The Author's POV

Time stopped.

The world within my vision came to a halt.

From the crowd to the noise. The only thing that stood in front of me was Duke Azonech.

Carefully placing my hand on the ground, my body slowly stood up.

In parallel with this, Duke Azonech's face changed dramatically. In a mutter, he opened his mouth.

"…Y..you were hiding your strength?"

He slowly took a step back.

He appeared to be in shock and fear.

"Not really."

My mouth automatically opened and answered.

"That's impossible!"

In a state of trembling, he screamed.

"Do you really expect me to believe that you weren't hiding your strength?"

"...You call this hiding my strength?"

I suddenly felt a wave of disgust wash over my body as I sensed my other self's emotions.

I found my head slowly rising up.

My eyes soon met with the Duke's.

"Is it really worth hiding this little amount of strength?"

"Wh...what?"

While the two were conversing, I was secretly trying to grasp what was happening around me.

It had to be noted that currently, time was flowing at a much faster rate than reality. For the two of them to be able to converse properly...just how fast were they?

Not only that, the world around me. It looked different. Everything looked a lot more colorful as I was able to catch a glimpse of the mana in the air.

There wasn't much, in fact, there was barely any mana in the air, but it was still there.

Regardless, that wasn't what attracted most of my attention.

'...Limit Breaker?'

These words...

This was the first time I had ever heard of these words, and my curiosity about them was at an all-time high.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury to ponder over those words as my head glanced around the frozen space, and I suddenly found my calves tensing up.

My mouth soon opened.

"My time is limited. This amount of strength will suffice for now."

within my legs disappeared. Within a split instant, I

Swooosh-!

my hand thrust toward the Duke's throat

However...

to react appropriately as he dodged my attack by moving his head to the

with his own

open book, his every move was clearly visible in the eyes

of my

hand and demonic force burst out of his

still proved to be a futile effort

read his

Duke's face hardened when

his teeth, he prepared to attack again, but in the blink of an eye,

him from doing whatever he was

grasping his hand, my mouth

"Give up."

annoyance as I felt my other's

Duke's resistance clearly

you think you can actually do something to me now that we're both in the same ranks again. You couldn't do anything when we were of the same rank before, yet you think a small power-up

fingers pressed against Duke Azenoch's arm as I squeezed his hand. The Duke's face changed, but my hand continued to squeeze before it compressed it completely and I was able to close my hand into a

could feel the bones of the demons crush inside the palm of my

me

hand tore off of the Duke's body

self glanced at the torn-up hand for a brief moment before throwing it behind me, only to see it stop mid-air and fall down at the same pace time

blood as it remained still in

"Huaak!"

action, the Duke's face twisted savagely as he screamed

toward me, a torrential wave of demonic energy burst out of his body, converging toward the top of his palm in

"H..how dare you!"

pushed out as a result

mind, with just a casual tap of his hand,

past my head, I heard a voice speak inside of my head. The mana inside of

end him. Make sure you feel how I control

gesture of his raised his hand and I felt the mana in my body expand outwardly. Encompassing the

Duke despaired

my emotions remained

a thin yet durable veil that enveloped my entire

body, it didn't take me long to figure out

'...Mana agglomeration.'

fighting the elders at the Monolith. In the years since then, I had been deeply impressed with

already tremendous strength multiplied many times as the armor completely

body was flooded with

'Hm?'

my vision completely shifted without me even

were a couple of more colorful ones inside of the arena, but

observed that some of the blobs were smaller than others, with the blob representing

'What's this?'

as I tried to make out what was going

not important, look

Listening to his words, I sharpened my gaze and paid

It was then...

circles in the middle

balls the size of tennis balls tucked within blobs. Additionally, they appeared to be distributed across different areas

Then it hit me.

'Wait, don't tell me...'

right. Those