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My huffing body feigned a grimace at the sight of the six armed foes now surrounding me.
Each of them aligned the tip of a stubby short sword with my body before slowly drawing closer to me, all while attempting to mask the preemptive strike that was certain to come from my blind spot.
They made a small circle with me at the center and steadily began marching around its circumference with perfect coordination, I couldn’t possibly keep track of them all with just my eyes, but I still had a near perfect grasp on all their positions.
That was all due to them having a fragment of Owen’s soul embedded inside their body, now that I was seeing it up close, the way this technique worked was fairly simple.
He could essentially ‘split’ his soul into fragments and place those fragments into copies of himself brought into existence through his own mana.
In that sense, none of them were actually ‘clones’ more so than just being a part of the original since they all contained a portion of his soul. There really was no ‘original’ here, it didn’t matter who I killed or in what order I did it because this power didn’t rely on a central body to function.
That was the main reason why he was even able to pull this scheme off in the first place, he took advantage of the flexibility his radical power offered.
Before they attacked Zale earlier, Owen split his soul into two equal halves, the first half stayed here in the forest as a means to stall Oliver while the second half hid itself inside Lucas’ shadow moments after they confronted us inside the local market.
Since there was no ‘original’ body designated to coordinating the efforts of these clones, then he could easily be in two places at once without even breaking character.
All of these bodies were ‘Owen Ryder’, that's the only way they could ever act with such cohesion and the only way for him to keep someone as powerful as Oliver at bay for as long as he did, all he would have to do is make more of these clones and try to prolong the battle.
Since there was no fake and original when it came to these bodies, whenever one got destroyed, he just needed to retrieve that fragment of his soul and start the process all over again.
Oliver was definitely somewhere in this forest, but that other Owen must be luring him away from here to keep the facade up.
This power was an interesting gimmick, but that was all it would amount to when up against someone who could actually perceive souls.
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Owen was constantly looking for a way to catch me off guard with this formation, but every time one of them circled behind me and tried to take me by surprise, I just shifted my posture to prepare for the attack.
Whenever I did that, I saw him flinch in surprise and fade back into the dull array of his marching assembly.
“Owen....are you afraid of me?” I asked between labored breaths.
“Not at all. You’re just a kid who got a little lucky at birth, that’s all.” His frigid reply was laced in scorn.
“No, you are afraid of me....I’ve seen that look before, the anger you’re feeling right now is stemming from your fear.”
“That’s absurd.” he callously spat “But if you’re really that curious then let’s prove it right now; whoever dies here was in the wrong, simple as that.”
“Fine then, I’ll prove it to you.”
It was the truth, but that taunt only served to fan the flames of his already raging ire.
I couldn’t use any more flashy magic, but I still had these feeble hands and just enough mana for reinforcement, that was all I needed.
Bam!
Came the sound of Owen’s feet stomping on the ground, without warning, the entire formation surrounding me abruptly morphed into an unruly mob, all six of my armed foes were now rushing towards me with murderous intent in their eyes. Blocked off in every direction, I quickly cycled through my options as I prepared to intercept the diagonal swing coming from my right. As soon as I tilted my body to evade the blow, I realized something crucial about how this radical worked.
The attack just now was slow, very slow.
Compared to his speed from earlier, this must have been far below even a quarter of his real strength, these clones lacked both the power and precision his merged body possessed so they hardly amounted to anything more than moving dolls.
Dividing his soul like this was certain to come with some serious ramifications, if he could only make six clones from half of his soul then Oliver must be up against the same number of duplicates somewhere around here, so in truth each of these bodies only held about one twelfth of his original power.
After recklessly dishing out that diagonal swing with all his weight behind it, the clone stumbled forward after losing balance, but the bladed tips that swiftly approached me from all four cardinal directions prevented me from taking advantage of that opening.
I dashed towards the double coming from my right and slipped between the gap in his flawed stance the moment he tried to pierce through my body with that awful form, as soon as I’d cleared the attack I sprang up on my feet and transitioned into a leaping roll.
That was enough to clear their formation, but it didn’t take long for their squinting eyes to trace my movements.
