Fifteen minutes earlier.
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"Hm, I might have bitten off more than I can chew," a one-tailed werewolf growled out as he leaped into the air to dodge a red and white wheel of candy rotating at dangerous speeds. Rakna clicked his tongue and landed from his jump with his legs bent, ready to pounce again.
"I don't have Sonata. I don't have Allegro. My magic is weakened. My attributes are not even a third of my original's even in werewolf form and to top it all off, the downside of having to go through only one Trial raises the difficulty…" He muttered to himself.
His whirlpool-like eyes were glowing golden and marked by a glowing cross as he observed the horde of 'sweet monsters' coming his way. Eye of Symphony counted each of them and simulated their path, which Rakna masterfully got out of, avoiding every attack and countering with a precise strike to their focal points.
'That guy is really annoying,' he thought as his Fabled Sight zoomed in to a figure standing behind all the monsters; a joke of a creature, wearing colorful clothes, skin that looked like confect, a pair of eyes replaced by circular candies, and a mouth made out of licorice. It was whirling around a candy cane and using it as staff to summon more and more monsters.
'My original is also using quite a lot of mana. What is he doing?' Rakna asked mentally, not informed of a certain angel goddess who was taking away all their reserves with her ability. Since the clones shared their mana pool with the original, if the latter was low, they also would be.
"You can do it! Don't worry, we'll retrieve your corpse if you fail and get it back to your original self so he can absorb you back!" An oddly excited Kaelith shouted from outside the boundaries set by the Trial.
Rakna groaned in frustration and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, a red light erupted from his body and turned his fur into a brilliant crimson.
"Stop fucking sounding so happy about it, you damn vixen!" He yelled and released a literal wave of magma to his surroundings, melting the monsters in his close vicinity.
"Damn! I forgot he had that!" Kaelith cursed and everyone else looked at her dryly. The scariest look came from Pronos, who had all his giant nine heads pressuring her from behind. The Hydra had been ordered to not help his master in the Trial since Rakna wanted to test his limits.
"Oh, come on, little guy, you don't need to stare at me like that," the vixen slurred with a pout, adopting the totally unfitting nickname used by Rakna.
"Why do you want him to fail so badly anyway?" Nyx asked wryly.
"Because I want to see him fail at something at least once, okay?! Is that so wrong?!" She pouted and everyone sweatdropped. "Well, it's not like I really want to see him die, clone or not, but how I wish there was something I could laugh at him for…"
"…you know what? I'm totally in," Allan agreed with her. "Go, Willy! Beat that guy!" He cheered on the monsters' leader who looked back with a tilt of its head before waving its cane as a greeting.
"Is that thing waving back at us…?" Evelyn muttered in disbelief.
"Looks like it," Flavia said with an amused smile.
"You people…" Rakna's expression twitched as he saw the scene. "Ah, whatever! Original, it's your fault; eat more hearts for all I care," he declared and released his aura in full, catching the attention of the monster leader.
As coincidences would have it, the mana consumption he was about to cause happened before the original Rakna had Astraea reinforce the house, making it seem as if she had consumed a lot more mana.
"[Embers of Ardor Abide the Star's Vehemence,]" Rakna began his chant and triggered Artzpul to take off, his four wings making their appearance. Except for Higure, all of his companions gasped in shock when they saw it.
With incredible reaction time, Willy, the actual name given by the System for the monster leading the charge of the Trial, summoned several flying monsters.
The werewolf grinned maniacally and formed a glaive of volcanic energy. His wings shone with a shapeless power and he dashed forward, reaping the heads and wings of the aerial creatures, with the roar of a sonic boom following him.
"What kind of speed is that?" Marie muttered. "He's even faster than when he fought me inside the Dungeon. Is he seriously just a clone?"
"It's thanks to those wings," Kaelith said with a sigh. "He grew a second pair too; probably when he reached level 100. There's a reason why Luquilas are said to be the fastest creatures to have ever graced this world. If the original Rakna was in his place, he would be four… no, about eight times faster, since he's currently using Obsidian Blood; dividing his speed and dexterity by half."
"Hahaha!" Higure suddenly laughed and the vixen scowled at her.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"Nah, little princess. I was just laughing at the madness of it all," the lioness said with a grin whilst watching Rakna tearing through the monsters, leaving behind nothing but melted carcasses. "Even with all the 'magic powder' he's sprinkling on our eyes right now, don't forget; at the moment, his attributes are all less than 30."
"Tch, you're right," Allan nodded. "Honestly, I think I can win against him in this state. I can work around his speed with my magic. But come on, there's no fucking way I could do even a tenth of what he's doing if my attributes were 30."
Higure cackled even more. "As you say…" She muttered and everyone agreed internally.
