“Your biggest enemy will always be yourself.”
Baiyi had always believed that this bit of fortune-cookie wisdom referred to the difficulties of applying self-critique to one’s ideologies and beliefs. He never thought that the statement would end up manifesting itself literally.
The figure had reformed, and it had retained its previous appearance — the appearance of the Fifth Walker himself. Both Baiyi and the doppelganger were shrouded in black flames, as they swung their Voidspears 1 at each other. After a series of attacks, they separated, and while they were putting some distance between each other, they hurled black flames and chains of black lightning at each other.
The sky darkened as flashes of black lightning streaked across the stratosphere. The earth trembled as it was defaced by continuous blasts from Void Energy attacks.
“How come I don’t remember myself ever being this awesome?!” Baiyi remarked to the inhabitants of the Void as he and the Voidspear in his right hand suddenly vanished. Baiyi instantly appeared behind the doppelganger and instantly thrust the end of his Voidspear towards the nape of its neck. At the same time, Baiyi’s left finger was pointing at the ground below the doppelganger, and a black formation instantly appeared beneath its legs.
The doppelganger instantly noticed the black formation and forcefully stopped its descent, but a loud blast suddenly boomed behind it; Baiyi’s Voidspear had struck home.
Bang! The spear exploded, and so did the doppelganger. It was only gone for a short while, though, and soon began to reform. As soon as the exploded pieces coalesced back into Baiyi’s doppelganger, it disappeared and instantly appeared behind Baiyi. As soon as it appeared, a Voidspear appeared with him, streaking towards the nape of Baiyi’s own neck.
Black flames quickly condensed in Baiyi’s hand to form a Voidspear, and he quickly turned around to trust it at the doppelganger’s black spear. The tip of both spears collided, and a resounding explosion rocked the surrounding. Black flames surged, and black lines appeared in the air; it was as though the space around them had cracked.
“It’s copying you! Sooner or later, it’s gonna learn all about your moves. You need to find a way to completely destroy it!” The Archmage cried out in alarm. A frightening foe was one that refused to stay dead. The most frightening foe was one that returned from death wielding moves it had copied from its killer!
However, at that moment, it was obvious that the doppelganger lacked battle experience. It kept using moves that Baiyi could easily counter, and Baiyi always moved to exploit the openings that were created after he countered. Every time the doppelganger exposed an opening, it was promptly killed; however, it refused to stay dead.
Although Baiyi had the upper hand, the battle got more difficult for him as each second passed. This was because the doppelganger speedily assimilated Baiyi’s moves into its arsenal. As it continued to copy and perfectly display every move that Baiyi had used, it slowly began to gain the advantage.
Another problem that added to the crisis was that Void Energy’s corrosiveness towards all form of matter did not affect the doppelganger, at all. Every time Baiyi struck the doppelganger with Void Energy attacks, it would shrug the attacks off and resume its offensive.
Hence, from another perspective, Baiyi was already losing the battle…
“It’s not too bad, yet. Take a look around,” Baiyi said. He was still very composed as he gripped his Voidspear with both hands and fought fiercely with the doppelganger.
As the battle raged on, the environment was swiftly losing its luster and getting corrupted. Areas that had been struck by Void Energy quickly turned black and looked as dark as the Void. The corrupted areas stuck out like drops of ink in crystal-clear water. The corruption quickly expanded as the battle continued, and the sky of this yet-to-be-identified territory was stained with inky-black flashes of lightning, which marred its previously smooth appearance. The sky seemed to be shrinking, and more of its clear blue luster was replaced by inky-black. Even the horizon seemed to be drawing closer.
The Energy from the Void was consuming everything — even space. Ergo, this isolated space that had trapped Baiyi was headed for destruction because Baiyi and the doppelganger fought mainly with Void Energy attacks. If the fight did not end soon, the isolated space was going to disintegrate.
Every time the doppelganger revived itself, the speed at which the isolated space was damaged increased. The doppelganger was paying a hefty price for its revives! Its experience and skillset increased dramatically every second.
At this point, the outcome of the battle was completely uncertain. Would the doppelganger emerge victoriously, or would the isolated space be disintegrated?
The speed at which the doppelganger improved was certainly much faster than the speed at which the isolated space shrunk. The speed of its attacks increased exponentially, and Baiyi was soon no longer able to counter them as easily as before.
The number of times the doppelganger died was now much lesser, and the length of the battles between it and Baiyi increased. Although the Void Energy being used still corrupted the isolated space, the speed at which the isolated space shrunk had reduced. This was because the speed at which the isolated space correlated with the number of times the doppelganger reformed; hence, the less it died the slower the shrinking.
“You can push yourself to your limits however you like, but I’ll still know what you are going to do because you’re copying me,” Baiyi muttered under his breath. The Voidspear in his hand clashed with the doppelganger’s Voidspear, causing sonorous clanking sounds to rip through the air. Black sparks erupted as the Voidspears collided again and again, and soon, Baiyi was the one stepping backward after every strike, getting pushed back by the force of the doppelganger’s attacks.
Was he already inferior in strength?
Baiyi also could not exert more power than his soul armature practitioner, Little Mia, could endure. He was already limited.
“You’re quite the brute, huh?” Baiyi remarked in a low voice. The force that he had to deal with increased with each clash, causing him to take more steps backward. The doppelganger’s face — which was covered by pitch-black Void Flames — seemed to draw closer and closer to him. The pair raised their Voidspears and clashed again.
“But, unlike you, I was never the type to rely only on brawn!”
Baiyi let out a furious cry. His raised his arms, causing his Voidspear to slid upwards and the doppelganger’s Voidspear to slide downwards until their Voidspears had dislodged from each other. After the successful parry, Baiyi jerked quickly, knocking the doppelganger’s Voidspear away from his grip and out of its reach. Baiyi moved quickly, and his figure flashed past the doppelganger.
