“Where the heck are we now?”
“Quit the nonsense and find the exit. It’s probably nearby.”
“I said let’s go that way. That spot was perfect earlier.”
“Shut up.”
Raid party rookie team.
Jackal, Rest, and Shark, sucked into the mirror, wandered through the endless maze, frowning.
Upon arriving in the space of the mirror, they immediately noticed the discomfort and charged in recklessly.
However, the versions of themselves inside the mirror smirked and drew the rookies in, moving them to an unknown place.
Rest, cloaked in a red aura, sighed.
“So we should’ve smashed it as soon as we saw it, right? Why are we just watching…”
“Figure out what it is before smashing it. What if it bursts like that teddy bear creature did?”
“See? We should have smashed it! But now look, we’re doomed!”
“This is so juvenile, seriously.”
“Oh? Where’s the supporter…”
“Wait a minute.”
Chiiiiing!
Leading the way, Jackal drew thousands of blades and slashed through the front.
The onslaught of blades sliced through the maze blocking their path and even cut down someone ahead.
Kugugugung!!
As the debris collapsed, a figure emerged from the dust cloud.
“Jackal, I just told you not to break things carelessly…”
“…What is that?”
“Hmm?”
At Jackal’s puzzled question, Shark and Rest glanced at someone.
Black hair and dark eyes.
Dressed entirely in black, thousands of blades swirled around them.
Most strikingly, a face that resembled Jackal far too much.
Rest frowned.
“Jackal? Why are you here?”
“That isn’t Jackal. Look closely.”
Shark’s shark senses activated, sniffing the air for ‘blood smell’, now grown up.
The scent of this lookalike was definitely different from the Jackal she knew.
“Is it a doppelganger or something?”
“Probably a clone. Our faces reflected strangely in the mirror earlier.”
“We should kill it. Everyone, support me!”
Chiiing!
As Jackal readied his sword and activated his technique, the fake mirrored his exact stance.
It was an eerily identical position.
“Getting cocky, huh?”
“……”
“Why are you posing?”
“Honestly, I like that one better. Can’t we just ditch Jackal and take the fake instead?”
“Agreed.”
“Shut up and get ready!”
‘Thousand Blade Surge (千劒叢冽).’
‘Thousand Blade Surge (千劒叢冽).’
Kwagagagagagag!!!
A thousand blades converged in a line and shot forward.
When the swords clashed, an overwhelming impact shook the surroundings as if ready to devour everything.
Like a sandcastle crumbling.
Though the cloned being had the same power, this side had the other rookies providing backup.
They’re supporting.
Shark activated the shark’s support skill, granting enhancement effects to Jackal’s sword and weakening effects to the fake’s sword.
Kieeeek!!
Rest is also in a situation where they’re using the spirit of the dead to protect allies.
Not long after, Jackal’s heavenly sword strike pierced through all of the opponent’s swords and covered the fake.
The fake, pierced by hundreds of swords, was slammed into a wall somewhere.
“Hoo… Did it die?!”
“Hey. If you say that, it will resurrect.”
“Agreed. Why did we help?”
“Shut up. Do you not understand what this is all about?”
“Huh?”
Pook!
Jackal’s sword pierced the fake’s heart.
“The fact that my fake appeared means your fakes could also appear. No, there’s a 100% chance they already exist.”
“……”
“That’s a bit concerning.”
“Then get your act together and move. It’s not just one or two fakes that will come out—”
Kiiing!!!
A black blade grazed Jackal’s neck.
It merely brushed against him because Shark barely pushed it away with her body.
But it was quite threatening; the blood didn’t stop flowing.
Puddud… Thud!
“…That was enough damage to kill.”
“Told you. If I chant the resurrection spell, it comes back to life, right?”
“Real. That one doesn’t do anything fancy.”
“……”
The fake, moving in a bizarre manner, regained its body with the sound of bones and muscles twisting.
Its power was the same, but the fake had an absurdly high regeneration ability.
Once again, Jackal’s sword moved and beheaded the fake.
It was so easily cut that it felt almost pointless, but the biggest characteristic of rankers is that “they have strong attack power but weak bodies.”
They’re often called ‘glass cannons,’ as this applies to almost all rankers unless they are at least semi-tankers.
The reason is simple.
“The ‘System’ is assisting them with a powerful force that humans cannot contain.”
They use nonsensical strength with their weak bodies, and even if those bodies die, they can resurrect countless times.
A neck grows back from the severed body.
“What the heck do we need to do to kill that thing?”
“It seems we have to completely annihilate it without giving it a chance to regenerate. I’ll support you, so finish it in one go.”
“Understood.”
Jackal took a stance and prepared his ultimate move.
This time, not a thousand, but all of his swords.
‘Ten Thousand Sword Strikes.’
Nearly ten thousand swords aimed at the regenerating fake.
Kwa-deuk!
