Chapter 962 - Mirror

I, of course, tried to learn as much as possible about [Mirror]. Pride and Adrian aren't the only known holders of that skill, and there is information on it and its confirmed or suspected holders. Mostly, just some beyond attendees, with the information recorded in the Information Guild archives. Surprisingly, it is sometimes even sold by Handlers.

I remember delving deep into the dark archives under the guidance of one of their employees. There were rows upon rows of shelves filled with mana stones and covered in dust. It was all lit by the single permitted lamp the employee was carrying. There was no system to the cataloguing at all.

There are often requirements to use [Mirror], though they vary from person to person. These usually depend on their perception of themselves, and in a way, the skill is restricted by certain firm rules just like my [Jüdrajil].

If you think about it, it makes sense, since [Mirror] creates things out of nothing. It doesn't take things away from your opponent and give them to you. No, it temporarily creates them, be it stats, weapons, and various other things that your perception and level in the skill allow you to copy.

Someone like Pride might be able to mirror all you have just by looking. He is so far above everyone else that he likely simply cannot imagine himself not being able to do so. Furthermore, for him, the act of mirroring is to make himself weaker.

Others might require a touch, the skill might take longer to activate, or they might be able to [Mirror] only a percentage of the thing they want to copy. Adrian seems to require a touch to copy stats, and he seemingly can copy constructs, weapons, or items up to a certain rarity just by looking.

The sword he swings at me clashes against mine. He twists it, coils it, and stabs towards me, perfectly locating my weak spot. Only through my superior speed do I manage to pull my weapon back in time to deflect it.

The shockwave of an explosion tears the floating cube apart, revealing a flammable liquid core, and I allow the shockwave and Adrian's attack to push me back.

Due to the friction of the explosion, the cores of all the destroyed cubes ignite. Dozens of huge fireballs explode all over the area, and a flaming rain begins to pour down on the attendees that have survived up until now.

I strongly suspect no one below Hell difficulty remains.

My blast of raw mana cleanly erases the area around us, with the material making up the cube simply gone. Adrian floats there holding his sword in front of him. From behind his back, two big arms made of pale blue mana cover him to add to his defense. They are made from just the bit of mana he has regenerated with his Regenerator mana attribute.

Those hands turn into wings he swings to reach me faster, adding to whatever method he is using to fly. Even now he is smiling. With just one arm, using the bits of mana that get restored, he continues to attack me. But I know that he must be pissed off. He must be so angry.

I would be. After all, he must must know that I'm not going all out, that I'm extending the fight to learn about his abilities as much as possible and find out more methods to hide my intentions from him.

Of course, if I make a mistake, he will get me. Even in the state he is now, he is more dangerous than anyone but a few current tutorial attendees. But I'm used to dancing on that edge, and I also arrogantly believe I can deal with whatever he throws at me.

Somewhere from below us, wooden roots pierce the ground, growing like spiraling spikes into the air and attacking some vyssari who continues to shoot white cored flames at them. One such attack shoots our way too, as the guy finds a moment while facing the roots and tries to get a few more points by killing either of us.

Both Adrian and I avoid it, clashing once again. I shoot another mana blast towards Adrian, expecting him to get pushed back. Instead, the wings of mana turn into hands again to cover him. My attack reaches the ground, creating a huge crater and erasing the roots as the vyssari guy scrambles to escape.

Boosting myself towards the ground, I land near a lake with a surface of raging waves, and Adrian follows me like a hunting dog. The wings turn into six arms, each as big as a velnar's. They stretch from behind his back, reaching towards me and slamming into the ground as I backstep to avoid them.

When I try to teleport away, he reads my intention and activates his [Mirror], forming a structure that bounces my teleport off its surfaces and drops me right back in the exact spot where I am standing.

But I notice a ranged attack coming. Some Hell difficulty guy set up at the top of the mountain, sniping people while avoiding his opponent. I almost snicker, and then I lower the defenses at the back of my head. The attack isn't even that powerful, yet with my constitution it kills me instantly, the system teleporting me away just as Adrian almost reaches me.

My barrier snaps back into place, and I take a step, releasing a wave of kinetic energy that blasts away the nearby heavily defended castle. I follow it with multiple blasts of mana, killing avatars and participants indiscriminately. As I often like to do, I don't even try to be fancy, relying solely on my raw output, which is more than enough to destroy most defenses.

Adrian follows me, of course, and catches up, clearly pissed off yet strangely amused. He bounces it off the mirrors and throws a concentrated blast of mana at my face to mess with my senses while the arms constantly move in aggressive attacks.

And I realize that he has been taking a bit of mana from the sword he mirrored and still holds. Not much at once, as I don't think he can break it down that quickly, but enough to use it as a mana battery, making his mana reserves return faster than they naturally should.

So this time I allow myself to gather more mana, letting it rumble under my skin before I release it at him in that same simple blast.

The lake behind him ripples and a clean trench cuts through its entire length, revealing the bottom and splitting the mountain behind it in half. Huge waves rise and ripple outward, and with a thundering roar, the water rushes back in to fill the gap.

Adrian stands there with a half figure made of mana floating behind him. It has only two arms, holding the part of my attack that would have hit Adrian between its hands. It looks like an orb threatening to explode while the figure is trying to hold it together, to the point that it almost seems to be glitching out.

