The battle raged on, and the masked man V finally decided to unleash everything he had left ..
his ultimate form: the form of Frey Starlight.
That abnormal state was born from V’s innate Shattering Ability,
known as the Covenant of Mirrors.
This covenant allowed V to perfectly mimic Frey Starlight ..
his movements, his aura, and his merciless, destructive style of combat.
With it, V became capable of reproducing most of Frey’s techniques he had personally witnessed ..
turning him into a walking catastrophe.
Amidst the sea of corpses and the rivers of blood that soaked the battlefield,
V rampaged across the land,
seeking to overturn the tide in favor of the Ultras.
In the form of Frey Starlight,
his output exceeded even SS+ rank,
making him one of the few on the field that almost no one could face.
But this time, V’s misfortune had reached its peak ..
for the real monster was nearby.
The moment V’s rampage began,
his dark flames devouring everything around him,
he found himself standing face-to-face with the real Frey Starlight,
who appeared before him from out of nowhere.
When Frey’s violet eyes met V’s crimson gaze,
their auras clashed violently...
even before their blades could meet.
Frey smirked.
"That’s strange," he said.
"You’re supposed to be a copy of me,
yet you don’t resemble me at all."
And he was right.
V looked like an imitation built from an older version of Frey ..
a reflection that was no longer accurate.
The masked fighter wielded two legendary swords:
the Golden Claymore and the Moonlight Blade ..
both relics comparable to Frey’s own divine weapons.
But Frey himself had long since changed.
His cherished sword, Balerion,
had transformed into a dark, metallic gauntlet
that covered his entire left arm ..
a demonic, iron-black limb radiating ominous energy.
Within that hand, he gripped the Dark Sister.
This new fighting style allowed Frey to fuse the might of both weapons,
channeling a far greater level of destructive power than ever before.
So when their blades finally met ..
Frey struck directly with the Dark Sister,
while V blocked with both of his swords.
But even though V fought with two,
and Frey only wielded one,
V didn’t last a single second.
The violet aura engulfed the black flames,
and V was sent skidding backward several meters
from a single slash of the Dark Sister.
V let out a feral roar and leapt at Frey again,
his dark flames burning hotter,
his Moonlight Blade devouring all other energies in its path.
At the same time,
he began using the Golden Claymore’s powers as well.
He pointed it toward Frey,
and in an instant, the Claymore extended at supersonic speed ..
stretching dozens of meters to impale him.
But Frey merely twisted his body,
deflecting it with ease as it whistled past him.
Seeing that, Frey’s eyes narrowed.
"I see...
So you didn’t just copy my techniques.
You copied the style of the Claymore’s former wielder as well."
The Claymore was a terrifying weapon ..
a blade capable of fighting at any range, near or far,
making its wielder an exceptionally difficult opponent.
And the previous bearer, Melina,
had once been the strongest female duelist in existence.
V’s movements now mirrored her combat rhythm perfectly.
It was almost nostalgic.
Thus began a furious exchange between Frey and V ..
two figures whose movements mirrored one another,
each step, slash, and feint perfectly synchronized.
The technique Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow
echoed through both their blades.
Yet with every clash,
it became clear that V was falling behind ..
unable to keep pace with the real thing.
Their exchange was lightning-fast,
but Frey, wielding only one sword,
parried all of V’s attacks
and shielded himself from the black flames
with a violet aura barrier.
Even now, Frey wasn’t fighting seriously.
He hadn’t shown even a fraction of his full strength.
He had his reasons.
The first ..
to conserve energy in case an unforeseen threat emerged.
The second ..
was curiosity.
He wanted to study his opponent.
As their blades locked once more,
Frey’s gaze sharpened.
In the blink of an eye,
he launched a blinding punch,
shattering V’s mask to pieces
and revealing his true face beneath.
The face of a young man—
not much older than Snow, perhaps even younger.
"Much better," Frey said with a grin.
"That mask of yours was getting on my nerves."
V grit his teeth, trembling.
His expression twisted in pain.
It was clear that something inside him was breaking.
The cause was obvious ..
his Covenant of Mirrors.
While it allowed him to replicate his opponents’ powers,
it also forced him to mirror their personalities,
creating a constant storm of conflicting identities within his mind.
At first, he had mirrored Frey Starlight himself ..
a man who endured endless suffering,
a man forged by pain and defiance.
That alone was enough to crush most people.
But when Gavid Lindman forced him to copy even more individuals,
his mind became a prison of screaming voices.
Now, in the middle of his duel with Frey,
V unleashed a chaotic fusion of many styles ..
Gavid’s brutal swordsmanship,
Mergo’s cleaving technique,
and countless other devastating abilities
belonging to powerful warriors he had mimicked before.
He unleashed all of it ..
a storm of blades, flames, and madness ..
upon Frey Starlight.
But amid that storm,
Frey deflected everything.
Every strike. Every blast. Every scream of desperation.
And that only drove V further into hysteria,
swinging harder, faster,
desperate to land even one cut.
Soon, their clash became the most violent duel
on the entire battlefield.
They fought near the borders of Caelid ..
the very city where V had been born.
In other words,
this was his last chance to save what remained,
to prevent total annihilation at the hands of the Empire.
"Tell me, V..." Frey said between sparks of light and fire.
"Why do you fight so desperately?"
Their blades screeched against each other,
sparks flying like stars in the night.
"You know better than anyone," Frey continued,
"that you can’t defeat me."
Slash!
With a lightning-fast slash, Frey tore through V’s chest, then followed up with a flurry of rapid, merciless strikes.
V struggled to resist, drawing on his demonic pact to regenerate his wounds—
but his regeneration was far slower than Frey Starlight’s.
Frey had already learned the limits of his body back in that bloody duel against Zibar.
His regeneration belonged to the second stage of Shadow Adaptation ..
a body that had acclimated to nearly every form of physical damage imaginable,
allowing him to recover from almost anything.
Unless he was hit by something truly alien,
he would heal with ease ..
even Zibar’s Katarina Blade could no longer harm him,
for his body had already adapted to it.
It was a terrifying ability .. one of Frey’s most overwhelming assets.
In comparison, V’s demonic regeneration was far inferior.