The sun was about to set again, so I woke Elena and we prepared to fight.
Swish!
The mountains flipped suddenly like yesterday. We looked around, ready for the appearance of the shadow copies.
We didn't wait long — the three copies appeared just like yesterday.
"They're a little strange."
Ronan stared at them, clearly puzzled.
"You're right. I hope I'm wrong, but don't they look stronger?"
I said, clearly nervous. The copies had exerted much more pressure than yesterday.
"Guys, they're level seven—"
Before Elena could finish, her copy appeared in front of her, swinging a sword aimed at her neck.
"!!!"
I moved quickly and pulled Elena back, but the copy managed to leave a cut on Elena's chin.
"Stay close or we'll be dead before we realize it,"
I shouted in fear when I saw Elena bleeding. Fortunately she healed herself quickly and stood up again.
My copy took advantage of our confusion over the attack and quickly appeared in our midst.
A circle of corrupt darkness formed around the copy, then expanded violently, striking us and throwing us backwards.
"Ughhh!"
A sharp pain hit my ribs — the chains that bound us all were broken. I recovered and re-tethered myself, but I couldn't help the others, Fortunately they took care of themselves.
Ronan used his wind to fly while Elena created light platforms and used them as footholds.
"Damn, those bastards split us up."
I cursed, pointing my sword forward, ready for the copy's attack. But strong winds pulled my gaze toward Ronan's copy.
"This!! He's summoning a tornado."
My jaw dropped when I saw a massive tornado forming before me. The copy moved its arms and the tornado moved toward us.
I managed to resist the tornado's pull thanks to the chains that tied me to the ground, but Elena and Ronan were sucked away without resistance.
"Fu*k—how are we supposed to kill manifested-level monsters? This is impossible."
The tornado changed in front of me; its head split into two, and before I understood what was happening, two people were launched from the tornado with force in different directions.
"No!!"
I screamed in fear at what happened — they had separated us irreversibly.
The tornado vanished after throwing Elena and Ronan far away. The three copies turned their gaze to me.
"What, are you telling me it's one against three? Who told you I'm some kind of hero?"
I mocked, sweating and extremely tense.
'Calm down, Nox. You're immortal — just try not to fall down there. These copies have nothing odd about them; that means they don't have the manifestation that manifested ones have. Maybe because they're just copies.'
I tried to calm myself while analyzing the enemy's abilities.
Elena's copy looked at me, then lunged forward, directing her sword toward my heart.
'This is going to hurt a lot.'
Slash!
The sword pierced my heart, sending terrible pain through my body, but I endured it, grabbed the copy's hand and summoned darkness chains to bind her.
Elena was shocked by what happened and tried to pull her hand with all her strength, causing tears inside me, but she couldn't.
"This hurts, you whore!"
I screamed at her, raising my sword and bringing it down with all my force.
Clang!
My attack was stopped halfway by Ronan's copy who intervened to save Elena.
Before I could react, my copy appeared beside me and landed a punch on my side, throwing me toward the mountain.
"Arrghh!"
Blood spewed wildly as I tried to gather strength to stand.
A whirl of compressed air appeared before me, sucking things toward it. Before I could escape, a beam of light shot into it and mixed with the vortex.
The vortex throbbed violently then —
Explosion!
It detonated with great force, creating a mushroom cloud that reached the mountain peaks, destroying the surroundings and raising a huge dust cloud over the area.
The three copies waited, staring at the explosion site.
Once the cloud cleared, a mass of flesh appeared from nowhere, pulsing strongly before rapidly growing into a human with black hair and abyss-like eyes. It was Nox himself.
"Damn — it evaporated without me feeling anything."
I looked at them with hatred and summoned my armor. Good thing I canceled its summoning at the last moment or I'd have been naked.
I stared at the copies, then smiled with scorn and contempt as I pointed at them.
"Let me tell you something: you lost from the moment you decided to target me alone. I am immortal — no matter how many times you kill me I'll stand up again until I crush you. So..."
