'Flame Bomb'
A tiny sphere made of Scarlet Heavenly Flame appeared above his hand, then it rapidly increased in size until it was thrice as big as a full-size basketball.
Rex then threw it towards the shadow sphere.
….Booooooomm...…
A mushroom of scarlet flame appeared in the location of the shadow sphere.
'She should have a cream to remove burn marks right? or I can gift her a cosmetic pill made of my newly improved recipe,' Rex thought while looking at the flame mushroom.
Just at this time two silhouette flew out of the flame mushroom and landed in front of Rex, the 15 new clones, and the 10 freed clones before…. all twenty-five clones surrounded those two at once.
"You're quite impatient aren't you," Zakiya's voice came from one of the two figures.
Rex looked at those two with his mouth wide open, he rubbed his eyes and checked again.
"Fukkkk…. did you had a twin sister hidden beside you all along?" Rex blurted out as he saw the two young Zakiya standing in front of him.
Both the silhouette had the same appearance as Zakiya, except for a few differences. The main difference was that they both looked quite young, if Zakiya is taken as a young class teacher then these two looked the two were mature high school girls in their last year.
The one on the left had pale white skin, she had slightly pointed ears, two sharp fangs, and enlarged red pupils. She was precisely the younger version of Zakiya in her bloodthirsty form.
Whereas the one on the right side was exactly the younger version of the Zakiya in her normal humanoid form except she had two triangular black fluffy ears on top of her head and a black fluffy tail behind her.
Both of them were wearing the same black innerwear as the one Zakiya was wearing since the start of the duel.
When Rex looked at them in utter shock they both looked at each other and smiled at him.
Yesterday, he had used Fast Clock several times to think of various outcomes and process of the duel, what move she might use? what do I need to counter them? but the current situation was totally out of his expectations.
He didn't use Fast Clock in battle because it gives a slight headache and takes a lot of mental strength, so it's not that good for long-lasting battles.
'No, it may be fake as before, she may be trying to take me off guard,' Rex thought.
He then ordered two clones standing behind them to sneak attack both of them at the same time.
The clones immediately followed the order, both of them were the clones that had already lost most of their HP while being imprisoned in that shadow cocoon so sacrificing them for such a thing wasn't a loss, both of them used Instant Transmission with the last bit of psychic energy left in them to appear behind both the Zakiya.
"Petty Trick," Both of them said at the same time then turned around and swung their hand.
The blood race Zakiya swung her right hand and the fox race Zakiya swung her left hand. Completely out of Rex's expectations their hand turned into a shadow whip that cut both the clones diagonally in an instant.
Two clones got destroyed just like that and only 23 left with 8 of them have already lost more than half of their HP.
"Stop, time out," Rex shouted
Both the Zakiya was about to leap at other clones too but Rex asked them to stop so they stopped.
"You accept defeat?" The fox race Zakiya coquettishly asked with twinkling eyes, Rex was subconsciously about to agree but he held back at the last moment.
"Don't fool around, you promised not to use any high tier technique learned at the higher realm or any treasure, both of these clone's strength seems high as your main body. No matter how I see it, a divine ability shouldn't be able to do that, if any divine beast race began to produce offspring with this level of divine abilities then…. it's too much," Rex didn't know how to explain his words but he hoped that Zakiya got more or less of what he wanted to say, he didn't think that Zakiya would cheat but the things in front of him were clearly out of his expectations.
"Hmm… I thought you should already know it but your knowledge here is the same as the other people of the middle realm, well it's understandable because most of the population in the higher realm don't know about this either. You also think that divine abilities, special abilities or bloodline abilities..etc remain the same from birth, right? in fact it's wrong.
With enough efforts and after meeting certain conditions, these abilities can grow further and reawaken… once they have grown enough they will reawaken- it's like a grade increase, and depending on the method you used to grow them, they have countless possibilities, moreover, there is no known limit to the number of time they can be reawakened.
Two similar abilities grown in different ways would give two different results, because I am a special variant my initial divine abilities were different from both the races then after I put the efforts into growing them they reawakened and here you see the result of one of them," Zakiya explained.
She didn't hide that she was a variant, she felt that Rex was smart enough to have already figured it out.
Rex now understood why Rose's estimation appeared wrong, it wasn't wrong, Rose gave the data on the initial divine abilities she could awaken but there was no way for Rose to predict what they would have become after being reawakened.
"Even if it can reawaken, this is just absurd… wait which one is the clone…." Rex didn't know how to respond.
"Hehe.. you can just say I had some fortunate encounter, as for which one is real you have to find out yourself, now let's start the battle," The fox Zakiya said as she leaped at Rex.
Rex stepped back, while doing that he secretly ordered all the clones to take care of the blood race Zakiya.
'Let's see how strong this clone is, if I can defeat it then we will go with Plan D or else Plan F,' Rex thought then he took out a light blue colored sword and rushed at her, the sword was of spirit rank low grade, it was one of the things the Sung Brother gifted Lerna and because it wasn't up to her liking Rex took it instead.
"Oh close combat? good, I am in," The fox Zakiya said as she raised her hands and both of them turned into two sharp shadow blades.
'This shadow law is quite versatile, let's see if it hold on against this…' Rex thought.
Rex raised his sword then slashed, there was no extra-valent movement or flashy Qi, it was just a simple looking casual slashed but when fix Zakiya saw it she quickly crossed both of her swords to defend.