Then, in less than a second, Baiyi spun around and swung his Voidspear towards the doppelganger’s feet, but it leaped upward. Right as the spear was passing underneath its feet, three small blades made out of combat chi appeared and flew upward!
As Baiyi’s left hand hurled the Voidspear, which had just missed the doppelganger, his left hand formed signs, which caused a large black formation to appear. A black beam as thick as a pillar surged out from the center of the formation and streaked towards the doppelganger. In an instant, it reached the doppelganger and pierced through its body, ripping it into two. The three combat chi blades arrived at that moment and ripped the severed body parts of the doppelganger into smaller bits.
Baiyi had won that round, but this victory, like the others before it, was short-lived. The figure had once again begun to reform its body. An attack like that could not hope to finish it off.
That attack, however, had bought Baiyi some time.
“You can’t drag this any longer!” The Knight Walker said.
Now he’s really, literally, planning to unleash his Ultimate Move!
“I know.” 2
Baiyi leaped backward, putting some distance between himself and the figure. “Our next attack has to be the finishing move. I just hope that Little Mia can take this.”
Was Baiyi planning to concentrate every ounce of his power into one last strike?
Baiyi suddenly retracted his black flames, and dispersed the Void Energy around him, unveiling his armor once again. The dispersed energy did not dissipate, however; instead, it rapidly condensed atop his right palm.
Baiyi bent forward a little, used left hand to hold his knees, and lowered his right arm horizontally in front of his own chest. The gathering Void Energy slowly condensed into the shape of a black arrow, which hovered atop his palm.
At the same time, a large, black formation appeared behind Baiyi; it contained plates of black hieroglyphics and rotated slowly. The doppelganger, who had just finished reforming its body, stared at Baiyi in shock. It was astonished that Baiyi had dispelled his Void Energy armor for his normal Sanctus armor. The shocked expression on the doppelganger’s face made it seem as though it was thinking of something. ‘Why is he giving up on a stronger armor in the middle of a fight?’
“Sorry… Mia,” Baiyi sighed.
Then, as he aimed the black arrow at his enemy, he muttered the name of a spell he had been saving up for his battle with the gods. Contrary to the embarrassingly long name for the spell that the Archmage had suggested, Baiyi used only a single word to cast it.
“Telos!”
Suddenly, the black formation behind Baiyi lit up with an intense glow. Then, a black ray of light erupted out of the glowing formation. When the black ray of light burst out of the formation, it exploded and turned into ashes, and these ashes completely covered the sky, blocking out the sunlight. Within the thick cloud of ashes were glittery motes of light.
As soon as these motes of light, which was within the ashes, touched the kneeling Baiyi, he vanished; his body had turned into a black beam which was hurtling towards the doppelganger at the speed of light. The black ray covered hundreds of miles in an instant, and before the doppelganger could even register a thought, Baiyi was already behind it, in the same kneeling position as before.
The black arrow had astonishingly disappeared, and in its place was a dissipating black flame, whose embers scattered down to Baiyi feet like detached flower petals.
Baiyi had his back to the doppelganger as he slowly stood up straight. The doppelganger seemed to be trying to turn around.
Baiyi whispered, without turning around to look, “You are already dead.”
The monster exploded into dark fragments. The blackened, corrupted area around Baiyi, which had served as the battlefield for his duel with the doppelganger, was bathed with a shower of dazzling black sparks after the explosion 3 .
This time, the monster did not regenerate.
The soil in the area had long since been corroded and turned into black mud, as a result of Baiyi’s battle with the regenerating figure, which involved lots of Void Energy. However, now, all one could see from above was a fifty-feet wide trench, which looked like a single jet-black scar, stretching from where Baiyi had used his final move till where he was standing now. It was as though the universe itself had been carved.
Meanwhile, a darker-than-black hemisphere was now situated at the spot where Baiyi had triggered the spell. It seemed like that part of space had been completely removed from existence 4 .
The isolated space had now shrunk down so much, only the area of the battle remained within it; it no longer contained the vast expanse of barren desert-land that it did at the start. The sky within the isolated space was riddled with black cracks caused by the battle. The sky seemed to be teetering, as though it was about to fall.
“So… this how the sky would look if it was ever going to fall…” Baiyi said as he looked up. He then looked down at his right hand; the gauntlet was riddled with so many cracks, a light touch would be all it took to shatter it.
That was, of course, the side-effect of unleashing the spell; an inevitable result that would occur when one forcefully concentrated too much of a dangerous power into a single point in order to utilize its explosive power. Even after consciously fortifying his right arm with mana and Void Energy, Baiyi’s arm almost could not take it.
“Right. Next time, let’s just leave the black flame shield on. Can’t risk my body breaking apart,” Baiyi said helplessly in the Void.
The theory behind this technique was simple: concentrate raw power under high pressure; this was akin to stretching an elastic band to its very limit. The idea was to direct the dangerous explosion, which is released from the condensed Void Energy, at the enemy. This was quite similar to the finishing move that Baiyi had used on Thaas, back then; however, this finishing move was faster, stronger, and more deadly, because of the increase in the amount of power being condensed.
A force this explosive and brutal could not be directed using psychic energy; therefore, in order to hit his target, Baiyi himself had to take the lead and charge at his enemy. This resulted in the almost fatal damage that Baiyi had suffered.
“It’s over,” Baiyi said, as he watched the surrounding within the isolated space crumble, with the sound of breaking glass. The shattered space turned into motes of light, and darkness suddenly engulfed Baiyi’s vision.
A second later, his vision returned. As rays of light shone on Baiyi’s pupils, he was surprised to find himself back at the gobi desert, standing where he had fought the assassination team of the Godsfall cult.