The Prince of Demons

King Ilrymax vanished into the horizon within a blink after dropping the revelation that I was doing something wrong. WHAT IS IT?! What was I doing wrong? King Ilrymax quickly deduced from that short observation that I was doing something incorrect when I tried replicating <Hyper Bound>. When did King Ilrymax ever see me run with <Hyper Bound>? I think he has some long-range ability to observe what is in his territory or at least see what is within a certain range of him. I shook my head as I needed to focus on the more important part which was that I was doing something wrong with <Hyper Bound>. Whatever I was doing wrong had to be easily visible or noticeable, especially to someone like King Ilrymax while using the distant method of looking at his territory.

With that in mind, what was wrong with my form? I wished Miril gave me more than one demonstration of <Hyper Bound>; I needed to replay it again mentally. What was it? I tried running a bit around at normal speed to see how that felt, and then I reimagined Miril's sprinting from when she dragged me away for a quick discussion. I focused more on her <Mana> and the color bleeding around us from the world rather than how Miril looked when she ran. Her motion felt so smooth while she ran through the mountains, we barely moved up and down as Miril tore across the mountains at light speed. How did her motion feel so smooth now that I was thinking about it? There was hardly any motion to her <Hyper Bound> other than the extreme forward speed. That was sticking in my mind now that I was thinking about the running motion. How? I was looking around more than at Miril, unfortunately. How did she make her motion so smooth? What was the trick to it?

I tried running with <Hyper Bound> again along the path, focusing more on my motion than covering the distance. My motion is more jagged than Miril's with more up and down to it than hers had. Again, I lost control and tumbled into the cliff face; that was undeniably the incorrect approach as I felt the stone-cold embrace of the mountainside. Was there a section of this lap that might help me figure out what I was doing wrong? I shot up back to the path and ran along the lap, trying to figure out which section was the easiest to learn on. I quickly omitted the section that required a bunch of rapid shifts because I now suspected that section was much harder than I thought it was with how much I was struggling to control <Hyper Bound>. My joints screamed from rapid pivots and changes in direction; I do not want to discover just how monstrous that section truly is. I kept trying different sections to see how challenging each one was until I found one where I didn't eat stones after several moments.

To my surprise, the section that I nearly did on the first attempt was the one with massively spaced spots to run along. Why? What was different about the section? It was the cleanest stretch of the few I attempted by far; it was not even close which one I got the farthest along without losing control of the speed. It was also the section that was the easiest to catch myself and get back to try the part over again. I returned to the start of the leg of the lap and tried it again, focusing on my motion to try and figure out what was different. This was much smoother compared to any other attempt to use <Hyper Bound> other than on a flat open plain. Why? What is the difference between this and the other stretches? The shorter sections proved to be more challenging than the section with large gaps between the landing points, even when the sections seemed to be fine when I ran at a normal speed. For some reason, this section proved to be much easier than the others because I was able to do the stretch without losing control in three attempts.

Why was this section easier? King Ilrymax likely knew what I was doing wrong, or at least suspected what was incorrect with how I was using <Hyper Bound>. Was I doing it wrong in other sections? Hold on, maybe I should think about it the other way around: what was I doing right in this section? I ran over the leg again, trying to see what was different compared to the other parts I tried. The obvious answer was that I was being forced to cover more distance with each stride I took in this section. My front paws would land, my back legs would follow along, and I would kick off in another bound to try and reach the next spot to land. It was more of a lunge than when I ran in the shorter sections. Was that the trick? More of a lunging motion than a sprinting motion? Something clicked in my mind. It is called <Hyper Bound>, not <Hyper Sprint>.

I nearly slapped myself in the face when I realized the name of the <Technique> gave away the answer. It was painfully obvious now that I realized that; it wasn't a sprinting motion that mattered, but the lunging or bounding motion that worked when trying to move that fast. Well, with that image in mind, I tried using <Hyper Bound> again with emphasis on the bounding motion rather than a sprinting motion. Now that I was focusing on making more of an effort to extend my motion and more lunge between the points rather than sprint, the motion became substantially smoother. Why was this so much smoother this way? Why? Why was this going so much better now? The motion didn't feel that much different, but the result was night and day how much better it was. I ran through the section several times, doing exaggerated turn arounds to go back over the leg of the lap without fail over it. What is so different about this? Why is the more jumping motion succeeding?

Was it how I was landing? Was it something about how I positioned myself while I used <Hyper Bound>? This didn't make any sense to me; the motion did not feel all that different. I mean, it obviously is a bit different chaining lunges over a cleaner sprint, but my general form doesn't strike me as substantially different. Why was the slightly different motion producing such a different result? The motion smoothed out so much from what felt like such a minor change; the result was almost instantaneous as well. This was baffling. Why is this working? Why was I getting irritated that it was working? The solution turned out to be something so simple! Why am I getting so annoyed by success? Because I had no idea why it was working? Why was a bounding motion producing such a superior result? I alternated between the motions, trying to grasp why the bounding motion was doing so much better. What is the difference between them?! I felt understanding why was important, but I couldn't grasp what the difference between the two was. This was so baffling as I just sat there trying to determine why there was such a disparity between them.