The sword Adrian held is now cracked and broken, and through my eyes, I remember what I wanted to do, and make it explode just as the figure releases that part of the attack back at me.

Adrian is thrown away while I simply facetank both the explosions. Even though I can't see him normally, I track his mana signature and take a step with Wraith Dance, appearing in the direction he is flung.

He twists in the air, turning his head to face me, clearly recognizing the kinetic technique. Instead of slowing himself, he adds to his speed, twisting so my sword stabs through his belly instead of his chest. A bit of mana flickers around his teeth as he swings his head at me, attempting to bite off my neck.

I let him do it, watching as he fails to pierce through my defenses. Still, he uses the touch to trigger [Mirror] again, and once again he mirrors my mana, which is now almost twice as high as it was when we started.

His eyes gleam wildly, and his skin flickers like a liquid mirror again as he takes a step back, swaying as my sword slides out of him. He spits blood at my feet and uses his remaining hand to wipe it off his lips, only smearing it across his cheek.

Daringly, he stares me down, giving his utmost to keep control of the mana. That pillar now reaches even higher and extends further outward. It trembles, twitches, and oscillates, attempting to escape all of his control.

His figure manifests behind him, growing two more, four more, six more arms, making it eight in total. The figure moves like it is physically trying to hold the pillar around Adrian together.

To push him further, I use Wraith Dance to reach him, moving to his left side where he is missing an arm, and attack.

Even during this all he uses [Mirror], but this time to mirror his right arm, which then appears where his left is missing. It cracks and twists, but snaps into place as he pulls a dagger made of mana out of the pillar surrounding him and stabs at me.

I observe him trying to use it as a funnel to force the mana he is trying to control at me, with a single goal of attacking me. And partially, he even succeeds, as that attack is modified and made to disrupt the defensive layers around my body. Because of the sheer amount of mana behind it, it makes my defenses wobble. At the same time, instead of trying to control it, the figure behind him feeds on the mana and grows in size, quickly turning near gargantuan.

"Fuck you," Adrian pushes through teeth covered in the blood his mouth is full of. "I'm done when I say I am done, you fucker."

He only barely holds himself together through all of this, but I see something that I can almost respect in his eyes.

Returning his gaze, I look at the dagger he stabbed at my neck, with the tip of the blade resting on it, unable to pierce through. Then I tilt my head back to look up at the figure looming above us. It towers higher than a skyscraper, a suffocating mass of dense mana that blocks out the sky and makes the ground beneath my feet tremble just from its weight. The air itself compresses and shrieks as it brings eight colossal arms crashing down toward me, each one dropping like a falling mountain.

My eyes turn to active mode, and I reach up with my hand and pull towards myself. The entire figure, just about to hit me, stretches towards me and then pops, turning into countless mana particles that get pulled towards me and sucked into my body.

Due to the backlash, Adrian falls to his knees, but before he does so, I pry the dagger out of his hand and boost my movement, stabbing it into his head.

I get a few notifications, and while I wait for the system to teleport me out, I watch as the avatar disappears. I start to replay the movement of his mana to estimate what sort of active skills he got and how his most important ones work. Things will be different now that he is reborn, but some habits are difficult to change.

Before getting kicked out of the place, I give this area one last look, finding it almost unrecognizable. Where a million participants and that same amount of avatars fought, there now lies a wasteland. Crater upon crater, destroyed mountains, and a dark sky with just a few rays of light piercing through and landing on the dust and ash filling the air. Fires blaze all over, lighting up the dark sky from below.

There are still some fights happening, flashes of lightning, a huge skeleton still moving, a tornado spinning in the distance, and such, but the event is mostly done.

All a mere few minutes after it started.

Someone else might have been terrified by the scale of destruction, but I've seen much worse. I'm even confident I would be able to deal a similar level of damage on my own.

Once I appear outside, I move to near the center of our territory, observing the mood of people from Earth. Where the Easy and Normal Difficulty participants used to be excited, they are now quieter, some still watching the screen for the few remaining people from Hell Difficulty fighting.

I wonder if it's just temporary and they will get to enjoy the tournament, or if what happened was a strong reminder of what could happen. I think they must know deep down that if people from higher difficulties decided to participate in wars or take something, it would look very similar to the first event, but this time there wouldn't be five lives.

While they might worry, at the same time there isn't much they can do. Even if they all gather together and cooperate, they simply cannot win, so it will be the same thing all over again. Joining someone powerful and hoping for protection, at least temporarily.

And it's not like only returnees will possess a system, so there will be other powerful people on Earth too. For example, even Lissandra wasn't from the First Generation, though the advantages of being part of it are obvious.

It might be a pessimistic way to look at it all, but I consider it more realistic. I think it would be very easy to get corrupted by the powers we carry.

From Min-Jae, I later find out that Tannatar chose me as his opponent. More accurately, a version of me from a few seconds before this tournament started. Apparently, that avatar of me lost.

I can see that Min-Jae is a little worried. Maybe he expects me to be shocked or have some other silly reaction. But in the end, even now I'm stronger than I was when the tournament started, and what Tannatar faced wasn't a true me, just a cheap copy.

While thinking about how to invest the over a million points I got from the first event, I hear rumors that there will be something akin to a disciple tournament, and that makes me ask myself a question: What level was my minion?

This will be a slaughter.