Chapter 89: First trial 3

“I’ll be damned.” Damon stared gobsmacked as the thug’s body dropped to the ground, his eyes still widened in disbelief even in death.

But then his expression steeled. This Dpress guy, his ability was more dangerous than Damon thought. Especially if caught off guard. But then again, he smiled.

’I’d still beat him though.’ he thought. With his reflections, beating Dpress wasn’t that big of a deal. He could make reflections that had 2x his stats after all. Also, so what if Dpress used his ability on him? What was stopping him from swapping away.

It might be argued that it was because Damon already knew about the ability and that there would be no element of surprise. That was quite true, but ever since the encounter with Emmett where Damon had frozen up, he had made up his mind to keep that from happening again.

He wanted to reach a state where the moment his main body was in danger, his instincts would override and swap him with his reflections, unless he was consciously suppressing it.

Apart from Damon, the others also stood in shock. The members of the man’s team that were about to rush over also froze in their steps, disbelief and terror clear in their eyes.

The only ones who looked unfazed were Dpress himself, Nina, Greg, and lastly, Sia. The former two most certainly already knew what their friend could do, but as for Sia, her thoughts were much like Damon’s, perhaps even more dismissive.

’The element of surprise.’ she thought. But even if that had happened to her, she was confident in breaking free. The ability had to have some sort of limitation.

Dpress for his part straightened up, and stared at the remaining members of the dead man’s team.

The team gulped. Their team leader, the strongest one among them had just been killed like he was nothing. Should they run? At this moment, they were actually entertaining the thoughts of running away.

But even if they did, would the other team let them go? No, they didn’t even entertain the thoughts of that happening.

It was then that a thought occured to the greying old man among them. ’Didn’t that remnant will say that any team with less than three members would be automatically disqualified? hehehe?’ he inwardly chuckled.

“What are you all getting scared for?!” he shouted, trying to rile up the group. “Can’t you all see? it was merely a fluke, that idiot of a leader who had ran forward got caught off guard. Why didn’t they press the attack otherwise?” He gestured hysterically.

Damon and the team didn’t react, they watched instead, wanting to watch where this was going. Damon almost felt the need to burst out laughing at the absurdness of the old man.

The old man’s logic was simple, if these idiots rushed ahead, then at least the moment two of them were killed, he and the other lucky person that remained would be disqualified and transported outside. He almost grinned just thinking about it.

Hearing his words, one of the thug’s hesitated for a moment, before charging at Damon’s group.

The old man watched with a feisty facade, but his expression soon distorted into that of pain.

’W…why is there a sword through my chest?’ he thought as the pain hit him like a freight train.

The last thing he saw, was the cynical smirk of the second team member. And the last thing he heard was from the one who stabbed him; “If we were that dumb, do you think thugs like us would have lived this long?”

The man withdrew his sword from the old man’s corpse as all remnant of life faded. But then the two still standing noticed something. The idiot who had charged ahead on the old man’s words also froze for the barest of moments, before he had his head blown off by a concussive punch from the blond, which meant they now had less than three team members.

But why weren’t they being transported out of this place? ’Had the remnant will lied?’ They thought as despair began settling in. Maybe it was time to stake everything on running away. Surely if they split off, this freaking team wouldn’t waste time trying to follow after the two of them.

But before the thought could even take root, a dark haired woman appeared before them as if she had teleported.

“Third art: Stillwater severance.” Her voice came, soft and calm. They hurriedly tried to put on defenses, but the dark haired woman’s sword flashed past their neck in one almost slow motion, but impossibly fast drag.

For a moment they thought it was over, but then, they felt no pain whatsoever. ’What the hell is happe…?’ the one who stabbed the old man thought, but before he could finish his thought, something felt wrong. Why was the ground rapidly approaching in his vision?

Once his sight reached the ground, his vision was overturned, then he noticed something.

’Eh? is that my body?’ he thought staring at one of the two headless bodies still standing, before darkness claimed him.

The bodies soon collapsed on the ground, following the heads.

“Wow, miss Sia, I must admit, flawless execution.” Dpress smiled as Sia walked back to the team.

“Thank you.” she smiled back.

Damon meanwhile was analyzing the way this mockery of a fight went.

While it might have looked like the other team died too easily, they were actually just that weak. These were the type that were at the bottom of the barrel of every rank. Whatever rank they were, they were amongst the weakest in that rank.

For people their age to still be in the Theta- rank, proved that they weren’t part of the talented bunch.

Hell even Damon himself could defeat them without relying on his reflections. Just that it wouldn’t be as easy as Sia did it. Dpress and Nina on the other hand who had also dispatched two of the thug’s, had Dpress ability as a surprise for the first one. The second idiot who’s head got blown off though, was just that idiotic.

“I think we should stay here until the map shows up again. What do you guys think?” Dpress asked.

“Fine by me.” Damon was the first to answer. It had only been about twenty minutes since the map last showed up, so there was still about forty minutes left. A lot of time he could spend channeling.

The others also soon voiced their agreements, so Damon moved a little distance away, made two reflection just like last time, and began channeling.

This time though, ten minutes into his channeling, Sia approached his reflection that was standing guard.

“What are you doing here?” the reflection eyed her.

“What? can’t I come to speak with my little brother?” she winked. “It would look suspicious you know, if we aren’t talking, after all, I’m supposed to be your big sister.” she continued, smirking.

“Hmmm, you’re kind of right.” Damon spoke after a little thought no matter how stupid it sounded.

“So what do you think of those three?” she asked quieter this time.

“Strength wise or character wise?” he asked.

“Strength wise of course.” Sia affirmed.

Damon frowned for a bit. He couldn’t actually say. While he was confident that he would beat them one on one, if the three stacked up, while he definitely wasn’t dying, he wasn’t winning either.

Dpress’ ability was already useless the moment he told them about it, Nina’s ability packed quite the punch seeing as she was able to blow that guy’s head off with a single punch. But with reflections that would have better stats and probably techniques than she had, she was at a disadvantage. Also, he hadn’t yet seen the stocky guy fight, so that was a blind spot. But still,

“I think I can beat them.” he said. “One on one that is.” he added.

“And here I thought you’d be a little more confident in yourself.” she drawled.

“What about you? Damon asked. “Would you lose if you fought them all at once?” Damon asked.

“Why would you even ask that question?” she pouted, as if offended.

“So you’d lose?” Damon asked.

“Nah I’d win.” she replied confidently.

’Wait, where have I heard this phrase before?’ Damon frowned. But try as he could, he couldn’t remember anything.

As they continued chatting, time slowly passed until the projection of the map showed up again.

————–

Far away from the Immemorial Deadlands, and back in the Astral mystic Institute.

A figure appeared, kneeling down on one knee, before another figure.

“Forgive me your highness, the assassination did not succeed.” the figure muttered.

“Hmmm, I know.” the standing figure murmured. “That’s old news.”

“You know?” kneeling figure asked carefully.

“Of course I do.” The standing figure affirmed. “But it’s not like I didn’t expect it.”

“If I’m correct, the target is currently in the Immemorial Deadlands alongside my dear brother.” The standing figure continued.

“I see.” the kneeling figure muttered. “What should we do next?” they asked.

“Nothing for now.” the standing figure said. “Also, stand up, it wouldn’t do for a Beta ranker like yourself to be kneeling down everytime you have something to report.”

*************

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