"Oh, I think he's losing it. Yes, he is. Glenn, why don't you try calling Nelg back to chop Harriet's head off?" Diamanes' suggestion came a little too late.

  Harriet exploded with Aura, sending a shockwave that threw Glenn a dozen meters away from the Dark Seed.

  The King's Blade's eyes were glued to the small, evil-filled bead. His hair turned progressively white as he reached out for it, enraptured.

  "Oh no you don't!" Glenn used Gravity Manipulation to pull the Seed of Darkness away, stealing it from Harriet.

  "No... I could... I could see it...!" Harriet muttered, his eyes widening in disbelief. He turned to Glenn, his face painted with dismay. Glenn ignored him and grabbed the Seed of Darkness, shoving it down his pockets. His dimensional pouch was missing from his waist, forcing him to store things physically.

  "Devil's Hand. Give. It. Back." The King's Blade commanded, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.

  "Err... No?" The time it took for Glenn to reply was enough for Harriet to rush in front of him, one of his rapier thrusting for his face. Glenn deftly leaned his head to the side, the rapier slicing a wound open on his cheek. The Aura exploded past him, tainted with Corruption.

  "Shit, shouldn't you be more resistant to Corruption as a Newborn Ruler? Damn it!" Glenn kicked Harriet's chest and shattered his foot. It felt like he just kicked a mountain, and even that would be less hard than Harriet.

  Bloodthirsty rage filled the King's Blade's eyes. "Give the Seed up, and I will spare you!"

  Glenn pressed his lips together and grimaced. "Yeah, no, really I think I'll keep—" His hastily raised Saturn Rings were destroyed with one swift stroke of the knight's rapier. Hundreds of Aura blades appeared from the ground, colored with that dirty, evil dark green that seemed so characteristic of Corruption.

  "Royal Punishment!" Harriet roared.

  Glenn held his breath at the terrifying sight. 'So that's how the Pope must have felt. Fuck me sideways.' He pulled himself away with Gravity Manipulation, disappearing in a flash. He stopped high in the sky, readying new spells. He didn't even have to waste time searching for Harriet, for the knight was already inches away from piercing his heart.

  'Fucking nonsensical speed!' Glenn screamed and dodged the best he could, but the Aura-covered rapier still pierced through his shoulder.

  'Yeah, no it's not looking good, Glenn!' Diamanes' voice was colored with rare worry.

  Glenn grinned and slammed his hands together, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. "Absolute Zero!"

  The world froze as a thin layer covered both him and his opponent. Harriet's eyes were the only thing that could move as Glenn pulled himself away from the rapier. Corrupted Aura flickered in his wound, stopping his self-healing attempt. Glenn clenched his hand tightly, making a blue flame spear appear. He pointed it at Harriet and sighed.

  "Sorry for that. No bad feeling, alright?" Without another second of hesitation, he speared. "Lance of Prometheus!"

  A bolt of blue fire pierced the sky, shattering Harriet's armor and burning him down. The knight cried painfully as he fell to the ground, hundreds of meters away. Glenn exhaled heavily and rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable.

  "It really doesn't feel good fighting against someone who was my ally seconds ago."

  Diamanes snickered. "Why don't you finish the job instead of mourning in advance?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it." Glenn followed in Harriet's fall, slowing himself down for a gentle landing. Harriet's crash had created a small smoldering crater of burnt earth. The knight pushed himself up on his rapier, his other weapon abandoned into the dirt. He untied his chest plate with a painful grunt, the armor falling with a heavy thud. Glenn's eyes widened as he discovered an opened wound on the knight's chest, so deep and wide he could see the bones of his ribcage. Harriet's heart was still beating, despite being exposed to the outside.

  "What the fuck?" Glenn took a step back in awe. "Don't tell me you were fighting with that wound all along?"

  The tip of Harriet's hair burned away, revealing his bloodshot eyes. He raised his rapier but stumbled forward, taking a knee. He held his chest painfully, scowling.

  "Damn it...Damn it, damn it!" He roared as he forced himself up.

  'This is fucking terrifying,' thought Glenn as Pebble reappeared on his shoulder, shrieking defiantly at Harriet.

  'Heh, I guess that's how your enemies felt whenever you fell and stood back up.' Diamanes' laughter did nothing to reassure him. Harriet's eyes suddenly cleared out from the rage and confusion.

  "What...? By the Gods! Devil's Hand, fall back—!" Harriet's back arched unnaturally, bones cracking as if his body rebelled against itself. He screamed—a guttural, twisted sound that reverberated through the air, making Glenn flinch. The Corrupted Aura around Harriet surged, coalescing into a dark green mist. The very air felt heavier like reality itself struggled to hold together.

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  'Fuck no,' thought Glenn as he released his Ice Age. A massive iceberg encased Harriet into a cold prison. The ice invaded the Retni's Plains, covering everything with otherworldly chill.

  "Alright, that should give me some time to think about a solution—" Glenn was sent flying away as the iceberg exploded in countless shards. Harriet stepped out of it, his skin bulging out as if something tried to come out of it. Harriet held his head painfully, roaring as he clawed at his face painfully.

  Glenn rubbed his eyes, doubting them for a moment. A dark green, evil substance oozed out of Harriet, pulling itself out with violent determination. Harriet fell back, his hair returning to their original blond colors and his eyes to dark gray. He heaved with exhaustion, staring at the dark green ooze in horror.

  The ooze grabbed the rapier Harriet abandoned earlier, shaping itself into a humanoid form. A dark green armor fashioned the same as the one Harriet wore before being incinerated alive appeared on the ooze. The same slit was carved into the chest plate, an exact copy of Harriet's from before his Corruption. A helmet covering his head finalized the metamorphosis, the cherry on top.

