[Ishmael]
Draw.
Two holes to my chest were repaid with a powerful strike through an obliterated head. Flesh and viscera flew in all directions and water swallowed us again.
Draw.
A flurry of punches crashed into each other as we both took to the sky. Ripped wings and teeth sunk deep into flesh confirmed a mutual death spiral into the ground.
Loss.
The clone used max magic to regenerate their arm mid-attack, using their body to obscure the rapid growth. A hand I was not expecting caught me in the neck and detached my head from my shoulders. I watched my body fall to its knees while my spinning head splashed into the water.
Draw. Draw. Draw. Loss. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Loss. Loss. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Loss. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Loss. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Loss. Loss. Loss. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw.
I floated to the bottom of the lake again; the victory I was expecting, the breakthrough I anticipated never truly materializing. Every victory came at the cost of my own life. The only openings involved trading a piece of myself in return. The adaptations were growing more rapid. Every innovation was incorporated mid-battle.
Trading limbs for damage, blinding yourself and charging in by locational memory, using [Burning Rain] as a slick surface to attack footing; anything and everything that could be used to scrounge up even the smallest bit of advantage was used, digested, and incorporated.
Even the distribution of stats turning more into a matter of rock-paper-scissors. Full-powered punches could be used as feints when defenses were suddenly maxed out. A [Torchlight] could be used at minimum power to cause a flinch. Maximizing health and using [Sanguine Bite] before quickly lowering and raising it again could create a full health bar. Only when bodies collide could I be certain what we brought.
However, somehow, the clone always had the optimal spread for our encounter. Even a single number in the stat spread could change an even encounter to a slight win.
I was getting more meticulous. My eyes were able to more accurately see stats housed within physique. My matched distributions would be met with a slight tweak from the clone. It felt like I was a chess master facing off against a supercomputer. Everything I did was perfectly analyzed and countered in fractions of a second.
My body began to rise from the bottom of the lake and I sighed. I loved this kind of fighting, but, at the same time, I didn’t feel satisfied. There was one remaining move that I had yet to take advantage of; the move that could render all of this meaningless.
[The Great Decay].
If I navigated the opening exchange of blows properly, I could place the ability on the clone and avoid the clone until the difference in our stats became too wide. After there was a gulf between us, there would be no amount of miniscule outmaneuvering from the clone that could undo the difference between us.
But, would I be happy if I won using that method? Would I feel joy if I won at any means necessary or only if I won using the moves that I enjoyed using?
It was ultimately my ego that was holding me back, I knew this. I could look at myself objectively enough that I was being stubborn about it; that anyone else would have used such an ability immediately.
Even the clone was no exception. If I felt like I had an advantage, it wouldn’t hesitate to try to use the ability to claw it back into its favor. If it could use that as a strategy, why couldn’t I?
I supposed that it all went back to the message given to me before I first started fighting. Win a flawless victory. The flawless victory that I had in my mind was not one that involved strong spells. It involved perfect strikes and ruthless violence. Every one of my attacks would be of the proper composition to outmatch the clone’s own attack and they would be surely pummeled into the ground. It was the method that I wanted to win with most of all.
And, it was a strategy that had failed to win a single time.
I splashed out the floor without a strategy in mind. The time that I would be using had been stolen by more philosophical musings; pointless.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The clone started and rushed towards me. I moved mindlessly with the motions. Fast before turning strong or durable or magical depending on what was thrown my way. If I managed to strike first, I would have a half a second to change before the window closed. If I was cheeky and delayed even a quarter of a second, I could guarantee the win. But, if I messed up the timing, I’d be dead.
This time, the clone showed me power to match my power. I changed to speed, dodging out of the way while the clone also changed to speed. Typically, we would both go power again, choosing to constantly look for the early conclusion.
But, of course, power against power would end in yet another draw. I switched to speed again which the clone rapidly changed to. Change to power. Revert back to speed. Reposition. Repeat. If someone did happen to be watching, they would see a series of feints thrown over and over and over again.
I switched to speed and took only a half-step. The clone’s full powered attack struck the space where I was about to step. I had grown too methodical. But, it did leave me with a split second opening. It could only be a max speed punch without a power swap. The fraction of a second that would be lost at the very end would be nimbly dodged out of the way of. I had seen it too many times, too many tantalizingly close times where the moment I believed to be decisive slipped away from me.
A rapid punch wouldn’t do any damage. If it saw that I wasn’t switching to power, it would switch to body and absorb the entirety of the punch in one go.
