os tan

“You can’t win, kid. Surrender before you’re ground into paste.”“As long as my friends are watching me, I won’t quit, and I won’t surrender!”

Reiss had been poisoned, likely by Viktor, but without solid proof of his involvement, there was reasonable doubt. Considering that the church and countless other spectators were betting on him, it could have easily been someone else. It seemed there was only one way for Noah to make the fight go how he wanted. He had hoped to avoid involving himself in the tournament like this, but considering how he screwed up Falco’s chances at revenge in the previous round, perhaps it was fitting he be the one to punish Viktor. He placed his hand on Reiss’s corpse and cast his cloning magic, taking on the dead man’s appearance. He then stuffed the body back into the closet, planning on dealing with it later.

Slowly, and with no shortage of effort, he began to pry off his clone, separating centimeter by centimeter. Sitting on the floor, he resembled an animal shedding its skin. Eventually, he and his clone split like dividing cells, but the seal was trying to pull them back together. Moving his clone forward felt like trying to swim upriver, and it was taking everything he had not to be pushed back, let alone advance further. However, he felt himself closing in on something, a sensation, or perhaps it could be called a state of mind. Whatever it was, it seemed to help him project his mana. If he could make this state of awareness easier to access, then his magic would surely grow much more powerful.