Chapter 290: Meeting The Egos
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Among all my Egos, there were two new ones, as I thought; one of them resembled a version of me with orange hair and… fluffy fox ears and tail. The other was similar, but instead, it had a white tiger ear and tail and big paws with claws.
Oh my god, aren’t they cute?
“Looks like you’ve made it here.” My Angelic Ego said, descending from the skies with her feathered wings. “Welcome, Anna. This is the Realm of the Mind within your Spirit Body, a unique Realm created because of exceptional circumstances and the convergence of your Skills, Radiance, and Privileges.”
“So nobody else has this?” I wondered. "Also, hi everyone…”
“Of course not! Do you think so little about yourself?! Well, they might have similar Mind Realms, but they can’t compare with ours!” My Demonic Ego said she was always looking pretty angry. What a toxic girl; where did she get that personality? I am definitely nicer than that!
“I can already assume why you’re here too.” A giant crimson snake stepped in; this was, without a doubt, Uroboros. He was not just a part of me but also the real Uroboros, or well, the fragment I ate. “Being confined here with several copies of you is BORING! If you came here to learn something, let me help, because I am literally dying of boredom! Why didn’t you just let me die?! Is this also a torture I must go through to pay for my sins?! I was a demon, okay? What did you expect me to do? To be nice?! Demons do terrible things!”
He was surely a bit pissed, huh? Stupid snake.
“Shut up, or I’ll leave you with my Egos for a thousand years,” I smiled.
“Noooo! Anything but that! Just summon me outside at least!” he screamed. “You have other demons below you, right? Can’t I be like them?!”
“You’re probably planning to betray me or something, right?” I sighed.
“Well, OBVIOUSLY! What do you expect me to do? I’m a demon! It just comes out naturally and—GEH!”
A giant furry claw pushed him away. As my Beast Demon Ego stepped in, her golden cat appearance and golden armor were the most lustrous of them all.
“Then let’s train,” she said. “If you want to improve the Myriad Self Arts, you’ll need to train with us.”
“Okay! Finally someone that gets it,” I said happily. “Sooo, how do we do it?”
“How else?” she smiled, suddenly summoning a sword of light. “You against all of us.”
“…Huh?”
Then right after that, I saw every single Ego approach me, wielding their weapons or magic, preparing themselves to literally slay me.
Even the two little egos, the fox and the white tiger, who looked more like myself when I was 10, were also preparing themselves to fight me.
“So I need to fight my Egos? Is that healthy? Won’t I get damaged by any chance?” I hesitated.
“So you’re assuming you’ll win?! HAH! As if!”
My Demonic Ego was the first to step in, summoning a black spear made of darkness and demonic cursed flames, and swinging it down against me.
“Dammit! Gram?!”
I quickly summoned Gram, whose Soul was connected with mine, intercepting and blocking the incoming blow by a hair.
CLASH!
“Hey, calm down a bit; we can’t just…!”
“SHUT UP AND FIGHT!”
She roared furiously, her mouth releasing a fire breath of black flames and hitting my face at full force.
BOOOM!
Ouch!
…Wait, I can do that too?
As I fell over the waters and rolled over their surface, which I was able to walk over somehow, I saw the demon reach me, swinging her spear against me several times.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
Each time she was trying to aim at my vitals, her movements were precise and immensely strong. Gram alone allowed me to parry her blows and then directly attack her back, only for her to use her wings to fly away, completely making me miss the blows I could have connected.
“Hey! Not fair, don’t run away!”
“Hahaha! Should you be worried about just one Ego, girl?”
“Hm? Ahhh!”
Suddenly, I noticed my Angelic Self, my Demonic Beast Self, and Uroboros rush from behind, attacking me all at once.
My Angelic Ego swung two golden swords with great dexterity and agility; she moved around amazingly fast, turning into light with each blow, almost constantly making me lose a limb or beheading me.
I evaded as much as I could, using my Martial Arts to empower my Astral Body and also using my swordsmanship with Gram to block.
It would have been doable with just her, but there were two more!
“RAAH!”
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
CRAAASH!
My Demonic Beast form not only summoned projectiles resembling swords made of light, she swung her giant, sharp claws, aiming at my body.
I barely managed to block her blows, but with Angelic and Demonic Egos behind me, I was bound to take damage.
“Shit…!”
I loaded my hands with Spirit and Ki energies, then released several empty palm attacks, unleashing my Aura and shaping the punches into giant, ferocious golden dragons.
{Heavenly Dragon’s Fist}!
“ROOOAAR!”
The mighty roar of a dragon echoed, hitting them two and generating an explosion of golden light, pushing them away enough for me to evade a giant bite from Uroboros.
“Kuehehehe! This is my time for REVENGE! I am going to eat you and regain my strength, you mortal!” He laughed, constantly chasing me around.
His bites were strong but too slow, and his tail attacks were like strong whips but also too slow. He was also quite heavy; his snake form was certainly not suited for one-on-one combat when he doesn’t have an overwhelming size advantage.
“You’re probably the weakest despite how much power I got from you, Uroboros!” I laughed, kicking down his head and making him scream.
“Gryeeeehhh! Come back here, youuu!”
As he began chasing me again, Angelic, Demonic, and Demonic Beast appeared in front of me. All of them were charging their attacks while I ran, and when I looked at them, it was too late.
“Now, fire your attacks!”
Angelic Ego unleashed a giant wave of holy celestial slashing light; Demonic Ego fired her spear like a javelin, having grown ten times in size and power; and lastly, the Demonic Beast turned into a giant cat-like monster, roaring ferociously, approaching to tear me to shreds.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
“Uugghh…!”
I put Gram in front of me while instinctively trying to summon a shield, but I just couldn’t do it. This place was only of the mind, meaning only souls can fight, and physical objects can’t be brought here.
I ended up losing one of my arms, but I noticed it was made of particles of light, which, as I used my Ki, Mana, and other energies, rapidly regenerated back to normal…
“Huh, so we’re like immortal here or something?” I wondered while laughing.
“Yes, that means we get to kill you as much as we want, hahahaha!”
My Demon Ego laughed; behind her there were… the rest of all my other Egos.
“Prepare yourself, small fry; we’re going to beat you to death!” She cracked her knuckles. “Maybe after getting beaten down a lot, you’ll understand Myriad Self Arts more, hahaha!”
“Ugh… Seriously?” I sighed, facepalming. “Well! Better make the Meditation Technique be worth it!”
I faced all my Egos at the same time, clashing against all of them and learning from their abilities as I did. My Enlightenment over the [???] Martial Arts began rising out of nowhere.
“I can do this… I can do this!”
I cheered myself up as I continued fighting for many hours with no end. Like that, I spent most of my rest time meditating and fighting my Egos. My friends practiced, cultivated, and trained as well.
The time went by flying as I kept training and fighting my Egos, slowly learning new powers and abilities the skills they were connected to possessed, enlightening me even further.
When the Second out of the three Trials was finally about to begin, the little white crane girl appeared, teleporting us to the same empty space as before.
“Did you have your fun, all of you? You sure spent all that precious time training like idiots though!” she laughed. “You should have rested because what is next will only give you heart attacks. It is the ultra-super hard difficulty after all! Are you ready to die?!”
The Administrator of the Trials was trying to act tough, but, truth be told, she was a cute birb at the end.
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