Chapter 602: Impossible Feat
The Lieutenant managed to raise himself up and lean against the cracked frame of the door, observing the fast battle that was unfolding between Northern and the statues.
His eyes widened as they witnessed the scene, and a second later, they even trembled.
"What?" he muttered.
There was a slight difference to it, but he couldn't deny the stark similarities. The way each strike multiplied as if the air itself was mirroring his attacks, and they carried even more terrifying damage power than his.
"Echo?"
It was. It had to be. There was no mistaking it-that was his Echo.
"But how?" Dante's lips trembled.
Northern was already moving again, his eyes darting in every direction, his Chaos Eyes dissecting their every move.
In the moment, fractions of visions entered Northern's sight; he could see how all of them positioned and repositioned their movements in brief seconds from now.
To his left, a crusader swung a mace crackling with blood energy, aiming to crush him in a single blow.
To his right, another crusader thrust forward with a spear, its tip glowing with a deadly crimson light.
And above-there it was. The spellcaster's glyphs converged into a swirling vortex of blood surge, ready to descend and obliterate everything in its path.
Northern smirked. "Perfect."
The mace-wielding crusader charged first, its strike descending with thunderous force.
Northern sidestepped with casual grace, his motion fluid as though the air itself parted for him.
Grengar spun in his hands. Having seen how all the attacks played out, he knew exactly where to strike, and he went for the legs.
The staff hummed with power as it cleaved through the stone knees of the crusader.
"Echo."
Several horizontal slices spread over the crusader's body and slowly sliced down one after the other.
"Let's try something else..." Northern spoke to himself as he leaped over the fallen construct, his eyes now locked on the spearman.
"Mirage."
The spear came in fast, but Northern's form suddenly split, quickly emerging in a circle that encased the rest of the statues.
Northern looked at all of them; they were like spectral refractions of light and not like cloning. These were purely reflections.
What he did, all other reflections also repeated, even the Grengar was reflected in all of the mirages.
The spear pierced through one Northern, but it was merely a reflection of light, so it easily went in and out, the mirage stuttering a bit but quickly stabilizing.
Northern's face lit up with glee while Lieutenant Dante's darkened with horror as he saw Northern use another of his talent abilities.
This wasn't even a talent ability; the only ability of his talent he had used was Echo, and it was powerful enough to end anything-all it did was reflect his attacks.
"Oh oh, I see... so that's how this works," Northern's eyes gleamed.
'The Lieutenant's ability uses reflections?... that's quite new.'
As he readied his sword, so did all the rest of the reflections, readying their reflected Grengars.
'I wonder if the strikes will also be reflected or if this is merely an illusion.'
Northern twisted Grengar in his hands, and all of the mirages mirrored his motion with eerie precision.
The spearman lunged again, its stone weapon slicing through the air toward another of the reflections.
The spear passed through effortlessly, the mirage distorting again like rippling water before snapping back into place.
The moment the spear struck, Northern moved.
He stepped forward, slashing Grengar upward in a brutal arc.
The reflections followed, their strikes synchronized as if tethered to the same thread.
The spearman statue didn't stand a chance.
The original Grengar tore through its chest, black flame manifesting outward and destabilizing the statue's core.
At the same time, every reflected Grengar struck true, carving deep grooves into the air that shimmered with destructive intent.
The spearman froze, its body trembling before shattering into fragments of stone and crimson ichor. The echoes of the reflected strikes rippled across the room, their force palpable even in the aftermath.
Northern's grin widened, his voice carrying a note of satisfaction. "Oh, it's real. Definitely real."
The spellcaster above him reacted next, glyphs forming rapidly in the air around it.
With a flick of its hand, it unleashed a barrage of blood surge projectiles, each streaking downward like a hailstorm of crimson death.
Northern's Chaos Eyes flared again, tracing the trajectories of each projectile before they even formed.
His body moved instinctively, weaving through the onslaught with calculated precision. But it wasn't just him-his mirages danced alongside him, their movements impossibly fluid.
The blood surges struck the floor and walls, detonating in bursts of energy that scorched the chamber.
But the mirages remained untouched, their ethereal forms slipping through the chaos unscathed.
Dante's voice cut through the din, strained and filled with disbelief. "This... this isn't possible. How is he using my abilities, and blending them so well too? It took me years of hard work to achieve that result."
Northern didn't mind him. He was too focused, his mind racing as he pieced together the nature of the ability he had copied.
Northern had copied the Paragon's talent, but not just his talent-all the hard work and progress he had put in to make it come this far.
Hence, making it his own starting point, with an ability such as this, it was practically impossible for any Mortal to catch up to him.
Dante's eyes continued to tremble and his mind raced with terror.
'If he is using even my abilities that I haven't used, does that mean he copied not my abilities
but my talent in whole? He can copy talents...? Come to think of it, he used clones the other time, and the Kageyama scion also did...'
The Lieutenant felt the lines arranging together, but the only thing left to believe such a phenomenon was for his mind to accept that such a thing was possible.
But that was harder than it sounded. Every human had a soul, and when their soul reached maturity, a core began to form-this was the first stage of awakening. After defeating the rift, the core stabilized and talent became more apparent; soul Essence became usable too. Hence, even if he had a talent-copying ability, it was impossible to permanently copy one's talent because it was like taking the traits of their core and imprinting it into yours; it could
cause a major disaster.
But soul cores were fashioned for such a thing to never be possible.
Hence, the only explanation for all of this was that Northern could temporarily use others'
talents when he copied them.
But this deduction only left the Lieutenant in dismembered fear.
Something was not making any sense, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was, but it had
to do with Northern's ominous essence.
What about the ominous essence was wrong? He couldn't tell.