Chapter 1254 Real Vs Copy [3]

At almost the exact same moment, both Michaels stopped retreating.

Their hands lowered and struck the surface of the black water.

"Death Ground."

Both voices seemed to overlap across the battlefield as dark mist exploded outward from their bodies and poured across the battlefield like a flood.

Within seconds, the black water around Michael had disappeared beneath rolling layers of dark energy. It swallowed the battlefield beneath a dark haze, winding around the bodies of the undead.

The moment Michael's undead came under its influence, their auras changed.

Unfortunately, just as Michael's undead were benefiting from his Death Ground, across the battlefield the same thing was happening.

Just like that, the advantage Michael had hoped to create vanished before it could even exist.

Instead, the battlefield simply became more violent.

BOOM!

Beginning and his reflection collided again. This time, the impact was even worse. A circular depression hundreds of meters wide appeared beneath them as the water was blasted away.

One Beginning grabbed the other's shoulder. The other caught his arm. Then both drove their knees forward at once.

The collision produced another deafening explosion.

Above them, the two High Drakes tore into one another with renewed ferocity. One ripped several crimson scales from the other's neck. The wound began closing swiftly under the influence of Death Ground. The injured Drake responded by biting into its counterpart's wing.

Michael watched the battlefield become steadily more ridiculous.

Every enhancement he applied was copied. Every increase in recovery only prolonged the battles. Every boost in power increased the destruction on both sides without breaking the balance.

The black ocean could barely remain still for even a fraction of a second anymore. Waves several hundred meters high rose and collapsed. Columns of water were blasted into the sky.

The entire battlefield looked less like an arena now and more like a small apocalypse.

Michael's eyes narrowed.

"This is troublesome."

Michael's gaze shifted toward the fake Michael in the distance and sent a command to all his undead.

"Slow Curse."

It had been many months since Michael had gotten the skill [Memory Infusion]. Aside from using it to boost his knowledge by leaps and bounds, having his undead work as knowledge banks to feed information back to him, he had also fed back skills that many of them could use. Examples included, but were not limited to, Fireball, Mana Ball, Mana Arrow, and so on.

The undead legion responded at once. A wave of murky energy spread from several sections of his army. Dark curse marks appeared on the reflected undead, causing their movements to slow.

It might have only been a fraction of a second, a small delay in reaction. But in a battle where both sides were almost perfectly equal, even a tiny difference should have mattered.

However, just as Michael's side was about to make a big move, the reflected Michael bit back.

Several reflected undead suddenly stopped moving, their bodies swelling into a disgusting form.

Michael's pupils contracted.

"Corpse Explosion?"

BOOOOOOM!

The first undead detonated. It was a Rank Three.

The explosion was nothing like the Corpse Explosion Michael had been accustomed to using in his earlier days. The difference was absurd. The Rank Three undead's entire existence seemed to collapse inward for a split second before releasing everything at once.

Several of Michael's undead caught within the blast were torn apart in a single instant.

Before the first explosion had even finished expanding, another reflected undead swelled. Then another. And another.

BOOM!

BOOOOOOM!

The battlefield lit up with consecutive explosions.

Michael's expression stiffened.

Several of them were also Rank Four.

An Awakener's skill set differed from other supernaturals, who needed to upgrade their abilities to match their rank for any major promotion in power. Aside from gaining new skills as they advanced in rank, or after every twenty points in their main stat, and occasionally in other stats if lucky, old skills, even without modification, could still remain strong, since they too scaled with rank and stats.

A skill that had a range limit of ten metres while the Awakener was unranked could increase to twenty-five metres at Rank One, and seventy at Rank Two. As for getting a skill every twenty points of increase in a stat, this chance got increasingly rarer as the stat rose, but the trade-off was that if one did get it, the skill would automatically match their current rank.

It was only now that Michael truly understood how ridiculous Corpse Explosion had become at his current stage.

The destructive power was horrifying. One Rank Four undead detonated near the center of the clash. The blast swallowed dozens of figures from both sides. Even Beginning and his reflection were forced apart by the shockwave, though they closed the distance again a moment later, never truly breaking from their clash.

Michael's eyes widened.

The copied Michael had sacrificed some of its own army, and the exchange wasn't bad, as every detonation took out enemies standing nearby.

And while the reflected side lost the undead used as explosives, Michael's side suffered enormous casualties from the blast itself.

Within moments, a noticeable section of his army disappeared. Some were killed outright. Others survived with missing limbs, shattered torsos, broken wings, or heavily damaged shells.

Michael stared at the destruction.

"…That's nasty."

He couldn't even complain. It was his own skill.

Michael's expression hardened.

If the other side was willing to sacrifice its forces…

Why wouldn't he?

Michael's gaze swept across the battlefield. He quickly identified the undead already too badly damaged to contribute properly.

Michael hesitated for a moment.

Normally, he would never casually sacrifice his undead like this. Especially Rank Four undead, as every one of them represented enormous resources. And more importantly, they belonged to him.

Even if many weren't individually important to him, simply destroying them unnecessarily had never been his preferred style.

But his current situation was also a bit special.

Michael had noticed something strange from the moment he entered this arena.

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