Chapter 53 (2/2)

〖 So careful? 〗Negary commented, almost sighing. He already thought of this method of finding the real one as soon as he saw the illusions. If the real Smick was actually among those illusions just now, Negary would have landed a critical attack and taken his life without hesitation.

Smick didn’t answer him, his 10 illusions quickly shuffled among one another, occasionally even overlapping and changing directions abruptly, obscuring the real one among the fake, then attacked from different directions in groups of 2.

Before confirming which was the real one, he had to treat it as if he really was fighting against 10 Smicks at once. A blade also grew from Negary’s left wrist, allowing him to parry with both hands at once, any Smick that got close to him would be slashed first before they did anything.

As the illusions’ attacks became more rapid and concentrated, Negary appeared to be occupied with defending.

His blade slashed at another Smick, after confirming that the blade passed through him without trouble, Negary pulled his hand back to attack another illusion, but this illusion continued to attack Negary with its cutlass. If one could pay close attention, they would notice that there was an overlap on this cutlass.

When Smick believed that he was about to win, Negary’s body abruptly shifted, completely ignored all the illusions, blocked the cutlass with his left arm while his right hand thrust forward without hesitation.

At the very last moment, Smick noticed something was wrong and immediately adjusted his rhythm without hesitation, causing his body to shift its momentum and jumped backwards, half-crouching down and clutched the side of his hip, there was a wound about a fingertip deep there.

Seeing the blood on his blade, Negary shook his head. If Smick had reacted a bit slower, the blade at his wrist would’ve pierced through his heart and not his hip.

Smick glanced at the white bones beneath his feet, swung his cutlass and cut a piece of bone apart to see a piece of black flesh inside.

〖 Your illusions seem very real, but a fake is still only a fake. Among them, you were the only one that had actual weight 〗Negary smirked and explained: 〖 And so, I gathered a large number of germs inside the bones, making it so that even your Light Rhythm couldn’t kill them all right away. When you stepped on them, the germs shifted and revealed your location 〗

Naturally, there was something else that Negary didn’t explain to Smick. Smick’s [School of Light] was completely useless against his field of perception, a simple change in light couldn’t fool the field of perception1.

Which meant that from the very start, Smick already had no chance of winning against Negary. He was purposefully orchestrating to the situation to make his opponent feel like that they could win if they tried just a little bit harder to trigger them into unleashing more potential, but in truth, Negary had always been in control of how the battle went, he already held both sides’ trump cards tightly in his hands.

It was because he had this absolute advantage that Negary did something like purposefully triggering his opponent’s potential and hold so much of his strength back. There was no such thing as a [Protagonist Aura] here, under the suppression of this world’s misfortune attribute, the only thing that one could rely on was pure power and wit.

〖 So, Smick, go on, unleash more of your potential, I’m looking forward to it quite a bit 〗Negary grinned: 〖 Or you can give up right here and surrender yourself to me 〗

Smick continued to breathe and adjust his own rhythm, looked up at Negary, then stood up and prepared to fight once again. He wasn’t willing to lose himself, so he chose to continue to fight.

It was this determination and persistence that caused Negary to grin even more joyfully.