The Power of a Divine Ancestor

It was chaos. The moment Veldora appeared, Twilight created a gigantic magic circle beneath everyone that teleported us to somewhere where I hadn't been before. We were falling from somewhere above the clouds downward towards a large landmass with a volcano at its center.

I quickly took note of everything around us. Velgrynd and the little girl who she protected hadn't traveled with us as she was probably unaffected by the teleportation trap due to the barrier Velzard had put up earlier. That was fine by me, though, as that means we would not only avoid damaging Luminous' castle, but the little girl wouldn't be killed by the massive auras that surrounded her.

Even powerful Majin wouldn't be able to withstand the aura of two true dragons when they were fighting, not to mention the magical energy from when I would be fighting with Twilight.

I turned my head towards Velzard, only to realize she had already transformed into her Dragon Form and was engaging in combat with Veldora. It seemed like she was going easy on him at the moment, as I knew she could one-shot him if she really wanted to, but I think she was trying to bring him back to his senses. I also wasn't sure if it was known that True Dragons respawn when they die yet, as none of them had died to find out.

It was then that my instincts kicked in and I used a [Holy Burst] to shoot myself to the left of my current position just in time for a beam of Magic Energy to shoot by me. I quickly cast the magic art of {|Airflight|} to float in the air as I stared at Twilight who was grinning at me wickedly. In his hand was my former spear, the Origin Blood. I had dropped it after he mentioned that it had a tracking spell put on it, as I didn't want any surprises to occur with it while I was using it. It was possible that he booby-trapped it as well. It wouldn't be unheard of since the Luminaries did the same thing to Hinata during her rematch against Rimuru. While my logic was sound, it still turned out to have been a mistake since now he was using it as his main weapon against me.

"Why don't you just give up now? I promise to use my Skill to separate your soul from your body if you do. You'll be allowed to enter the cycle of reincarnation if you do. Searching for your soul will also keep Velzard off my back for a while until I deal with the situation." He said, feigning sympathetic pity for me.

"You overestimate your chances of defeating me. As I am now I can easily take on opponents several times my own energy levels. I doubt you will be much more powerful than Guy was" I taunted back as I readied my sword.

Twilight sighed as if he genuinely wanted to not have to kill me and was resigning himself to our duel unwillingly. I know it was all bs though since his mouth was grinning evilly from ear to ear. "Don't get too far ahead of yourself. I know all about your powers and fighting style you know. As a matter of fact, I was actually preparing to fight you when you were significantly stronger than you are now. After all, I WAS waiting for you to awaken!" Twilight said before disappearing and reappearing only a meter in front of me.

I swung my blade to parry his sudden thrust while also using [Holy Burst] to close the distance to Twilight's inner guard. I gave a quick knee to his gut which was caught by his right hand, however, I also released a large amount of stored-up magic power and aura at the same time, causing a shockwave to erupt from the point of impact sending us both back a few meters. I tried to back off rather quickly while deftly maneuvering between the flurry of jabs from the Origin Blood spear as I retreated, though I was wasn't able to make put much space between us, as Twilight didn't let up on his assault.

"That was always a flaw with you Alaster! You would always only go for short flurries of strikes and combos rather than using your new Spiritual Lifeform body's to its full potential. Not only does it give you infinite stamina to keep up your assault but both the regeneration of your energy levels and physical body are phenomenal! You shouldn't have to worry about stikes of my level and should virtually be a perpetual motion machine with your moveset, but you're too cautious! That's the reason that your body and Unique Skills are wasted on a man such as yourself and why I am going to win this fight!" Twilight mocked me, but I didn't fall for his provocations.

Twilight hadn't talked with me at all since after I left the care of Veldanava, so he shouldn't have been aware that I now had the [Mystic Eyes] Skill. These eyes came with analysis abilities and even allowed me to predict my opponent's future actions by looking at the subtle subconscious movements of their physical body before they moved to attack. He had mentioned earlier that his body was no longer immortal, meaning he probably had a stamina limit now, even if it was extremely high. A potential strategy I could employ would be to whittle down his stamina until he exhausts himself before going in for the kill. Besides, there was another reason why I didn't want to be struck by the spear other than the obvious reasons.

There was a strange aura around his spear that was giving me bad vibes. I didn't have a super assistant like [Great Sage] to help analyze it while I was in combat, so I couldn't get anything in-depth about it, but I felt like it was wrapped in either a Unique or Ultimate Skill. His comment earlier also allowed me to know that he had a way of directly interacting with my soul, which meant that he was probably hoping he could trick me into taking several hits under the pretext that I'd heal right away while he actually did damage to my spiritual body, astral body, or even my soul itself. It was for that reason that I didn't take up his advice and continued to dodge for a bit until I spotted an opening that wasn't one of the many feints that he would occasionally throw into his attack pattern to throw me off.

