In another room
Leona faced her copy in a strange battle.
Both moved with speed and lightness, and most importantly, both knew the next strike of their opponent.
Leona’s sword moved and attempted to stab the copy, only for the latter to evade and deliver her own strike, but Leona’s sword returned in time and blocked it.
Several times their swords clashed together and they inflicted wounds upon each other’s bodies, but unlike the copy, which healed, Leona did not.
Leona gritted her teeth. She couldn’t even extract essence like Caius and Elliot... perhaps she would be able to after breaking through to the Advanced sub-rank... but she was still one step away from that, unfortunately.
And without any destructive capability, she was now stuck in a battle with literally no exit.
And she wasn’t the only one in that situation.
In another room, Kyle was in almost the same position, without any path to escape.
All he could do was grip his daggers and fight against himself as well, without any clue how it would end.
...
But behind the walls, there was another battle.
One different from the previous ones.
It wasn’t like Caius’s swift battle, nor Elliot’s destructive power, nor even the agility of Kyle and Leona.
Instead, two girls stood several meters apart.
Both had black hair, but the only difference was in their eyes.
Ellen stood against her lookalike.
And unlike the other battles, these two did not move from their spots, yet the sound of metal rang throughout the room.
In the air, dozens of sharp metal pieces floated and collided with one another. Each piece was shaped like a sharp blade twenty centimeters long and without a handle.
This was not an ordinary weapon, but a Rank 4 Relic possessed by Ellen.
The ability of this Relic was to form an unlimited number of metal blades... though that depended on the user’s capacity, of course.
After Ellen recently advanced to the Advanced sub-rank, she became capable of forming 30 blades at the same time and controlling them.
She had thought that by using this Relic she would gain the upper hand in battle, but in the end she was surprised by this copy.
Which used the black liquid it was made of and imitated even the Relic itself, not to mention her ability.
And so she ended up in this situation.
Metal blades flew everywhere and clashed in the air.
Ellen’s blades pierced her copy’s defense several times and reached its body, tearing it apart, but of course it regenerated once again.
Worse still, with every passing moment its defense grew stronger, and its attacks more precise.
So soon, Ellen might be the one receiving the wounds.
And her wounds would not heal.
...
In another room.
Flames and ice clashed everywhere.
Unlike the other rooms, this one contained four people instead of two—both Izel and Talia with their respective copies.
On one side, Izel and her copy collided as tongues of flame rose.
Izel avoided a flame-covered punch before steadying herself and delivering her own punch to her copy’s abdomen, causing it to retreat a few steps backward.
Izel did not stop there; she even gathered flames into a small sphere and launched it toward the copy.
The fireball struck its target and burned its skin, only for it to return to its original state in the next moment.
Izel gritted her teeth. "Won’t you die, disgusting thing?"
But as if her copy answered her, it advanced toward her and closed the distance, its fist burning with flames as it headed toward Izel’s ribs.
But just as before, Izel avoided that strike and responded with her own, only for the copy to evade it.
At the same time, its fist struck Izel’s abdomen forcefully and sent her a few steps backward.
Izel groaned in pain as she adjusted her stance before her copy lunged at her once more.
And there, on the other side of the room, shards of ice collided everywhere while two blonde girls moved swiftly as they exchanged blows.
Of course, it was Talia and her copy.
Talia raised her hand toward the copy and launched a sharp shard of ice at it, but the latter responded in kind.
The ice collided and shattered into small fragments.
They were literally at a stalemate.
Every bit of damage they inflicted upon the copies was completely useless.
They even tried switching and fighting each other’s copies, but the moment they did so, the copies disintegrated and recreated their own again.
Meaning no matter what Izel did... she would fight Izel herself.
And the same with Talia.
But suddenly, something changed.
While Izel was clashing with her copy, the wall beside her moved and descended to the ground before disappearing, revealing another space.
From there, someone moved swiftly, and in a single moment he was already behind Izel’s copy, which was focused on the fight.
Without wasting any time, his sword pierced the copy and split it into two.
Seeing that, Izel wanted to tell him it was useless, but he quickly extended his hand toward the place he had cut through.
His hand entered the black liquid before he pulled it back out, holding something.
Then he wrapped his hand with essence and squeezed that thing, and with a faint cracking sound, Izel’s copy disintegrated into the same black liquid it came from.
But this time without return.
Izel opened her mouth to ask, "What did you just do?"
But in the next moment, he vanished from before her and headed toward Talia... or more precisely, her copy.
With the same previous movements, he split the copy into two before pulling something from within it and crushing it, causing that copy to fall motionless.
Caius released the fragments of the core he had crushed as he stared at the two girls before him.
"Do you know how satisfying killing your copies was for me... it really helped me relieve some of my frustration."