The Path of Ascension

Chapter 204

Susanne looked at the copy of herself and knew this would be a brutal fight. Not that fighting against a reflection of yourself was ever easy.

As she sized herself up, she pulled off her mask and her reflection did the same. They looked into each others eyes, a burned and scarred gaze meeting unblemished skin, and both of them knew that they could win. She wasnt fighting Queen here, she was fighting Susanne, and there would be no tricks to hide that truth. If she couldnt face this reality, if she couldnt best her past, she didnt deserve to be here.

Liz and Matt had doubts when Susanne refused any extra potions beyond the initial dose and all of the talismans, but Aster seemed to understand, at least a bit. This place was less personal to them. It was a place to find treasure, gather new skills, and grow stronger. Nothing more.

Susanne briefly glanced down at their respective armors. Her reflection still had the functioning growth armor, while she was stuck with some looted armor from a few floors ago that mostly fit her thanks to Matts efforts. The growth armor was potent, and her own was somewhat more geared towards defending against ranged attacks, but that ultimately didnt matter.

The strength of her convictions and mastery of her blade would decide this fight, not some fancy suit of armor.

She had been hoping for Folded Reflections since she had heard about it. The reward was incredible, obviously, but that was the least important part. Susanne needed to prove to everyone, most importantly herself, that she would forge herself anew with each challenge conquered, each skill mastered, and each enemy slain. That she could wade through a planet filled with death and walk out the other end unbroken, at a Tier few others had. There was nothing more direct to prove that than fighting your own past, literally for the challenge, and overcoming it for the reward.

She was here to test her mettle and her metal, to prove that she would always come back stronger and batter down any threat or challenge. To prove that she wouldnt let her past define her, that she would never back down, and that she would never falter.

Her manifestation was escalating in power as she focused, and as it reached new heights, both she and her clone activated [Iron Skin] at the same time, with the metal racing out from her steel gray eyes to cover her body.

The final fight of its life had begun.

Her clone opened with the same move it almost always did- slash its blade to turn invisible and cut through space. It was odd learning that she was predictable, but shed been able to adjust from the last half-dozen times that she had fought her reflections, whereas this copy hadnt.

She swung out with her own sword, aiming at the spot she predicted her copy would make an appearance.

Her blade impacted with something, and she knew she had been correct.

The copy reappeared as [Cracked Second Wind] knit its flesh back together, and lunged at her, this time fully visible.

She backed up and blocked the blow to savor the feeling of her Concept manifestation clashing with another.

It wasnt like the feeling of a blade hitting another blade. Instead, it was similar to when she battered down someone elses Concept, though not quite identical. A manifestation was more solid than that.

A tiny bit more real.

She had fought others with weapon manifestations a couple of times at Carols behest, but they were all at a much greater Tier than her, and she hadnt been able to feel this unique sensation then. Her previous reflections had given her a similar experience, but none of them had quite so solid a Manifestation.

Each time she experienced the clash, she was able to refine her blade, feeling its weaknesses like never before through her reflection.

Two inches from the top of her blade on the left side, there was a spot that had stung like a sore tooth during the impact.

Taking that knowledge, she polished her manifestation to remove that weakness, even as she threw herself at her Minkalla copy.

At first, they fought with purely their mundane blade skills, but that only lasted until she forced her copy back through her potion enhanced strength, and it decided to cast [Wind Cutter] at her.

Susanne cut the attack in half with a single swing of her blade, then followed up with [Dash] and used the boost in speed to close the gap between herself and her copy.

As she brought her blade around in a heavy swing, she smiled as her copy back stepped just enough to dodge the blade while preparing to rush back in. But instead, Susanne cast [Mana Blade] to extend her weapon an extra foot.

Her reflection seemed surprised by the move, but it summoned a second copy of her Concept manifestation and blocked the now larger descending blade. Meanwhile, the fake Susannes main blade lunged forward, trying to impale her original.

Using her own Concept to create a second version of her blade as well, Susanne blocked the lunge and cast [Counter]. The spell repelled the blade with explosive force, and Susanne used her main blade to cut out in retaliation, but her reflection used its own [Counter] to block the blow.

Not wanting the skirmish to fall into a stalemate of [Counters] until one of them ran out of mana, Susanne cast [Fire Burst] and allowed the explosion of flames to wash over her copy.

