Another BS clone. More and more have been popping up lately and they seem to just try to slow me down. This might mean that she might still be close to reaching her goal or she is intimidated.

I interrupted a skill that aimed to teleport me to a far away place. The runic structure suggested that it would teleport me to my starting point. That would mean either to Tuqu Village or back to Kaledon. While I would appreciate the free ride to Kaledon, I will need that for after I kill the Imposter. I remembered how that magic circle looked like.

I will crack it and repurpose it when all is over.

I interrupted this skill again. This Imposter is hell bent on undoing years of progress. It wont wipe out my experience but it will undo years of traveling. I like this continent but I’m not prepared to do this all over again.

A well placed [Meteor Slap] got rid of the BS clone.

This was worrying. The closer I got the more the BS clones focused on stalling and being annoying. No strong BS clones. She either pumps out low effort clones to keep me busy or is reabsorbing the mana of the strong ones, leaving the weaker ones behind. Or maybe both.

Either way the trail to the original seems to become stronger every day, disproportionate to the distance I get closer every day. She is getting stronger, probably to prepare for our fight.

I had abandoned my habit of killing strong beasts to steal their home as the BS clones were everywhere. They were unable to hide their trail very well. It worked out for me but it was still strange.

One was nearby! I hopped on my fan and flew up. I still tried to sneak attack [Meteor Slap] them. Saves time and effort.

A stealthy divebomb aaaand... I missed... as I fell due to the sudden increase in gravity.

“Ha! Your stupid sneak attacks don’t work on this clone!”

“Ugh, now I have to fight one of your obnoxious abilities, what is it this time?” I unfolded my fan but dropped it.

“Haha! Die!” the imposter made a psychotic face, which was unnerving as she still had my face, and charged at me and created a spike out of black goop.

I attempted to flee but I tripped and faceplanted. “Ouch!”

It did cause the BS clone to miss me.

“Hmm it seems it backfired. How do you like my [Clumsy] curse?”

“I hate it! My face!” I released mana as my hairpin laid on the floor at quite a distance.

“Hehe do your worst lets see how [Clumsy] is going to mess you up!"

“I’ve casted [Tsunami] countless times! I won’t mess this up!” I cast [Tsunami] but I messed up. The sky started to redden.

“Wait huh? How clumsy are you that you ‘accidently’ cast [Meteor]? Are you insane?”

“This is your fault with your stupid curses!” I ran at my hairpin. I managed to grab it. I wanted to put it back in my hair but I poked my head. “Ow!’

“Hahaha! [Clumsy] is by far my most favorite curse!”

“But it’s not a curse! It’s just an obnoxious status eblect… I bit my tongue…”

“Hahahaha!” The Imposter was being an asshole and rolling on the floor laughing.

I hated how the Imposter was making fun of me but it made sure her attempt at fleeing from [Meteor] was stalled. [Meteor] hit both of us and incinerated anything in range. I cast [Water Barrier] and [Water Veil] hoping that at least one would activate but both did.

My clothes got incinerated and I had major burns. The BS clone of the Imposter was dead. As was the jungle around me. I was unsure how to feel about this win. It felt more as if I lost. I crouched down and healed myself.

After healing myself I dressed myself and looked around.

“So obnoxious…” I said as I continued toward the main body.

I fought many more BS clones. One made bugs crawl out of my skin. An actual curse. It wasn’t a hallucination or an illusion. The BS clone died quite fast but it took me 2 days to get rid of it. It was traumatizing.

Another curse flipped the element of whatever I wanted to cast so I again called down a [Meteor] while I wanted to cast [Tsunami]. And there were many more annoying effects but no BS clone gave me a lot of trouble in combat. It was mostly after combat when I had to deal with either the aftermath or her stupid curses and status effects.

My physical condition was still fine but I was mentally worn out. This might be her goal.

“I need a spa…”

“How about I create an illusion of a spa?!” another BS clone… she snapped but nothing happened.

“Ah right that stupid shadow clone of that fox got rid of my ability to use deception related abilities… I guess time to run!”

“Huh? Hey wait!” I hopped on my fan, caught up and knocked the clone down. “Now I’m interested. What did you mean?”

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“Ugh, I have to be careful on what personalities my targets have, some are hard to suppress.” It was as if her aura changed and she became a different person. “What do you want?”

“Great so now you have a multiple personality disorder, I can’t say that it’s unexpected though.”

“I don’t care. I will just have to buy time until…” I blew her head off with [Hairpin: Icicle].

“I have no time for your bullshit.”

I got up and looked at the mountain ahead. The Imposter's mana signature was coming from deep within the mountain. Locating teh entrance to the cave system took a while but it wasn't hidden or anything. I suppose that the Imposter was unable to hide it as her deception and illusion skills were disabled. Two BS clones were guarding the entrace of the cave but they were no match for me they were pushovers.

