Omni-Mastery

At the start of my third day in the Demon Base Corruption Gate, I swept through the first 8 mini-gates of the last cycle.

Despite containing 1080 moles each, I was able to gloss through the eight mini-gates in under two hours after finally stopping my training.

Since I no longer saw any progress by the end of the second day. I focused more on applying what I gained from my training without limiting myself too much to increase my efficiency.

'I can't stay here for long anyway.'

Since no one knew what could be waiting for me in the demon base, I couldn't afford to force more 'training time' into my already tight schedule.

After falling through the gate's main opening one more time, the ground was now devoid of the phobia-inducing openings. Currently, only one large 'opening' that seemed more like a tunnel was left.

Being true to the 'visual effects' that made it seem like it ate the other openings, the large opening roughly took over a third of the ground's area. Despite that, the opening remained completely dark regardless of its size.

'The trial or…?'

Looking at the size of the opening, I couldn't help but wonder about its purpose. Was it the path leading to trial? or was it the finale of the many mini-gates that I had gone through.

While my experience in the first Demon Base Corruption Gate told me that it would be the finale mini-gate, quite a few things had already proved my experience to be limited to the gate itself. As such, I stopped thinking about it as I prepared for both possibilities.

Either way, there was only one way to find out, so I took a step past the edge of the large opening.

'Eh?'

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Unlike my expectations, even though I didn't receive trial 'data', I didn't fall down either just like the other mini-gates, it just felt like I went down a very large step.

Looking around, however, I quickly came to an understanding of the situation as I felt my nonexistent trypophobia acting up. The number of holes that I spotted was exactly 9,720!

Naturally, the ground needed to cover this amount of 'mole holes' was much bigger than the original main underground cave, but even then it was barely 4 times as big.

To house the number of moles meant for a full 12th cycle of nines, this ground was more than lacking, but it seemed like whoever designed this gate was a bit creative…

'Even the ceiling has them…'

Completely forsaking the 'falling down' prank that was the theme for the earlier 107 mini-gates and the first floor as a whole, the last mini-gate barely had the space of 2 meters between the ceiling and the ground.

'So it's a different type of finale?'

Unlike the Minotaur gate's finale which went for an increase in both numbers and quality, putting a mini-boss within the ranks of the normal mobs, this final mini-gate simply seemed to focus on its strongest points, numbers.

Even the number of the moles in the 107th gate was higher than the 990 minotaurs in the Minotaur gate's final mini-gate. So to top it off, the record-breaking number of 9,720 moles was put in the final mini-gate!

'Let's start then.'

After spending a few seconds analyzing the situation, I put 'Iron Dragon' back on which I took off to react according to the situation as I marched through the closed-off 'sieve' with a spear in each hand. Considering the number, I needed to hurry up if I wanted  it to finish up before the end of the day.

As I moved from my spot, the moles finally began to react as usual. However…

'Oh?'

Although I was more focused on maintaining my perception of my surroundings to intercept attackers coming from above and below, I couldn't help but realize one more inconsistency that this mini-gate had shown.

'So it wasn't just the numbers…'

Perhaps as expected from a finale, the mini-gate's boosted element wasn't just one, other than numbers, the moles no longer had a fixed attack pattern!

While all moles in the vicinity of my location would surface, not all would simply attack, some just stayed still under the protection of 'Absolute Darkness', revealing their bodies and brandishing their claws to attack at random intervals.

Shikk!

Even though the moles were still far from being smart enough to attack relying on their own judgment, the randomized attacks were even worse!

One could still predict an intelligent enemy's movement or even throw feints to delude them. However, when an enemy's attacks were truly random, one could only rely on perception and chance!

Shhikk! 

In the very first five minutes, I dropped as much as three destroyed scales. Even with my 'Sensory Area', I was unable to evade them completely due to how truly random the attacks were.

At this point, I decided to just abandon my eyesight and fully rely on 'Sensory Area' to avoid the attacks. It did make it easier to react, but it was still hard to perfectly dodge.

'That's more creative than I thought...'

As I progressed further, I couldn't help but marvel at the design of this gate. For once, my training was actually having a negative effect on my current situation!

As if it was meant to be this way, one hundred seven mini-gates of slaughtering moles with a fixed attack pattern later, my body felt rusty when trying to respond to the inconsistent attacks!

'Is it intended?'

However, despite the great inconvenience and the disorientation that I went through, I realized an even greater truth about this final mini-gate. It was the greatest 'eraser' one could ask for!

If one was to say that more than two days of fighting fixed pattern enemies had forcibly inked me with fixed patterns of attack, then the last mini-gate was one large eraser that washed away that 'harmful' muscle memory…

After spending a few hours and losing more than a dozen scales, I couldn't help but wonder whether this gate's designer simply wished to screw me over or actually wanted to provide me with the perfect training ground.

Regardless, I decided to accept it as a token of goodwill in order to feel slightly better in my journey to poke and get poked. However…

'Doesn't this look incredibly familiar…?'

Something unexpected appeared at the end of my path.