Chapter 198: Quick Save and Celestial Sanctuary
"DOMI-CHAIN RESTRAIN!" the chain flew and wrapped themselves around Kokoro, who was slammed to the ground, unable to do anything: her tablet was also wrapped up around by the chain, meaning that the hologram weapons she had been summoning disappeared into the tablet as well.
"HELP…!" and for the first time, she actually spoke, her voice sounded terrified.
"SHIT!" Akira knew this was a bad, really bad.
He truly wanted to rush at Kokoro and slash the chain, but there was no way for him to do that as Stark positioned himself right in front of Kokoro, and his clone also crouched down in front of the body, its eyes analyzing each of his movements.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THAT?" the white-haired man roared as he placed his blade in front of his face, closing his eyes.
And after less than a second… he opened them back.
"SILVER ILLUSION!" beside him appeared two exact replicas of himself, completely made out of the silver smoke and aura, a trail of the same color leaving their eyes as they positioned themselves to attack.
"You know I can still see you, right?" Stark never underestimated his opponents, but he just pointed it out for the sake of it, plus he was confident these clones couldn't deal real damage.
But… Akira snapped his fingers, and suddenly, the clones' figures became human, resembling Akira, with no way to discern one from the other.
And then…
~FWISH, FWISH~
They all dashed at Stark, while making sure to do all sorts of crazy movements in hopes of hiding the real one.
But… Stark could easily follow them.
And so… all three jumped at Stark.
His eyes were on the original, so he simply punched in his direction, he was confident that this was Akira, since no matter what you tried, he had [Focus] and could also sense him, so there was no chance in hell he missed him.
And yet…
~SMASH~
His fist fazed right through the Akira he punched, making it turn into a pile of smoke.
"What?" and when he turned around, he saw that the original used the momentum to rush at Stark's clone, "FUCK!"
Stark began to follow closely after Akira, who never stopped.
"CELESTIAL SANCTUARY… OTHERS!" Akira was a masterful user of this technique, and it enveloped Stark and his clone in a bubble of pure white light, making them unable to move or see.
[Do not fret, he cannot harm you inside of the 'Celestial Sanctuary' either]
'FUCK, FUCK!!' Stark tried his hardest to move, but he couldn't, a simple message in his view: [You are in stuck in the 'Celestial Sanctuary', you will be liberated in 23 seconds].
[Celestial Sanctuary] could be used by Akira to isolate himself from everything for 30 seconds, granting him an impenetrable barrier… but now that he powered it up to the max level he could, it could be cast on others, stopping them all.
And so…
~SLASH~
He reached Kokoro and slashed the chain that was slowly taking up her aura and force, resulting in Kokoro instantly waking up and getting up.
"…" she was sweating all over, "Thank… you…" she mumbled to Akira, and he just nodded.
Meanwhile… inside the [Celestial Sanctuary].
"RAAAAAAFGHHHHHHH," Stark was shouting with all his strength, he was so mad now that the aura around him became twice as powerful, and he was so determined that he actually managed to move one of his hands, punching the barrier repeatedly to escape.
His clone was the same, although it was still smiling.
And so after a while…
[You are in stuck in the 'Celestial Sanctuary', you will be liberated in 3 seconds]
[…2 seconds]
[…1…]
[You have been freed from the 'Celestial Sanctuary'!]
"DODGE CONTROL," it wasn't Stark that used this, but his clone as soon as it was freed from the bubble.
And the reason was simple…
"LUNAR STRIKE!"
"QUICK HANDS!"
As soon as the bubble that has trapped it disappeared, Akira used the power of his moon to jump in the air, ready to cause another explosion as soon as the clone would be liberated, thus instantly killing it.
And on the other hand…
~ZAP, FWISH~
Two giant blue and glitchy hands came out of the tablet, each as big as Kokoro, who was roughly 1.68cm in size.
She used her powers and placed those hands on each side of the bubble, planning to squash the clone like a mosquito the moment it escaped, then Akira dealing the final blow with the explosion.
And so as soon as the bubble burst…
~SLAM, BOOM~
The giant blue hands closed in on the clone, then Akira immediately swung his katana downward, causing it to explode on hitting the ground.
"-1238!" he yet again suffered some damage, but it was worth it to kill one of the opponents.
"Nice… now let's just get rid of the other one," Akira smiled, "I'll use an item for this very occasion…"
He pulled out his collection of rewards from his suit, placing them in is hands to check them out.
Akira had acquired two rewards from killing Bang (the tanned guy from the start) and Yuri, two rewards for being the first to reach the floors, and one reward that he stole from Yuri, who had killed Lolia.
He had used [Instant Use Key], so that meant he was left with four rewards in hand.
And they were as follows:
One [Invincibility Token], one [Aura Blocker], one [Monster Scent] and finally, one [Key Location Map].
The reason he hadn't used any of these, especially the [Aura Blocker], is because he feared that if he used it on one of them, the other would just run away while holding the other Stark in hand, thus wasting it completely, and the reason was the same with the [Invincibility Token]: they could run away as they were possibly faster than he was.
But now that he got rid of the clone… Stark was defenseless, all alone with no way to escape…
And so…
"AURA BLOCKER," he used the item, a wide smile on his face, "GAME OVER, KID!"
[Aura Blocker: Target a participant and be able to block their powers for thirty seconds, one time use]
A trail of crimson aura hit Stark straight on as he had no way to dodge it, and suddenly… his very own aura disappeared.
"…" Stark knew what this meant, the [Aura Blocker] successfully had made it impossible for him to use any of his skills or even run now: he was just an ordinary human.
And yet… he didn't seem scared at all?
"It was a nice fight, Chosen," Akira acknowledge the strength of the boy, spinning his katana as he approached Stark.
[Aura blocked for 27 more seconds]
And right at that moment…
~FWISH, DASH~
Both Akira and Kokoro, using a lot of their own powers, suddenly dashed toward Stark, closing in the distance on him in less than a second.
"DIE!" they both spoke, and the fact Kokoro was this mad surprised not only Akira and Stark, but herself too.
And so… both of them swung down using their own attacks, ready to kill Stark.
His expression remained neutral through all of this though, and he didn't look scared one bit…
Wait, no… his expression wasn't neutral…
Instead…
Stark could be seen smiling: he was this confident he couldn't be hurt by them, and so that only angered them more.
This time, they would make sure to end his life so that they could escape this trial.