Luon opened his eyes to find himself in a peculiar situation. Moments ago he was fighting Deminier in a grand tournament held by several systems and then the next minute he was sitting on a chair with a set of newspaper in his hands.
‘Was it all a dream,’ Luon thought as he began to realize that the room he was in was the same place he was told to fight a mysterious race called Inzektors during his first simulated life. Luon sent his gaze to the television and found there was no news report, instead an action sequence was being displayed he could see the figure of someone that looks like him fighting Deminier.
‘So this is what he meant by selling my soul… will I have to spend my remaining existence watching over myself?’ thought Luon as he was relieved from his obligations.
Just as Luon was pondering how his new lifestyle was going to work out the room turned pitch black leaving only the television and his chair behind.
A figure appeared beside him, it was Luon from the second simulation. He was much older than the current Luon but younger than when he died during the first simulation. The middle-aged Luon said, “You haven’t sold your soul at all. Instead, you’re taking back the inner darkness, a part of me back into you. However, I believe that you aren’t ready for it yet and as you can see the darkness eroding your existence stopped.”
Luon sent his gaze around and found a white barrier encasing the room he was in. Luon turned and asked him “So, how are you fighting right now if you’re here talking to me? And what do you mean by embracing the darkness? Why do I need to do it?”
If he was here talking to him like this than what was the point of this act? Did he lie to him? Was he planning to possess the body after so long?
The black Luon, with a solemn expression, responded, “In order to use my powers to change the tide of the battle I have temporarily taken over your body. I am the embodiment of your negative feelings such as fear, anger, and sadness, an entirely different personality from you.”
“Like how someone has multiple personality disorder?” Luon asked.
“Something like that, anyway if you want to receive my powers, your mind has to accept my existence. You will soon experience the memories that created me as a side effect, from now on every time you sleep they will appear in your dreams… fragments of my past,” the dark Luon said.
Although Luon was curious about the memories, he was still worried about the results of the match. He looked at the television and found himself and Deminier exchanging blows, they were nearly equal despite Deminier powering himself up.
“Can you win?” questioned Luon.
“Watch,” the black Luon replied as he pulled out another chair out of nowhere. The two of them silently spectated the match in the pitch black room.
…
“Is this all?” questioned as Luon prepared his blade once more.
Deminier frowned as he said, “Although I don’t know what happened to you, and what got you up and kicking again, I don’t believe that this state of yours will last that long. Especially since you were just heavily injured.”
From Deminier’s eyes, the only thing that changed about Luon was his eyes and his combat level. Luon was now a pseudo-level 80 combatant as he still had to rely on his NG-Arms to make up for the difference.
Luon smiled as he said, “Don’t worry about it. Instead, you should worry about yourself.”
Luon used his movement skill and appeared before Deminier slashing at him with two blades.
The two continued to exchange blows, and Deminier noticed that the strength behind Luon’s blade was slowly getting even stronger.
‘How could this be possible?! He should have less mana than me, less blood than me and he should be getting several times weaker… but why is he getting even stronger?!’ thought Deminier as he tried to back away once more.
“What’s wrong? Are you not able to keep up?” Luon’s words echoed behind Deminier causing him to twist around only to receive a heavy blow to his body. However, Luon didn’t stop there, he reenacted the exact attack sequence that Deminier had used moments ago. Luon sent Deminier several meters away from him and waited patiently for a reaction.
Coughing out blood Deminier said to Luon, “Did you think you’ve already won? This match isn’t over yet!”
At this moment the doors to the entrance of the room burst open, and beyond the debris stood the dark knight who was also a being in the level 80 region. Deminier laughed at his reinforcement and stood up while downing a potion. He shattered the glass and said, “I don’t think you can handle both of us now. I’ll show you who the boss around here is.”
The dark knight and Deminier encircled Luon as they readied their stance. Luon indifferently looked at the two and said, “Interesting, but it’s not enough.”
The two began to launch their attacks, and he quickly dealt with their blows. Luon while fighting said, “It’s no use trying to tire me out. Even though your both level 80 my stamina is more than what you can imagine. I’ve been called… an undying warrior once before.”
The dark mana that surrounded Luon began to consume the mana from the surroundings like a vacuum, his face showed no signs of becoming tired.
Deminier realized what the technique was and exclaimed, “Blood Magic Circulation! You’re a blood user!”
The term blood user was a term that came from the old nation of elves who found an alternative way to absorb mana instead of naturally generating mana over time. Those elves who were jealous of how other races can absorb mana to empower their own body experimented with the blood of their own people and developed a method that was able to forcefully devour mana and other types of energy to empower themselves. As a result, they never tire and continue to fight, they thirsted for more power becoming addicted to their growth.