"[Shall The Fervor of Vulcan Taste Your Flesh.]"
This abrupt line of incantation brought the group's attention back to the fight where Rakna's glaive clashed with a magic barrier cast by Willy. The werewolf staggered backward due to the rebound and conjured a barbed spear in his free hand.
"[Gungnir!]" He intoned and thrust the spear into the barrier. The weapon exploded into a large blast of volcanic energy and the defense broke apart. Willy immediately jumped away, out of the explosion's smoke, and summoned a dozen more monsters.
"[In a Burning Firmament, The Star Has Forgotten How to Blink,]" Rakna chanted as he dispersed the smoke and flashed to the closest monster, ripping its head off with his claws.
Nyx's eyes narrowed. "It's different."
"Hm?" Kaelith reacted oddly at that. "What are you talking about? His Cōl Lāli?"
"The lass is right," Higure finally noticed. "At this point of the chant, it should be 'In a Fireless Firmament, Shall the Star Blister and Flicker'. At least, that's what I heard the previous times."
"That's…" Evelyn's eyes widened. "But! The lullaby of the soul cannot change! A Cōl Lāli is the same as the root that ties your soul to the world! If it changes, it's essentially the same as saying that he has died and been replaced by another soul altogether--!"
"[In an Eternal Damnation, the Wolf Devours and Howls,]" the next line came along and all of them began to feel the pressure of Rakna's soul weighing on them, interrupting the succubus.
Then, Flavia spoke up, "Evelyn, you were present when we saw Rakna first use it. That's not the same one as back then, I am sure of it."
"Uh… so, what does it mean exactly?" Allan frowned.
"There's only one explanation," Higure raised her voice. "Obsidian Blood is far more outrageous than we thought. I knew there was something wrong from the start if he could change his magic affinity like that. And apparently… it seems he's essentially altering everything that he represents whenever he uses it. In other words, he's affecting himself on an existential level."
"That's fancy and all but, what does it imply?"
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"[In Between The Lows and Highs.]"
"[Lies the Incarnate Mayhem of the Devourer.]"
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The lioness paused and waited for the two consecutive verses to be chanted. Everyone looked at her expectantly and she opened her mouth, "…I have no idea."
"What the-! Then don't raise the suspense like that!" Allan complained and right after, they felt the ground shake. The group turned back to the Trial Zone where they saw Willy fuse all of his minions into one large monster. "Holy--! Is that a fucking gingerbread?!"
"That's odd," Nyx said with a blink. "Willy didn't summon that when we did the Trial…"
"Well, you guys might not know but there's a thing called Trial Overkill," Kaelith stated. "During a Trial, if the System detects that something far beyond its level is about to happen, the difficulty increases by a notch. It changes from Trial to Trial, so I guess in this one… it's this gingerbread."
"Far beyond its level…" Flavia smiled wryly. "What is he planning to do?"
"Hahaha!" Rakna's laugh echoed out of the blue as he stood in front of Willy's last summon. "How nice of you!" He yelled as the giant gingerbread man cocked its arm in preparation for a strike. "I couldn't ask for a better stage!"
Everyone watched speechlessly.
"Nope, still can't get used to his personality gaps," Allan voiced what the others were thinking.
"I always wanted to test this," Rakna continued with a smirk as his aura continued to grow. "But I kinda refrained because I would die from it."
"Wait, what?!" His friends exclaimed at his words.
The werewolf continued to laugh and under the eyes of everyone, he impaled himself with his own hand. Even Willy momentarily stopped the control of its monster when it saw that.
"Hold up! What are you trying to do?!" Higure called out but Rakna's grin merely widened.
Without even letting out any sound, the werewolf destroyed his own rib cage and pulled out a still-beating heart from his chest. Pronos cried out at the sight and he wasn't the only one.
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"[Drowning in Blood and Colluding with Death.]"
"[Scorning Fairness and Obsessing Over Hearts.]"
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The two penultimate verses of the Cōl Lāli resounded and Rakna brought the heart closer to his mouth and in the eyes of the spectators, it was as if there were no other sounds in the world than the one produced by the fangs of the werewolf chewing on the heart.
Then, he swallowed and everyone felt dread take over them. Willy became frantic and despite its lack of human traits, anyone could tell that the creature was terrified. It waved its hand and the giant gingerbread struck the ground where Rakna was standing.
The attack shook the ground and opened fissures all around the point of impact. Judging from the tremors, the force behind it easily exceeded what even a hundred-strength-attribute could do. For a moment, everything was silent until a black aura erupted from the place destroyed by the bread monster. It took the form of a Nine-Tailed Werewolf with a red mask on its face and a dark laugh came out of it.
