Chapter 17 – The Fractured Mirror
By the time the Quarterfinals began, my name was everywhere.
Traveler_R. The Doppelgänger Ghost. The Data Trickster.
Every forum, every stream, every theory post.
Some called me a genius.
Some called me a hacker.
And a few — the smart ones — called me a problem.
The arenas had grown larger, darker. The audience louder.
Even the air seemed charged differently now, like Yggdrasil itself was watching.
I stood at the center of the Storm Arena again, lightning flashing across a broken sky.
Crowds of players filled the floating stands, betting on whether the illusionist would finally lose.
But this time, my opponents weren't rushing in blind.
They'd learned.
And that made this fun again.
HIME: "Ren-sama, opponent analysis complete. Average level range: 93–98. Estimated success rate—"
"Don't say it," I interrupted with a grin. "Let's just call it 'likely.'"
HIME: "Acknowledged. Probability omitted."
Quarterfinal Match One – "Breaker of Veils"
The first opponent was built to counter me.
A monk-class hybrid named Kaizen, known across the forums for mastering anti-illusion combat.
His build specialized in True Sight, Ki Detection, and Aura Focus — every one of them designed to bypass false images.
He bowed before the fight. "No offense, ghost. But I've studied you for a week straight."
I smirked. "Then you should've learned that studying an illusion just gives it your name."
He attacked with frightening precision.
His fists weren't fast — they were right.
Every motion carried calculated timing, breaking through three layers of illusion instantly.
He saw through my first trick, deflected my clone decoys, even resisted a partial mimic attempt by sheer instinct.
HIME: "Opponent's cognitive tracking exceeds standard parameters. Suggest elevation to high-tier illusion field."
"Already there."
The air shimmered — the world fractured.
The entire arena duplicated itself.
Not one illusion, but five parallel environments overlaid together.
To Kaizen, each movement created conflicting sensory data — one set of footsteps in every world, each a heartbeat out of sync.
For the audience, it looked like a storm of ghosts.
Kaizen: "You're not—"
"Real? Neither are you."
I shifted my form mid-strike, copied his aura pattern, and hit him with his own True Sight pulse.
The moment his detection overloaded, his screen went white.
A clean knockout.
But this time, it had taken nearly two minutes.
[Winner: Traveler_R — Match Time: 2:04.]
Quarterfinal Match Two – "Runic Vanguard"
The second opponent was a tank — a wall of steel and glyphs named AegisBorn, Level 97.
A living fortress.
He entered without fanfare, just raised his tower shield and said, "Your tricks won't work on blessed runes."
"Then I'll just have to get creative," I said, rolling my neck.
The fight began with thunderous force.
Every spell I cast shattered against his barrier — Reflect Magic, Runic Denial, Area Seal.
My illusions fizzled.
He advanced with slow, unstoppable steps, runes burning brighter with each swing of his hammer.
He thought I'd panic.
He thought wrong.
HIME: "Ren-sama, no illusion has penetrated his defenses. Suggest adaptation through data-layer interference."
"Yeah. Let's cheat a little."
Instead of creating false images, I used my Data Trickster subroutine — rewriting the arena's reflection data.
It wasn't an illusion.
It was the environment itself mimicking movement.
AegisBorn swung through one illusion, two, three —
but each one rebounded sound, pressure, and physics.
He couldn't tell which collision was real.
In frustration, he activated his ultimate: Sanctum Break.
A dome of holy light detonated outward — obliterating everything false.
The crowd roared as my form disintegrated.
Then they went silent when a second me rose from his shadow.
Traveler_R: "You forgot — even shadows have data."
I drove my blade upward through his unprotected back.
Victory again — but slower. Harder.
[Winner: Traveler_R — Match Time: 3:47.]
Quarterfinal Match Three – "Siren of Alfheim"
Her name was Lyraine, a bard-class enchantress who specialized in sound illusions — a mirror to my own craft.
She wasn't a brute. She was elegant, terrifyingly calm, and her arena looked like a dream painted in moonlight.
Lyraine: "I've always admired your work, Traveler_R. But illusions belong to beauty, not deception."
Traveler_R: "You say that like they're different things."
Music filled the air — waves of sound magic disrupting my casting rhythm.
She used Harmony Fields, canceling out visual illusions with counter-frequency vibrations.
Genius.
I countered by mirroring her rhythm.
My own illusions began to sing back.
Our fight turned into a duet — each note shaping reality for a split second, undoing and remaking existence at tempo.
Even HIME stayed silent, calculating in awe.
When the final verse echoed, both of us stood still — her melody fading, my heartbeat loud in my ears.
One note off-beat, one flicker too slow — that was all I needed.
Traveler_R: "Your song's in 6/8. Mine's in 7."
My final strike synced perfectly with the measure break — slicing through her remaining barrier when her timing loop reset.
The crowd's applause was thunderous this time.
[Winner: Traveler_R — Match Time: 5:12.]
Quarterfinal Match Four – "Golem Architect"
The last of the quarterfinals was a nightmare.
Tarkon the Architect, Level 98.
A crafter-type player who weaponized construct summoning.
He didn't fight directly — he built mid-battle.
His arena spawned terrain, structures, and autonomous golems — an entire miniature dungeon forming around him.
Tarkon: "I wonder how you handle an illusion you didn't make."
Good question.
He flooded the arena with mechanical constructs, each one emitting mana interference fields.
Illusions failed instantly within their radius.
But that was fine.
Because illusions weren't my only trick anymore.
I used Data Trickster: Reverse Compile — absorbing his own golem data into my buffer.
Their structures twisted, mirrored, inverted — until every golem he built became my version of it.
Metal mirrored metal.
Machine fought machine.
It was chaos, but I thrived in chaos.
In the end, I reached him as his last construct shattered, sparks raining like fireflies.
Traveler_R: "You're good. But every system has recursion."
Tarkon: "And recursion means—"
Traveler_R: "I get to win twice."
He vanished in the explosion that followed.
[Winner: Traveler_R — Match Time: 6:29.]
When the dust settled, the crowd chanted my name again.
Not like before — not with awe or fear — but with excitement.
They'd stopped thinking of me as some bug or hacker.
Now I was the underdog, the illusionist standing against titans.
And I was winning.
HIME: "Ren-sama, you are through to the semifinals. However, your patterns are becoming predictable."
Traveler_R: "I know."
HIME: "Recommendation: alter your perception layers or risk exposure to counter-strategies."
Traveler_R: "Already planning something. If they think they know my patterns, then next round…"
I smiled at my reflection in the thunder-glass floor, my silver skin flickering between a dozen forms.
"…I'll let them fight something that isn't me at all."
End of Chapter 17 – The Fractured Mirror