While it worked, the reflection had its own defenses, even if it didnt have [Fire Manipulation], so it was only singed by the blast.

Her reflection cast [Dash] and [Hypersonic Edge] as the flames washed away.

[Fleet Feet] enhanced her footwork, and she sidestepped and then ducked under the swipe of her copys weapon while lunging forward and casting [Mana Thrust].

She nearly cut the reflection in half with the attack, but it managed to block her blow, so they fell back into a stalemate.

Susanne retreated a few steps and cast [Momentum Overcharge], allowing the spell to steal some of her speed, and when it had a good bit of energy stored up, she cast [Dash] to close the gap once again.

As her blade came around, she unleashed [Momentum Overcharge], and when her blade impacted her copys, she overpowered the upraised sword and smashed both of their blades into the copys chest.

She was sure that it was going to kill the copy, but [Phantom Armor] sprung up and took the brunt of the blow, to her irritation. Susanne definitely hadnt had the skill active when they entered the floor, which meant it must have cast it sometime during this very fight. But that told her that the mirror was lower on mana than she was.

That was useful information.

Rushing forward, she brought her sword down in a massive, overhand swing, but her mirror was able to roll out of the way and cut space to dodge the blow, despite Susanne trying to lock the battleground down with her Concept.

Still, she had compounded her few advantages into a distinct lead as she took off after her copy and started chasing it down.

She just needed one more blow to land in order to finish it off, and could see its end drawing near.

It felt right.

Blade fights were brutal and short.

Decided in a single blow.

Just how she liked it.

***

Aster growled at her copy.

She was not a happy fox.

She had fought. She had been hurt. She had been injured.

But never like this before.

And it made her angry.

Matt had been hurt.

Liz had been hurt.

Susanne had been hurt.

And she hadnt been able to turn the tide.

Normally, she was more than happy to play the spoiled princess when she could, even if it was mostly in jest.

After their brutal loss, she intended to change that.

No more miss nice fox.

They started off with an [Ice Spear] each, which collided in midair to create a thin cloud of snow between them. A dual [Wind Lance] collision blew that away, leaving them in the same position as before. Elemental mages of the same type often stalemated each other, as the increase in control and power of said element got better the closer it was to the other mage, making defense much easier than offense. That basic dynamic was doubly true for support mages like Aster, who had far more ways to deflect, avoid, or block damage than deal it out.

Fighting against a copy of yourself made that problem so much worse, as there were hardly any tricks or spells that one side could exploit for an advantage. Aster had improved over her time on this floor; they all had, but it was quite difficult to overcome the inherent disadvantages she needed to contend with in order to wound her copy.

Her frozen earth elemental, courtesy of her Boon, allowed her to make unusual types of ice. With her tiara turning [Create Ice] into a minion, the creation lumbered forward as she summoned it into being. Matt had helped her cast the spell a dozen times to strengthen it to the maximum before they took on the boss fight, and she hoped it would help turn the tide.

Her copy threw a barrage of [Ice Spear]s at it, but her minion just absorbed them all without so much as a crack appearing on its surface.

She growled and threw out a flurry of [Wind Slash]es, which her copy was able to dodge and dispel even as it was predominantly occupied with the elemental. She battered at her copys Concept with her own, though even with her improved strength in that area, she was still so much better at keeping things from changing than she was at directly hurting someone. Her copy eventually summoned a [Wind Lance] elemental to challenge her elemental, and the two beings began their clash.

Hers was far stronger than her copys, as it had been reinforced as much as the tiara would support before she entered, but it was kept busy with blocking its spindly and agile counterpart from reaching her. How long their fight would take, Aster wasnt sure, but her summon would definitely win in the end.

Still she intended to help it.

With a thought, she sent a touch of mana into the carpet of talismans that Matt had made for her and attached to her armor before this fight.

Spells shot out in all directions before curving around and targeting her mirror self.

As the spells landed, Aster took painful smattering of [Hail] on her wounded skin, but she scored a single good hit with [Ice Bullet] on her copys front leg as it tried to frantically dodge the rain of spells.

If she hadnt been angry before, a reminder that her copy still had intact fur and an actual tail drove her over the edge.

