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 found the Duke's face right

Swooosh-!

fingers together, my hand thrust toward the Duke's throat in a

However...

past, the Duke was able to react appropriately as he dodged my attack by moving his head to the side. It was by a narrow

counterattacked with his own palm, pressing it

every move was clearly

slap of my left hand, his

give up, as he rotated his hand and demonic force burst out of his hand, forcing out

be a

my other self to avoid the attack was a simple movement of my head, having clearly read his movements ahead of time. The beam soon flew

Duke's face hardened when

of an eye,

doing whatever he was planning

hand, my mouth then

"Give up."

as I felt my

Duke's resistance clearly

funny how 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

as I squeezed his hand. The Duke's face changed, but my hand continued to squeeze before it compressed it completely

feel the bones of the demons crush

me any

my hand back, the hand tore off of the Duke's body and

me, only to see it

blood as it remained still in the air. Slowing moving in

"Huaak!"

face twisted

out of his body, converging toward

"H..how dare you!"

out as a result of his

as though he could read his mind, with just a casual tap of

I heard a voice speak inside of my head. The mana inside of my body started to circulate in

thing before I end him. Make sure you feel

his raised his hand and I felt the mana in my

Duke despaired at the

emotions remained

mana followed after this. Forming a thin yet durable

didn't take me long to figure out

'...Mana agglomeration.'

back when Monica was fighting the elders at the Monolith. In the years since then, I had been deeply impressed with her gallant and

many times as the armor

body was flooded

'Hm?'

without me even having a chance to rejoice at my

of black blobs now. There were a couple of more colorful ones inside of

smaller than others, with

'What's this?'

I tried to make

not important, look

remained unanswered as my other self spoke. Listening to his words, I sharpened my gaze and paid more attention

It was then...

circles in the

balls tucked within blobs. Additionally, they appeared to be distributed across different areas

Then it hit me.

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

right. Those are