I quickly swung my blade upwards in a crescent-moon-shaped arc, catching the Origin Blood by the pummel and unbalancing his handling of the weapon temporarily. I then twirled my sword around and stabbed it straight into his midsection, impaling his heart on my blade. The motion was flawless but the resistance I thought I'd feel as I pierced his heart wasn't there. My instincts blared at me, so I unconsciously listened to them and unsheathed my blade from his chest and twirled it around to guard my back, blocking a second instance of the Origin Blood spear attempting to stab me in the back. The body in front of me began to melt away like dripping candle wax of red liquid while behind me, Twilight floated seemingly gloating at the futility of my efforts.

"This is a skill I'd picked up from Velgrynd; [Parallel Existance]. I can create a number of bodies that each share my singular consciousness. So long as I create at least one more before you kill them all, you'll never be able to defeat me... furthermore I can simply create a new fresh body at will. You won't win in a battle of stamina either, even if I don't have infinite physical stamina anymore!" Twilight said.

As he spoke the red sludge that remained of his other body began to faintly glow. I noticed it just in the nick of time to hastily put up a barrier as it exploded. Twilight had set a trap for me and self-destructed his other body when I was listening to his speech. Thankfully, I ended up using way more energy when constructing the barrier than I normally would, so it barely endured the powerful shockwave that hammered against it. The violent vibration was even enough to rattled me and leave me slightly disorientated for just a moment before I shook off my daze and regained my bearing. Twilight, strangely didn't attack during this golden opportunity and simply hovered where he was before the attack. Smiling as if to gloat at how I'd fallen into such a simple trap.

"You may no longer have the physical limitations of a human form, however, you are still a human in your soul. You are naive. Eventually, once you become mentally fatigued, you will make more and more mistakes like that one. It is at that time when you will forfit your body to me." Twilight laughed before releasing an aura several-fold higher than the 'maximum' he'd shown me during our training sessions.

His strength shot up to about twice that of Guy's the last time we fought, putting him at over 4 times my current energy values. Thankfully Twilight wasn't really a great fighter. He was more of a mad scientist at heart and preferred to see me struggling and suffering his attacks and traps rather than finishing me off. Ironically, this would mean the fight would be easier than the one I fought against Guy, since in that fight I had to maintain full throttle for several hours on end just to lure him into a trap that would declare my victory. I just had to watch out for sneaky little tricks like these with Twilight and I'd be able to win.

I dropped my barrier and charged at my opponent, swinging my sword several more times towards Twilight, raining down a constant barrage of sword beams. My plan was to get him to retreat by dodging my strikes to give me some breathing room to formulate a better plan. Unfortunately for me, it appears Twilight anticipated something like this happening as he charged directly through them without even being phased by the force or magic power behind each and every one of the swings. This action got me to raise both my eyebrows and my sword. The first was in confusion as to how my attacks didn't do any damage while the latter was to parry Twilight's oncoming attack. It didn't seem possible that he would be able to perfectly calculate and block my dozens of attacks filled with the Holy Element in such a short amount of time.

"Confused? Of course you would be. You were never able to calculate or analyze things with your powerset, so I'll tell you what's going on... I'm immune to all of your Holy Magic Power Attacks!" Twilight boasted while another flurry of jabs rained down on me from above. "I was planning to fight you when you were even stronger than you are now. Of course, I'd take preparatory measures! We spared so often during your years of training and you'd release your Holy Magic so liberally that tuning out and canceling the frequency of your attacks is childsplay. With nothing else going for you other than your weapon's skills, there is no way you'd be able to defeat me!"

I was shocked by this revelation but I didn't allow myself to become unbalanced in this fight. I'm sure Twilight was aiming for the moment I began to doubt myself and my reaction speed would be lowered, as the speed and intensity of his flurry increased temporarily after he mentioned that. I noticed how Twilight was getting a bit nervous at how difficult it was to get into my head, as small beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

It was then that I knew that my time was coming. I began to parry his thrusts until each and every strike resulted in a clash. Since I couldn't use my magic power to harm him, I used it to reinforce my body and increase my physical prowess. I used the increased movement speed I gained from this to begin circling Twilight faster and faster while probing his defense from multiple angles.

Unfortunately, physical damage alone wouldn't be enough to win the day and while I could just wait for Velzard to finish off Veldora before coming to my aid, I felt like if I did that then I'd never grow stronger than I currently was and wouldn't be worthy of the Hero's Egg inside of me in the future. I was able to gain a bit of distance after kicking Twilight away from the immediate area, but I knew in only a few more seconds, that he would be back.

If my Holy Magic couldn't work and my other elemental magic was lacking in the deciding factor to win, then I'd call in a favor. "{Spirit Summoning: Queen of the Spirits}!" I called out as a magic circle appeared in front of me and a flash of light blinded both myself and Twilight briefly.