She rushed her copy with wind lengthening her stride, and they both traded spells ever more quickly as the distance closed. Ice and air collided alarmingly close to her face, but she was focused on her target and her plan. A single [Ice Spear] scored a line down her flank, and that was all she needed to end this fight for good.

Aster froze up quickly and started focusing on dodging as best as she was able while fighting against her copys Concept. Standing barely five feet from her clone meant that she had to be absolutely perfect to avoid each strike, but dodging was a skill she had honed for decades.

Sadly, so had her copy, meaning neither of them was actually able to hit the other.

An [Ice Bullet] flew through where she had been a heartbeat before as she dodged left. At nearly the same instant as her paws left the ground, she teleported to the right, just beyond where her copy would see or expect, and lunged at her copys neck with [Chomp].

The [Ice Spear] from her copy flew harmlessly through the space Aster would have been occupying if she hadnt teleported through all the ice and snow they had created around them.

Anger infused her and powered her jaws.

Rage at her helplessness.

No more.

Shaking her head back and forth as hard as she could, she felt bones snap in her copy but she didn't let up for even a moment. Aster, strengthened by Matts talismans and Lizs potions, was substantially stronger than her duplicate.

Her old self.

She, and therefore it, was tougher than that, and refused to die so easily. Aster responded by throwing its wounded body to the side, and directed her elemental, as it rejoined their battle, to crush it to a pulp.

Repeatedly.

Until she felt Genesis Energy rush into her as the reward for her victory.

Proof it was dead.

Aster was already a step away when she noticed a skill shard forming on the ground where her copy had been.

She snapped it up and stored it away as she slinked over to the edge of the cavern while she waited for the others to finish their own fights. Once she settled into a comfortable spot, she pulled out a few healing potions and [Bandage] talismans.

While she had complete confidence in the others and their abilities, she wanted to be able to pounce in and help out if they emerged from their battles wounded or vulnerable.

No one would hurt her friends any more. Not if she could help it.

***

Liz thrust her spear out and took her copy in the side, but was unable to draw blood from the single hit.

She pulled her spear back as the copy thrust forward with its own spear, and used the haft of her weapon to block the blow.

She had already learned the futility of using blood spells against herself.

Before either of them were able to get the spell to land, the target would be close enough to easily wrest control of the opposing spell with their own [Blood Manipulation], rendering it useless. Liz did have an advantage over her reflection in that she knew a few more tricks about controlling an opposing blood mages spells. It wasnt that different from stealing control over fire skills, which shed had plenty of practice with as Torch.

It was a good thing they all came into the boss fight prepared with a handful of Matts offensive talismans. With them, she was able to gain an advantage by cutting deep into her mirror selfs side.

But Liz was hardly one to go down from a single wound, and neither was her reflection.

She was almost impressed with herself, if she was being honest.

Elizabeth Moore was a hard woman to kill.

Without spells, that left the mirror images deadlocked in a melee fight.

Liz had the advantage there, having drank several of her strongest safe potions before the fight, as well as benefiting from Matts boosting talismans. But she, and therefore her copy, was far too used to fighting stronger opponents for those boosts to be a decisive factor. To make matters worse, the longer they went on, the stronger her copy got as it mixed and consumed blood potions. And it was able to utilize even stronger potions than she could.

A sizable amount of her internal arsenal was actively harmful to Liz, where the energy of the potion was too intense for the body to handle, or could result in long-term health problems if left untreated. Normally, she was able to use them in moderation, but with her body constantly at the edge of the healing cooldown at the moment, she couldnt treat herself properly afterwards.

Meanwhile, her copy had less of an active healing cooldown than she did, and was apparently less concerned about its long-term health, allowing it to push itself further than she was willing. It wasnt suicidal, but the reflection fought as if Luna was there with a medical team ready to undo anything it did to itself in the name of victory.

Knowing she needed to change the paradigm of their fight, Liz thrust forward once more with a [Fire Weapon] and [Water Bullet] pair.

The water spell hit her copy in the shoulder, but its armor blocked most of the attack while she used her now flaming weapon to push back the copy.

It worked for a moment, but her mirror countered with [Fire Manipulation] and tried to push the weapon away from itself using the fire on the blade as leverage.

Instead of fighting that force, Liz let the copy push the tip of the spear away and used that momentum to spin her weapon around and bring the butt into the copys left arm.

