(I am having a feeling now, that this battle... is against any power scaling rules we discussed, writer. How could you put me through this hell?!!)

  "No way I'm going too hard on you," Leonica laughed, spinning The Demon Slayer casually in her hand as if it wasn't a weapon of mass anti-demon destruction. "I know my brother is strong enough to handle it. And you must be on the same level as me, right?"

  I smirked. My internal CEO brain had already run the risk assessment. (Even if she has that ridiculous, highly specialized trump card, I will win,) I told myself. (Because I have a trump card of my own. Actually, make that two now.)

  "No," I replied, my smirk widening. "It's higher!"

  Without wasting another syllable, I instantly triggered Shadow Walking, completely vanishing from her line of sight.

  "What the heck!" Leonica yelled, her confident expression shattering into pure shock.

  Deep in the VIP lounge of my consciousness, Yang let out a booming laugh. "What a winner-head fool!" the ancient dragon ghost cheered. "But I am enjoying it."

  I materialized directly behind Leonica and brought my blade down for a heavy strike. The hit connected, sending her sliding back several steps across the dirt, but her absurd physical stats kept her from falling over.

  Before she could even turn her head to track my position, I pressed the advantage and launched another strike. But Leonica wasn't the adopted prodigy of the Blade family for nothing. She recovered instantly, parrying my weapon with terrifying force, and immediately countered with a heavy blow that physically flung me high into the air.

  She didn't stay grounded, either. Using Air Walking, she sprinted right up into the sky after me, bringing her anti-demon sword down for a devastating mid-air combo.

  Her blade sliced right through me.

  But there was no blood. No impact. Because the "me" she just sliced turned out to be a completely fake decoy.

  While she was busy executing my shadow clone, I appeared right behind her true position in the air and struck her hard in the back.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Leonica plummeted, smashing heavily into the Colosseum ground. But I wasn't going to let her recover. One of my pre-positioned shadow clones instantly rushed in, striking her and launching her directly toward a second clone. That second clone delivered a brutal hit of its own, flinging Leonica right back up into the air like a volleyball.

  By then, I had been busy duplicating. I had spawned ten clones in total.

  The eleven of us—my ten clones and the real me—perfectly synchronized our movements and unleashed eleven simultaneous Void Slashes directly at her suspended body. The terrifying arcs of black and purple energy collided on her position, resulting in a massive, earth-shattering explosion.

  Total overwhelming force. A textbook corporate buyout.

  But as the dust settled, my gamer-sense st

  arted screaming.

  The smoke from eleven synchronized Void Slashes hung thick in the air, a suffocating cloud of purple and black destruction. I held my breath, waiting for the visceral satisfaction of a confirmed hit.

  But as the dust began to settle, my gamer-sense didn't just tingle—it blared a deafening, red-alert warning.

  The massive crater was empty. The body that had just absorbed the full brunt of my ultimate, synchronized combo? It flickered, completely devoid of life, before dissolving into a wisp of raw, wasted mana.

  A decoy.

  A cold sweat spiked beneath my Blood Shell armor. And then, the true nightmare rendered itself into existence. The air pressure across the battlefield suddenly plummeted. A brilliant, terrifying spark of gold ignited in the peripheral vision of my main body. I frantically scanned the board, my heart dropping into my stomach.

  There were now ten of her clones. They hadn't just appeared; they were already flawlessly positioned in the exact blind spot of every single one of my ten shadow clones. It was a masterclass in aggressive positioning. A perfect, board-wiping checkmate.

  From the epicenter of the dissipating smoke, the rhythmic, heavy clink of armored boots echoed across the dirt. The real Leonica casually strolled out of the haze. The pristine white and gold plating of her Angel's Guard armor caught the Colosseum light, making her look less like a student and more like an ascending deity. She stopped right in front of me, radiating an apex-predator aura that could have bankrupted a Fortune 500 company on presence alone.

  "So, Bro," she purred. Her voice dripped with terrifying confidence as she deliberately, agonizingly slowly, slid The Demon Slayer back into its scabbard.

  Click. The lock mechanism echoed in the dead silence of the arena.

  Before my brain could even send the electrical signal to my eyelids to blink, she moved. It wasn't just fast; it was a glitch in reality. A blinding arc of silver and gold light erupted from her hip in a devastatingly flawless quick-draw.

  "How about this?"

  At that exact, terrifying millisecond, an ear-splitting SHING ripped through the Colosseum. In a single, flawlessly synchronized movement, her ten clones mirrored the strike. Ten anti-demon blades flashed in the sunlight.

  All ten of my shadow clones were cleanly decapitated at the exact same moment, their headless forms instantly popping into useless clouds of black smoke that drifted away in the wind.