Kaelith shivered and without asking anyone for an opinion, erected a barrier of blue flames around them. Thus, none of them were able to see what followed but the terrifying laugh of the werewolf carried through very clearly.
"[The One, They Give Harvest!]" The last verse of the Cōl Lāli was sung and a grim laugh followed right after, which ended with an ominous line of lexis, "[Ōnāy Kaṭaiciyākac Cirikkum!] (The Wolf Shall Have the Last Laugh)."
When the last three words of incantation echoed, a deafening explosion reverberated. It was as if the noise was coming from all directions possible; as if there were as many detonations as there were directions one could look at.
Along with it, a crushing pressure of both aura and soul weighed down on the group. Kaelith only frowned, with a few drops of sweat forming, but the others didn't have that luxury. Amongst them, only Tyran and Pronos remained somewhat straight while everyone else was forced on all fours.
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* * *
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Eva, who had been fiddling with thousands of System Terminals at once on her bed, suddenly froze and sat up like a child who had been caught doing something bad. Her mouth opened wide.
"What are you…" She couldn't form coherent thoughts. A Host had died. But at the same time not.
She knew who was responsible. There was no doubt. But she had never expected this. She groaned and clenched her hands with a groan.
"What are you doing, Big Brother?!"
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* * *
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A man with long untamed black hair was sitting in his office, reviewing a document, when his grip on the paper trembled. His hollow onyx eyes drifted to the window that showcased the enchanting landscape of the Plateau known as Old Eden.
"Did someone's soul… self-destruct?" He mumbled. "No, it feels like a mock soul. A clone? But there is no clone that could do this… It's as if someone extracted all of their power out of their body and then consumed it all at once to self-detonate."
He had no idea how close to the truth he had been by rambling about what he sensed.
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* * *
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An elderly man with long white eyebrows and beard was holding the decapitated head of a dragon in one hand as he walked through a land cluttered with broken swords. Some were normal-sized while others were the size of mountains. The man's upper body was bare; the kimono's sleeves that should be covering it were hanging from his belt.
The old warrior had so many battle marks on him that his skin might have as well been nothing but scar tissue. However, more than that, the muscles that filled his silhouette were inhumanly defined, to the point it wouldn't feel odd at all for them to be stronger than steel even at rest.
"Hm?" He grunted as he sensed something from the lower Plateaus. He halted his march for a few seconds before resuming. He pulled the two hanging parts of his kimono over his shoulders again and grabbed a white Haori in passing that had been resting on the guard of a human-sized sword.
"The meeting next month may be worth attending for once…" The old man put the Haori back on and with that, disappeared from the barren land, leaving behind the giant corpse of a black dragon, its head missing and every other part of it pierced by hundred-meter-long swords.
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* * *
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Across the System, similar reactions were exhibited by the strongest and most sensitive Hosts and Locals. That also included the inhabitants of the Eonian and Celestial Plateaus.
On the latter, a certain Divine Eagle was resting, perched on top of a tree so colossal that calling it the legendary Yggdrasil would not be a far-off guess.
When the outlandish wave of energy, perverse enough in nature to even intrude in the Plateau of the gods, reached him, the eagle raised his head and opened his golden eyes in a stupor.
"This presence…"
"Hm? Aquila, do you recognize this pulse?" A male voice sounded and a second eagle with gilded feathers landed on the same branch; one that was several hundred meters long and of which the leaves were easily as big as each of those divine creatures.
"Lord Garuda…" Aquila lowered his head in greetings. "Yes… I believe I do recognize it. It is from the same wolfwalker I encountered a few weeks ago."
"Oh?" The golden eagle seemed curious. "The one that dared to eat your heart and take away the divinity of your clone? The same you acknowledged as a Divinity Slayer?" He asked with a clearly amused tone and Aquila could only nod, sighing in vexation.
"Yes, Lord Garuda… The one that made you laugh for an hour straight after I told you…"
"Hahaha! Are you still vexed because of that?" The God of Eagles shook his head in amusement at his Divine Avatar's embarrassment. "Well, well, jokes aside. It seems I cannot tease you anymore for losing your clone to this boy," he added with squinted eyes. "This kind of power… I won't say it is wicked, but it is twisted."
Aquila looked at his Patron God in confusion.
"But well, even a god cannot always be right," Garuda mused. "It is twisted. But in which manner is it twisted exactly? That is the true question. There are many whose paths looked demented, but very few of them… failed to have the last laugh."
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Meanwhile, totally unaware of his clone's doing, the original Rakna had been giving instructions to his wolves and even playing around with one of them as he waited for his transfer to the 60th Plateau to be done.
"Hm, I have a bad feeling. I wonder why…" He muttered as he felt an unusual tug on his soul. "Did my clone do something? Well… it can't be that bad, right?" He convinced himself.