Separated by about twenty feet, the status quo of our standoff had been reset, but the odds were now in my favor. While I could sense their oncoming approach thanks to the soul fragments embedded inside each one of them, it wasn’t a good idea to rely on that when they were caging me within the confines of a circular formation.
It wasn’t always possible to react to the attacks coming my way even if I could sense them, especially since I was so drained of mana right now, but with all six of them in my sight like this, the winds of fortune were now blowing in my favor.
One of Owen’s clones gave a nod to his lookalike; the body on the receiving end of that gesture readied his form and dashed to the forefront of their formation, I suppose there was hardly a need for words when working with literal copies of yourself.
The clone charging forth was alone in his pursuit, but this was nothing more than a decoy, a ruse meant to keep me occupied until his lacking counterparts could cage me in again and make up for the difference in dexterity with sheer numbers.
The intent behind this taunt was obvious but I was prepared to respond, not with brute force, but with something far more poised.
After widening my stance and pouring what little strength I had left into these fragile limbs, I braced myself and with impeccable timing, my two hands halted the downward slash of Owen’s sword.
Neither of us were at our best right now so the strength from his swings weren’t carrying the overbearing force they were otherwise prone to.
My open palms gripped him by the wrist and before the clone could even consider exerting more force with his hand, his fragile body shattered like stained glass before crumbling away in the stagnant air.
His counterparts, who were all but ready to jump in for the kill dropped to their knees just then, clutching at their armor-plated chests.
Even the expressions on their faces were all the same, a look riddled with fear and confusion, it overhauled the menacing visage they were trying to uphold and morphed it into something much more pale and frightened.
“W-what...did you....just do?” One of them grumbled, still wincing in pain.
“Who knows?” I said flatly, ignoring his suffering.
I flung myself at the dismembered gathering amidst their confusion. Two of them immediately sprang to their trembling feet to charge at me from both sides.
A thrust on my left and a downward slash on my right, the blows were sharp but unfocused, it didn’t take much for me to pivot on my right leg and whip around both of their attacks, circling behind them in the process.
By the time they’d spun their defenseless bodies around to confront me I was already meeting them at eye level, a simple leap was really all it took to get in this close where making physical contact wouldn’t be much of an issue.
Before either of them could react, my tiny palm had already been planted dead in the center of their faces.
Mana rushed to the contracting muscles in my arms, strengthening my grip before I ultimately slammed both aggressors to the ground in a burst of superhuman strength, their bodies once again shattering like brittle twigs under the force of my juvenile might.
“Gah!” The three remaining bodies cried out in agony.
“St...op it.....stop doing that!”
The clone that seemed to be in the most pain stumbled towards me in a rage fueled charge; there was no longer any semblance of experience and finesse behind their attacks, it was hard to even call this attempt a ‘charge’.
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It was more like he was flinging his body along whilst stumbling and tripping, doing whatever he could to close the distance between us while writhing in agony.
“Don’t engage him alone!” Another one cried, he was the only one not attempting to attack me right now, a second clone was now following in the first one's lead, but he was doing even worse than his counterpart.
“I-I’ll kill you-” He yelped
Since there wasn’t a main body that held authority over the others, then independent action like this was prone to come given the right circumstances.
Finally in range, he clasped the sword in both hands, getting ready to deliver the final blow but he simply couldn’t match my speed anymore, by the time the blade was raised over his head my palm was already touching his shoulder.
The blade fell from its master’s shattered hands just as my feet made contact with the ground, that was my second time leaping to make physical contact with his body but apparently it wasn’t needed for the last duplicated foe closing in on me.
Following in his lookalike’s lead could only get him so far, the clone that had been lagging behind his better half fell to his knees only three steps away from his target.
Even the body that had chosen to keep its distance was feeling the effects of their comrade's death, so the sensation must have been shared across all the clones whenever my hand made contact with one of them.
The clone now slumped to his knees in the dirt before me didn’t even have any resistance to offer, the last thing it would ever feel was the sensation of my hand touching his hanging head before its body shattered into a myriad of fragments.
“Gccck!” That aching cry echoed directly across from me.
