I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1439: Passed Out Cold

Northern stood a few distances before Vanessa, both of them surrounded by sandbags.

The soldier, tall and gaunt, with hollow, almost round eyes and brown tousled hair, had tried his best to stop Northern from accepting this match, just as much as he had tried to stop his Commander from going through with it.

But the two of them were frustratingly stubborn.

He also was stubborn in his own way. Even right now, he wouldn’t stop.

"Hey, if you like your teammate, you better tell him to back down from this."

Nyssira’s aide glared at the soldier with that annoying girly attitude.

"Since when did he ever listen to us? Besides, why would we be worried about him? That guy single-handedly destroyed all the students of Milhwa!"

She looked like she was letting it out.

"Quiet, Pam Pam."

Nyssira gently whispered, making her go quiet as she studied her lady.

Nyssa’s gaze was stuck on Northern, as plainly as possible. Granted, for most of the time, she rarely had any expression on her face. Even now, she was as blank as a sheet of paper. But the focus she dedicated to watching him... she wasn’t just watching; she was studying every movement.

That was truly what led Pam Pam to shut up and also focus on the impending battle.

The soldier turned to the wolf.

"If you like your man—"

Mr. Fluffy gnarled at him, making him flinch.

"Huh, not much of a talker, are you?"

Vanessa and Northern stood in absolute silence. The tall lady was smiling, and Northern’s expression was blank.

He was trying to do this thing where he wanted to assign just one talent to his clones. Not because he couldn’t do more than that.

It was so that, in the meantime, the clone would be tasked with nothing but realizing the potential of that talent. And right now, he was thinking about the one talent he wanted to relegate to this clone.

Doing this also had its advantages. It meant that Northern would spend less Soul Essence on this clone since he only had to control one Talent at a time.

’So what Talent should it be...’

Northern thought hard about this. He considered the talents he was yet to get used to using.

A number of them were Lightning Rod, the late Dante’s Ability, Phantom Strike, Full Impact, and Whispering Gale. Others he had not used much, but he had admittedly involved them in one process or another.

’Lightning Rod sounds interesting.’

Basically, it was a lightning ability he had gotten from Aster, who was now in some prison within Tharion Citadel.

And its potential exploded through the roof after he became a Daemon and all of his talents experienced a reinforcing change.

Northern thought it over a few times and then sighed.

’I’ve decided then.’

He removed his gaze from the distance and fixed it on Vanessa.

The lady cracked her fists together, grinning.

"Finally ready, kid?"

Northern smiled.

"Whenever you are, Commander."

First and foremost, he had already studied Vanessa when she sparked her pot. And so he knew what her Talent was all about. And the one thing he had learned from that observation was its versatility.

To make it complicated, Vanessa knew the runic language. She had carved a fire barrier around her yard with something that looked like soot. Northern, limited to relying on just one talent and not knowing what to expect from the Commander, was actually anxious.

His heart was drumming, and he was sort of looking forward to this.

’Oh well, that’s new.’

"I’m giving you the first hit. So do well to take advantage of it, kiddo, because the moment I put my hands on you, it will be the end of this battle."

Northern looked distraught instantly.

"No, I sincerely suggest you—"

"Shut up. Come at me, kid!"

Northern, for a moment, stood in silence. His gaze was dark and offended by Vanessa’s sheer arrogance.

Somehow, it reminded him so much of a moment like this more than one year ago.

Instead of a bottle of drink, though, this one was smoking pot.

’They’re too alike.’

In more ways than one, in fact.

Northern cracked the bones of his neck and slowly walked forward.

"Fine. If you insist, then be my guest."

He raised his hand up. For a moment, there was nothing but absolute silence. Tension suffocated the air between them. Even the sidelines were taut with tension.

Northern inhaled deeply and let it out.

He dropped his hand.

The moment he did, unannounced, a devastating lightning bolt dropped from the sky.

It was like a celestial pillar had suddenly dropped from the heavens. In barely a breath, the entire ground was eviscerated. A tumultuous shockwave rippled outward, slammed against the trees, and ripped them off their roots, swinging them away. The winds exploded with ferocity, seeming to be making a run for their lives, and chunks of stone surrounding the point of assault were being disintegrated at an alarming rate.

The soldier who had been warning Northern so far was left wide-eyed. His lips opened, then closed, then opened again. But no words came out.

There was nothing, nothing he could have said. Words completely failed him.

The sheer power behind Northern’s ability was nothing like that of a Sage. It was disastrous, enough to have destroyed a small town.

’Oh no! Commander!’

It was then he remembered his valiant Commander. Vanessa was a strong and powerful leader, having led different squads and having been the leader of the Gate Sentinels for thirteen years. He had personally seen her resilience through battles that would tear anyone else down.

She was a monument of strength to them.

So even though the soldier was almost scared, he calmed himself quickly.

’At the end of the day, it’s just a Sage’s attack. Commander is an Ascendant, and her soul core is almost saturated.’

The soldier’s eyes glimmered with respect. He watched the smoke at the center slowly drift apart as the lightning vanished.

And finally, he could see Vanessa.

She was lying on the ground.

Passed out cold.

Northern observed her worriedly.

’I tried to make sure I used as minimal an output as possible. That should be around the firepower of a Savant, I think... or did I miscalculate?’

[...]

[Sigh]