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As I kept using <Hyper Bound> over the stretch, I focused on the motion over and over again. There was nothing sticking out to me; the motion was only getting smoother as I practiced bounding more than sprinting. Why?! WHY?! WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?! It was driving me crazy; something about the motion was creating such a vast change in outcome. King Ilrymax noticed my form was off in almost no time. But when Miril did it, her motion felt so? What's the right word for it? Flat? My bounding was causing more of an arc to my <Hyper Bound>, whereas hers felt a bit flatter. Maybe I need to try and flatten out the motion a bit more. With that thought, I attempted to run the stretch while trying to be more horizontal in the motion rather than the arcs I did; something became apparent immediately once I did it.

Holy shiza how do I control this speed?! Before it was fast from using <Hyper Bound>, but the straightening out of my form bleached the color from the world much quicker, almost turning the world completely gray as I used <Hyper Bound>. I struggled to slow down enough to stop, seeing I overshot my intended spot by over half a mile. Wow, I covered a lot of ground in such a short span of time. Something was off with that <Technique>. Why is <Hyper Bound> producing that much speed from adjusting the form a little? Did I just run wrong? Can I just not run properly? What kind of <Sentinel Lord> couldn't even run properly? What was wrong? The form made such a massive difference despite it not feeling like I made a large change. What was the difference? Was I a being that didn't even know how to run properly? That can't be true, can it?

"Chef!" Ikol chimed from nearby, jarring me from my thoughts.

"Ikol." I replied as I saw Ikol run over to me; it looked like how I normally ran.

"How goes the lap, Chef?" Ikol checked before sitting at attention in front of me.

"I am working on it." I informed him. I need him to run a bit more.

"That's good." Ikol quipped. He was nodding enthusiastically as his tails happily flickered back and forth.

"So, how goes carving the stone?" I checked, wondering how his challenge was going.

"Bad! I keep breaking it!" Ikol replied happily. Why was he so cheery if he was struggling with it?

"You seem happy despite that." I pointed out as I was trying to figure out what made him so cheery.

"Because I am learning! It takes time!" Ikol replied with a smile.

"Good point." I agreed as I pat his head. Good musclehead.

"What do you want to do now?" Ikol probed. Maybe Ikol could be helpful in figuring out the difference in motions.

"Let's go for a small little run." I suggested to him.

"Yes Chef!" Ikol replied cheerfully.

The two of us began casually running around, with me looking at how Ikol was running occasionally. He should've learned from Miril, so his way of running should be fine. To my relief, Ikol ran pretty much the same way I did. There were a few minor details between us that weren't the same, but that was more because of how muscular Ikol was rather than a difference between our forms; if anything, they were almost identical. His way of running didn't resemble the form for using <Hyper Bound> whatsoever. I am not a failure at learning to run. That was a massive relief to me, it was not some issue with my lack of knowledge. So why does <Hyper Bound> use that more leaping form? As we ran side by side I tried running like I was using <Hyper Bound> without using the <Mana> and Ikol effortlessly began gaining distance on me. Ikol seemed confused that he suddenly was ahead of me because it had been well over a year since Ikol remotely was able to out speed me. Why on Phestia did the bounding motion work with <Hyper Bound> but not when running normally?

Ikol started to slow down to match my speed, but I just began running normally again to get back to a more normal speed. He sped back up, giving me a confused look as he did not grasp why I slowed down and then sped back up. What is the difference? There was something distinctly different about how movement with <Hyper Bound> behaved. Something with the <Mana> and general <Technique> required a different kind of motion to work. I guess something akin to swimming versus running? I just assumed because both appeared to run on the ground that the motion was the exact same or similar. The difference between the two was going to elude me for a little while longer, unfortunately. Ikol ran alongside me, seeming happy to just be running with me. Such a loyal musclehead.

"Why are you looking at me so much?" Ikol asked as I apparently was staring at him a bit too much.

"I was looking at how you were running." I answered. Ikol cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"Why?" Ikol checked in a baffled tone.

"I was trying to get a grasp on <Hyper Bound> as the form for it is different." I informed him. Ikol did this kind of shrug as we kept running.

"I see." Ikol quipped, focusing back on our run.

"I appreciate the run." I confessed as it took my mind off feeling like a failure about not knowing how to run, or more he confirmed that was not the issue.

"Running is fun!" Ikol chimed happily as we kept running along.

"It is." I agreed as we continued our small break from King Ilrymax's challenge.