The wall in front of Nyra vanished as the hairs untangled themselves.
What she must have expected to see was… Nothing. No corpse, no blood, and not even the smell of burning flesh. The explosion was potent enough to wipe out all signs of the abomination, irrespective of any inhuman transformation.
So, the look on her face when she saw not one but two Kais glaring back at her, with not even a single wound or burn mark on them, was a thing to be painted and sold for thousands of Mission Credits.
Nyra's jaw fell, her eyes widened, and the Pikachu's plush headband on her head slipped off her head.
"How are you still alive?!" she bellowed, raging and screaming out of her lungs. "You think a paper clone can save you?! Huh?"
Nyra brandished her Named sword, Crimson Mist, in a violent arc of fury.
On the ground, one Kai was standing in front of the other. Then, the Kai who was being protected by others, shifted his posture, letting Nyra see the thing in his hand.
It was only fist-sized but had an ominous glow.
The surrounding fire made the Item flash in Nyra's eyes, even though she was far into the air.
It was a Beyblade.
Nyra gasped. "You are a Blader!" she exclaimed, and then she crouched, waves of hair coming to form an enormous bow in front of her instantly. "You think I will let you use it? Fool!"
The front-Kai, who had nothing in his hands, dashed towards the DMA. The back-Kai moved his hand as if taking a launching posture.
It was evident that with launching the Beyblade, he was aiming for inherent invincibility.
Time seemed to slow down.
No hair came to become an arrow. Nyra was the arrow herself. A thin strand of bow acted as a bowstring, and she put her feet on it. The bow bent and the string got pulled back until it couldn't anymore. Then, with a twang, she shot herself at him.
"I…" Nyra's figure blurred. "… don't have time to waste on clones."
Boom!
She was already faster than Kai. With this shocking technique, she surpassed anything that he could perceive. The front-Kai, still dashing in a zig-zag manner towards her, only heard a buzz in his ears before a sword passed through his waist, cutting him in half.
Squelch!
Only when she had plunged her short sword into back-Kai's heart did Nyra's figure appear for all to see.
The Named sword, Crimson Mist, was so sharp that not even a drop of blood had tainted it.
The Beyblade fell out of this Kai's hand.
Nyra smiled victoriously.
It was then that two earth-toppling and heaven-shattering sounds rang in her ears.
First was a low, moist swallow, which had come from her back. The second was a light crumple, which had come from the Kai whose heart had been pierced.
Nyra's head snapped back.
There, the Kai, who should have been cut in two, was surrounded by a red glow, his severed waist healing visibly at an unimaginable rate.
"Impossible!" she muttered. "You were the original?! Then the clone…"
Some 200 meters away from the museum, Meg was sitting in a meditative position. The moment Nyra realized she was standing next to the paper clone of Golduck-Kai, Meg's eyes snapped open. She smiled, and then coughed out a bucketful of blood, her face becoming pale.
Inside the museum, the entire body of the clone trembled. Its body was crumbling before, but suddenly, a steel-like strength coursed through its body. Before Nyra could take the sword out of it, the clone wrapped her figure in a body-crushing hug.
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"Ahh!" she screamed, twisting her sword, trying to force the clone to let her go.
The clone only smiled back at her.
Kai looked at Meg's Origami and chuckled. She could only solidify one origami before becoming useless. So he had gambled it all at this moment.
Force the Hair Demon to go closer to the clone, and then trap her.
This was the essence of his scheme against her.
The Beyblade was nothing but bait.
Not wasting any more time, Kai dashed towards the hair tower. Behind him, Nyra's screams were getting shriller. "You can't go past my hair," she bellowed. "Haha! You aren't strong enough. Your clone can't hold me here for long, either. Wait! Wait for me to… Ahhhh!"
She was right, Kai found out as he looked back. The hair pillars had surrounded the paper clone, trying to pry open his steel-like arms off her.
I must be fast, Kai thought, slithering away from the incoming hair. No. I must be faster.
The 2 Unassigned Attribute Points vanished, becoming a part of his Agility.
Nyra was wrong about one thing, though. Kai already knew that he would have to use a powerful move to destroy the defenses behind which lay Nyra's soul in an item.
It turned out he had just the Skills for it.
Act - Relentless Love…
Petyr's figure, hidden within Kai disappeared. A spartan helmet covered his head, making his entire body shine red and bronze.
… Titan's Buff!
Kai's webbed legs pressed into the floor, and, as he pushed himself up, the tiles shattered.
Crack!
With an Agility of 16 backing him up, along with Telekinesis to keep him stable, Kai appeared to a stop directly above the Hair Tower.
Nyra was watching him all the time, getting crushed by the clone. "Oh, no, you don't!" she snapped.
The hairs, which were tangled around the machine forming the tower, churned, untangling themselves. They rearranged themselves into the shape of a drill, whose tip was pointed at Kai. The drill then shot towards him like an arrow, not slower than a real one.
Up in the air, Kai looked at the incoming massive hair drill with a stony expression.
His mouth parted and words came out for the first time in a while. "Iron Tail!"
Iron Tail was a full grade higher than Hydro Pump Though its reach was low, Iron Tail had one thing that even Hydro Pump couldn't match.
That was its nature.
It was a Charged-triggered Skill.
…
[
Skill Iron Tail Activated
Time Limit: 30 Seconds
…
Skill: Iron Tail
Grade: D+
Specification: Give the tail a steel-like magical property
Requirement: HP>0, MP>0
Attributes:
1. Consume HP and MP to give the tail a magical steel-like property
2. For every point of MP, two points of HP will be consumed
Effect:
1. Base Damage: 50 HP, 30 MP
2. For every 10 MP consumption, Base Damage +10 (HP) +5 (MP)
Warning: Base Damage limit - 200 HP
]
…
The hair drill charged up, and Kai came down whirling.
His long blue tail kept becoming bluer and bluer until it shone silver. Kai had some 100 MP that he could let his absurd skill consume freely before becoming dizzy, but even after using Titan's buff, he didn't have the HP to match that MP consumption.
He did have another way to cheat the System, though.
The moment his HP was about to come down below 10%, he threw another HP capsule in his mouth. His HP Bar hit the limit instantly. The color of his tail, which should have stopped getting shinier, became almost ominous black. No longer did it look like some silver steel, but with Kai's whirling figure, it felt more like…
… a black disc of destruction.
Then, under the stunned gaze of Nyra, this disc of destruction kissed the massive hair drill.
No sound came, no bang, and no boom.
Like cutting hair with a scissor, the black disc passed through it, parting the drill in two.
Nyra screamed, tearing her hands off to get out of the clone's death hug. But it was too late.
There was a red skull sitting at the top of the machine. Hairs were running down from the skull, disappearing into the distance.
The disc of destruction kissed once more.
This time, a sound echoed in the museum. It was like snapping a biscuit in two from the middle.
Nyra screamed before breaking down into ash flakes.
Thud!
Kai unfurled his dark tail and landed on the floor with utmost grace, his slitted pupils shining red under the halo of the oval gem on his forehead.
…
[
Congratulations Contestant Kai Stormborn.
You have killed 1 Order's Contestant.
]