The sword was blocked by Shark, who sacrificed her body.
Looking at that, nobody commented on Shark’s actions anymore.
Kieeeek!!
Everyone jumped up, avoiding the black spirits bursting from below.
“Damn it! They’re fakes!”
“What the hell, you’re calling me a fake?”
“Get out of the way! If it’s mine, it’s an instant kill! My technique is the strongest!”
“Stop whining and block the shark’s bleed! If that thing casts its ultimate, we’re done for!”
“Shut up and set up a proper shield… Up!!”
Up?
Everyone looks up.
Above, a gigantic doll, hundreds of meters tall, was stomping down.
Kuwoong.
■
“Hah… Hah…”
“Disappointing.”
“Hoo…”
Hooong!
A black shield’s form descended upon the exhausted knight.
The Griffin’s Shield, a mythical item.
Originally a white shield mixed with yellow feathers, the one used by the fake was black with red feathers.
Grinding his teeth, the knight raised his own shield to block it.
Ka-ka-ka-kak…!
“The Griffin’s Shield is a holy artifact imbued with the power of monsters from the Mythical Era. If you had developed your weapons instead of worrying about useless things like alliances and guilds, you would’ve become much stronger.”
“…What are you saying? Stop spouting nonsense and vanish!”
Thwung!!
Using one of the Griffin’s Shield’s techniques, ‘Shield of Protection,’ he deflected the fake and its shield far away.
However, it seemed to have taken little damage as the fake knight shook off the weak hits and smirked.
“Just because it’s fake doesn’t mean it’s all nonsense. I am you. By now, you must be feeling it, right?”
“……”
“This weapon possesses the same power as Lily’s summon, which we regard as so great. It’s on the level of bloodsuckers or the Emperor of the Desert. You don’t know the true potential of the weapon…”
Whoosh!
“Wings of the Storm!”
Kwa-ga-ga-ga-ga!!!
The knight, having gained a special skill through hunting the Griffin, quickly closed the distance and plunged the feathered blade into the fake’s heart.
In addition, the ‘Feather Blade,’ activated by the set item effect with the Griffin’s Shield, stirred up a fierce storm.
It resembled the spectacle of the true Griffin from the past flapping its wings.
No matter how much of a tanker the knight was, he couldn’t resist such a sudden ambush, and the fake knight’s body disintegrated completely.
Clang!
The feather blade that had pierced the heart clattered to the ground.
“Hoo… I know. I know…”
I’ve got it.
But I can’t let my guard down.
Though I’ve collapsed this fake’s body several times already, it keeps regenerating and resurrecting.
Having momentarily incapacitated it, I now need to obliterate the surroundings without giving any chance of resurrection.
“I must obliterate everything around me without a chance of resurrection using my ultimate move.”
“I know this weapon is almost ‘semi-transcendent’… but what am I supposed to do?”
“I’m way too busy to develop Griffin’s Shield.”
As the Guild Master of the Guardian Guild and the Alliance Leader of the Challenger Alliance, Knight is always swamped with tasks and can’t spend much time training.
On top of that, he has to take care of things in ‘reality,’ not just within Deoen.
There’s no way he could do the same thing as the Heavenly Horse, who went into seclusion for years.
“Well, whether I need to know what to do or not…”
How am I supposed to develop Griffin’s Shield, which specializes in defense rather than offense?
Knight let out a sigh infused with worry as he prepared his ultimate move.
The Griffin, possessing the attributes of ‘light’ and ‘sky.’
Using ‘Radiance of the Sky,’ which concentrates energy to unleash intense light, would undoubtedly leave the fake in trouble.
“Still, I’ll think about it. If I can just get through the raid…?”
Crunch Crunch Crunch
“Dark energy…?”
The sky, which should have brightened due to the radiance, began to darken instead.
An unsettling and instinctively repulsive energy.
“Fake!”
The fake was abandoning regeneration and attempting to cast techniques instead!
“Damn it! I’ve used up all my light flashes…!”
An ultimate move used as a semi-transcendent weapon.
If that hits, it’s an instant kill!
Moreover, without the light flashes, it has no means to withstand an ultimate move activated by magic, given it doesn’t have the same regeneration abilities as the fake.
Laughter echoed from the regenerating fake.
-Die, oh dear. You. Can’t. Achieve. Enlightenment. Hehe. Ugh.
“Damn…”
-Ugh. Ugh. Krrrgh.
—Kriiiinnnng!
Boom!!!
It exploded.
Knight, feeling that the regenerating fake was screeching as it burst, looked up at the sky with a puzzled expression.
A dark sky.
As the sky, which had been devoid of light, was torn apart, Lily, adorned with Wings of Light, descended.
Her appearance was akin to that of an angel…
“Doesn’t seem so.”
“…What did I say?”
“I can see through your thoughts.”
“…Yeah.”
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