A split second later an obnoxious voice was heard from the light. "Hohohoho! So you are in need of my help, Alaster? Or did you just miss seeing me? Either way, I guess I'll graciously decide to answer your call!" Ramiris laughed haughtily.

Twilight clicked his tongue when he saw who I'd summoned. He was never good with dealing with Ramiris. While they weren't exactly friends, they respected each other as two researchers working for the same boss, even if their ethics and philosophy were different. Furthermore, Ramiris was actually a lot smarter than she acted and could become weirdly serious about things she knew were important, which would be when she was at her most dangerous. Not only that, but Ramiris held several fold more magic power than his current body did.

While not at the level of a True Dragon, Ramiris' magic power alone would turn the tide unless he stopped playing games and became serious. He'd have to settle for some damage being done to Alaster's body rather than his previous strategy to keep it untouched by only shattering the mind and soul to prepare for his reincarnation.

"Alright. Playtime is over Alaster. You are going to die here. You too Ramiris. You've seen too much and I can't have you running your moth to Veldanava before I'm ready. Besides, I've always wanted to experiment with your body. If I can somehow fuse your elemental powers with a body at Alaster's potential, then even Veldanava would have to think twice about stopping me." Twilight called out as the aura around him changed.

Ramiris looked extremely confused at the situation and was about to ask what was going on when she felt Twilight's aura change to become much more sinister and dark. As the Queen of the Spirits, she knew that such a dark aura can only come from a being of pure evil, so she now recognized Twilight as an enemy. She moved closer to me as I slowly floated down to the ground and took up a defensive stance. I felt most comfortable when I didn't have to anticipate strikes from below me, so I made sure to give myself every advantage possible with this move. As I landed, I immediately had to push Ramiris away from an Origin Blood spear coming from her left. The spear just barely missed striking her in the head and it even grazed her hair.

To my left and right were two of Twilight's [Parallel Existences]. The 'original' body of Twilight I had been fighting stayed in the air and threw the Origin Blood spear into the air and used [Parallel Existance] in a way I hadn't thought possible. He created hundreds of copies of the spear and looked like he was going to rain them down on us like he was discount Gilgamesh.

Ramiris waved her open hand to the right and caused a number of glowing rainbow crystals to erupt from the ground around the body that tried to kill her, skewering it but not fatally wounding it. She then closed her palm which caused the crystals to rapidly begin growing out of every pour on that body until a crystalline statue of Twilight was all that remained of it.

To be honest it was a terrifying attack as I saw with [Msytic Eye] how it worked. It took the shards of crystals within the body and turned them into what amounted to basically seeds. These 'seeds' would then feed of the target's own magical energy as food to encourage extremely rapid growth. It was an attack that, if you were even grazed by the earlier crystal attack, would be considered an instant death move. It was actually even more lethal against Twilight due to how much energy each of his bodies had, making the growth so fast, calling it instant wouldn't be inaccurate.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second, however, I didn't spend that time gawking at Ramiris' instant kill move and instead struck down a lunge from the other body before combing it into a sword twirl and decapitation slice. Unfortunately, [Parallel Existance] is not like Shadow Clones from Naruto where each body is weaker than the original, as each body WAS the original, that means Twilight was able to react to my strike by leaning back fast enough, only receiving the smallest graze on his neck.

Ramiris followed up on my graze by chanting another instant death spell she somehow learned. "Transmutation}!" She called out as a light shined from one of her hands.

The slight trickle of blood from his grazed neck was instantly converted into molten magma as his body instantly burned up from the inside and the body became a charred mass before melting into goop with a horrifying stench.

I turned to look at Ramiris who was smirking at my dumbfounded expression. "That was only two of my forty-eight sure-kill techniques. What to see more?"

I could only nod dumbly as I thought 'Ramiris is actually crazy dangerous in her adult form!'

"You won't get the chance!" Twilight commented as we looked up to see the sky filled to the brim with a sea of Red Spears that blocked out the sun. Each spear was filled to the brim with {|Magic Aura|} and a barrier had appeared around us to prevent us from teleporting away.

Furthermore, each of the spears was Mythical Grade with an existence value that rivaled my own. Mythical Grade equipment was equivalent to low-level Ultimate Skills compressed into weapons, meaning the equivalent to thousands of low-level, but still, ultimate-level attacks were aimed directly at the two of us. Tanking such an attack would undoubtedly shatter not just my body but my soul if I were to take this head-on. Even Velzard in her dragon form would be fatally injured with THIS many copies of the spear raining down on her at once. Ramiris also looked extremely worried when she saw what was coming.

"It'll be a shame your body will be damaged, but nothing a bit of magic won't eventually fix!" Twilight said she motioned with his hand and the spears began to be fired at us.

"ALASTER!!!" Velzard shouted as she noticed the attack coming far too late.