No-Hit Knight: Holding X, No HoldBreath, All Attacks, Pre-Patch (world's only)

~40 hours across 15 days for this one. 6 attempts to final I'd argue this is more unlikely than True Hitless Asriel. I foolishly thought this would take 10 hours tops at the start; I must've made it to phase 3 over 50 times. I went for this because there's only 1 other "holding-x" no-hit knight on yt, and in the description it was claimed that holding-x no-hit was impossible without HoldBreath. I tested with a per-attack practice mod, and found it was possible, if only I were lucky enough to get avoidable/reactable patterns on certain attacks (the rest were tough but decently consistent with good precision, routing, and/or processing.) I'm quite easily tempted to work on uncleared challenges when they're claimed to be impossible, though they've never come easy. Starstorm 1 and 2 aren't too much harder holding-x. The first half of the attack with the stars coming at you could catch me off guard sometimes. Sticking to the corner and dodging diagonally perpendicular near a corner felt like it gave more leniency, though I didn't always do that. Starstorm 3 is surprisingly not terrible. I tried to dodge diagonally up-right toward the corner and over then under the first red-turned bullets, also trying to watch behind for bullets behind that may intersect with my path ahead. Sometimes I had to cut through below the first red-turned bullets on the right moreso around the middle, because bullets behind me were arriving too quickly. Tracking Swords' difficulty is mostly nullified with the alternating diagonal movements. Fortunately you can still dodge the cardinal tracking swords moving 45° to them holding-x without HoldBreath when moving diagonally (cannot do the same against diagonal swords when moving cardinally.) Phases 2 and 3 versions of it required high focus but were ultimately consistent overall. Some strategic use of cardinal moves could help staying in the sword circle better for Tracking 2. Box Splitter 1, 2, and 3 were the most frustrating attacks for me. It demands very sharp reflexes and positional awareness, and its worst-case scenario pattern (which is 2 fast double-bullets spawning with soul lined up perfectly between) is borderline if not unavoidable, requiring high level reactions to even stand a chance dodging many instances. There's a good chance you'll have to react a bad pattern or two every turn of it. I mostly stuck near the corner where it felt easier to process and theoretically simplified the equation, but you'd be surprised how quick the dodging opportunity comes and goes when relying solely on reflexes. For me the worst pattern with corner strats is a fast double coming as the 2nd and 3rd bullet from the edge, with the slash/split slanted towards the corner; my tendency is to always dodge back towards the corner, but if the bullet alignment is slanted like that, the nearmost bullet (2nd from edge) is choked up thus there's even less distance/time to react. I tended to get a bit farther out from the corner when the slash angled toward the corner in those cases. I also employed some tactical pre-moving, but not always in the best ways, I'm not even positive it's beneficial. Theoretically for pre-moving, it's best to premove in the direction the slash is slanting *towards*, but while being as far away from the slash as possible once it actually occurs. That way there's the most leniency both ways: 1. with the pre-moving headstart you can simply hold down the button if the worst-case choked up bullet scenario happens, or 2. double back if you're unsure you'll make it by continuing forwards (with extra time to react to doing the more complicated move, because the double back direction has slanted-away bullets that give more space.) For Box Splitter 3 corner slashes, it's just a lot harder, but what felt like it helped was being closer to the slash in any form, and moving toward the corner or the slash depending on the bullet spread. Often times there was a surprising amount of time and space to make moves, but there are unfortunate bullet spreads that demand high precision and/or reflexes to avoid sometimes. Most phase-3 attempts died at Splitter 3. Sword Tunnel in every form is the runner-up for most frustrating attack, but it it's not such a precise or difficult attack for me to dodge, at least the tunnel part. The sword strike is the real problem, as it's incredibly luck dependent that you'll even be able to reach a suitable gap in time. I hallucinated many supposed strategies to boost the odds that a reachable gap would appear more often, but at this point I'm near certain there's nothing. The only thing that helped was pre-moving, not fully limited by reactions. Rotating Slash 1 and 2 was just tighter but pretty unchanged/not terrible. Rotating Slash 3's spin ending was precise but relatively consistent in the end. Final was maybe most luck-based. 1st half was more precise but mostly consistent, on 2nd you can only hope to react well and not get stuck in the corner too soon.