Regardless, I threw the punch anyway. Not throwing it would just allow that aggressive move to go unpunished, even if that punishment was ultimately worthless. I maximized the speed and flung it at the exposed midsection. The clone saw that I wasn’t going to change to power and did the natural thing of thickening its muscles and scales.
My fist glowed black and I smashed [The Great Decay] into the clone’s immobile center. I flexed my muscles to perform a maximized speed retreat.
The clone snapped into attention as though it had also been going through the motions. Its body flexed to leap along my expected retreat course and deliver a crippling blow.
It slammed its fists into the ground to create a great plume of water. The silhouette looked through the spray to see where I went but did not see me.
“Over here,” I said.
The clone’s head whipped towards me with a look that almost could be called disbelief. I had not moved from where I had been standing. I flexed my muscles and nothing else. At least I knew that it wasn’t reading my mind.
I had already maximized my magic and had been draining stats from the clone for several seconds already. Only a few stat points had changed between us, but, after fighting on equal ground countless times, it was like an ocean of power that separated us.
My punches would be stronger and faster. My health would be higher. Even if it landed its own [The Great Decay], it wouldn’t make up the difference.
Red eyes trained on the clone, weakening it further. The supercomputer inside of its head trying every possible calculation to bridge the gap between us.
Only a second went by before the controller of the clone reached a plan of action. The clone stood still and looked down at its hands for a brief moment. It then thrust its hand at its own head at full power and turned it into mist.
Win.
The clone floated into the water to earn me my first win since I had reached this place. I did it while only throwing one punch. I did it without losing a single point of health.
Could I call it flawless?
I definitely couldn’t call it satisfying. The fight went exactly as I expected…well, not exactly as I expected. I used the skill I hate and it won me the fight instantly. If that was the secret to enlightenment, I could have found that out by reading the description.
I would just need to break through the draws without it. To be able to consistently win without using the skill must be the intention.
“You’re thinking of something stupid, aren’t you?”
The well-dressed figure that was Control descended in a plume of smoke to hover above the lake where the clone fell. This time, they were a woman wearing a billowing dress. In her right hand, she clutched a chain.
“I was expecting Passion to be the one to come back,” I said. “Didn’t think you were all that interested.”
“Passion was here, for a time,” Control answered. “They decided that interrupting would only impede your progress before their attention was needed elsewhere. I only came because you looked so dejected. The desire to win exactly the way that you want to is under my purview, you know. And your emotions reeked of so much disappointment after finally winning that I decided I would see what made you so distraught.”
“I can’t call it a breakthrough,” I explained with a shrug. “Even your spell knows that [The Great Decay] has no real workaround.”
“Is that what you think?”
Control reached down and made a pulling motion. A pair of ghostly chains appeared to drag the clone out of the water in a wet pile. The clone moved to its feet and stood perfectly still for its master.
“There are several ways that being targeted by [The Great Decay] can be overcome,” Control said. “A flash of light into a blind strike or a rapid shift in stat points to deliver a fatal blow could have killed you. Unfortunately, you saw every single way it could have been overcome by yourself already.”
“Then why did it kill itself?”
“Your stubbornness to win the fight with your own hands made you aware of every combination that possibly existed to turn the tides against you. Since you were no longer fighting like yourself, the spell saw no other alternative than to terminate itself and start again. I assure you, if there was an attack pattern you had not yet seen, it would have used it. Undeath makes painful lessons so much easier to learn, doesn’t it?”
I could see the point to Control’s words. I had been prepared for anything that the clone had in store for me. I could have maintained distance for as long as I needed before delivering the final blow.
But, that only left a boring conclusion.
“Now, you are in the endgame with yourself,” Control continued. “Whoever lands [The Great Decay] first, wins.”
“It’s a battle of who lands the first blow,” I said with a shrug. “Sometimes, I’ll win. Sometimes, I’ll lose. Is there anything else that I can learn from a situation like that?”
“From this exercise? No,” Control answered simply. “Nor do I want you to remain down here any longer than you have to. Defeating yourself is fine and good, but it’s not yourself that you’re looking to kill is it? Go out and frolic in the killing fields again and don’t come back.”
The dome I had been standing in was ripped open from the top and disappeared into nothing. I felt my body dragged into the water by invisible chains. Lower and lower I was pulled until I reached the bottom again. The impact made everything go black for a moment.
I opened my eyes to see the sky for the first time in a long while. I was sprawled out on my back at the same point on the mountainside that I jabbed myself in the head.
A cold sensation brushed against my hand. I looked over to see a glass bottle carved like an ice sculpture filled with amber liquid. On the surface of the bottle was a note. I didn’t need to read it all to see the familiar signature at the bottom.
Charles.