Regnum Aetern: Dual Rebirth

"Huff... Huff..."

Saria breathed heavily as every muscle in her body screamed.

A few meters ahead, the thing stood holding a platinum greatsword in its hands.

Despite having the same appearance as Saria, it looked nowhere near as exhausted as her. No, it didn’t look exhausted at all.

Saria gritted her teeth.

’Shit!’

Several hours had passed as she continued battling the thing. Her stamina had been steadily depleting, yet the abominable thing showed no sign of fatigue.

Saria was reaching her limit at this point.

Her eyes burned with hatred as her gaze remained focused on the thing.

’Do you think I will lose to you?! Not even in your dreams!’

She channeled her mana—which was near depletion by now—and a platinum armor began materializing over her body. Of course, the thing didn’t just let her do that. It rushed at her with its greatsword raised, as if prepared to strike her down.

Saria leapt into the air, nearly reaching the ceiling of the massive room. The platinum armor finished materializing over her body.

Just then, her legs touched the ceiling while she was upside down. Using her feet, she kicked the ceiling and propelled herself toward the ground.

Pulling back the platinum gauntlet, she punched at the thing’s head as she descended like a meteor, but the creature was able to pull its head back just in time, dodging her blow.

The gauntlet smashed into the floor, sending several cracks through it.

Without giving her even a moment to rise, the thing lashed out with its platinum sword. Saria blocked the blade with her other hand. Then she spun her body and delivered a kick to the thing’s stomach that sent it flying several meters.

But her kick didn’t seem to have done much damage.

The thing rose to its feet moments later, but she was already upon it by that point. It hurriedly materialized platinum gauntlets as well, engaging in an intense exchange of blows with Saria.

She gritted her teeth.

"I won’t lose! Not against that bootlicker! Not against that ghost-like bastard! Not even against myself!"

The intensity and speed of her blows increased as her eyes burned. She even stopped blocking many of the blows aimed at her and completely went on the offensive.

By abandoning defense completely, she was going against her own fighting style.

With the intensity of her blows increasing, the thing was forced to go into a defensive stance, shifting all its efforts into blocking her blows and thus not getting the opportunity to counterattack.

The intensity of their exchange increased with every passing moment, their arms appearing as nothing more than a blur.

Saria’s entire body screamed at her to stop, since it was already strained to its very limit. She was quickly reaching the limits of her stamina as well.

But she ignored it all.

And then it finally happened. The thing was a second too late to block one of her blows, which connected straight with her face. The force of the blow made its entire head explode, scattering black substance everywhere.

Moments later, the headless body fell to the ground and dissolved into a black substance as well, which was absorbed into the floor not long after.

"Huff... huff..."

Losing strength in her body, Saria fell face-first onto the floor.

Moments later, her mana reserves completely ran out, and her platinum armor dissolved into bluish wisps, vanishing into the air.

Saria closed her eyes and tried her best to stabilize her breathing.

’Ugh, Father was right. The toughest opponent one can face will always be oneself.’

But she had still managed to claim victory, no matter how close she had come to being defeated.

Just then, she suddenly noticed that the door of the room was open. A frown appeared on her face briefly, but it eased moments later as she let out a tired sigh.

’Whatever... at least it is open now.’

She remained lying on the ground for a while, waiting to recover her energy. When she felt like she had recovered enough to move around, Saria stood up with some effort and slowly walked out of the room.

The moment she stepped out of the room, she felt a change happen to the castle. Spreading her mana through her feet, she ’saw’ that the door she had walked out from was no longer there.

’This doesn’t even surprise me anymore.’

Turning around, she began walking through the hallway while occasionally releasing mana through her feet to map and keep track of the area.

’I should return to the lobby and wait for the other two there. I wonder if the two of them will even be able to survive.’

If they were made to face the same thing she had, then it was doubtful whether both of them would even be able to come out on top.

But when she finally arrived at the castle’s lobby, the scene she saw was not what she was expecting.

The commoner boy was already present there, smiling as he talked to the empty space. But by now, Saria had learned that he or anyone else was not talking to the air.

They were talking to that ghost-like bastard.

She frowned.

’How did those two get here so quickly? Was I the only one who had to fight that kind of opponent?’

But as she was lost in thought, the bootlicking commoner suddenly noticed her and smiled amicably.

"You are here as well, Miss Saria? We had been waiting for you for so long. Oh, did you also find yourself in a large empty room with only a door and had to defeat a doppelgänger of yourself to leave?"

Saria paused.

’So they had to fight the same thing? Then how?’

She asked in confusion.

"If the two of you had to fight the same thing, then how were you both able to defeat a copy of yourself so quickly?"

Her clone had all the abilities Saria possessed, which even included her Origin ability. So if they were evenly matched, then how could one defeat the other?

But Xion replied in a casual tone.

"It wasn’t that hard for me, to be honest. It only took a few tries to figure out that the clone may look like me and have my memories and abilities, but it didn’t possess my creativity. So I just had to use a bit of trickery to defeat it."

The ghost-like bastard’s voice entered her ears moments later.

"I also noticed that the creature had been a bit dumb. I didn’t need to resort to trickery to defeat it, though."

Saria didn’t know what to say.

’Could it really have been that easy?’

She didn’t know. Would she have won easily if she had resorted to using trickery instead of pushing herself to the limit to defeat it? But what sort of trick could she even have used?

Xion spoke once again.

"Anyways, it is clear from our previous attempt that the throne room is somehow important. Otherwise, why else would the castle separate us like that? If I had to guess, it most likely has to do with the skeleton on the throne. No, maybe it has to do with the throne itself or the crown and mace."

The Ravenshade heir’s voice followed moments later.

"I somewhat agree. The way to escape the castle is likely there. So we need to enter the throne room once again."

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