I lowered my hand and my gaze turned cold. I released a great killing intent that made the air itself tremble. My killing intent rivaled that of powerful beings because I've experienced death many times.
"So come on — let me enjoy killing you."
I boosted my whole body and charged forward at top speed. Ronan's copy stood before me; I considered his wind the most dangerous because he could throw me into the corrupt sea of darkness.
Slash!
I slashed across his chest but he retreated, leaving a small cut along his torso.
I didn't wait long. I summoned ten spheres of darkness floating around us. Spears formed from the spheres and stabbed at the copies.
They dodged the attack, but I managed to leave cuts on them. I felt danger behind me but didn't turn; I continued my assault on Ronan's copy. When Elena's copy tried to cut me from behind, dark spikes shot from my back to stab the copy.
The copies were surprised but managed to avoid the spikes aimed at their face, though one succeeded in piercing her shoulder.
Clang! Clang!
I exchanged several sword strikes with Ronan's copy before my copy appeared on the side swinging its sword intending to slice me in half.
I summoned a wall of darkness in the sword's path.
Crash!
The wall broke easily, but I hadn't summoned it for protection. The sword continued his way but didn't hit me because I jumped up and lengthened my chains to keep myself grounded.
I gathered darkness in my left hand and struck downward. Darkness burst from my hand and struck the ground, causing an explosion that pushed the copies back.
The chains pulled me to the ground as I watched the copies regain their stance.
"Heh. Now that I observe, you can't use attacks we haven't used ourselves. The strongest thing you did was modify an attack, like you did with Ronan's tornado. As for you—"
I narrowed my vision on Elena's copy.
"I thought Elena was extremely strong, so I beat you, but I was wrong. For some reason you're weak. You should have dodged the spikes that came from my back. Is your weakness because it's hard for you to mimic light? After all, light is your enemy, or—"
I paused as I detected a faint trembling in Elena's copy.
"Or you didn't even mimic Elena's ability in the first place. You only copied what she showed. As you know, Sora told me Elena's light is unlike any other light. Elena has been able to do things others couldn't, like purify rotten food or not be affected by Sora's black holes."
My words seemed correct as the copy trembled violently.
I turned my gaze toward my copy.
"What about you? You're weak too. After all, I couldn't understand the darkness, and since you're my copy, you can't either. for the manifested Level , you're weak in manipulating the shard, so both of you have trying protecting Ronan's copy. he's stronger than you, but her flaw is that wind isn't one of the strongest shards ."
I paused for a moment, then smiled with contempt.
"That means the three of you are failed copies. You tried to split us up to get a chance. How funny that the Sea of Darkness can only create failed copies. How disgraceful."
It seemed my words affected the copies as they attacked me again.
I ducked under the beam of corrupted light and then summoned spears of darkness around me, forcing my copy to retreat. I quickly turned and sent a ball of darkness toward Ronan, who tried to summon his wind. A Tentacles from the ball and lashed Ronan like a whip, throwing him toward the mountains.
I spun my sword quickly as I parried my copy's blade.
Clang! Clang!
We clashed several times in succession, each blow sending pain through my hands until they felt numb, but I endured it.
"They're failed clones … but the manifested one's physical strength isn't a joke," I thought as I leapt back, dodging a slash aimed at my stomach.
Elena clone appeared behind me suddenly, striking a diagonal cut toward my back.
Slash!
Blood splattered from the wound on my back,it was so deep you could see my internal organs.
"You bitch… I'm going easy on you because you resemble Elena," I cursed, summoning chains of darkness to restrain her. But light shuriken destroyed the chains and then pierced my back, ravaging my body from within.
Slice! Slice!
The shuriken spun inside me, wreaking bloody havoc before slicing my body in half.
Before my upper body could fall into the Sea of Darkness, I summoned chains that bound me,but these buying enough time for my clone to approach.
Smash!
