Damn Reincarnation

destroying space itself.
So Eugene was thrown backward by an attack heavy enough to nullify his defenses.

Was his arm crushed? Perhaps he could have attempted to recover if he had brought Agaroth’s ring.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t an available option at the moment.

‘Left arm….’

It was crushed, but he could still use it if he wanted to.
Eugene fixed his limp arm with mana while falling to the ground.
He raised his head, only to see that the phantom was already very close.
Eugene was confident in fighting with his bare hands but could not gain the upper hand against the phantom.
He punched, kicked, tackled, and tried many different things, but all of his attacks were blocked or nullified at the beginning itself.

‘Now I’m starting to get it.’

But in the process, he took four attacks.
As a result, Eugene had a limp in one of his legs, blood regurgitated from the inside of his throat every time he breathed, and his left arm was completely broken downwards from his forearm.

‘He’s adjusting to me.’

Eugene understood why it was said to be like a mirror.
Although Eugene deliberately chose to fight with his bare hands, there was no reason for the phantom to do the same.
Even so, the phantom fought with his bare hands, just like Eugene.
The same had been true at the beginning as well.
When Eugene attacked with a sword in hand, the phantom had responded in kind.

‘The difference… is just a little bit.’

The phantom was just slightly faster and stronger than Eugene.
The same was true of his mana as well.
His flame was just a little stronger than Eugene’s, so it was impossible to defeat the phantom using normal methods.
What then? Should he mix in unexpected attacks and aim for a break? No, that didn’t seem to work either.
He had already tried similar things a few times but was humiliated on every attempt.

‘If I want to overcome this barrier….’

Eugene came to understand this place, the Dark Room, even more clearly.
It was due to his conviction that he had torn off his arm without hesitation.
Would magic make a difference? No, it wouldn’t.
Eugene had to quickly give up on this idea.
If the phantom really was slightly better than Eugene in every way, then the same would also be true for magic.
Moreover, it was incredibly difficult to overcome power differences in magic.
If the phantom’s level of magic was slightly greater than Eugene’s, then it would be near impossible for Eugene to win, regardless of how well he handled magic.

He had to make a choice, a direction he wanted to pursue.
What about his techniques in wielding weapons? To be honest, Eugene wasn’t confident in breaking through his limits when it came to his techniques.
However, he didn’t have to best the phantom in technique, or rather, he couldn’t.
After all, the phantom was a better version of himself.
In order to thoroughly best the phantom, he would have to….

‘Create something that I don’t have right now.’

Rather than blindly aiming to surpass his own limits, it made sense for him to obtain something new.
And such was the purpose of the Dark Room.
If you were faced with an opponent who was slightly better than you in every way, and if your opponent was, in fact, an improved version of yourself, then the only solution to best the opponent was to grasp something new.

“That’s easier said than done,” grumbled Eugene while glancing at what was left of his left arm.
It hurt.
It had been quite a while since he had been pushed back this far, but even though it had been a long time, he was familiar with the pain.
As such, the pain didn’t adversely affect him.

The tattered arm was only an obstruction, so Eugene tore off his ragged, useless arm.
A blinding pain immediately followed, but he held back a groan by biting his lips.
Then, he ignited his flame and seared the bleeding mess of his left arm.

‘Am I supposed to create a special move or something?’ Eugene continued his line of thought.

Eugene spat out the blood pooling in his mouth.
Although he felt reluctant to call upon this particular memory… he thought of the Hamel-Style Technique.
It was an embarrassing memory, but it was the closest thing he ever had to a special move.

‘Parrying, Lightning Counter, Poltergeist Aegis….
I used these every time I fought….’

He had used Thousand Thunderclaps, Dragon Burst, and Cyclone quite often as well.
But above all else, there were a few techniques that were quite powerful in his repertoire, those he deemed suitable as his special moves, including — Hamel-Style Secret Technique, Ignition, Seventh Hamel-Style Technique, Dead End, and Ninth Hamel-Style Technique, Infinite Purgatory.

‘I’m always using Lightning Flash, so that’s not really a secret, special technique….
So I guess the only new addition would be the Empty Sword.’

It couldn’t hurt to try.
Eugene thought it fortunate that he didn’t have the Cloak of Darkness with him right now and that Mer wasn’t here so she could snicker at him later.

