other kept charging at Noah with intention to impale him. Noah halted as well but didn’t switch stances to slashing. Instead, he waited for the phantom to come in close, and then gently sidestepped it- plucking his Assassin’s dagger from his sheathe and gracefully depositing it in the phantoms’ neck as Noah moved past it with his left hand.

Without even bothering to retrieve his weapon from the phantom’s neck, Noah parried the slash that the armored phantom had directed his way, engaging in another bout of hacking and slashing at each other. A few minutes later, Noah successfully bested his foe with a disabling slash to the knee followed by a quick flick across the phantom’s throat.

“That was pretty cheeky, lad,” Liam called out from behind with raised eyebrows.

“What?” Noah said innocently. “Just because I’m learning the combat art doesn’t mean I have to restrict myself only to it, right? I sold the illusion by imitating the form and then gave them a real fight.”

“Feints are only useful when they are outside the repertoire of your enemy’s combat arts, otherwise it is like fighting fire with fire. But lad, tricks will get you only so far, the trial will ultimately not let you proceed without mastery over the combat art at later states.”

“Bring it on,” Noah said, as he threw himself into the next challenge. The trials kept getting progressively harder and longer, and by the 25th step he was facing five fully armed phantoms, and it was grueling. They slowly moved towards him with the same form, until two broke out into a charge while the other three shifted stances. He just waited in position for the two phantoms to collide with him at the epicenter, until only a meter separated them. Noah gathered the strength in his legs, using his newly acquired points to give him that extra bit of power, leaping to the side like a professional basketball player and lodging his gladius in a phantom that was charging him from the side, causing them to both tumble to the ground.

Noah combat rolled to regain his footing, and barely parried the blow that was meant for his chest with his Assassin’s dagger. One phantom was upon him, and the other three were closing in. Noah held his dagger in a reverse grip and lunged at his foe with his left foot- but his left foot was always hovering an inch away from the ground. The phantom responded to the threat by trying to cut off Noah’s offending arm off, but it had been a feint to begin with- hurriedly retracting his arm and leg, the phantom’s gladius connected only with empty air. Noah stabbed his dagger in the phantom’s sword arm, followed by a brutal right knee to the stomach causing it to crumple like a ball on the ground- Noah’s aim wasn’t to kill but to disarm, and he wrested the grey gladius from his opponent’s hands, having lost his own in the tussle.

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From then on, the three remaining phantoms locked in a tightly knit formation and relentlessly came after Noah, taking it his all just to fend them off- let alone kill them. His arms felt as heavy as lead, and were starting to throb from the exertion. Noah didn’t know how many hours he had been down in this hellscape, but it had been a long while; each fight after the fifteenth floor had taken him at least an hour, if not more. He had gotten a glimpse of the survivor notifications, but there was no time to glance at them for too long.

Finally, Noah’s guard had too many chinks in the armor, and a phantom finally found it’s way through it, piercing its gladius right through Noah’s ribcage and out from the back. He felt no pain at being pierced though, only an intense drowsiness that enveloped him in an instant. Moments later, he found himself on what Noah estimated was the 24th floor, perfectly unharmed. When the sword’s connected they did usually leave wounds and caused pain, but all his wounds usually disappeared after reaching the next floor.

“It’s too…. It’s too difficult,” Noah said, panting from the exertion. “How the hell am I supposed to beat that?” he protested, still rattled from momentarily dying, well kinda.

“Eh lad, you’ve been looking at it all wrong. But it was entertaining, so I let it go on for a while. You still don’t understand what Azamorath meant. Wait, let me show you,” Liam said, getting up from his recliner and manifesting a gladius in his hands.

He adjusted his height to Noah’s level, and stood… over him. “Now lad, all you got to do is follow me. Move as I do, when I do, and… well you get the idea,” He explained, and started to hoist himself over the stairway. It felt odd to have Liam’s aura envelop him like that, but Noah moved to keep pace, wondering what this was all about.

The five phantoms manifested again in a semi-circular formation, but Liam’s didn’t move a muscle. Noah knew he couldn’t die on the trial, so he obeyed.

“What is illusory is only real if you believe in the illusion, lad,” Liam explained, before charging at the rightmost phantom. Noah followed, swinging his gladius as Liam did towards the phantom- that easily got parried. It felt as if Liam could see three seconds into the future, as he was always a step ahead of Noah- he had to be, if his guidance was to be of any use.

Next, he pulled a copy of Noah’s assassin’s dagger and gently tossed it sideways. There was no time to think too much about the reasoning behind Liam’s actions, so Noah did as he wanted- a blow that weak wouldn’t kill anyone or anything.

Noah parried the phantom’s assault and created distance, to get a better view of the situation.

His eyes widened in shock, as he realized that there were only four phantom’s left. How… was that possible?

“Your mistake, lad, was to only engage the phantom’s one by one. Azamorath gave you a hint from the beginning, what is real shall be illusory- you only understood the basics. These phantoms can move between illusions, making you feel like you are fighting five when in fact, there are only three. “

“Oh shit. How do I distinguish between which ones are real and which ones are illusory?"

"You don't. Overwhelm them by using Myriad Illusions, or give up on the trial and let me point them out for you."