Unlike our conversations over the telepathic link, he doesn’t monologue anymore and proceeds to immediately attack. He moves surprisingly quickly in that bulky golden suit.
My kinetic attacks crash against it without it as much as registering the attack. My concentrated stream of golden thermal energy blazes across the surface, but barely seems to do anything, just scorching the air around it, causing it to waver around the suit.
As he moves around, a green light seeps out of him as he draws inscriptions in the air.
As my eyes activate, he does something else to overwhelm them, clearly prepared for my trait as well. But this time I am ready too, it would be weird if I wasn’t after so many people have tried to abuse it and overwhelm my trait with information.
The part of my mind that I dedicated to using Mana Wavelength Iris shuts off, but another replaces it while another, smaller part observes the methods he’s using to overwhelm it and records it for reference. When that mind shuts off as well, another replaces it, that smaller part already has the information collected and begins modifying a replacement.
Even with how quickly the elf moves to draw, I observe the inscriptions, countering the effects. Most of them are wide-range attacks, meant to punish my comparatively low constitution while dealing with my quick, confusing movements.
When I try to teleport, the activation fails. I detect the inscriptions he’s drawn behind his back to do so, then begin deciphering and countering them.
[Empyrean Lance] materializes, but as I shoot it at him, the chestplate of his armor opens and sucks it in in a blue whirlpool that redirects it there. A blender-like noise erupts, and exhaust-like pipes on his waist violently spit out black smoke in which the remains of the lance flicker. The opening in the chest closes as quickly as it appeared, yet there is damage. By my estimate, he can manage it only a few more times.
Another of his wide range attacks activates again, making my mana sluggish and corroding the projectiles I’ve stacked around me. Another sends a cutting wind my way. At which point it proceeds to follow me, by means of what I believe is a mark stealthily placed on me.
The barrage is relentless, and he counters most of my abilities. Kinetic energy is absorbed by the golden suit, thermal energy just heats the air around it. Projectiles are disrupted. Teleportation is blocked.
I sense movement as two gilded monsters break free of the forest behind me, a gorilla-like one with pincers instead of hands, moving on four legs, and a praying mantis thrice my height. Both of which are entirely gray with golden halos over their heads.
I push through the disruption in the area and activate a set of arrays stored in my mind inspired by Maya. A dark blue suit of armor surrounds me, darker blue than ever before, as I push it further with [Manifestation], affecting whatever parts I’m knowledgeable enough to create with the skill.
Surprisingly, it is not the gorilla that crashes into me, but the praying mantis. It moves blindingly fast, cuts a few times, smoothly snapping through the armor, and almost through my body, that I just manage to shift at the last moment. For its height, it moves very nimbly on its many legs. And I can’t help but admire the elegance of its movements.
More mana seeps out of me even as a barrage of attacks from the elf in golden armor hits my back, and I send kinetic energy through the armor to attack the mantis.
It avoids them, jumping to the side just as the gorilla shuts its pincers and a sonic boom echoes through the garden. The trees in the way evaporate into nothingness, and the shockwave slams into me, obliterating the armor in front of me before hurling my body through the air, bouncing me across the ground.
I absorb my momentum, freezing midair. Where I would have landed, the mantis appears, slashing through. I use kinetic energy to push myself along the ground, then unleash Wraith Dance.
Another wide range attack from the elf shakes the area where I stood, this time incorporating vibrations tuned to disrupt my kinetic energy based movements.
A healing mark from Lily restores my body just as I reach the gorilla, but at the last second, I change my direction as the second pincer shuts and explodes everything in front of it. Unfortunately, it does not hit the mantis behind me, which still dodges every bit as swiftly as before.
I use [Manifestation] and a single, extremely simple sword forms in my hand. It is almost like the design of a wooden sword you might buy for a child. Still pale blue but with an unearthly shine to it.
I lift it and deflect the claw of the mantis’s scythe-like foreleg. The kinetic energy of the attack flows through me, all absorbed and easily channeled, preventing the attack from moving me at all. The sword doesn’t even crack as I block an attack from a much larger and physically stronger monster.
[Manifestation - lvl 7 > Manifestation - lvl 8]
Before the mantis can strike again, the last elf’s attack strikes it. In a blink, the gilded monster’s body bulges, cracks, then bursts open.
[You have defeated Gilded Severis - lvl 379]
[Lvl 327 > Lvl 328]
The last elf makes an attempt to block my movement, but I push through with my sheer mastery of kinetic energy and use Wraith Dance to escape.
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When the mantis explodes, everything around it gets covered in a gray liquid that melts through everything in its path. It even destroys the metal floor and drops down, eating into the rock in the big area. The liquid clings to the manifested armor around my body. I drop the affected pieces to the ground, where they continue to corrode as the liquid eats through them and the floor beneath.