“You....what have you been doing...since just now?” He grumbled, steadily rising to his feet with sweat dripping from his forehead.
“A magic trick, one I'm very good at in fact. Consider it your parting gift.” My reply was steeped in apathy.
His eyes squirmed about in their sockets as if they were looking for the answers locked away in his own mind. When that failed, Owen stepped forward with burled fists, spitting a breath of hatred into the air.
“Forget it, you’re far too dangerous for your age. Oliver can wait, I have to at least get rid of you before you grow into an even bigger threat.” He grimaced.
His heated remark was followed by six small orbs of light that whizzed past my face and returned to his body, merging with the dim ember burning lazily at his core.
Once the fusion was complete the ember sparked into a gentle flame, though it was obvious that this wasn’t the true depth of its radiance.
This could only mean that the clones he was using to distract Oliver had unanimously agreed to merging into one body and concentrating all their efforts on destroying me once and for all.
After what I'd just done, I’m pretty sure even they were all starting to feel the same agonizing effects.
Owen couldn’t perceive his own soul, so it only made sense for him to deem me a threat after I dismantled five of his clones with a simple touch from my hand.
Surely the thought of me ripping the fragments of his soul from those duplicated bodies hadn’t crossed his mind but that was only possible because of the way his technique worked.
Normally, you couldn’t just rip a soul away from a living body because souls were intrinsically linked to the state of the physical body, meaning that it would cling to its host body and strongly reject whatever was trying to peel it away.
It was still possible to brute force your way through the entire thing but in my current condition that was nothing more than an idyllic dream at best.
The usual way to go about this was to just beat them half to death and slowly pry the soul away from the weakened body, but that just wasn’t happening right now.
However, in Owen’s case it was different.
The fragments of his soul were being contained in duplicate bodies that had a far weaker connection to them than his merged body, so all it took for me to extract those fragments was a simple touch of my hand.
Even though his soul was divided, the fragments were still connected on a spiritual level, that’s why each time I tore away a piece of that connection, the other clones would also recoil in agony from the harrowing sensation of having their literal soul ripped apart.
Now that he’d merged with the other fragments, Owen was back to around half of his full strength. Close combat still wasn’t an option here, so only one viable course of action was left for me to take.
Focusing my thoughts with a deep breath of air, I charged at the man now readying his familiar weapon, he spun the blade in the air before catching it by the hilt and launching it at me with enough force to cave my skull in.
My body, still locked in a frantic charge, was just barely able to shift my neck to the side, allowing the metal weapon to whizz past my face like a deadly whisper.
He wasn’t moving, he widened his stance and braced himself as if he was preparing to accept any attack I was going to throw at him, but as soon as I’d gotten close enough my body jerked on instinct before leaping back out of reflex.
With those two primal responses acting as my crutch, I was just barely able to avoid the deadly uppercut he’d fired off at the last minute.
That too was a feint, he baited me to close the distance of my own free will but the second I got close enough he swooped in for the kill.
His fist flashed past my face in a violent blur, and as soon as my feet were back on the ground, I arched my toes and launched myself at him before he could properly correct his posture.
“Grrrgck!” The man groaned in agony
Two of the fingers on my right hand had found themself lodged in his eye socket, squishing something that felt like goo in the process, but not even two seconds after making contact my body was abruptly slammed onto the ground after he’d managed to fire off a punch with his right hand.
The strike came in like a hammer, from above and below.
Blood spurted from my face as my body recoiled from the impact with the ground, bouncing up into the air before crashing down once more, pain shooting through every nerve like fiery tendrils seeking escape from my tortured form.
“Gccck!” Enduring the agony, I rolled onto my side before springing up onto my feet as fast as I could, coughing up a fit of blood in the process.
Between my involuntary huffs and puffs I watched as Owen’s eye, the one I’m certain I gouged out just now, completely healed itself. It would have been hard to believe the sight unfolding before me if I wasn’t looking at his soul with my own two eyes, but now it all made sense.
Owen could use that cloning power in more than one way, the main way he chose to utilize it was rather standard, but this quirky way was more versatile. It was the reason why Owen managed to keep his real power hidden for so long.
In a way, it worked kind of like a waterwheel.
