Chapter 604: Always Expect A Second One

(MC POV)

"Now prepare yourselves!"

Though I may say that, controlling these hundreds of bodies at the same time is actually really difficult for me.

Sure, I could use Rina's Technique and score an easy win here, but that wouldn't help my disciples learn anything. With Diao Chan's case, they now knew they needed a countermeasure against such a Technique in the future.

There's also the fact that I'm empowered in this form and also in this Plane, if I'm not careful, I might obliterate them in a single Technique which makes the spar pointless.

What's more, I also need to practice my control over multiple bodies.

This was something I needed to practice since I've been using this Technique more often now, both because of my disciples and also for my own interests.

With a hundred different pairs of eyes, I saw my disciples and Luna get into a fighting stance with their backs facing each other.

To start things off, I sent five of me towards them, three of them going in close while the other two would act as support.

Why didn't I just send all hundred of them?

Well, I'm not good enough yet to be able to control a hundred copies of myself and still be able to fight on the same level as my absolutely genius level disciples.

I would be slaughtered without any chance of fighting back if I were to do that, you know?

Also, the rest are going to be a surprise tool that will help me later.

Eris was the first to engage, rushing towards one of my bodies with her sword stabbing towards my chest.

I summoned my sword and parried her blow, engaging her and allowing my other two bodies to pass by.

Hmm... Her sword skills have definitely improved. Much less wasted movements this time and she remembered to mind her centre of gravity too, that's really good. The way she changes her sword styles is even more fluid now, something that I have always been impressed about.

Fighting Eris really feels like fighting more than one person.

Now I had to focus part of my attention to dueling with Eris, ducking under her slash and delivering one of my own while also concentrating on moving the other four bodies to where I want them to be.

Manami and Kiyomi moved forward next, blocking the path of my next two bodies.

Two balls of fire and ice were shot towards me, forcing me to leap out of the way as the balls exploded on the ground in front of me.

I barely managed to avoid getting burned by the giant pillar of fire or getting skewered by the ice shards that popped out from the ground right after those balls exploded.

I had to do all that while I was doing my best to parry the flurry of strikes that Eris was throwing at my other body at the same time.

My two fox disciples definitely improved by a lot. Normally I would have been able to cover half the distance before they could stop me but now they could react before I reached a quarter of the way.

Speed was something they had spent most of their time working on so it really made me proud to see they were improving so much.

My two fox disciples pressed forward in order to keep me there, allowing the others to start hunting down the rest of my copies in order to thin their numbers, something that I cannot allow them to do.

I have no doubts that Lian Li was the one that had seen through my weakness of only being able to fully control a few bodies at once so she came up with this plan to counter me.

This was exactly why I had left two of myself behind instead of having all five of them charging in together.

While part of my concentration was occupied with blocking Eris's stab and negating my fox disciples' Techniques, I directed a part of my concentration to the fourth body and created a localised lightning storm on top of the girls.

Unexpectedly, a barrier was formed at the same time as the storm, deflecting the lightning bolts away harmlessly without much effort.

I narrowed my eyes at Tsuki who had laid down an inscription on the ground beneath her feet, realising she was already putting what I taught her a few hours ago to good use already. Just to put it out there, creating such a strong barrier in such a short time was not an easy feat, especially when you only learnt how to do so a few hours ago.

Since that attack was useless, I focused on shoving Eris back from our blade lock before distracting the foxes with a blinding flash of light.

I concentrated on my fourth body and punched the ground, shattering the earth underneath me.

The cracks glowed blue before an air current was shot out in a dome shape around me, encompassing all the girls within it.

Their movements slowed down for a split second before speeding up again, only to move back to where they had been just a moment ago.

"Master locked us within a fixed space! Manami!" Lian Li cried out, turning to my fox disciple for help.

Unfortunately for her, Manami was still occupied with my other body so there was no way she could help them break out of this trap right now.

I do have to commend Lian Li on how fast she realised what was going on though. She's definitely becoming more and more confident of herself now and her skills were definitely still the best amongst them.

Luna clasped her hands together, taking just a second to concentrate her energy and releasing it out in a wave.

The sound of breaking glass filled the space, evidence of my Technique being broken.

"As expected of husband! I needed my full strength to break it! Husband is indeed amazing!" Luna praised wholeheartedly.

Right, my disciples are not the only ones who are strong here. Luna's also the strongest Practitioner in this Plane too, better not forget that.

Well, I didn't really expect that thing to last anyway, it was all to buy time for my fifth body to finish the inscription I have been working on since the start of this spar.

I snapped my fingers and a giant inscription appeared in the sky above us, big enough to cover the entire visible sky.

I smiled at them, "You girls might want to break this as fast as you can..."

Now comes the tricky part...

I didn't just create a hundred clones to have them float there and do nothing you know?

With great effort, I split my concentration into all the other bodies and moved myself to specific positions on the inscription. This would create a formation that I would start to channel Quarks into to activate.

Damn, I really need to practice this more, even just moving them was a burden on me.

Sensing the formation cannot be anything good for them, my disciples and Luna quickly tried to cancel it.

Unfortunately for them, I already moved the others to the required locations to start the formation.

That meant the five bodies I was controlling could now be dedicated to stopping them.

Eris tried to charge towards the congregation only to be intersected by the one she had been fighting before, forcing her back.

Manami tried to teleport herself away but found herself unable to since I've already laid down an anti-teleportation inscription while they had been distracted with the flash.

Kiyomi resorted to altering the weather to summon a blizzard but my other body was concentrating on cancelling her Technique as soon as she tried to materialise it.

Lian Li attempted repeatedly to break the formation with her Divine Lightning, failing each time as I redirected every bolt she had sent back towards the sky.

Luna attempted to support Lian Li as well, except it didn't help much as her own Techniques were deflected similarly as well.

Well, not good. Seems like they started to panic after I told them about the formation. I'll have to scold them for that later.

The formation was reaching critical mass and it looked like I would actually manage to activate it before they could stop it.

But at the very last moment, the formation broke apart and half of my clones that were maintaining it were obliterated into dust.

I turned my attention to them to see Tsuki wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead with a smile on her face.

Oh, they were pretending to panic so that I wouldn't notice Tsuki preparing her own Technique to break the formation. I'm impressed.

I couldn't help but clap my hands, "Well done Tsuki, you actually managed to do it."

Yep, Tsuki managed to break the formation all by herself, definitely not normal by any standards.

"Kuhihihi~ To receive Aniue's praise is my highest honour!"

I stopped clapping and my smile turned wicked, "But... You underestimated me if you thought I only prepared one."

I slowly pointed my finger downwards to reveal a second inscription that was carved on the ground. Looking closely, you'll realise there's another few hundred of myself spread out around the new formation except they were the size of ants.

And with a simple snap of my fingers, the formation was activated.

"Total Annihilation."