An alarm starts to ring. Additional metal plates seal over the already closed doors. The metal around the holes in the floor begins to melt, flowing to seal them.
The sword in my arm dissipates, and the mana it once contained manifests into a hexagonal segment of the barrier I use to block a combined force from both of the gorilla’s pincers snapping closed at the same time. The shockwave from that strikes my shield, then ricochets outward, uprooting trees throughout the area.
[Eclipse]
drains the colors from the area, making the shimmering pale blue of mana even more striking. The sounds I hear fade into a distant murmur. The smells disappear, even the flashing of the light becomes muted, and I combine multiple parts of my mind.The restricting array the elf put around me shatters under my gaze, as a golden circle flares around my pupils, and a single [Empyrean Lance] shoots forth, boosted by kinetic energy at a speed much faster than the gorilla could ever hope to move. It pierces its chest, then continues forward into the wall behind it, through that, and out of the base.
The distant sound of an alarm intensifies. Where I struck and pierced the metal wall, the surrounding segments begin to melt, and inscriptions dance as they work to close the hole.
[You have defeated Gilded Bruteclaw - lvl 368]
[Lvl 328 > Lvl 329]
My Ley Lines stretch through the area, and even as a few snap with the last elf’s actions, I use the ones remaining to move around, avoiding his attacks as I make my approach.
When I get there, he just stands there unmoving.
My [Empyrean Lance] pierces the head, and the armor reveals its interior. Its arms extend and swiftly move to coil around me, holding me in place as it explodes, releasing all the thermal, kinetic energy, and mana it’s stored.
I don’t even make a move to escape.
Standing there, I absorb all that heat and kinetic energy back into my body. A small black orb forms in front of my chest and absorbs all that mana, hungrily drawing it inside.
When it is all gone, I move the black orb over the top of my head. It spins and expands into the shape of a black halo, not all that different from the golden ones the gilded monsters have.
And for the first time, I face the replica of the last elf who had left the armor before he set it to trap me and explode.
“I thought you would be stronger,” I say to him.
The last elf looks like a man in his mid twenties. Bright orange long hair combines with his perfectly shaped face and piercing dark blue eyes.
He is beautiful in a way that feels wrong, an unsettling kind of beauty that makes my skin crawl. You can tell instantly that such a person should not exist. His face and features are impossibly perfect, carrying an otherworldly beauty that feels as unnatural as it is flawless, like a divine being, sculpted without a single flaw. He looks like an angel sent down to earth not to save it, but to cleanse it of the human race.
Or maybe it is because of his expression, which looks almost dead and empty, with a hint of cold amusement. There’s not a speck of fear in him.
Lastly, he has those pointed ears. They are not overly long like some depictions, but of moderate length, angled to the side. Though they are perfectly shaped and sharply defined, as if crafted with the same impossible precision as the rest of him.
"Yo," I greet him, "I thought you guys only showed yourselves if you believed you were capable of surviving or killing your opponent."
He moves with the confidence and elegance I would expect from someone with his face. Wearing a simple white loose shirt, partially unbuttoned at the neck, and black pants, he takes a few steps closer.
"Sometimes, when our available resources are not enough to test our target, one of us appears to gather more information for the others," he says.
"So you’re just a sacrificial lamb to make me reveal more of my abilities?"
"Indeed."
"Did you guys draw lots?" I ask, letting him come close, just within arm’s reach.
He’s taller than I am, and as cold as his perfect face is, it is easier to read his expression now. There’s still the faintest trace of superior amusement in it, just as I heard in our conversations.
His arm stretches out, and with the tip of his finger, he carefully touches the black halo floating above my head. As he does, I notice there is not even a speck of mana left inside his body.
"I am not even joking, but I swear I will let you live if you tell me its name," I tell him.
The replica of the last elf lowers his head, and a strand of orange hair falls across his dark blue eyes.
A second passes as I face his gaze.
Then he laughs.
He laughs as if it is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
His arm moves, fingers pressed together. I notice a shine of mana forming around it, shaping a sharp barrier as he thrusts his hand toward my eyes.
I realize he has somehow stolen a fragment of mana from the black halo.
My body moves faster than his. My palm slams into his chest, kinetic energy drilling a hole through his heart and bursting out his back.
He staggers before finishing his attack, then collapses to the floor.
Looking at his body, I feel something close to a sense of loss as I watch the light fade from his eyes.
[You have defeated Replica of the Last Elf - lvl 101]
He’s much lower level than I would’ve expected. If the other replicas are the same, then they just sent us to kill someone more than 200 levels below any of us.
I know level isn’t everything, and I’ve seen that proven so many times before, but the number still pokes at my pride. I have not been paying all that much attention to the halo above my head, but… how did he manage it, especially at such a low level?
The conclusion is the same as always: I still have a long road ahead of me, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.