She felt the crack where her weapon hit the armor, but didnt think it was enough to break the arm. If the positions were reversed, it probably would have broken her arm, but her healing cooldown had been mostly over when she entered the floor, and it was only the fights here that had aggravated the regrown limb to its current state.

The copy formed its spear into a halberd with blood iron, then started building [Blood Charge] on it. Liz responded with a quick [Blood Spear], but the copy sidestepped it and dashed towards Liz with power that burned through its mana and potions.

She tried to retreat and let her copy expend resources while she defended, but it started pouring even more power into catching up to her, leading into a horizontal sweep with the halberd. It was an enormous expenditure for one blow, and Liz knew she couldnt take it head on.

Quickly summoning [Blood Polearm Block], six floating blood copies of her spear appeared next to her. She formed her own spearhead into a partisan, with all of the blood copies getting in formation to block the approaching blade.

The halberds head virtually exploded with blood as [Blood Charge] went off, destroying three of the six copies of her weapon and damaging the head of her material spear.

Hitting her with the halberd wasnt the goal, however, as her copy dropped the weapon almost immediately. It took advantage of Lizs spear being out of position by drawing a dagger and charging her directly, seeking to stab her in the neck.

Liz blocked with both of her hands they tumbled to the ground, where she and her copy struggled in a power enhanced stalemate for a moment, until she wrapped her leg around her mirrors and twisted with all her might.

That sent them rolling just far enough for Liz to get on top and send the dagger flying.

As she was about to extricate herself, her copy interlocked their arms and tried to twist Liz back to the ground.

Pain laced up her left arm in an arc of fire as her far-over-cooldown arm protested the treatment, giving her copy the opening it needed to put her in a headlock and pin her to the ground.

Liz flailed with her good right hand, trying to punch the copy even as it was behind her. She summoned blood, but was countered because of how close they were. She cast [Blood Ragdoll] to no avail, and in the time where her blood was out of control, her copy took advantage of the weakness to transition from the headlock to pinning her to the ground. The copy had apparently noticed the weakness in her left arm, and had grabbed it with both hands, shoving her to the ground underfoot as it attempted to tear her arm off at the shoulder.

Her arm screamed in pain, but Liz resisted the urge to make any more than a pained grunt as she struggled to escape. Her every action only worsened the pain, and slowly and steadily, her copy began ripping her arm off. She needed to think, come up with something, but the pain was debilitating. She mentally reached towards her core to Tier up, damn the power loss.

Then, her mind settled on another option, and she went for it.

Her arm gave way halfway up the forearm, tearing a ragged stump up to the point where it had been regrown not a month earlier, and Lizs resolve to not scream in pain was broken. Though, she retained enough presence of mind to carry out her plan.

In the instant before her arm tore, she wretched herself away, tearing it early, and in her right hand, she summoned a dagger of her own.

Lunging forward at her mirror as it was still reeling backwards, she drove the blade through a gap in her armor, and into her copys neck.

It wasnt an instant kill, of course, but it did free Liz to roll out of the way, ignoring the knives of pain that accompanied her arm-stump brushing against anything, and recall her spear to hand.

Her copy was busy knitting itself back together, actively holding blood in. The lone evidence of it having been nearly decapitated was a small blood splatter. Liz brought her spear forward, leveraging her single arm in conjunction with [Blood Manipulation] on the blood in its haft to press her mirror self while it struggled not to bleed out.

Its skin began to turn red with the telltale signs of [Blood Rage], but Liz ignored it. That single spell wouldnt save it from [Hungering Weapon] draining its strength and blood at a rapid rate. She could feel the stolen strength course through her, and leveraged that to drive her weapon deeper into the clones body, tearing apart its internal organs in the process.

Liz felt the dying embers of her Concept flare up, but she crushed them utterly as she burned through her mana, wrenching control of all of her reflections blood in a single instant. If not for her very recent experience with her personal brand of resurrection, coupled with a day of meditation preparing for this very fight, she wouldnt have been able to stop it. But her brushes with death had pointed out all the ways in which she was still oh so very mortal.

The flames guttered out, and Genesis Energy rushed into her, signifying the end of the fight.

She took to her feet and used the newly-unfettered [Blood Manipulation] to staunch the bleeding of her ragged stump, casting [Bandage] to try and reattach the limb.

