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."

legs disappeared. Within a split instant, I found the Duke's face

Swooosh-!

together, my hand thrust toward the Duke's

However...

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

counterattacked with his own palm, pressing

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

slap of my left hand, his palm changed

he rotated his hand and demonic force burst out of his hand,

to be a futile effort in

the attack was a simple movement of my head, having clearly read his movements ahead of time. The beam soon flew past the side of my

face hardened when he saw

blink of an eye, my

doing whatever he was

grasping his hand, my

"Give up."

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

Duke's resistance clearly

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 would make

hand continued to squeeze before it compressed it completely and

feel the bones of the demons crush inside the palm of

annoy me

off of the Duke's body and

for a brief moment before throwing it behind me, only to see it stop mid-air and fall down

it remained still in the air. Slowing moving in

"Huaak!"

Duke's face twisted

his body, converging toward the top of his palm in the form of

"H..how dare you!"

was pushed out

he could read his mind, with just a casual

the ball flew past my head, I heard a voice speak inside of my head.

more thing before I end him. Make sure you feel

his raised his hand and I felt the mana

Duke despaired at the

emotions remained

convergence of mana followed after this. Forming a thin

armor puzzled itself around my body, it didn't take me long to

'...Mana agglomeration.'

before, back when Monica was fighting the elders at the Monolith. In the years since

times

was flooded with

'Hm?'

without me even having a

now. There were a couple of

were smaller than others, with the

'What's this?'

questioned as I tried to

important,

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

It was then...

circles

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...'

Those