'12 Overlord Slashed: 6th Slash'
When the sword slashed, Zakiya took two steps back, when she looked at the shadow sword they had a visible cut mark on them which was restored in the next second.
12 Overlord Slashes is a simple looking but complex and overwhelming sword art, one of the things Rex received from Ye Ying. Every sword slash contains double the power compared to the previous slash in numbers, the second slashed would be two times as strong as the first one… the third slash would be twice as strong as the second one, and so on…
Normally, the 6th slash contained 32 times the power of 1st slash but it was only when one had reached Return To Nature mastery in the technique, although Rex had started from Full Mastery and his mastery didn't level up even after he put it in the Skill & Ability Trainer for a long time but the slash still contained 23 times the power of the 1st slash and coupled with the Small Accomplishment Sword Intent he got from the disciple of Monster Hunter Sect it was enough to push back the current fox Zakiya.
Zakiya might look at a disadvantage but if one keeps the fact in mind that she wasn't using any kind of technique while Rex was using a sword technique people in the middle realm would kill for then, she was already doing something impossible in the minds of the resident of the middle realm.
The fox Zakiya looked at Rex in surprise, she completely ignored the sword intent from earlier but focused on the sword technique, without saying anything she leaped at him again.
Rex again slashed diagonally.
'12 Overlord Slashed: 6th Slash'
With his current mastery, 8th slash is his limit but using 8th slash takes a lot from him so he decided to tire her slowly then finish it in one go.
This time Zakiya didn't take the slashed head-on, she leaped at the sword and flipped over it easily dodging it. The four tentacles quickly reacted, three of the surrounded her cutting her escape root while one attacked her but every single one of her movements was nimble and quick just like a fox and the attacking tentacle failed to deal even a single blow. She then gripped the tentacle attacking her like it was a pole, stretched her right leg with an almost 180' angle, and kicked Rex's chest.
Rex's was pushed back but two of his red tentacles pierced the ground and supported him, letting him regain his balance.
The tentacles that were fast enough that Rex himself found it hard to stop them especially when he was also using Node-Network to skillfully control them, weren't able to land a single hit on her. Zakiya was able to predict their movement pattern and trajectory without much effort while focusing on Rex's sword technique.
"Same technique, same weakness… it's 15 Overlord Slashes, isn't it?" Zakiya said while looking at Rex in amusement.
"15? no it's 12 Overlord Slashes but how do you know about it? is it famous or very common?" Rex asked in confusion. he wondered if his scheming mother was stingy even when giving him his rightful gift.
"Hehehe… common you say? it's the signature technique of a certain sword maniac that challenged me a long time ago and stole my sword in the process," The fox Zakiya glared at him.
Rex was speechless.
A sword user + signature technique + higher realm… the facts were enough to give Rex a clear hint on who that person might be…
A signature technique is something a cultivator makes for themselves and because it's their specialty they don't just give it to everyone but just their descendants or students… or sometimes leaves they leave it in their inheritance too.
Rex only had 12 Overlord Slashes not 15 Overlord Slashes, that made Zakiya sigh in relief, not because of the power of the technique but the fact that Rex was not taken, Rex didn't say he has a teacher so it can probably be inheritance… as for the matter of the third son, it was 16 years ago so how would she know it?
"We will talk about it later, by the way, a piece of advice don't use this technique in the higher realm without proper strength, that sword mania- no sword thief had tricked many people and took their swords, they might want to have a talk with you if they think that you are his student," Zakiya said with a chuckle.
'That damn old man, even his technique brings trouble,' Rex thought.
At the same time, he also cursed inwardly.
That Ye Ying said he was a powerhouse… powerhouse my foot, he is a troublehouse… Rex thought.
Zakiya didn't give him more time to think and attacked him, Rex defended then suddenly he looked at the other side of the battle and frowned.
Only eight of his clones were left while the blood Zakiya didn't have a single injury on her body.
She might have decreased her cultivation base and had many restrictions on herself for not using any of her technique or specialty but the battle experience was something Rex couldn't take from her.
'So Plan F it is,' Rex thought he quickly retracted back and stopped fighting.
Fox Zakiya narrowed her eyes at him, she had a feeling he was planning something.
Rex smiled then pointed at the sky, fox Zakiya looked up and noticed that all the clouds were dispersing rapidly.
When the clouds dispersed, a big water body was revealed above them. It was a big curved lens made of water, when the sun rays fell on the other side of lens they got collected and highlighted the arena the duel was going on.
The cloudy day turned into a hot summer noon all of a sudden, it was like someone was using a gigantic magnifying glass to collect all the sun rays and target them with it.
'Oh, so he didn't plan to use all that water to sneak attack?' Fox Zakiya thought.
"You are not thinking that just because you had trouble looking at the sun in bloodthirsty form, I too would face it and you can use it to your advantage to defeat me?" Fox Zakiya said as she looked at the blood Zakiya who was not looking above and half-closed her eyes while fighting the clones.
"I wonder," Rex said then snapped his fingers and ten more clones appeared around blood Zakiya and attacked her.
Rex didn't stop there, he raised his hands towards the sky and used his next move.
'Supreme Light Orb'
Several light orbs flew towards the water body and clashed into it, instead of resisting, the water body allowed them in.
Fox Zakiya didn't stand there and attacked Rex, the second the clones appeared but he still managed to fire several orbs in the sky.
"Heh, you are too late," Rex said, in the next second all the light orbs floating inside the water body shined brightly.
Their dazzling light was amplified by the lens and the whole arena was covered by a blinding pillar of light completely blocking everyone's vision.