The spell didnt take, instead simply capping off her left arm. She wasnt surprised, her arm had been so far over cooldown that it barely even counted as hers, so far as her buff spells went. That it had been ripped off only would have exacerbated the issue.

With a flick of her powers, she stored the limb inside her spatial ring.

She would hopefully be able to get it reattached when they left. If not, shed just get it regrown.

But it would present a serious problem for the rest of her time in Minkalla.

Aster was waiting for her as the mists faded, and ran up to her while asking if she was alright. Liz wasnt, but she had already triaged herself, so she just nodded.

She was down an arm, but shed live. It hurt, but shed probably had worse? At the very least, her missing hand wasnt hurting, as [Bandage] kept her stump from aching too much.

For now, all they could do was wait for Matt and Susanne to finish. Liz suspected that Susanne would be done first, as Matt had too much of his style predicated around long, drawn-out contests of endurance for anything else.

***

Susanne [Dash]ed forward and cut through the [Earth Wall] that appeared in front of her and cast [Sword Gale] the instant she was through. This fight had lasted far longer than she intended, but she had learned something about herself.

She was pretty good at running away when she needed to, and didnt have enough direct chasing or binding methods to prevent it. At least, not against herself.

Flurries of sharp ribbons of air whipped around her, only to be blocked by the copys [Shadow Armor], but Susanne hadnt cast [Sword Gale] for the direct damage.

Instead, she reached out with her new [Earth Manipulation] and sent the particles of dirt that her attack on the wall had created at her mirror self in a stream.

For an instant, her copy flinched back as the surprise attack hit her in the eyes, and that was when Susanne moved.

Cutting the distance between her and her copy, she appeared next to it, but instead of directly attacking, she cut the air once more and used her boon to vanish for a moment.

Stepping more directly in front of her copy, she avoided the two slashes it cut out with, and then miniaturized her greatsword to something closer to a longsword. With the extra bit of speed it afforded her, she thrust forward and through her copy's chest, twisting and pushing at her Concept to make the attack even more lethal. Every last drop of mana she had went towards empowering the strike, and it cut through her reflection with a ragged, messy tear.

It wasnt without its cost, though.

While her Concept clone blocked one attack from the reflections clone, that left her open to a second blow from the mirror's main blade.

Even with [Phantom Armor] to block most of the blows power, it was still fueled with [Hypersonic Edge], and cut into her current armor and deep into her left side.

Despite that final blow, her copy died, and out of its body dropped a material version of her greatsword.

That almost seemed insulting in some weird way. Minkalla must be taunting her with a weapon shed never use.

Picking it up, she placed it into her storage ring and hobbled over to where Liz and Aster waited. She dropped to the ground next to them, and stared at the bank of mist that was undoubtedly where Matt remained locked in his fight.

Any idea how long this is going to take? she asked.

Liz and Aster shared a glance. Two defense-focused tanks with no mana constraints?

Susanne sighed and started wrapping her wound.

They should have had Matt leave the house out before they fought. She might have been able to get a nap in.

***

The explosion sent Matts copy flying, but it caught itself in midair by utilizing a wobbly Concept, and dove back towards Matt while unleashing a barrage of fireballs. Matt raised a [Bulwark] inches in front of his copy, tanking the [Fireball]s against his armor as the reflection narrowly avoided slamming into the immovable barrier by teleporting to the other side of it. Matt greeted it with a column of lightning almost as thick as his arm, but the copy raised its own [Bulwark] and blocked the talismans effect.

The buffs Matt had applied to himself at the start had worn off a long, long time ago, and he was even almost out of talismans entirely. Amusingly, he now had more talismans in his two Aurora Lance arrays than he did across all his other talismans and arrays combined.

He judged his copy wasnt much better off, and was perhaps even down part of an Aurora Lance, using some of the feeder talismans as makeshift, lesser attacks. Matts left arm hung limply, suffering from both a sprain and a dislocation he hadnt had the chance to fix, and missing half the fingers on its hand besides. His own copy seemed hellbent on finishing what Susannes reflection earlier in the floor had started. It had also disarmed him of his two growth rings, but he could retrieve them later.

If not for [Endurance], he and his mirror copy would have collapsed from simple exhaustion minutes hours days ago? He had no idea how long this had been going on, but hed long since exhausted every trick he had prepared for his clone, and it had simply turned into a slugging match.

