Fighting yourself wasn't a joke. I was exhausted, dripping wet, the itch in my chest was going mad, and I still couldn't see anything that looked like a Knot!
As if that wasn't enough, the copies kept rising around us and attacking relentlessly. We barely had time to get rid of one before three more appeared.
Llewellyn was right. This was just going to drain our energy.
Especially because his copies were insanely strong.
I got rid of another copy of mine and tried to scan the horizon, but I could only see salt and water stretching in every direction.
"Hold tight!" Llewellyn said, grabbing my waist, and we took off again.
"Hey!" I said. "A bit of notice next time!"
"I gave you notice!" Llewellyn said. "I told you to hold tight!"
Not what I meant!
Anyway, we had more pressing problems. Where the hell was the Knot?!
Suddenly, Penguin chirped.
"There!" Llewellyn also shouted, pointing ahead.
I followed his gaze and—
Wait. What the hell was that?!
Ahead of us, Water from the flat was flowing upward, then curving weirdly into a bowl shape. Its surface was smooth, reflecting the sky right back at us.
The itch pulled straight toward it.
"…"
I was speechless. I'd never seen anything like this.
Of course we couldn't see the Knot; it was sitting inside a mirror-like structure, floating over a… mirror!
"None of this is normal," Llewellyn said, setting us down at a distance.
The itch in my chest was going crazy. My hand flew to my chest and I stumbled.
"Careful," Llewellyn said. Then, "Are you alright?"
More copies were pulling themselves together.
I only needed a moment to—
The itch went deeper and deeper, curling, scraping from within. Almost there, almost…
"Ryo!"
Click.
Colors blazed bright around me. Finally. I parried an attack with my sword just in time and surveyed the Threads running over the whole expanse.
…However, there was another problem.
Not only were more copies of us rising up to meet us, but under the Knot… a copy of the Knot was emerging, massive and watery.
What the fuck. The Distorted Realm had copied its own Knot!
"Are you serious?!" I yelled. "It can do that?!"
"Definitely not normal!" Llewellyn yelled back, deep into the fight already, while Penguin froze everything in sight to help out.
"System," I called. "What the hell is this?!"
The System pinged in response.
[System Notification: Distortion focus: Reflective Duplication.
Physical threat level of duplicate: Significant.]
"I can SEE that it's significant!"
Shit.
Should I even flag Threads here? Or should we just try severing the Knot? Was the main one sufficient or did we have to tackle the copy too?!
This was insane!
And the copies kept coming! Good thing they could only use Water—small mercies at least. But still!
Besides, the fact that I could only use Water myself wasn't improving my mood in the slightest.
Wait, no; I could use my Authority, too. I melted the new wave coming at us, but they reformed quickly, looking more pissed off than before.
Shit.
Llewellyn was busy, so—
"Penguin," I called, "can you freeze the ones coming at me? I need to check something."
Penguin chirped, full of determination, and I crouched down, scanning the water, before expanding into the Magic Field. This time, instead of inspecting the Field itself, what I wanted was an aerial view of the flat under us. I had a vague suspicion that—
Ha! I was right!
Penguin chirped suddenly, almost a shriek, and I came back to myself just in time to parry an attack.
Anyway, that was fine, because I'd figured out what was going on here.
"Hear me out!" I told Llewellyn, trying to get closer as I kept fighting. "It's not just the Knot that has a reflection, the Threads have one too. But they're not being reflected right. There are three Elements here, but all the Threads are being reflected as Water Threads! The copies are coming from those!"
Llewellyn cursed.
"So they're being flagged, opened up, and copies are coming out from those in the reflection?"
He grunted as he stopped a second copy coming at him.
"Yes!"
"But who's flagging them?! This was not a normal mechanic before you joined me!"
He was right; I hadn't thought of that!
"Maybe one of the copies is?" But that'd be a chicken-and-egg problem.
What the hell was going on?
The copies were getting harder to keep at bay—and more were emerging.
"I can't flag the Threads here," I told Llewellyn. "We can't fight both; it's too much. Can you tackle the Knot as is?"
Though I already suspected what the answer was. The Knot was too dense.
"Too risky," Llewellyn said. "My Node Mastery Attribute is also barely helping."
Wait, I forgot he had that. That must have been why he touched down in specific places while we were looking for the Knot.
"System," I called, "can you show me Llewellyn's abilities again?"
"Is this the time?!" Llewellyn shouted, ducking an attack and hitting back at once with Fire.
The window opened in front of me.
[Node Mastery (Legendary): Grants the ability to identify Elemental nodes within a Knot site, attacking Elemental Magic at focal points for maximum advantage.]
Damn, reading this while fighting was difficult, but I could see what he meant. I wasn't even sure attacking these copies worked for this. Based on his reply just now, probably not.
I wanted to try something, but if I did, I would not be able to fight at all.
Shit.
We were already exhausted, but I couldn't think of anything else.
"I'm going to try to will the copy-Knot down," I told Llewellyn through the bond, "and stop the copy-Threads from opening. And I'm going to flag a regular Thread for you in the meantime. But if I do this, I won't be able to fight." I didn't even know how conscious I'd be! "Can you deal with it?"
"That's too dangerous," Llewellyn said immediately. "You'd be vulnerable, and holding that level of power at bay might backfire."
Of course, he was right. Still—
"We're getting too tired," I told him. "And we don't know how soon the timer will start ticking before the Realm collapses. Penguin can cover me. If I can keep our copies from reforming, can you take care of the Threads by yourself?"
He must be exhausted too by now.
"Shit," Llewellyn said, dispatching two more copies. He took some kind of potion out of his inventory, gulped it down, and looked at me.
"Penguin," he called. "Ryo is about to do something stupid. Can you cover him?"
Penguin chirped, alarmed. We'd been talking through the bond, so he hadn't heard.
"It's fine!" I said. "Not stupid. Llewellyn is exaggerating."
Penguin let out another chirp, even more concerned now.
I focused on the huge copy of the Knot a few hundred meters from us, extended my mind, and ordered, "Down."