Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 307: Chapter 307: Opening Ceremony [14]

Chapter 307 – Opening Ceremony [13]

’Queen’s breath!’ Cassius hissed inwardly, then raised his hands rapidly to block.

The blow landed square on his already fragile forearms, a wave of pain blistering at the point of impact before spreading through the rest of his body.

The Last Born used the rebound from the strike to pull himself away from Copycat, landing a couple of meters back.

Copycat didn’t pursue, himself exhausted by the battle, his essence teetering on the edge of running dry.

With what little he had left in reserve, using any other Ultimate Skills would come at a terrible cost.

And no matter how badly he wanted to win, it wasn’t worth that price.

’But I don’t need them.’ Bishop thought, drawing a shaky breath, wiping the blood and sweat blurring his vision, ’I can win with just my passive Copy Aspect.’

He could still fight, though with difficulty. But Cassius was no better off, which improved his odds significantly.

Cassius, meanwhile, was actively struggling to adjust to the overwhelming emptiness inside him.

He’d never imagined an Innate could be sealed away.

’Now I’m expected to copy Copycat? How is that even possible?’ He was thoroughly lost, and his body’s pain wasn’t helping.

He had only a wisp of essence left, but Cassius refused to burn through it. He needed it, if the chance to win ever came.

Which meant he couldn’t rely on his Third Skill to seal Copycat’s power.

’That fusion of Fire and Blood cost me far too much.’ He concluded, watching Copycat settle back into his stance, readying another attack.

Cassius took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gathered his focus, thinking through the situation.

He didn’t have Bishop’s natural ability to "copy." And without his Innate, the process would be far harder. After all, anyone capable of Adaptation could, to some degree, also copy.

But now, without access to that power, Cassius realized the only path left was through observation.

’I need to study him in real time, mimic exactly what he does, and how he does it.’ He concluded.

With that decided, Cassius started with the most basic form of mimicry: he mirrored Copycat’s exact stance.

It was visibly off, awkward, but enough to make Bishop raise an eyebrow.

"You...what are you doing?" He asked.

"Ah, we’re on the edge here." Cassius said, "And you’ve been copying me this whole time, haven’t you? Figured I’d give you a taste of your own medicine before this ends."

Copycat stood stunned for a few seconds before laughing. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to copy him.

But as someone who knew exactly how copying worked, he also knew how to avoid being copied in return.

He said nothing further, and the fight resumed.

This was the final round of their duel.

No Skills this time. Purely physical, tactical combat, both bodies teetering on the brink of collapse.

And it was beautiful, and brutal, all at once.

The two began weaving through the ash-covered battlefield, trading punch for punch, kick for kick.

The sky overhead hung cloudless, remnants of Cassius’s earlier attack still smoldering gently around the magnificent sun.

The staging couldn’t have been more perfect.

And Cassius was visibly losing.

His movements were slow, hesitant, trying to replicate exactly what Copycat did through pure observation and analysis.

He was sharp, but exhaustion and tension were weighing on him far more than he’d anticipated.

He took more hits, one landing squarely on his mouth, nearly knocking a few teeth loose.

He cursed, staggering backward, the world spinning around him.

’This...this isn’t right. I’m watching, but I’m watching too slowly, too shallowly.’ Cassius thought through the pain, before pressing forward again.

’How do I do this properly?’

Then Bishop’s fist connected with his right eye, and Cassius croaked at the bolt of agony that erupted from it.

Through that surge of pain, the Last Born landed a perfect uppercut on Bishop’s jaw, sending them both stumbling apart.

’Fuck.’ Cassius thought, lips trembling, back curling forward. His right eye had swollen shut, the pain so intense he couldn’t open it, blood seeping out.

Only his left eye still functioned. His draconic eye.

’This bastard’s blinded me in one eye, just like him.’

But unlike Copycat, Cassius wasn’t used to seeing through only one side.

That was what he thought, at least, until he noticed something strange creeping into his vision.

Cassius snapped his head up urgently, glancing around. Beyond the three spirits still hovering nearby, watching him with worried eyes, he was seeing far more than usual.

He could see other, weaker spirits, mostly mindless. He could see the faint illusion woven across the world around him, reminding him this battlefield wasn’t real.

But more than that, Cassius could see the flow of essence itself, threading through everything.

He looked at Copycat, still massaging his jaw, and everything became clear. Cassius could see exactly how he moved, could even estimate the amount of strength he was using.

That was precisely what he’d been missing!

Instead of merely copying the stance awkwardly, he needed to match the exact strength, the exact timing.