This method was shared between other races as they had something similar. Like how demons have their dark magic and chaotic trolls or orcs with their chaos energy. The concept of devouring mana was widely used by other races, but it wasn’t commonly seen in a human, this surprised Deminier.
With Luon’s current state he would continue to fight on despite having the two of them pressure him. Sure enough, they fought into a stalemate until someone screwed up. Deminier who was injured before tripped after making an attack and exposed an opening allowing Luon to wound him once more.
Deminier quickly backed away to heal himself, but Luon didn’t allow him to do so easily. Luon lunged at him but was intercepted by the dark knight. However, in a one versus one battle, the dark knight was no match for Luon who was able to handle both of them. Before Deminier could heal himself, Luon had finished him off.
‘This body is good, it seems like that cultivation technique which incorporated that asura book was based on creating a body that would easily allow the user to devour mana,’ thought Luon.
Deminier who had witnessed this became helpless his sword wavered as he said, “You… you will regret opposing me! One of these days I’ll get my revenge.”
“Oh, is that a threat I hear?” said Luon who appeared to be intrigued.
Seeing how his opponent was still responding with reason Deminier said, “Yes it is, however, I’ll let today slide if you…”
Luon interrupted him quickly as he said, “Although it’s refreshing to hear someone actually threaten me. I have a duty to accomplish. However, it is indeed important to tie up loose ends, which is why…”
Luon sent Deminier a penetrating gaze which had a red hue as he slowly uttered, “I’ll pull out the weeds before they can even grow.”
Deminier body stood stupefied as he was hit by Luon’s illusion spell. Deminier began to convulse and groan, but before it became noticeable to the viewers, Luon quickly sliced off his head, thus ending the match.
…
From the perspective of the crowd, all they saw was Luon somehow managing a come back after being heavily injured, and due to some powerful illusion magic that the black Luon had cast on the system, he had deceived most of the crowd.
There were a few people who were able to see through this illusion, and Valerie who was one of them grinned as she said, “What an interesting fella. I knew that the Nexus solar system had incorporated Vortex Container’s to facilitate a child growth was quite an era-changing move, but to bring out a person’s potential this much is quite an impressive thing to do.”
“Milady, according to the reports it seems that Luon could be classified as one of those unstable beings that they were monitoring. According to my observations, he’s somehow developed a multiple personality disorder due to the program,” the Vice-captain said.
“Hmm… which means that if I wanted to face off against this kind of opponent, I would need some kind of trigger right? It appears to me that by having a tough opponent, the other personality would be brought out. Also, did you hack into the system again? One of these days you’re going to get caught,” said Valerie.
“Milady, I am not going to get caught, because I have already been traced. It seems like the system is allowing me to do as I please, however, it stops me before I could get the core information,” said the Vice Captain.
Valerie laughed and said, “Whatever, just don’t bring back anything troublesome. For our opponents it’s probably safe to assume that they would probably pull the same strategy they used today, making his team the last to fight. Arrange one of our teams lose to them on purpose and bring it to a draw…”
“You… are interested in fighting that man?” said Vice-captain. He couldn’t fathom why she would want to do so. His combat level was merely in the 60s without the NG-Arms, and with the personality changes, he had barely reached level 80. If there were anything to point out their final opponents had no one interesting to fight which was why he assumed she would be bored with the final match.
“Don’t question me, I’m merely setting the stage if he couldn’t beat my teammates than why should I bother dealing with him?” Valerie said as the Vice-captain accepted her order and left the room.
The next day was the last, Valerie relished the fact that this farce was going to be over and the final scene had something that incited her curiosity. The technology from the Nexus solar system was something that shouldn’t be underestimated, she looked forward to the final battle.
…
After a celebratory feast, Luon returned to the room and started to fall asleep. Almost no one thought he could have managed to win that situation.
The only one who did believe in him was Captain Waver and Helen who knew the truth behind his strength and had expectations that Luon would be able to win. He was able to deal with a Clamaris when he was much weaker so why couldn’t he deal with a brat who was at a similar level?
Luon began to recall the events that had happened so far, the time he spent for engineering before the event, the battles against many strong commanders and soldiers, and his friends who were happy that they were in the finals, especially Arisa who thanked Luon while tearing up.
Luon felt fulfilled, but at the same time concerned. From this point on he will experience what the black Luon had always felt deep inside. Will his sanity shatter from this experience? Luon at worse would turn out to be indifferent to humanity.
He closed his eyes and entered the black room once again, and there he met the black Luon who motioned him to sit on a chair. Luon nodded, and the two of them sat next to each other, and the television turned on started to replay some memories. Their first session ended quickly as the final day dawned.
