"Tsk tsk, it seems you give him more pressure than I do. He never used to be this cautious around me; in fact, he mocked me several times before..." Seeing Tara completely ignore him and focus solely on Clark, Robert couldn't help but tease.
"Need me to step in again, or will you handle this?" Clark glanced at Tara and asked Robert.
"You can go; Earth isn't in great shape right now. I'll take care of this. As long as he can't escape, his fate is sealed!" Robert shook his head slowly, indicating that he didn't need Clark's help. He knew Earth was in a bad state—plunged into darkness, resulting in catastrophic casualties. The death toll from this supernatural event far exceeded that of previous crises combined.
Among the dead were high-ranking officials, making many in power fearful that they might meet the same fate someday. Ordinary people suffered even more, and they desperately needed a beacon of hope. Clark was that perfect figure to fill the role of a symbol for the people.
"Alright." Without hesitation, Clark nodded. With help from the Kamar-Taj students, he exited the mirror dimension.
"You know, your biggest mistake was letting him leave!" Tara coldly remarked once Clark vanished, then disappeared from sight.
With a swift move, Tara reappeared in front of Robert, throwing a punch. As Robert retaliated with his own punch, Tara's body turned intangible, dodging the attack. Instantly, Tara shifted tactics, becoming solid again and delivering another powerful blow.
But to Tara's surprise, his punch passed right through Robert's body—it wasn't Robert's actual body but a mere afterimage!
"Hm?!" A sense of dread surged through Tara. If Robert had shown this ability before, someone with Tara's mastery of intangibility wouldn't have fallen for it. But this was the first time Robert had used such a technique, and Tara hadn't even considered the possibility.
What truly unsettled Tara wasn't just the trick itself—it was what Robert's real target might be.
"You!" General Razzo, seeing Robert appear in front of him, froze for a moment, immediately recalling how General Cabman had met his end.
Summoning all his dark energy, Razzo prepared to resist. Though he knew he wasn't a match for Robert, he hoped to at least buy some time for Tara to come to his rescue.
But with a swift move, Robert's attack pierced Razzo's body, leaving him gravely injured. However, Razzo didn't die instantly. Instead, he found himself in a strange state—neither fully alive nor fully dead.
This was Robert's doing. Even though the Dark Dimension had retreated, Robert understood that the rules binding Razzo to the Dark Dimension might still be in place. If he killed Razzo outright, the Dark Dimension could descend again to rescue him, just as they had with General Mintar earlier.
Thus, Robert chose to severely injure Razzo, rendering him powerless, and handed him over to the Kamar-Taj students. Using the power of the mirror dimension, they relocated Razzo to a different space. Whether they would seal him away or attempt to kill him was up to them.
"What have you done?!" Tara, seeing Robert's actions and realizing that Razzo had been removed from the battlefield, flew into a rage.
Razzo and Manny were no longer just subordinates to Tara—they had become his emotional anchors. The thought of losing them drove him into a fury, which was exactly what Robert had been aiming for.
Robert vanished again just as Tara prepared to rush at him, forcing Tara to follow in pursuit.
Their next clash occurred in front of General Manny. The impact from their fists colliding sent Manny flying, although he wasn't injured. Despite being overpowered, Robert continued to unleash energy blasts and discs, not at Tara but at the evasive General Manny.
This was why Robert had asked Kara and Susan Stone not to assist him. Only by attacking Manny himself could he fully enrage Tara and cause him to lose control.
"Swish!" In a moment of distraction, Manny was hit by one of Robert's energy blasts, his body suddenly stiffening. Robert had modified the energy blast to carry a paralyzing lightning attribute, a variation of the Thunderclap technique.
With Manny now paralyzed, the mirror dimension itself shifted, enveloping him completely. By the time Tara realized what had happened, Manny was already gone.
The Kamar-Taj students didn't immediately kill Manny or Razzo. They knew that dimensional beings were not so easily slain. However, Kamar-Taj had a wealth of experience dealing with such entities. Working together, the students successfully sealed both generals, ensuring not a trace of their presence leaked out.
"You bastard! I'll kill you!" Tara, unable to sense Manny or Razzo any longer, lost control entirely. His aura became violent and erratic, a clear sign of his instability.
Perhaps Tara had once been a mighty dimensional being, even stronger than he was now. But after spending so many years on Earth, his power had gradually diminished. Though it wasn't accurate to say that his strength had been drained, it had certainly regressed to a level he would have once scorned.
Now, in his frenzied state, Tara's control over his power was slipping further, causing him to waste massive amounts of energy and wreak havoc on the mirror dimension.
If it had been just one or two Kamar-Taj students maintaining the mirror dimension, it would have collapsed long ago. But this time, nearly all the students were involved, and with the awakening of many of their magical artifacts due to the Dark Dimension's invasion, they barely managed to hold the dimension together.
As a result, Tara's strength continued to drain, and his power gradually weakened.
"Thud!" Finally, after another reckless outburst of power, Tara's body was pierced by one of Robert's energy blasts, causing him to snap back to awareness.
"Was this… all part of your plan?" Tara asked bitterly, his expression filled with disbelief as he faced Robert.
"What else?" Robert shrugged nonchalantly, not bothering to lie. Tara's strength had already waned so much that Robert now surpassed him. As long as the Dark Dimension didn't intervene, Tara had no way of turning the tide.
"Are they still alive?" Tara paused for a moment before asking about Manny and Razzo.
"Honestly, I don't know." Robert didn't really care about their fates. They had served their purpose, and once Tara was gone, whether they lived or died didn't matter.
"I see your plan now…" Tara muttered, his gaze flickering as he studied Robert.
"Oh?" Robert responded indifferently, showing no surprise or concern.
"Aren't you even the slightest bit impressed?" Tara seemed to have accepted his fate, his aura now calm, as if seeking Robert's acknowledgment.
"What's there to be impressed about? You're going to tell me you've figured out my plan, but you won't resist. Instead, you'll try to break the mirror dimension, save your two subordinates, and die together with them, right?" Robert sneered, seeing right through Tara's thoughts.
"You…" Tara started to speak but was cut off, stunned into silence by how accurately Robert had predicted his intentions.
"Enough with the self-pity. Your invasion was successful in some ways. The Dark Elves, with your help, are extinct now…" Robert's cold gaze held no sympathy as he continued, "Earth has also suffered greatly from this darkness, with countless lives lost. Even if I killed you a thousand times over, it wouldn't be enough. Now that your psyche is broken, you're acting like a joke."
Tara fell into a deep silence, especially as Robert began to gather a massive energy blast aimed directly at him.
"You… You think you can kill me? I'm not like Cabman or the others…" Tara said, his voice tinged with despair but still defiant.
"Let's find out," Robert replied with a smirk, unleashing the concentrated blast at Tara.
Whether Tara had truly given up or wanted to prove that Robert's attack couldn't kill him, he made no attempt to dodge the blast.
A massive explosion shook the mirror dimension, its reverberations threatening to shatter the space itself. But thanks to the efforts of the Kamar-Taj students, the core of the explosion remained contained.
"You see…" As the explosion subsided, Tara's form slowly reconstituted, a dark energy emanating from the remnants. His voice echoed, "Killing me isn't so easy. The Dark Dimension and our master have not abandoned us…"
But before Tara could finish, a sudden wave of green energy enveloped him.
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