The key to pushing past the boundary for her sixth sense was special awareness. Like her sword domain which allows her to have a key understanding of her surroundings when using her sword, grasping the feeling of pushing past the boundary was special awareness of this ‘dimension’.
Similar to what happens when a person enters her sword domain, the same need to happen with her sixth sense.
Normally, people ‘drag’ their intent to the real world such as materialising their killing intent in the form of an aura or such. To push past the boundary, she needed to do the reverse of this all.
“Wrong.” The spirit said while attacking Shiro with a few light jabs.
Backing off slightly, Shiro gritted her teeth and tried her best to parry his attacks once more.
“Peering into this realm allows you see the shifts in the world which tells you where the attacks are along with where the intents are aimed at. I need you to home in on this sense and block out the other senses. With your mind only focused on this, it should allow you to peer into this new world.” The spirit explained as his hand flickered out of sight and several jabs could be seen indented on Shiro’s clothes which forced her back by a few steps.
“How can I block out the other senses? My senses are dialled up to 100. They’re extra sensitive.” Shiro forced a smile since she had practiced the martial art which heightened her senses so that she could react better.
Hearing this, the spirit frowned for a moment before shaking his head.
“It doesn’t matter. The last and only person to have completed Nyx’s trial was sensitive too. The guy couldn’t even eat normal food or smell things properly. He had to eat watered down food and keep his nose blocked or else it’ll cause him pain. However, despite all this, he was still able to pass the tower. Don’t tell me you think it’s impossible.”
“Nonsense. If he can do it so can I. All I’m asking is how I can achieve it too.”
“If I knew I would have passed Nyx’s trial already.” The spirit rolled his eyes.
“Alright smart ass.” Shiro shrugged before tearing off a bit of her dress into a blind fold. Wrapping it around her eyes along with blocking her nose and ears, Shiro took a deep breath and entered a defensive stance.
Seeing that she was ready, the spirit nodded.
Flicking his wrist, he sent out a few jabs as Shiro tried her best to sense these attacks using her sixth sense but her skin tingled from the feeling of danger. Trying her best to dodge of parry this attacks, Shiro became frustrated since her skin continued to stop her from focusing on the sixth sense.
‘How can I stop this…’ Shiro thought to herself while barely managing to parry one of the attacks that he had sent to her.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to assign half of her attention to blocking out her senses of touch but that didn’t help.
‘I need a way to stop the sense of touch.’
As she was thinking about this, an idea appeared in her mind. Right now, the killing intent as well as the sense of danger was causing her skin to tingle since her instincts are telling her to dodge. Therefore, if she was the one on the offensive and pushed the spirit back, there was the potential that she could attain this breakthrough.
Making a decision, she dropped into an offensive stance before dashing at the spirit.
Raising his eyebrow, the spirit was about to counter when a wave of killing intent wrapped around him.
As if a spider had just wrapped her webs around his body, he found it suffocating and hard to move for a moment.
Flickering in front of him, the spirit watched as Shiro’s sword cut towards his neck. However, before it landed, he felt a sense of danger behind him.
*PING!!
Flicking his wrist, he managed to block Shiro’s first attack but her second was very light almost like it was a feather.
Widening his eyes, he didn’t expect that her offensive state was this close to pushing past the boundaries.
Reaching out, he removed her makeshift ear plugs.
“Mn? What happened?” Shiro asked.
“How do you usually fight?” He asked.
“Aggressively? I don’t defend much since my defences are paper thin.” Shiro replied.
“I see… We’ll go with baby steps then. Let’s see if you can touch upon the boundary of the offensive side of this.” The spirit grinned.
From his initial promise of one day, it soon became a week then a month. In this frozen time, Shiro never felt hunger but she did indeed feel fatigue. Taking a break every so often, she had gotten used to releasing her killing intent to sense the things around her. To help her some more, they had made sure that her sight, smell and hearing were blocked at all times. While they couldn’t do much about her sense of touch, they could at least guarantee that this sense is at a minimum while she is on the offensive.
After two months of training, the spirit could tell that Shiro was so close on the boundary but there was something missing. It was as though a thin veil blocked her out from this special state but he couldn’t tell what it was since he was in the same situation. Plus, time was now running out and he couldn’t stop time for much longer.
“We’re stopping here.” He said while Shiro took off her blind fold and instantly shielded her eyes.
“Ah f*ck the light.” She clicked her tongue.
“Hm, not seeing for two months does that to you.” Caedus smirked as Shiro learned of his name during the two months they had spent in suspended time.
“No sh*t. So why are we stopping here?” Shiro asked.
“I can’t stop time for much longer. If your senses are blocked when we exit, the giant will crush you in one go.” Caedus grinned.
“Mn true. Argg! It’s so annoying. I’m so close but so far.” Shiro sighed.
“Pft welcome. I’ve been having this kind of feeling for f*cking centuries.” Caedus smirked as Shiro’s cursing habits have slowly rubbed off on him as he cursed more often as well now.
“So how does it feel to have me catch up in just two months?” Shiro grinned.
“Absolutely jealous. It took me so long to reach this state. However, the older generation paves an easy path for the new so you should be grateful kid. If it wasn’t for my efforts, you wouldn’t have it so easy.” Caedus shrugged.
“You chose to teach me old man. Don’t complain now.” Shiro rolled her eyes as Caedus nodded.
“True. We got about a minute before this time stop expires so I’ll leave the arena now. Good luck with the giant, with you being so close to the boundaries it should help you out a little.” Caedus smirked and flickered away from his spot.
“Che, old man didn’t even let me say good ye.” Shiro clicked her tongue before cracking her neck.
Bringing out her sword, she narrowed her eyes at the Giant and took a deep breath.
After a minute, time resumed as the Giant thrashed his hands around for a moment before looking down at her in shock.
The last thing he remembered was fending off the red circuit which dived down into the portal but now Shiro was standing in front of him once more.
“Sup, it’s been a while.” Shiro grinned and flickered towards the giant.
###
Sitting down tiredly, Caedus looked at Shiro’s fight from the distance while glancing at his sigils.
“Hmm… chipped off more years than I had initially expected.” He muttered.
Originally, he was going to stop time for a week at most for Shiro but instead he spent 2 months training with her.
In total, that was around six hundred years shaved off his long life span since he was granted a much longer life than usual thanks to Chronos’ divinity. But with the large chunk that he had expended to help Shiro, his body was now feeling a lot weaker than before.
“Well I guess it was worth it. She helped me realise a few things too.” He chuckled while looking up at the sky.
“Is this repayment good enough?” He muttered before glancing back down at Shiro.
