Chapter 55: An Inner Battle and the Next Divinity

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"Knowing you're different is only the beginning. If you accept these differences, you'll be able to get past them and grow even closer."

– Miss Kobayashi, (Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid)

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<(Atem POV)> 

'Great I am back here again,' I grumbled under my breath as I found myself in the white room where I had once awakened my divinity of 'Domination'. All around me, there was almost nothing but an all-encompassing sea of white which made me extremely disoriented and nauseated.

The last thing I remembered before reaching this place was selecting the evolution option available in the system while meditating in my city castle on my new planet. 

"Did I already evolve?" I wondered aloud while trying to see if there were any changes in my body. Sadly, there were none and I felt exactly the same as I always felt. So maybe, the evolution was still yet to come.

"Oh, it seems you are back." A familiar male voice sounded from behind me, surprising me while giving me a sense of Deja Vu.

Turning around, I saw an exact replica of myself standing with a small snicker on his face. The only difference between him and me was that this version of me seemed to have a... 'darker' aura around him for some reason and appeared more emo and broody when compared to the real me. 

"Wait, you... are you the same guy I met last time I was here to awaken my first divinity? The Domination guy?" I asked while looking at him from head to toe.

"He was not just some guy, we are the same, idiot, just different aspects of the same being. But no, I am not. He is already gone after you completed his test and unlocked your first divinity since his purpose was achieved. I on the other hand represent a different divinity of yours." He answered with a snort.

"Hmm? So, this isn't some normal evolution that I am going to go through but instead, a divinity unlocking session to unlock my second divinity?... That's disappointing, I thought I would have a free power upgrade. But then again, getting dominion over another concept will bolster my strength a LOT. So, tell me, what do I have to do? Shake your hand, maybe?" 

"... You WILL be going through an... evolution of sorts. You will have to face trials that will evaluate your capabilities and judge if you are worthy enough to receive my power and advance forward on the path of a true god." The me-clone declared with outstretched hands.

As soon as he said it, the surrounding space of the white room warped, and a massive altar of sorts came into existence with a gigantic stone statue that weirdly looked like a chibi version of me if I were a naked exhibitionist Greek God with the size of the Statue of Liberty appearing at its front like a silent guardian.

"Cool altar," I uttered.

"All you have to do is defeat the guardian statue within exactly one hour and you will automatically become qualified for the evolution." The clone revealed.

"And I will be able to unlock my second divinity as well?" I asked curiously.

"Defeating the guardian will just make you eligible for an evolution and the evolution will naturally empower your body further to possess two massive divine authorities in the same body which means you will be able to inherit the divinity that I am currently holding... Of course, you need to defeat me and prove yourself to me for that to happen. After all, I can't make it as easy as your first time." Clone me explained. 

"I see. Then, what are we waiting for? Let's start. I can't keep wasting too much time here, I have stuff to do in the real world." I said while cracking my knuckles. 

"Confident, are we? Good, you are going to need that confidence." He said with a grin as he slowly backed away while the altar seemed to grow more and more 'realistic'. Soon, an earthquake began to shake the entire area as the ground beneath me seemed to split apart and the air hummed with power. 

The statue was slowly coming to life and by the looks of its face, it was cranky as hell like a young baby waking up from a half-assed sleep.

*ROAR* The statue roared at the top of its lungs as it spared a single glance at me, looking like it wanted to squash me like a bug under its legs.

"Ooh, it seems that it also wants to end this quickly. Be careful, don't let it sit on you. Being touched by its naked penis and ass would be gay... even if it is yours." The clone me uttered with a chuckle from the side.

"Aren't you supposed to be technically on my team since you are me as well... But I guess this is good, I don't have too much time to waste." I snapped back as I activated my Divine domain of Domination and immediately sensed everything around me inside the domain to the micro-unit. My powers surged too as I felt myself getting stronger by the second.

"By the way, you said that I have to prove myself by defeating you both, but you never said that I can't do it together, right?" The two lookalikes of mine were strong, very strong but they weren't as strong as Galactus whom I had faced a couple of days ago. 

In fact, they were about as strong as me. The clone me gave off the same presence and aura as me while the statue one was a bit on the stronger side. But due to its limited intelligence, in a real combat situation, it was not my opponent.

"What do you mean...?" He tried to speak but immediately a couple of huge red whips of my divine energy found their way into his body, catching him by surprise and then I inserted a couple of black receivers into his body through those whips to completely drain him of his energy.

The statue tried to capitalize on this opportunity and attack me but I immediately apparated away while pushing my human lookalike towards it. What followed was five minutes of savage uncensored bloody beatdown as the statue began to hit him with everything it had. His strength as I had said earlier was even superior to mine.

Honestly, I thought that he had already lost, and that the statue would be able to reduce him to a paste with its fists, but a sudden outlandish scene shocked me while giving me an idea of what type of power my second divinity held.

Instead of the other me turning into a paste of blood and organs, it was the fists of the statue that had turned into... well, nothing. The fists of the statue were just gone. And soon, half of its body was too.

"Come on man, this was supposed to be your test. You cheated. *Sigh* You think this is fun for me. My one and only purpose is to test you and give you access to the power that you inherently possess. Your cheating or rushing to get hold of that power through unsavory methods defiles that sense of purpose and genuinely ticks me off... I am only supposed to use less than 1% of the power of the divinity that I have access to in order to test you but if you really wish to see just how strong the divinity I possess truly is, I will fulfill that wish if it's the last thing I do." My human double announced with clenched jaws as he pointed his index finger at me.

"Void erasure." A black beam headed towards me from his finger which I managed to avoid somehow but it was still able to graze a few strands of my hair which completely obliterated them.

He was pissed and had become very serious in his effort to 'humble' me, even ready to inflict some critical pain and 'tough love' if needed. But that still didn't mean that I was powerless in front of him.

I immediately conjured a few dozen grapevines out of my magic that tried to bind him while I fired a Crucio toward him. Despite the spell hitting him straight in the chest, he didn't show like he was in pain too much. Instead, he in turn released a wave of dark energy that immediately erased the vines from existence like they were never even there. I couldn't even feel the magic I had used in creating them. 

At first, I had thought that he was wielding the power of destruction but now, I understand that it is not destruction. It is something more primal, more conceptual, and darker than just plain old destruction. The darkness that he controlled, felt like it was... a void. 

I instantly cranked up my Divine Presence to the maximum to slow him down and take away his will to fight while I boosted myself as much as possible every ten seconds. Even the statue which had been recovering and had even begun to move, was also affected by my aura's presence and instantly kneeled down again. I wasted no time and used some conjured rocks and black receivers to pierce the statue, immediately destroying its head while pumping my divine energy into it to make sure that there was no way it could recover.

My copy was also equally affected by my aura of domination, but he did his best to resist my power by using his own divinity's aura to clash against mine. 

In this mental space of mine, the forces behind the divinities might not seem to be a lot but that was because there was literally nothing in here that could be affected by their forces. There was no building to break, no island to submerge, no sky to cause a storm, and no planet to crack. 

There was only the white and that entire white space shook as the concepts of our divinities fought a brutal battle to defeat each other. Frankly, it was weird. I was literally fighting with myself and truthfully, I was even having fun doing it because I knew that at the end of the day, I was the one who was going to wield both authorities and I would be unstoppable with them if I could raise them to their highest levels.

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