Fighting one’s doppelganger was an eerie experience. There was something utterly eerie about seeing one’s face on the opposing end of one’s blade. The fact that the monster’s fighting style mirrored his own perfectly didn’t help matters any.

A mirror image, in every sense of the term.

But procrastinating wouldn’t help him survive. Decisive action would.

And Lukas moved.

Clang!

He parried the incoming blow with effortless ease and thrust his blade forward, eager to hack through the thing’s chest—

Clang!

His strike was parried by blades similar to his own.

Shifting his weight forward, Lukas pressed in for the kill. The doppelganger might match him physically, but there was more to fighting than just skill. And it showed.

The doppelganger was using a mishmash of styles. Absolutely crude and inelegant. A far cry from his own.

Yet there wasn’t a single opening he could exploit. Every single attack opened the guard, but not even one of them was the product of a mistake. Every move made by the thing was specifically designed to counter his attack, instead of flowing into the next. It made him wonder if his doppelganger’s only objective was to render his blows moot, not attack him. Such a style would never land a hit on him in a hundred years. So why was this thing amused while sparring with him?

After a minute of constant striking, he purposefully over-extended a blow, and just as predicted, the aqāru construct capitalized on it right away.

However, before its attack could hit him, Lukas twisted his body around to avoid it, and at the same time, came with a blow in an odd angle.

An aqāru blade met his blow midway.

Lukas scowled.

It wasn’t the constant parrying that annoyed him. It was the last-minute actions that did. For ninety percent of the strike time period, his doppelganger hadn’t so much as moved to deflect the blow. And then, in the last tenth of the strike time, it had raised the blade into the exact point through which Lukas would have slashed it apart. Either it was simply that good with blades, a suspicious thing considering it had zero life experience as a combatant, or it could see the trajectory of his blows.

“You’re using my Shatterpoint Intuition, aren’t you?”

The Thing smiled at him. “Wrong. It’s you who is using mine.”

Lukas focused inward, calling in for more power. There was a ripple in the air around him, motes of gray light converging into specific shapes. Conjuration was a curious skill to have. To mold raw ether into a specific shape, using one’s imagination and knowledge of the item’s texture, strength, composition, and feel. In essence, creating something out of thin air.

Once he had conjured a product, he had a blueprint ready for it in his mind. This made duplicating the conjuration significantly easier. “That’s—that’s my sword!” Olfric bellowed. “He’s using Metamancy!”

He was right. But he wasn’t forging a single sword.

He was forging them by the dozens.

They hung in the air, held by invisible hands, their undeniable weight giving pause even to the doppelganger they pointed toward. Lining up in two rows, they aimed, Shatterpoint Intuition automatically setting their trajectories to aim for the vital portions of the Thing’s body.

The creature lifted his right palm, and hundreds of droplets of aqāru rose into the air. They shook slightly, before merging into each other, forming blades perfectly identical to what Lukas had just crafted.

Both of them spoke at once. “Fire!”

Every single blade shot at extreme speeds, all of them converging toward the enemy.

Each one of them was met by its aqāru counterpart.

The conjured blade points met the aqāru-blade’s edge and broke upon it. Burning motes of gray fought against blackened liquid metal and were extinguished. They were temporary creations, but the power contained in them was just as much as any other.

And every single time, it was the Metamancy projection that was destroyed. Never the metal.

Lukas readied himself with a force shield to deflect against the blow, but it never came. Instead, the metallic blades condensed back into liquid form and merged into the aqāru stream below.

“I can do everything you can,” said his doppelganger. “Plus things you cannot. It’s nice, isn’t—”

It was cut off by a nigh-transparent orb that shot into its chest, ripping through its metallic torso and shredding it completely apart in an implosion. The liquid metal splattered all over the entire chamber, making the stream froth gently.

“Alright,” Tanya said from behind him. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is. Let’s get going.”

“Do you think it's dead?” Elena ventured, raising her hand.

“With a hit like that,” Zuken mused, “it should take some time to regenerate. If it’s even capable of that.”

“Hello!” came a voice, like that of a man greeting long-awaited guests to a dinner party. The aqāru construct was no longer shattered into a thousand droplets and splattered all across the chamber. It sat cross-legged, completely uncaring of what just happened. There were no signs of damage on its body.

“How in the Great Goddess’s name is such a thing possible?” Olfric wondered aloud. “Did anyone notice it forming?”

Zuken shook his head. “That level of regeneration surpasses even…” He trailed off, looking at Lukas. “Think it’s immortal?”

“Possibly. But it sure as hell isn’t eternal,” Lukas said. “It’s just a hell of a lot harder to kill.”

“Do you really think you can kill me though?”

Everyone in his vicinity froze, and Lukas wasn’t sure of the reason why.

“It—it speaks!” Olfric stammered.

“It also smiles, and kills. And it is looking at its prey.”

Language Identified—Ualbesh

Replicate?

For all his outward composure, Lukas was panicking inside. This creature could speak Ualbesh. That meant it could simply communicate with the others, and reveal all of his secrets. His nature as an anomaly, him being human, Inanna’s presence—nothing was a secret anymore. Absolutely nothing.

“That is not quite true, mortal,” Inanna advised him. “You are the Base Host of an anomaly. Trying to corrupt you using a back door is one thing, but accessing your memories would require it to gain significant control of your omphalos itself.”

The realization quelled his fear. Somewhat. But the question remained—

“You are unique,” said the Thing, as if reading his mind. It stood up and started walking toward him. “But you still have much to learn about omphaloi. But do not worry, in the end, it makes no difference.”

“What are you blabbering about?” Olfric demanded.

The failsafe blithely ignored him.

“Yeah,” Zuken muttered. “It’s confirmed now. The instant regeneration was a hint, but now I see it.”

“The body is a fraud, as are the monsters,” Tanya agreed. “It isn’t about speed. It’s just dissolving and recreating itself from the aqāru around us. So long as this exists, it will recreate itself endlessly.”

The failsafe grinned. It was like its face split apart almost laterally, a corpse’s rictus grin pulling back to reveal inhumanly sharp teeth, something dark and awful in its gaze. “Ah, you must think yourself so clever. But you are correct. I am unkillable inside my domain.”

Olfric held his blade up. “We’ll see about that.”

The creature tilted its head back and laughed. Giddily. It didn’t sound right at all.

“What’s so funny?” Olfric demanded.

“Me. Having a conversation with prey. It is a strange sensation.”

A dark breath blew across the entire chamber. It wasn’t an actual wind. Not even a single hair on Lukas’s head rustled. But the distance between Lukas and the rest of the team had suddenly shot up by a magnitude—

And in between them was an army of monsters, all crafted out of aqāru. Lukas could spot a gug, a neothelid, and even a smaller version of a khorkhoi among them. The monsters let out a cacophony of screeches, grunts, and roars and rushed toward the Asukan group.

“Now then,” said his doppelganger. “Your teammates are engaged. Shall we return to killing each other?”

Lukas pushed his blades back into his belt, clenched his fists, and assumed a pure, offensive stance.

It was time for round two.