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."

the tension within my legs disappeared. Within a split instant, I found the Duke's face right

Swooosh-!

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

However...

in the past, the Duke was able to react appropriately as he dodged my attack by moving his head to the

own palm,

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

slap of my left hand, his palm changed

and demonic force burst out of his

still proved to be a futile effort in

head, having clearly read his movements ahead of time. The beam soon flew past

face hardened

the blink of an

from doing whatever he was

his hand,

"Give up."

body twitched with annoyance as I felt my other's emotions run down

Duke's resistance

me now that we're both in the same ranks again. You couldn't do anything when we were of the same rank before,

my hand continued to squeeze before it compressed it completely and I was able to

demons crush inside

annoy me

off of the Duke's body and blood began

a brief moment before throwing it behind me, only to see it stop mid-air and fall down at the same pace

could be said for the blood as it remained still

"Huaak!"

face twisted savagely as

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

"H..how dare you!"

force was pushed out as a result

he could read his mind, with just a casual tap of his hand, the ball

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

sure you feel how I control the mana inside

felt the mana in my body expand outwardly. Encompassing

Duke despaired at

emotions

gradual convergence of mana followed after this. Forming a thin yet durable

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

'...Mana agglomeration.'

Monolith. In the years since then, I

tremendous strength multiplied many times as

body was flooded with

'Hm?'

that, my vision completely shifted without me even having

to before, I could only see a series of black blobs now. There were a couple of more colorful ones inside of the arena, but that was about

of the blobs were smaller than

'What's this?'

tried to make out what was going

important, look

as my other self spoke. Listening to his words, I sharpened my

It was then...

what are the small circles in

balls tucked within

Then it hit me.

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

Those are their