He placed his right hand on his chest.
He was full of openings, but the phantom did not attack.
As his fingers dug into his chest, he felt the palpitations of his heart accelerating.
It activated Ignition, causing the dying flames to burn with even greater intensity than before.
With a sigh, Eugene kicked a sword upwards off the ground into his hand.
He lowered his posture while tightening his grasp on the sword with his remaining hand.
The phantom followed suit and grabbed a sword.
Although it didn’t look like the phantom was using Ignition, if it truly was a phantom, then it wouldn’t need to activate Ignition like Eugene.

Eugene concentrated on condensing the sword-force and started coating his blade… one layer, two layers, then three layers.
This was Eugene’s current limit.
Black spots began to appear on the dark blue flame.
Simply maintaining three superimposed layers of the Empty Sword was suffocating and made him feel as if his heart was about to explode.
Therefore, Eugene no longer attempted to maintain it but instead took a step forward and swung his sword.

A dark blue flame split the world, and at the center stood Eugene’s phantom.
He raised his own blade before being swept away by Eugene’s blow.
His movement appeared very simple.
In fact, it wasn’t very difficult or esoteric.
Just as Eugene used the Empty Sword, the phantom also used the Empty Sword.
He raised his sword high, then cut straight down.

Eugene’s attack disappeared — a truly disheartening and astounding sight.
However, Eugene wasn’t surprised.
Instead, the result convinced Eugene regarding his inference about the Dark Room and the phantom.
He understood why Carmen, Gilead, and Gion had not explained anything in detail.
Knowing in advance could have caused him to approach the challenge with less determination, which could have taken away from the meaning of the trial.

‘Doesn’t really apply to me, though.’ Eugene gave a mental shrug.

Simply wielding his triple-coated sword once placed an enormous strain on his body.
Eugene forced his creaking body forward, and the phantom charged at Eugene in response.
Eugene’s sword practically skimmed the ground as it advanced, and the condensed Empty Sword exploded as he slashed upwards.
This was Dragon Burst, but it wasn’t very effective.
The phantom had suppressed the blow by slashing downwards just moments before the explosion.
Eugene reacted immediately.
He pulled out his sword to the side to avoid being crushed by the phantom’s blow, and even though his shoulders and arms screamed in unbearable pain, he allowed his sword to follow a path he had created in his mind.

Asura Rampage caused lines of devastation to wreck through the space.
The phantom took a few steps back, then began carving up Eugene’s attack from the outer edge without being caught up.

Craaaack!

Metal clashed against metal, and the Empty Sword was broken.
Bright embers bloomed into existence, and Eugene’s eyes flashed just behind the flare.

He followed up with Dead End.

The lines of devastation created by Asura Rampage were thinly unraveled threads of the Empty Sword.
Once Eugene pulled his blade back, the threads of the Empty Sword moved in unison and bound the phantom.
Initially, simple contact with the threads would have resulted in the opponent’s body being cut like morsels of meat, but the phantom’s Aura Shield, or rather — Poltergeist Aegis, was restraining Dead End.
Even so, Eugene did not hesitate to link more techniques.
It was a pattern he favored in his previous life; he would drive the enemy to the edge using Asura Rampage, confine them using Dead End, and finally, he would pull back his sword with his steps before driving it forward.
But it wasn’t a simple stab.

A small bead of the Empty Sword condensed to its limit was formed at the end of the blade.
The moment he stabbed, the condensed bead started to swell — and exploded upon making contact.
This was the finale, Infinite Purgatory, a devastating bomb formed from fine-tuning the Empty Sword to its limit.
All of Eugene’s energy was gathered at a single point, exploded, gathered again, and exploded over and over again.
Eugene had been quite unsatisfied with it when he had shown it to Genos at the Black Lion Castle, but the Infinite Purgatory performed using the six Stars of the White Flame Formula, and Ignition literally wiped out anything within its radius, or at least, he hoped.

“Ha,” Eugene scoffed while drawing his sword back.
He had seen how the phantom destroyed Infinite Purgatory by using Hamel-Style Parrying and Lightning Counter.
The phantom had cleared the space of all the indiscriminate attacks.
However, he wasn’t unscathed since an attack of that scale was too powerful for someone who was only slightly stronger and faster than Eugene’s current self to perfectly nullify.

However, even though the phantom was covered in blood, he fared much better than Eugene.
Eugene couldn’t muster the strength to lift a single finger.
His left arm was gone, and he was limping.
The pain that accompanied every breath was now out of control, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

“Good,” said Eugene while throwing away his sword without hesitation.
The bloody phantom walked up to Eugene with large strides.

“I’ll come back soon,” Eugene promised as the phantom cut off Eugene’s head with a swift strike.