Degritone slowed down his time so the Patron's fastest movement would only be 15 miles per hour as they were dragged to their own cage. They began struggling against their bond as Degritone said, "As far as I know, your cage cannot be broken."

The Patron ignored Degritone's comment as they were pressed up against the cage. They tried striking the chains with their sword, but the strike did nothing, and the cage did not blink any color. Finally, the chains were maximally tightened to the cage, and Degritone replaced the double-ratchet mechanism with a 2 extra chain links, linking the two parts of the chain permanently.

"Unfortunately for you, that seems to be the case. Now, tell me why you made Melena cry," Degritone said. He began using movement constructs to attempt to wrap the chains around the other limbs of Duels. "In your little victory speech, you said it was to make her go to you for a shoulder to cry on, to become more important to her. I think. I didn't actually review the speech before I came here.

"Anyway, making a loli cry is a crime punishable by death, assuming there's no other lolis that will be saddened by your death. Tell me your motives. Melena already investigated you and found no contacts that would be meaningfully impacted by your death. Some friends, sure, but no other lolis, or lolis associated with those that would be heavily impacted by your death."

After a few seconds of the Patron struggling with the chain while avoiding getting further wrapped up in it, Degritone continued, "Your death is coming whether you talk or not. I've been asked to not to torture you, but she made certain I knew it was not an Order, just that she would prefer I not; and, trust me when I say I intimately know the pain I'd need to inflict."

Duels slashed at the cage near where the chain was attached to it, to no visible effect. "Look, there are three ways you're getting out of that, the first-" the Patron cut off their own arm and charged Degritone, "-is that."

Degritone accelerated time again to better keep up with Duels through use of movement constructs. Gosh dang it, plan F, it is, Degritone thought as he was forced to cut himself in half to avoid another attack.

Degritone sent a kick at the Patron, which tried to cut the leg. Degritone ripped his own leg off to avoid giving the Patron the point, then course corrected his leg's position before it regrew to hit the Patron. The Patron retaliated with a successful swipe at Degritone's leg to negate Degritone's point, but failed to dodge another regrowth. Degritone was punched away before the point could count, but he'd gotten what he wanted.

With Swordsman's Territory helping predict Duels's dodges, Degritone repeated this feat, getting at least one hit in every time, 12 more times. He did, however, give up 2 more blue flash accompanied points by doing so, the times he only got one hit resulting in the Patron getting a second blow before the next attack was launched.

When the next attack came and Degritone only had to add a few movement constructs to his natural movement to keep up with it, Degritone said, "Wow, plan F was significantly more effective than I thought it'd be." He then ran from the Patron and began stacking his Adaptive Palisade using image-conjured objects. Small blades for slashing, small needles for piercing, and small ball bearings for bludgeoning, all launched at himself at super-sonic speed, with Omen of Famine for force and Everlasting Dynamo for electric.

When each damage type reached 1024 stacks, Degritone stopped, as he had found his Skill had a hidden limit of 1024 stacks during training. When Degritone asked about this during training, Melena said it was normal for stacking Skills to only reach 1024 stacks, unless it either explicitly said it could go higher, was based off actively spending a resource, or did damage exactly equal to a number of stacks.

When the cloud of conjured items dissipated, the Patron immediately struck Degritone in the chest from beside him. He struck out and just missed backhanding Duels in the face, causing yet another blue flash. In retaliation, Degritone made to perform a move that would have been impossible to pull off subjective seconds ago and tried to grab Duels around their stomach.

Given Degritone's newly superior speed and strength, the Patron only put up a minor fight. One of Degritone's arms was cut off, but his other held firm long enough for it to regrow. A headbutt negated the Patron's point. He condensed another ratcheting chain and tightened it until he heard bones crunch.

"Wow, I am strong now," Degritone said as he somewhat casually tied the Patron to the cage once again, kicking the Patron for every feeble attempt at obtaining a point.

Degritone lost a full subjective minute while starting to move away from the Patron, and when he came to, the cage flashed blue twice and Degritone felt the easing of a sword coming off his back. He moved to negate the final point, but was too slow to react. The Patron had won his image's duel.

So'Ejan felt relieved as his Health was restored from winning the duel, while his body briefly turned ethereal to escape the condensed chains.

"Dang it, that cooldown's significantly lower than it was last anyone saw you use it," Degritone said.

"Of course. With how the new Skill cap works, I was able to go a full 3177 above the Skill cap. I dumped it all in that Skill, as all my others were already high enough," So'Ejan responded as his arm regrew. His broken sword reformed itself and floated its way over to his hand. His entire being glowed blue as he casually strolled to Degritone.

"Wow, your soul strength is actually pretty high, then," Degritone said. "We expected that, but everyone else Melena was able to ask could only get a few hundred, maybe low single thousands above."

"Of course. I'm the strongest being under the System. Now," So'Ejan said while putting one of his swords to Degritone's neck, "any last words before I kill ya?"

"Your soul strength is nothing compared to my 5160 above the maximum Skill Level Total. Time for plan H, I guess," Degritone said as he reached up and snapped the sword with his bare hand.

Enraged at the impudence of the ant before him, So'Ejan brought his sword down onto Degritone's neck as it reformed. Upon contact, almost an eighth of his body turned to black flakes and fell away as his sword passed through Degritone's neck.

"What?"

