Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Just like Mira had speculated, steps 900 to 960 were, although nearly impossible, weren't impossible. She was constantly injured and was in the midst of losing her mind and sense of self, but she somehow managed to get through them.

It wasn't until the 961st step that Mira knew she had hit a wall. By this point, the pressure on her was intense that she literally couldn't walk. Luckily, she could still stand and could somewhat wave her arms around, albeit slowly.

She tried walking but found that unless she shuffled her feet across the ground, it was basically impossible to move her body.

However, Mira knew this was coming and had made plans beforehand so that even when her mind was going insane and her soul was constantly being ripped apart, she could still go on.

It wasn't much of a plan since she was only able to give simple commands to her body in her current state, but it should be more than enough to get her through at least a few floors.

Her plan was to encase her entire body inside the hardest and densest ice egg she could possibly create as soon as the pressure around her became so intense that she couldn't move her body.

Naturally, there were a few problems that Mira faced when coming up with this idea. The number one problem being, how is she going to descend the stairs if she's inside an egg?

To this, Mira didn't even have to think for very long and knew that this wasn't a problem, to begin with. She's been descending these stairs for long enough and has experienced firsthand just how impatient this entire place is. She doesn't even have to move onto the next floor! She'll be teleported to the next step whether she likes it or not after a few seconds after completing whatever trial the step has to offer!

In fact, this has happened several times over the course of over 900 steps. Sometimes she'll need a short breather after a tough fight or a rough death, but instead of getting that breather she'll just be sent to the next step and forced to go through the next trial.

Mira was also worried about whether or not the egg she creates will be able to last until the 1,000th step. It has to be able to withstand several hours' worth of beatings from the combat mannequins and Mira isn't sure whether her current powers are enough to be able to resist such an onslaught.

However, although Mira didn't know if her current power would be enough for her to make it to the 1,000th step, she didn't care. That was her only option at this point.

So, as soon as she appeared on the 961st step, Mira started encasing herself in ice, Yin Fire, Lightning, and Magma. She also withdrew most of the blood contained in her body, to the point where she shriveled up into a husk of her former self. One can't forget that she has the bloodline of a mythical beast, a Kuraokami. She's never done something like this and she's absolutely sure that she'll be out of commission for a while after this whole ordeal, but she still chose to do it as she needed every bit of power her body held.

Fortunately, Mira didn't withdraw the origin of her bloodline, or else she would lose her bloodline for good after using it this one time. It simply wasn't worth it to throw away the bloodline of a mythical beast just for a chance of making it to the 1,000th step. She still had to think about the future even if it may look bleak right now, but she also knew that even if she unleashed the full power of her bloodline, the results would be negligible. There's absolutely no way that it would be enough to prevent the onslaught that's about to come.

It might allow her to pass the steps from 961 to 980, but it wouldn't be of much use after that. Honestly, the biggest hurdle out of all these steps would be going from step 999 to 1,000.

This didn't come as a surprise to Mira, but she knew that she could only rely on luck at that point.

That's the main reason why Mira was unwilling to let go of her bloodline because it wouldn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things and if she somehow lived through all this, then she'll still be able to keep her bloodline. Even if she didn't make it and this is where she died, she wouldn't regret her decision.

Mira also used every ounce of Qi in her body to reinforce the egg while also tapping into the powers she got from her Frost-Fire Phoenix companion, Elenei. She used anything and everything in order to boost the power of the egg surrounding her!

Finally, Mira took out her scythe and held it in her hands. She used the blade of the scythe to cover her face and the pole to cover her heart. She knew she wouldn't be able to use it actively, but she could at least use it to defend her vitals.

As long as her head and heart were destroyed she would be fine. She couldn't care less about the rest of her body because she knew this place had the means to reconstruct her body back to its original form within seconds. In fact, this place could literally revive her dead body without any repercussions, but the trials she's going through right now are a bit different. If she were to die to one of these combat mannequins then she would surely die. There would be no resurrections and she wouldn't be able to continue taking these tests.

With her preparations complete, Mira was allowed a brief moment of rest where she didn't have to focus on controlling her body. The only thing she had to do now is prevent herself from giving up due to the pain in her soul and the torturous thoughts that became worse and worse with every step.