It should have been impossible, but thanks to the training he’d undergone with his master, Cassius wouldn’t struggle to achieve it now.

The only reason he’d failed so far was because he hadn’t had access to this information before.

Now he did. And it was all thanks to his left eye.

’Why only now?’ He wondered, and the answer came quickly.

Because now he was seeing purely through his left eye. When both eyes worked together, his left eye had to scale itself down to match his right eye’s level, avoiding sensory imbalance that would overwhelm his brain with conflicting information.

That had been holding it back significantly.

But now that Cassius was temporarily blind in his right eye, his left eye took on the full responsibility of his vision.

And now, it no longer needed to suppress itself.

The world came alive around him, and Cassius felt himself sync with it on a deeper level.

The spirits scattered across the battlefield drifted closer, and he could sense their strength, their curiosity toward his existence.

He stared at Copycat, and once again, Cassius copied him.

This time, the stance was far more precise, and Copycat sensed the shift instantly.

He looked into Cassius’s eye and saw not a human’s eye staring back, but something monstrous, an eye capable of perceiving far beyond what any human could hope to.

That feeling brought to mind his father-in-law, the Vice Dean, obsessed with Characteristics, convinced humans should replace parts of themselves with traits from other races.

Copycat had never fully agreed with that philosophy. But in that moment, he had to admit there was truth to it.

He shook off the thought and refocused as Cassius attacked.

This duel had turned into the strangest one he’d ever fought. Cassius wasn’t even attacking...he was mimicking him.

And he was doing it with such precision that a chill crawled up Copycat’s spine.

The watchers began rising to their feet, eyes wide with shock.

They were witnessing something none of them had ever imagined possible.

For the first time in his life, Copycat was being copied by someone else, and that someone was actually succeeding.

At first, a sudden fear crept into Copycat’s heart, watching the one thing he did better than anyone be so effortlessly replicated by another.

But the longer the fight went on, the more that fear was overtaken by a far more intense feeling:

The feeling of being truly challenged.

He pushed himself to his absolute limit, and the harder he pushed, the more he felt himself slip into something like a trance.

Watching someone mimic him so perfectly, he began grasping an aspect of "Copy" he’d never understood before.

His movements grew fluid, his thoughts shifting constantly, as if copying whatever unfolded in that exact second.

Alexander Bishop was visibly improving, growing stronger, his Aspect syncing more deeply with his own being.

The duel became something only those with power and knowledge beyond the two combatants could truly comprehend.

Because what was unfolding wasn’t simply two young students fighting.

It was two people copying each other, with each one who was copied then copying the copy better, only for the other to copy that improvement in turn, and improve it further still.

Each growing stronger because the other had grown stronger.

Their combat skills evolved in real time, reaching a level of mastery staggering for beings at their stage.

They had no strength left, and yet every footstep, every punch and kick, felt as though it carried the weight of the world.

And that wasn’t entirely untrue.

Because in that moment, Alexander Bishop and Cassius Desdemona were, quite literally, copying a fragment of the world’s own essence around them into their movements.

But fights like this couldn’t last. Their bodies finally gave out under the strain of such extraordinary effort.

Bishop’s body gave in first, collapsing to his knees, head hanging low.

Cassius remained standing, barely, only thanks to his body’s enhancement from extensive training and his own hard-won tolerance for pain, forged through everything he’d already endured.

Combined, that made him more resilient than Copycat.

So he stood there, looking down at him, bloodied mouth open, struggling to draw air into his lungs.

His mind swam, and the full strain of using his eye had brought on a splitting headache.

His entire body begged him to simply let go, to collapse.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Cassius had succeeded in copying Copycat, but one more condition remained for his Innate to fully evolve.

He had to win.

That was where the small reserve of essence he’d saved earlier finally came into play.

He looked at Copycat one last time, watching him smile blankly, wide, his blind eye glowing with a brilliance so intense it was astonishing.

’Enlightenment? This damn bastard.’

Cassius cursed his new friend for achieving enlightenment because of him, then reached his hand toward Copycat’s shadow.

Drawing on his remaining essence he had saved, his hand sank deep into the shadow, touching something smooth yet solid.

The crystal of the second year.

Copycat snapped back to awareness at that exact moment. His head jerked up, seeing Cassius smiling through his bloodied face,

"You were more exhausting to fight than Emrys, Bishop." He said, voice deeply weary, then clenched his fist, shattering the crystal hidden inside the shadow.

DING! DING! DING!

"But it’s damn well over."

DING!!!!

[Conditions met.]

[Innate: Snake of Adaptation is evolving.]

—End of Chapter 307—