The inside of the cave wasn’t complex. My hairpin started queueing magic spells in case of another [Clumsy] or forced fail rates of mana activation. It didn’t take long for me to find someone that looked like me but wasn’t quite me, surrounded by corpses. She had just finished eating a heart of one of her victims.

“Ahh I finally get to see you personally. I like what you did with your hair.” Another psychotic smile but her face was covered in blood which added to the creepiness.

“I didn’t come here to chat but to kill you. Any final words?” I said as i pulled out my hairpin and pointed at her with my folded fan.

“Haha how cute. You think you can kill me. Don’t you see all this?!” she spread her arms and turned around showing off the room littered with corpses. They all had holes in their chest, besides the pile next to her.

“This is how strong I am! You can’t win from me!”

“And yet a shadow clone gave you issues. I’m curious, how about you tell me before you die?”

“Hmm, telling you won't benefit me but I need some venting. I can physically and magically vent on you later so might as well verbally vent on you.”

She pointed at openings that seemed to lead to other rooms in the cave complex.

“This knowledge won’t do you any good now since I’ve fixed the problem so I can tell you. Managing this many abilities and skills isn't easy. My solution was to split off a parts of me, which would reside in those rooms and manage a set of those skills. They aren’t as strong as me, the main body, but they are masters in the type of skills I’ve assigned to them. for example, one has been assigned fire magic.”

She pointed at one opening.

“That one was in charge of fire magic that has strange or complicated conditions. It will free me from having to deal with those, as long as Its connected to me, I can use it’s skills. Now back to that stupid clone of that fox!” The mana in the room swelled and I used a simple [Manaward] to protect myself from it.

“I don’t know how or why but as a shadow clone he persisted! Not only that he instantly figured this out. It took me centuries to create this system you know? He figured it out in 10 minutes! And he then destroyed the part of me that could form complex fire magic and anything related to deception. How vexing! What was worse! I couldn’t kill him! I’m freed from his rampage because the clone ran out of mana! I’m the strongest Misha on the planet! This is so insulting!” The mana became extremely thick.

“But now I can take it out on you. But I will show you something fascinating first.” She pulled a body out of the pile of corpses.

“I have barely met the minimum requirements but I want to at least have someone witness how I gain the status of a god!” The body she was holding felt different. It gave off an aura similar to the Midget or Biian but way weaker.

“Is that… a god?”

“Barely, he was weak but that works for me. He couldn’t even find out he was fighting my [Blood Sacrifice clones]. He did kill 132 of them though. But as you can see. I won.” She plunged her hand into the chest of the corpse and ripped out the heart.

I swung my fan very slowly. The mana was extremely thick here so this attack should have high firepower. The swing completed and froze everything in the room.

The area shook and the Imposter broke out of the freeze.

“Nice try.” She greedily devoured the heart of a god. My respect for gods keeps plummeting. Because of his weakness I have to deal with the Imposter that has become a god.

“Ahh! Yes! I can feel the power! Well thank you for listening. It’s time for you to die!”

She started to glow and float up as she broke out of the blob that had covered the lower parts of her body.. She was giving off similar energy as the corpse of the god but something felt off.

She shot off a black mass of energy but it dropped as the Imposter grabbed her head and started to scream. “Ahh! What is this?! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

I was prepared for anything but I didn’t expect this. It seemed as if the energy inside her was rejecting her. Black goop exploded out of her. She regenerated as black goop pieced her together and made her regenerate but this process kept repeating.

“Did I miscalculate and did I need more energy? Aaagh!” She dropped to the floor as the energy kept having adverse reactions and blowing parts of her off.

Multiple hypotheses rushed through my head about what was going on but I know nothing about deification or it’s requirements. It was stupid but I started to sympathize with her. Not because of her current state but I also had moments where my research failed.

I was doing my best to curb this feeling but as a researcher, this affected me a bit.

“Well you did deserve this so no pity for me there. What were the variables that could cause this rejection and what were their occurrence rates?”

The Imposter looked at me as if I was speaking Nayala. I was speaking old Kaledonian with her so there might have been a possibility that she couldn’t understand Nayala.

“Huh? What are you saying? Variables? Occurrence rate? Why would I bother with that?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. A different type of anger welled up in me.

“You… don’t tell me you didn’t research this!? It works out for me that you failed but this is a disgrace to any Misha!”

“Ha! Why would I need to research this? I can do everything! Nobod…” Another rejection blew her head off, interrupting whatever she wanted to say. She was slowly regenerating but the special divine energy had almost completely disappeared from her, no that was incorrect, it had mutated into something strange and unknown. Not quite divine energy and not quite mana.

My hair acted as if it was made out of water and my mana surged.

“I have been pissed off at you, annoyed, angry, even frustrated. But never would have I expected to also be disappointed. You had already lost all semblance of being a Misha. I now know you’re not a Misha anymore. You’re just an abomination. Goodbye Imposter.”