Chapter 235: Phantom VS Phantom [Edited]

A fight against oneself was a concept Nicholas had only ever encountered in philosophical texts and terrible action movies, the kind of ridiculous scenario where a character was forced to confront his own darkness or some exaggerated version of himself.

He had never actually considered what it would be like in reality, because there was nothing philosophical about standing across from a man who possessed the same face, the same body, the same instincts and every technique he had spent decades perfecting.

There was no mystery to exploit and no unfamiliar movement to study. Everything Specimen B could do was something Nicholas already knew, and everything Nicholas could do was something the other man had already learned.

’So this is how it comes back to me,’ Nicholas thought, blood dripping from his shredded palms onto the cold concrete. ’After a lifetime of ending other people, the one person I can’t outthink is myself.’

And the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Nicholas was already running on fractured ribs, a torn shoulder, and hands that had been ground against Zero’s blade until the flesh had split open.

His body was teetering on the edge of physical collapse, and now he was standing across from someone who had everything he had—without carrying any of the damage.

Whatever advantage Nicholas normally gained from experience was almost meaningless when the person facing him had inherited the same experience.

A faint chime rang softly.

{Ding!}

{Public perception shifting...}

{+450 Charm points}

{+820 Charm points}

{Charm Points: 1,943 and climbing...}

The broadcast had worked. Julie’s footage was spreading, and somewhere beyond this warehouse, millions of people were beginning to question the story they had been fed about Phantom. His Charm Points were finally recovering.

It almost felt like good news.

Almost.

Because, while Charm Points could give him power, they couldn’t repair broken bones, replace torn muscle, or make his hands stop shaking.

Specimen B didn’t give him another second to breathe.

The clone closed the ten-yard gap in a single, silent explosion of movement.

There was no telegraphing shoulder dip, no heavy footfall. The fake Nicholas moved with the terrifying, predatory economy of an apex hitman, sliding straight into close-quarters range.

The fight began with pure, unadorned physical violence.

Specimen B drove a straight jab toward Nicholas’s broken nose, and Nicholas tilted his head just enough for the knuckle to skim past his cheek before answering with a left hook toward the clone’s liver.

B pivoted on the ball of his foot and allowed the punch to pass harmlessly across his ribs before driving his knee into Nicholas’s stomach.

Nicholas caught the knee with both forearms, but the impact still drove through his guard and slammed into his fractured ribs.

SLAM!

It sent a sharp burst of pain through his chest. He used the force to spin with the attack, his elbow sweeping toward B’s temple, only for the clone to duck beneath it, sweep Nicholas’s ankle and drive an open palm into his sternum.

BANG!

The blow sent Nicholas skidding several meters across the concrete before he could regain his footing.

Specimen B materialized a blade.

The dark metal cut through the moonlight, aiming to sever Nicholas’s neck in a single fluid stroke.

Nicholas rolled backward across his shoulders, kicking up a cloud of loose gravel to obscure the line of sight. He drew the jagged, broken six-inch half of his own knife with his right hand, meeting the incoming full-length blade mid-swing.

CLANG!

Sparks showered between their faces.

The weapon exchange became a blur of tight movements and narrow openings.

Specimen B drove the longer blade forward in a rapid sequence of thrusts, each aimed at a different killing point—throat, heart, femoral artery, eyes. Nicholas parried each one with the broken stub of his knife, giving up ground with every exchange as he redirected the longer blade by inches rather than trying to meet it with force.

He parried high, stepped in to trap the clone’s elbow, and drove the jagged tip of his broken blade toward the fake’s throat.

Specimen B didn’t panic. He dropped his weight, trapped Nicholas’s weapon wrist with his off-hand, and snapped his own forehead forward in a brutal headbutt.

CRACK!

Nicholas’s vision flared white. Blood sprayed from his forehead, blinding his eyes for a second.

The clone capitalized instantly. He drove the hilt of his full blade into Nicholas’s gut, sweeping his legs out from under him and driving him hard into the concrete.

Nicholas hit the floor with a concussive thud, rolling desperately as Specimen B’s blade stabbed down, burying itself four inches deep into the stone where his skull had rested a fraction of a second earlier.

And then the weapons stopped being enough.

Specimen B pulled his blade free and raised his left hand. Nicholas already knew what was coming before the air began to distort, because the movement belonged to him. He had made that same gesture thousands of times.

The air warped violently.

{Spatial Distortion}

Three invisible blades of compressed, severed space tore through the air, converging on Nicholas from the front and flanks.

Nicholas gritted his teeth, spending a chunk of his recovering Charm Points to force his own power to answer.

{Spatial Distortion}

Nicholas manifested two spatial folds directly in front of his chest, creating counter-rifts that caught the incoming spatial blades, collapsing them into flat, harmless pops of displaced pressure.

But the clone was already three moves ahead.

Before the spatial shockwave cleared, Specimen B thrust his palm downward.

{Gravity Crush}

An invisible mountain slammed down onto the warehouse floor.

The concrete beneath Nicholas buckled and cratered, spider-webbing thirty feet in every direction. The sheer gravitational density seized Nicholas’s bruised limbs, forcing his knees to slam into the shattered stone, his lungs screaming as twenty gravities pressed against his fractured ribcage.

"You’re too slow, Original," Specimen B said, walking through his own gravity field with absolute ease, his physical stats effortlessly shrugging off the pressure.

The clone raised his right hand, space folding to draw a fresh combat blade from his inventory.

Nicholas forced his head up, blood dripping from his chin onto the cracked floor. He reached inward, grasping the ultimate trump card he had carried across two lifetimes.

{Void Activated}

The invisible nullification field exploded outward from Nicholas in a thirty-yard sphere.

The crushing gravity vanished instantly, and the spatial distortion gathering around the clone’s hand unraveled into nothing. The supernatural aura suffocating the room died in less than a millisecond.

Nicholas surged upward, driving his broken knife straight for the clone’s exposed throat while his powers were shut down.

Specimen B didn’t flinch.

Instead, a chilling, terrifying smirk spread across the clone’s face.

{Void Activated}

A second nullification field erupted from Specimen B’s body and collided with Nicholas’s own. Neither field overwhelmed the other. They simply overlapped, canceling the supernatural effects within their shared space and leaving both men with nothing except their bodies.

Nicholas’s eyes widened.

Without powers, the fight returned to raw, unadorned physical stats. And in raw physical condition, the clone was fresh, while Nicholas was falling apart.

Specimen B caught Nicholas’s wrist before the strike could land.

Nicholas immediately tried to reverse the motion, but the clone had already anticipated it. He twisted Nicholas’s arm across his body, using the angle and Nicholas’s own momentum against him before driving his knee into the elbow joint.

CRACK!

Nicholas’s right arm went limp.

The broken knife slipped from his fingers and clattered across the concrete.

"A good try," Specimen B whispered into Nicholas’s ear as he drove a heavy knee straight into Nicholas’s already-shattered ribs.

Nicholas was hurled backward, crashing through a stack of wooden crates that splintered into a mountain of kindling around his limp body. He lay in the rubble, one arm broken, blood pooling beneath his back, struggling just to draw enough air to stay conscious.

Specimen B stepped calmly out of the dust, twirling his blade, looking down at his broken original with cold, victorious finality.

"It’s over, Nicholas," the clone said, leveling the dark steel at his heart. "Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Katie"