The clone sent a devastating punch into the center of my chest, shattering my ribcage. I felt my ribs break and pierce my heart and lungs.
My lungs filled with blood as I lost the ability to breathe. My body was thrown back, but the chains still held me, preventing me from flying too far.
All my organs—if you could even call them that—were in chaos because of the shuriken.
The chains dragged me to the ground. I placed my hand on them and released an explosion of darkness that forced the clones back. This gave me time to regenerate.
I stood as soon as I healed. My appearance was ridiculous—I was almost naked—but since it was night and enveloped in deep darkness, my armor quickly regenerated.
Ronan's clone emerged from the mountain, full of wounds but unfazed. He raised his sword high, then brought it down with force, unleashing a massive wind blade that cut everything in its path, carving a scar into the ground.
"What should I do? Should I devour the attack with my darkness? But I want to keep a trump card. If I do this, it'll cost me tomorrow…"
I wondered what I should do. The darkness could consume attacks, but I hadn't used this ability because others were around. Now I was alone, but facing beings who could imitate me.
I ignored my thoughts and decided to block the attack directly. I infused my sword with darkness and then released a flying dark blade toward the wind blade.
Crash!
The two blades collided with great force, sending a shockwave in all directions.
But the difference in power was vast. The wind blade quickly overwhelmed mine and continued toward me. But I was ready: I created ten layers of walls in its path.
The wind shattered the walls but lost strength and speed with each one. When it finally reached me, I managed to block it with my sword.
But the three clones also took the opportunity to prepare a powerful combined attack.
Elena's clone summoned a giant sun that illuminated the area, and my clone surrounded the sun with darkness. It looked like an eclipse. Ronan's clone summoned a massive tornado that swallowed the black sun, then leaned forward.
"Please don't tell me you're going to release it…" I muttered in fear and disbelief. If it hit me, I'd fall into the Sea of Darkness.
I turned quickly, trying to escape, summoning walls of darkness behind me to survive.
But the tornado launched the attack at me anyway. The darkness sun smashed through the walls like glass and struck me directly.
My thoughts faded as I was erased from existence by a massive explosion that destroyed ten surrounding mountains.
I felt nothing—couldn't feel, breathe, speak, or even think. I didn't exist. I was floating in endless darkness.
But suddenly, something changed. The darkness trembled, then many things seeped into me. I could think and feel again—and the first thing I felt was…
"Ughhhhhhhhhh!!!!!…"
Painful. Pain beyond anything. If I could speak, my scream would pierce the sky. I felt like I was burning to nothingness, only to be revived and burned again. This repeated thousands of times in just moments.
At first, I screamed in agony, but little by little I stopped feeling. My emotions didn't vanish, but a deep cold settled in my head. I no longer cared about the pain—or maybe I'd lost the ability to feel.
My emotions had frozen, as if I'd been drowned in an icy sea.
At some point, I regained the ability to see. The first thing I saw was the Sea of Darkness growing closer every second.
"I'm falling…"
I thought slowly. Even forming thoughts was hard. I was so tired. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep—maybe forever.
'Death isn't much different from sleep. In fact, death is sleeping forever. I'm so tired… If I die now, I won't feel this pain again, right?'
I continued falling toward the Sea of Darkness. My armor had already regenerated, but I didn't care. My sword was destroyed It seems to be healing in my soul , but I didn't care. I wanted to die quickly.
'This isn't bad, right? I was supposed to die from the beginning. If I'd died back then, I wouldn't have lived through this pain.'
My thoughts shifted as I thought and a familiar person appeared in my mind.
'Maybe my only regret is leaving her behind. Too bad I couldn't even say goodbye.'
I closed my weary eyes, waiting for my release. But something grabbed my foot before I fell into the Sea of Darkness.
I opened my heavy eyes and saw a rope of light attached to me. I followed the line to see Elena holding the other end, her face full of fear.
'Looks like I'm forbidden from dying, huh…'
I thought with weak sarcasm as I was pulled back by the rope.
...