Whenever Owen got seriously injured, he would split his soul, that fragment of his soul would naturally be accompanied by one of those cloned bodies, but instead of allowing the clone to manifest outside of himself, he immediately superimposed the cloned body onto his original damaged body, thus ‘overwriting’ the state of his damaged body and giving the illusion that he was healing in real time.
It was akin to him using a sort of ‘backup’ to repair himself, but the entire thing only took a few seconds to complete so to the naked eye, his claim about being able to regenerate wouldn’t seem fraudulent.
Judging by the size of the fragments inside those clones, he could only duplicate himself around twelve times or so, but that just meant he was twelve times harder to kill.
There weren’t many ways to deal with someone like this, the two most efficient methods were either damaging his soul directly or just destroying all of those clones at the same time.
I didn’t exactly have the firepower on hand for the latter, so the former option was the only way to go here.
Wiping away the stream of bloody tears from his now non-existent wound, my foe sneered at me before crouching down low, and in a single burst of speed he managed to close the distance between us before I’d even managed to clear ten steps.
Both his arms were spread wide as he charged at me head on, my usual trick that involved pivoting my weight onto my back leg and using it to change directions didn’t work this time.
The instant I tried to veer over on my right, he did the very same, matching my pace and cutting off my means of escape. As we both drifted in the same eastward direction he moved in with his outstretched arms, it was undoubtedly an attempt to lock me in a death hold where he could then take his time squeezing the life out of me.
I was almost out of mana and given how small this body was, it was certainly a possibility. If I ever got caught with that, I was doomed.
Jamming my heels into the dirt, I slowed my pace before leaning my upper body back to dodge his death hold. It was a success, but a very short-lived one, while I had succeeded in avoiding his grasp for the most part, he still managed to grapple onto my right hand with a grip tight enough to make my bones creak.
“~Gotcha~” He uttered through a blood smeared smile.
“No, I’ve got you.”
I clamped down on his tightened grip with my free hand and as soon as he saw the familiar red sparks springing up from my bangs, he broke out into a cold sweat before stepping back out of fear.
“Not again!” He cursed
This was the exact moment I’d been waiting for, even though he only had half a soul right now, since he wasn’t a clone there was still a rigid link between his soul and body.
That link was strong enough to refute my influence over it, but thanks to the nature of his own power I could use that very same link against him.
Just as I hoped, he gave up on prying himself from my grip and was instead trying to flee through cloning. Like a snake shedding its skin, he was about to spawn a cloned body with the greater portion of his soul piloting it and leave the captured vessel behind as a decoy.
That's exactly what I’d been waiting for, the brief window where his soul was about to split and disrupt the connection it had with his body.
The sparks just now were only a means to an end, a flashy feint designed to lure him into lowering his guard and try cloning himself while I was still making contact with his body.
He could probably sense that my mana reserves were low, but given how I’d deceived him with that notion not too long ago, he probably decided against taking any chances.
I quickly dispelled the bogus display of sparks crackling up from my body and watched as his expression morphed into one of sheer terror.
“W-what are you-” He grunted in anguish
Now that his soul was being divided of its own accord, it was easy for me to hijack that interaction and grasp the core of his being with my own two hands, this was my gateway in, so now all I had to do was pull.
On the first tug, his struggling hands went limp before falling lifelessly at his side.
On the second tug, the strength in his legs abruptly vanished as if it had evaporated, forcing him to plop down to his knees.
As I got ready for the third and final tug, a wave of anguish washed over his face and tears began welling up at the corners of his eyes
"Wait, wait, Liam, don’t do this! I apologize! I was mistaken. Please, just stop!" He pleaded like a wailing child. He probably had no clue what I was up to right now but I’m sure the only thing he was certain of was the fact that his death was imminent.
“Owen...” I spoke slowly, measuring the ferocity behind every word.
His teary eyes winced up at me with a short-lived glimmer of hope.
“.....I was right after all; you are afraid of me.”
Pouring more strength into my grip, I ripped the small blue flame from the man’s tanden, dulling the murky light in his eyes.
No magic mojo could save him from that, it was death in every sense of the word.