Nearly all of them had worked, but it just wouldnt stay down. Theyd both ended up getting a lot of practice with usurping elemental manipulations, and there wasnt even a square inch of flat ground to stand on, thanks to all their attacks tearing it up.

If Matt was being poetic, it was a reflection of the two of them. Once pristine ground now broken. Hills and valleys carved out of it where they had used the floor itself as a weapon, but still there. Still functional.

Or, at least Matt was.

His Folded Reflection mirror was finally checkmated.

With a last ditch burst of strength, Matt swept past the reflection with [Air Manipulation] wrapped around him, then threw his Concept at his clone beneath him, shoving it to the ground and pinning him.

Matt followed closely behind, slamming feet-first into his prone reflection, then activating his gloves to lock himself in space. His clone struggled underfoot while throwing spells at him, but Matt was unyielding. It teleported out from the trap, pushing through Matts spatial lock, but Matt called his void sword to hand and swung where he knew the copy would appear.

The clone materialized in the path of his attack, blade at his neck and enhanced with everything Matt had left in him.

The reflection finally broke as his copy was decapitated, and the fog around him faded.

Matt groaned in relief, staggered over to the lump of flesh that had formerly served him as three of the fingers on his left hand, and dug out his rings from the bloody mess.

Matt cursed as he saw the result of his copys attack. The plain silver band that served as a teleportation focus was cut nearly in half, and he could only find one half of it. His mana aspecting ring, meanwhile, had several of its crystals broken, and the metal itself was bent out of shape.

It was fixable, as the connection his spirit shared with them attested to, and because he still had the physical objects, or at least parts of them. If they ran into a growth item-based reward on floor 7, he could still empower them if he so chose. However, it effectively removed both teleportation and the ability to make new talismans from his suite of options for the rest of Minkalla.

Aster broke him out of his musings as she sauntered over to him with a questioning thought, and he gave her a few head pats in return for her concern with his good arm.

Seeing that his copy didnt drop anything, he staggered over to his friends and made sure that most of them were ok. He was relieved by his findings until he noticed that Liz was missing her left arm once again.

Ahh you ok?

Almost before he finished asking, she nodded. Fine. Well not fine fine, but I needed to sacrifice it to give my copy a big enough wound that it couldnt just [Blood Ragdoll] any attacks I made. Besides, the arm was only half functioning anyway, so its not that bad. Weve got a spare prosthetic anyway, I should be able to manage until we leave.

With that said, they dispelled the reward distortion. Everyone wanted to leave the floor as quickly as possible.

Out tumbled half a dozen skills, along with a longsword similar to his own, a horse plume helmet, and six upgrade orbs.

Catching the items, everyone agreed it would be best to sort it after their test.

If worse came to worst, one of them might need the increased power if they were unable to wake up from the dreams that the floor challenge would give them.

They stepped through the distortion, and with a mental nod, Matts mind was whisked away.

***

Matt opened his eyes to a living room. It wasnt any particular living room, but rather a mishmash of his own, Lunas guest living room, and even Travis and Keiths. The coffee table was undeniably his, though. Six cups rested on it, each in their own unique vessel and their own unique teas.

A fairly plain earthenware mug had a honey sweetened black tea in it, a common breakfast tea in most parts of the Empire which Matt was pretty sure he had a few ounces of left in his house.

The porcelain tea cup with gold filigree had a strongly spiced black tea in it, though there didnt seem to be any milk available for it to be served traditionally. A similarly decorative bowl sat next to that one, with blue accents the same shade as his mana rather than gold, and it held a strongly caffeinated dark green tea that Matt had never particularly enjoyed, though Liz liked it enough that they usually kept some around.

Next was a white tea served in a ceramic mug that seemed to have a sharpened lip. He was fairly confident that the particular variety had gone extinct a few hundred years ago when the rift that produced it had been destroyed, though he didnt recall what had caused that.

The final two cups were a normal glass cup with a cold brewed pale green tea that normally had some additional flavorings added, and a strange iridescent bubbling jasmine tea served in an ornate cup and saucer.

As he scanned each cup and tried to unsuccessfully puzzle out what each of their lives might be he gave up.

With a shrug, he brought the first earthenware mug to his lips, and sipped.

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