Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Starting on the 500th step, when Mira went in to attack the combat mannequin, she immediately noticed that there was no more rebound effect. Not only that, but when she tried taking off the head of the combat mannequin, she found it to be nearly impossible, which she found weird.

Usually, she would be able to remove the head with little to no effort but now things seem to have changed. Mira then tried to remove the 'heart' of the combat mannequin, but quickly found out that she was unable to penetrate the mannequin.

Even though she hadn't used her full power to attack, she did use around 40% of her power. Just with that knowledge and with how her attack felt while hitting the mannequin, Mira knew with absolute certainty that even if she used her full-powered attacks, she wouldn't be able to damage the mannequin.

Another thing to note is that Mira's current prowess is a bit less than when she started descending these stairs. That's mostly because the pressure weighing down on her is around 150 times stronger than when she started this journey. That might sound like a lot, but the pressure barely affected her on the first step so even though it's around 150 times stronger now, it could be said that only now is she starting to feel the pressure.

With that being said, her combat prowess has dropped around 1%. That might not sound like much, but after a few hundred steps, she'll start seeing a significant decrease in combat prowess. By the time she reaches the 1,000th step, she might barely be able to utilize a few percent of her true combat strength.

At this point, Mira was also getting rather tired. No, it is more accurate to say she was fucking exhausted! She's barely had a single second of rest for who knows how long! She's been either getting tortured, fighting, or had her soul ripped out of her body to experience otherworldly things.

Not only that, but now she has to descend down these stairs while not only fighting, but also dealing with thoughts that are constantly telling her to give up, to just end it all right here and now, to forget about her goals and revenge, and to just accept her fate as someone else's plaything.

That coupled with the constant pain in her soul is really starting to wear on her. Worst of all, if she decides to take a break then for all she knows, she's as good as dead or perhaps worse. All she knows is that taking a break is the last thing she wants to do even if it's exactly what she needs right now.

She doesn't even know how far down these stairs go! But for some reason, she highly doubts it ends at just 1,000 steps! Her hunch is telling her that there are most likely 10,000 steps to descend.

If that's the case, then she's literally only 5% of the way through this shithole and she's already exhausted.

"To think it will only get exponentially harder from here on out…"

Mira muttered to herself as she just did her best to dodge the combat mannequin's attacks.

Fortunately, she was extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat and the mannequin wasn't particularly amazing so dodging its attacks was relatively easy for her.

However, after exactly a minute passed, Mira felt her heart stop and she instantly died!

A few seconds later, the combat mannequin disappeared and Mira miraculously came back to life with a gasp!

"Gasp! Fuck! So that's how it's gonna be from here on out. I'm unable to damage the mannequin and am forced to dodge until I reach the end of the time limit. Not only that, but it seems the stairs didn't return me back to my peak. I can feel some bruises left by the mannequin that I purposely let leave in order to test some things out. GREAT! AMAZING! I can't wait to accumulate a bunch of injuries over the course of however many steps this will go on! Not only that, but as I descend further, I'll be getting weaker while the combat mannequins will be getting stronger. I'm also 100% sure that the time I need to live/dodge will increase with each step I descend. How troublesome…"

Mira cursed out loud in anger. Normally, she wouldn't be this upset or at least she wouldn't lash out like that, but her emotions are starting to go out of control due to the constant pain and exhaustion she's feeling.

It's times like this when if anyone were to see Mira, they would know that she's human just like the rest of them. She has feelings and she can feel mental, physical, and emotional pain just like everyone else. She needs sleep and time to rest just like most people, especially after going through something this taxing.

But that's exactly the point of these tests, to push the person to their absolute limit and beyond. Not only that, but its goal seems to push them to the brink of insanity in every possible way. Well, for most people, these types of things would push them not to the brink of insanity, but they would've already gone insane long ago. Just the torture her body went through in the beggining was more than enough to break even the most battle-hardened heroes. Not even someone who was trained to be tortured would be able to withstand that kind of fucked up pain since that kind of thing is not within the realm of what human's are capable of.

Mira stopped thinking about unnecessary things and slapped her face to get her head in the game!

"Alright! Let's just charge down these fucking stairs and get this shit over with! I just want to grab whatever treasure is at the end of all these tests and get out of here! I've already made it this far and if you think this is enough to take me down then… then… fuck you! I'll show you that this baby shit won't stop me from accomplishing my goals!"

Mira did her best to keep her morale and resolve at an all time high, but she's not exactly in the right state of mind right now so it may have come out a little… different than what she had hoped.

But at least she got her point across and so began her journey after the 500th step!