For a split second, Kael saw his own shocked expression reflected in the beast's crystalline hide, distorted across a thousand geometric facets.
"I actually injured—"
The Manticore's paw turned him into paste before he could finish the thought.
[Achievement Unlocked: Almost Had It]
Kael's eyes snapped open, and he leapt out of bed with a triumphant whoop, punching the air despite the phantom pain still echoing through his reconstructed body.
"I actually injured it! Before the transformation!" he shouted, jumping and spinning in a circle, knocking over his rickety bedside table in his excitement.
His status window flickered to life:
[Rank: E]
[Class: Swordsman]
[Level: 12]
[HP: 642/642]
[Energy: 128/128]
[Title: Persistent Beyond Reason]
[Status: Temporarily Alive]
[Advanced Class Selection: Available at Level 20]
"The window doesn't show everything," he muttered, flexing his arms. "Each loop, my body remembers. The exercises, the movements, the pain... it's not just about learning the patterns."
He reached for his journal, flipped to a new page, and wrote:
Loop 16 Observations:
He dropped to the floor and began his routine with newfound purpose. His muscles burned with familiar effort, but something was different now.
'Just as I thought,' he realized. 'The body treats each exercise as regular training, compressing weeks of physical conditioning into what others see as hours.'
He laughed, the sound bordering on manic. "The Nameless One's cosmic joke might actually be the greatest training program ever invented."
Two hours until the guild hall meeting. He made every minute count.
"Marcus, want to make a bet?"
The familiar scene played out in the Crystal Ascendancy's towering guild hall, but as Kael gripped the borrowed spear after winning his bet, he noticed something profoundly different.
[Spear Mastery Level 2 Obtained]
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[Achievement Unlocked: Accidental Prodigy]
Kael paused mid-sequence. "That's new."
The spear felt less like a borrowed weapon and more like an extension of his will, guided by muscle memory accumulated across multiple lifetimes.
"Impossible," Marcus muttered to Enforcer Lee. "Isn't Kael a [Swordsman]? But his footwork... his precision with the spear..."
"Time's up!" Lee called out. "Everyone, form up!"
The familiar passages passed by exactly as he'd predicted. Three lesser crystal beasts, two trapped corridors, one false wall that had crushed him during escape attempt number four.
The Manticore's chamber doors loomed before them once again.
"Remember," he said to his team, authority born from sixteen deaths bleeding into his voice, "when it transforms, fall back. Don't try to be heroes. This thing's been badly misclassified."
"When it what?" someone asked, but Kael was already moving.
The massive doors swung open, revealing the Crystalline Manticore in all its deadly beauty. This time, Kael saw the creature with new eyes—not just as a monster, but as a puzzle he was progressively solving.
Right paw tensing. Mana gathering. Claw dash incoming.
Kael activated [Dash], sliding under the attack with millimeters to spare where once he would have been eviscerated.
Tail sweep tell – that crystalline chime!
He was already moving before the tail struck, using the spear's shaft to vault over the sweeping crystal appendage.
"Now for the real test," Kael muttered. "Let's see if I've got the timing right..."
The Manticore's throat began to glow—the telltale sign of the beam attack he'd discovered in loop fifteen.
Perfect.
Kael charged forward instead of back, catching the beast off guard. His spear struck true, piercing the crystalline hide just as the beam attack was charging.
The transformation began instantly. Crystal plates split and reformed as the creature grew to twice its size, exactly as it had in loop fifteen.
But Kael was smiling.
Because now he could see it – the slight delay in its movements, the fractional decrease in speed that came with all that extra mass. A weakness he'd never lived long enough to exploit before.
The transformed Manticore roared—a sound like crystal shards grinding against metal—and lunged forward with terrifying speed. Kael sidestepped the charge, his muscles moving with precision earned through repeated deaths. The borrowed spear flashed forward, striking at a joint where the crystal plates met.
[Target Wounded Severely]
[Spear Mastery has increased to Level 3]
The beast howled in pain and rage, its massive head swinging toward Kael as its throat began to glow once more.
"Not this time," Kael whispered, diving forward instead of back.
As the beam of crystalline energy shot overhead, vaporizing a section of the chamber wall, Kael rolled beneath the Manticore's belly and thrust upward with all his strength.
The spear sank deep, penetrating the less-protected underside of the creature.
[Target: Severely Wounded]
[Achievement Unlocked: Found the Weak Spot]
Victory was within reach. The Manticore staggered, its crystalline form trembling.
But just as Kael prepared to deliver the final blow, the beast's tail caught him with a lightning-fast sweep. The impact shattered his borrowed armor, sending him tumbling across the chamber floor.
Blood filled his mouth as he struggled to stand. He'd been so close—closer than ever before.
The wounded Manticore limped toward him, rage burning in its amber eyes. Its throat began to glow once more, the killing light gathering.
Kael managed a bloody grin. "Next time," he whispered through broken teeth, locking eyes with the beast. "Next time, you crystalline bastard, you're dead."
The beam engulfed him in searing light.
[Death Counter: 17]
[The Nameless One observes with interest]
Kael's eyes snapped open, his reconstructed body tingling with remembered pain and newfound knowledge.
"I almost had it," he whispered, staring at the familiar ceiling of his room. "I know exactly how to kill it now."
His determination burned hotter than the beam that had vaporized him.
Loop seventeen was about to begin.
And this time, the Manticore wouldn't live.