Man, I really didn't want it to come down to direct image combat. The headache this will induce isn't going to be fun. I really wish I'd figured out more useful Stavch stuff before this. I could make a black hole, but that will not end well for me, Degritone thought.

The Patron's sword reformed almost instantly as it came down on Degritone's neck. Degritone's body seemingly became more solid as he spent a large portion of his focus on his Immortal Troll image overlapping his body before he struck out with his left arm. The spectral arm pierced into the shoulder of the Patron as the blade impacted Degritone's neck.

A large section of the Patron's skin turned into black flakes and fell away as the blade passed through Degritone's neck as if it weren't there, with seemingly no effect. "What?" they asked.

"Welcome to a whole new world of infuriating, as you face a truly immortal foe," Degritone said. The Patron's blue glow intensified as their body regrew.

A stab through the brain pushed Degritone's willpower to its limits in keeping the Immortal Troll image active at full power, rapidly causing a headache to form. He pushed through the pain and accelerated forward, making the blade cut further down his body. Duels reacted by sending a punch at Degritone's face with his newly reformed arm.

Degritone opened his mouth and bit off the offending hand. The sword in his chest was embedded to the hilt as Degritone went to grab the Patron on both sides of the neck at once. He dodged this attempted grapple and slashed upward with the sword inside Degritone, passing straight through his brain once more. The speed at which this cut was performed left a barely visible trail of regeneration through Degritone's body.

"How are you still alive? These attacks do over 500% maximum Health as shield and DR ignoring and bypassing damage," duels asked, launching 16 slashes through Degritone's torso with rapidly accelerating speed, to the point that Degritone couldn't see the last 5 attacks mid-flight even with his fully accelerated perception. His body was riddled with rapidly disappearing lines of regenerating cuts.

"Simple. In this state, I am the Immortal Troll, and that title is not for show," Degritone responded. Degritone managed to get another jab into the retreating Patron's side, causing another explosion of Withered flesh. Duels's body regenerated noticeably slower this time.

A cut through Degritone's neck was finally fast enough to fully cut through it before it could begin to regenerate and his head was sent flying. A newly regenerated body slammed into the cage as Degritone almost blacked out from the headache artificially created by the System.

"Win this," he heard Melena say.

"Don't die, daddy!" His dream daughter exclaimed.

Degritone's head almost rippled as he forced whatever the System used to simulate Stavch corruption as a headache away, lessening the headache greatly. He shoved himself to the ground with movement Stavch and charged the Patron. Each step caused his legs to turn to mist as he pushed too hard for his flesh to handle, before explosively regenerating for a further boost forward.

Duels went for another decapitation, but Degritone's regeneration caught the blade as soon as it fully entered his flesh and snapped it in half. That part of his neck came back a metallic silver, and Degritone got an uppercut directly into the Patron's chest.

A significantly smaller portion of Duels's body withered, but the speed at which it returned was excruciatingly slow. Degritone was sent back by three punches, each of which left a hole in his body for a fraction of a second. The Patron's swords glowed green as Degritone returned to melee with him.

Pain rippled out from where Degritone was struck with these swords, the green energy invading his body and seeming to melt chunks of it it passed through. Degritone ignored it and managed to barely force the System's headache generator away once again as he struck out toward the Patron's face.

Duels placed both of his swords in the way of the strike in such a way that, even when Regenerating, Degritone's blow would never reach the Patron, sending two halves of his arm in different directions. Degritone kicked one arm out of the way and the strike hit by regenerating around the now singular sword. Given the importance of the head, very little flesh withered, but Degritone pumped as much ectoplasm into the blow as possible while they were in contact.

Degritone felt something trying to invade his mind and erected a mental barrier before it could fully take hold. A small portion of it was cut off from the primary mass as it impacted this barrier. Degritone lost a second and a half of subjective time as that small portion impacted his mind directly.

He awoke as a left eyeball and about a tenth of a head before fully reinstating his Immortal Troll image, popping back to a full body. Duels seemed to not expect this at all as Degritone managed to land a solid strike, piercing into their neck. He grabbed hold of the Patron's throat and squeezed, injecting as much of the Immortal Troll's withering ectoplasm as possible into the wound.

The majority of the Patron's body stopped glowing blue as all the glow concentrated on combating the withering. A few futile slashes by the Patron did nothing as Degritone injected more and more ectoplasm into his victim. Finally, the blue glow began losing to the invasive black that was the withering.

Degritone lifted the Patron up by his throat and released his grip enough to let them talk, but kept it tight enough to keep them from escaping. "Now," he said through the near-blackout levels of pain, "any last words before I kill ya?"

Duels coughed twice. "Ok, fine," he said, "you'd probably make for a better host, anyway." Before Degritone could react to what was said, a black ray of light shot from the Patron's left eye and impacted Degritone's head. Black smog began gently drifting to the ground from where the ray passed through.

Nezhar appeared in a pink dome, with a large, black scar on one part of the wall, ceiling, and floor, as if a cylinder had been punched through the room at one point. They looked around and saw Degritone lying down in front of a large window leading outside. "What is this?" He asked no one.

Yet, someone responded, "This is inside my mind."

Nezhar turned to the source of the voice and saw another Degritone coalescing from the wall.

"How are you here and what-" Degritone began to ask.

"Who are you? There shouldn't be anyone but me here!"

"I assume you just tried to take over my mind. Well, all you did was turn off all my distractions and limitations, and... oh, no. Please, no."