  Harriet looked at his Corrupted twin, his expression hardening. He grabbed his rapier and pushed himself up, his legs wobbling and his Aura flickering weakly. Glenn took a long, deep breath as Pebble nestled in his palm, a fiery flame covering him.

  Silence reigned for a few seconds of standstill, the crackling flames the only noise resonating on the battlefield.

  "W...eak." The evil twin's voice sounded the same as Harriet's, only warped.

  "Stay out of this, Devil's Hand. This is a royal command." Harriet took a step forward. Blood seeped out of the wound on his chest, his Aura rising with each breath he took. Glenn moistened his lips and made Pebble hover above his opened palm.

  "Yeah, fuck you." Glenn threw Pebble into the sky, using his Mana to empower the Meteor he was preparing the best he could. The evil twin slowly planted his feet into the mud, taking on an elegant position, his rapier raised in front of him and his other hand behind his back. A true duelist, a fencer.

  "For the...King," muttered the twin.

  Harriet lunged forward, his Aura exploding in a controlled burst. The twin deftly parried the blow away with a burst of Aura of his own. The shockwave tore the ground open, shaking the surroundings like a cataclysmic seism. Glenn clenched his fist, following the fight closely.

  Each time Harriet would try to get a blow in, the twin seemed to know the exact way to parry or dodge it. The two fought as if they could see the future, knowing what their opponent's moves would be before they even thought of it. It was a strange, impressive battle.

  'Sigh... Doppelgangers fights are always so damn boring. You better put an end to it now or we will have to spend weeks watching.' Diamanes said.

  Glenn rubbed his chin. 'Hmm. I don't find it boring at all, though. I might actually sit here and watch with some popcorn.'

  'Come on, Glenn. We have better things to do, like, reaching the Sixth Circle, getting rid of the Occult Wanderers, and all this and that!' Diamanes encouraged with a forced tone. Glenn sneered and pointed down at the evil twin.

  "Might as well move on with this bullshit. Meteor."

  A fiery, hundred-ton Pebble crashed through the atmosphere, leaving a burning trail in the sky behind it. The one-eyed dragon was having the time of his life being used as live ammunition. Harriet and his evil twin both looked up at the same time, retreating away from each other. The Meteor followed the twin, making contact and exploding into a massive shockwave.

  Harriet held his bleeding chest painfully, throwing a resentful look at Glenn. The latter shrugged it away, his eyes focused on the crater lying before him. The Retni's Plains looked nothing like Plains anymore. The ground had been ripped open, burnt, glassed, iced, and was still smoking from the heat of the fight. It was like a scenery worthy of the Beyond. Hell, to say less.

  "I told you I'd take care of it!" Harriet hissed, stumbling next to Glenn.

  "I'm sure you did. And I'm sure I told you to go fuck yourself. This thing is Corruption incarnate, you think I'm letting it live a second more than it needs to?" Glenn quipped back, his arms crossed. The dark green Aura in his shoulder wound had still not disappeared and continued to burn him uncomfortably.

  It was weaker than what he would have expected from a Newborn Ruler, even though said Ruler was weakened. Glenn also had to take into account that he himself was pretty much a monster too, with Laurance's monstrous Regeneration and the physique he got from the torture in the Thorn's Church prison back when he first arrived in this world.

  "...No matter." Harriet sighed and pointed his rapier at the smoldering crater. "You made the correct choice. Let us finish this."

  Glenn nodded and silently threw a Sun into the crater, making it explode once more. Harriet summoned hundreds of Aura blades and shot them blindly into the crater, not even bothering to aim. The destruction continued for a minute or two until the Aura nestling in Glenn's wound finally disappeared.

  "Stop." Harriet walked to the edge of the crater, peering into it. Glenn followed him and grimaced at the smell. There was nothing left from the Corrupted twin, not even a drop of dark green slime. Harriet's rapier hadn't survived their onslaughts of spells and Aura blades and had also disappeared.

  "It is done. Sigh..." Harriet dragged his feet to a collapsed tree nearby and sat on it, slouching his shoulders. The wound on his chest was still not healing and would probably require more specialized treatment to disappear. Glenn grimaced as he felt the flesh and muscles knitting themselves in his shoulder. The rapier stab wound disappeared under a new, clean layer of skin.

  "This was one hell of a fight," muttered Glenn as he dropped next to Harriet.

  The King's Blade glanced at the young man and chuckled softly. "I suppose it was, yes. Good job, kid. Good job."

  The mage and the knight sat next to each other, staring silently at the smoldering hole. The crackling of the flames going out one by one was the only sound echoing on the destroyed battlefield. Glenn exhaled heavily, letting the pressure wash off his shoulders. The moment he escaped from the dark space of his mind, he fell into a battle with his sworn enemy the Thorn's Church. He destroyed the Pope, (not without help, but that does not matter), eradicated most if not every cultist, and endured a psychological assault from Epinos himself. If that was even him. Maybe the attack came from that unfathomably powerful being who fled the area through a rift into space.

  "Dolorothrax...or something, right?" Glenn muttered to himself, gazing upward. The battle had taken so long the night was falling, a soft pink coloring the sky. Twilight was falling, and once again, Munirp was safe from harm. Relatively safe, yes, but safe nonetheless.

  For now.

  Glenn felt something in his chest expand effortlessly, his strength and Mana draining away. He closed his eyes and entered Meditation right away, watching in delight as a Sixth additional Circle of stars appeared around his Mana Heart, the Milky Way. The stars and the galaxy spun in one, perfect ensemble, humming softly, bringing him to the rank of Archmagi.

  'This...!' Glenn clenched his chest in awe and wonder. Staring at his new Circle and the Milky Way felt only like one more step on his path to greatness, like peering through the keyhole and into a new, completely unknown world.

  And finally, he could start searching for the key.