Gradually, she started losing connection with her body as she used her last bit of remaining willpower to keep herself from failing. Funnily enough, the only thing that kept her going was the fact that after around 7-8 minutes, the pain in her soul and the thoughts became worse meaning that the egg idea was working.

If one were to look outside of the egg, they would see a combat mannequin constantly attacking the egg as hard as it can, but hardly being able to leave a scratch. Mira's blood and her Yin Magma were the first layers of defense and their job was to lessen the force of each attack as much as possible. Small tendrils would come out of the egg as soon as an attack was about to hit and would take the brunt of the force. Next, Mira's Yin Fire and Lightning would approach the attack while trying to corrode and dissipate any remaining energy used in the blow. Lastly, there was a thin Qi barrier right outside of the ice egg that was made up of any remaining Qi that Mira was unable to use to reinforce her ice egg.

Only after the attack made it through all of those would the combat mannequin's fist finally make contact with the outer shell of the egg.

However, most of the attacks were too weak to leave any dents or cracks on the egg and would instead push the egg around so the combat mannequin couldn't keep raining down hits on the same spot.

This was part of the reason why Mira chose an egg instead of any other shape. For one, she now had a connection to a Phoenix and it almost seemed normal to encase herself in an egg made of ice instead of a sphere or a triangle or any other shape. But the most important reason is that eggs are surprisingly durable under the right circumstances.

She has thousands of years of experience as a mortal so she naturally understood that even if an egg might look weak and brittle, there are a few occasions where an egg can be surprisingly tough.

Have you ever held an egg in your hand and squeezed it, but were unable to break it? Mira applied the same characteristics here except her egg is weak or brittle. She's also using the pressure of the stairs to her advantage since the pressure isn't just coming from above or below but from every direction. Therefore, the pressure bearing down on her is unable to break her egg purely on pressure alone.

Any other shape would have most likely cracked soon after forming.

Mira felt like a genius for coming up with such an idea under such intense pressure and torture.

Unfortunately, things went about as she expected and on the 991st step, the egg shattered, but Mira had no idea that such a thing had even happened. Her soul was under such tremendous pain and her mind had been consumed by the dark subconscious thoughts that were trying to force her into giving up. All that was left was a tiny sliver of willpower that would resist until the bitter end. This tiny sliver of willpower, although small, was like a white speck on a black canvas. Even though it's only a speck, one can't help but gravitate towards that speck.

Even with her mind consumed and her soul constantly being ripped apart, Mira still held onto her scythe tightly.

Almost immediately, as soon as the egg popped, Mira fell onto her back still holding the scythe over her head and heart. Her eyes were hazy and out of focus and the only reason she's still alive right now is because of that speck of white that is her sliver of willpower.

For the next 9 minutes, Mira's body was ravaged by the combat mannequin. It rained down punches on every part of her body and kept trying to attack her head and heart but found itself unable to.

The combat mannequin also tried removing the scythe from her hand but found it rather difficult to accomplish since the pressure bearing down on Mira also applied to her scythe as her scythe is technically a part of her.

So it attacked every other part of her body. Over the course of the next 9 minutes, there wasn't a bone in Mira's body that wasn't broken or fractured in some way. She wasn't bleeding much since she used most of her blood to help form the egg.

After the time was up, Mira's broken body flashed and was teleported to the next step where the beatings continued.

This continued until she couldn't even be called a body at this point.

Her legs and arms had been removed from her body. In fact, from her solar plexus and below, there was nothing left except for leftover entrails. Her jaw had been ripped off of her head and even the sides of her face and cheeks had been destroyed. However, even through all this, her scythe stayed in the same position. It covered her heart and brain.

Mira had no idea what floor she was on or how far she had gotten. She couldn't even scream at this point as she didn't have vocal cords at this point.

She couldn't do anything at this point and even if she proceeded to the next step, it was basically guaranteed death. All the combat mannequin has to do at this point is reach into her chest and rip out her heart or even decapitate her. Those are the only two things that are left of her body.

With that said, Mira's body flashed once again, except this time she never appeared on the next step…