Bro, I'm not an Undead!

As soon as Replicus leapt out, he felt himself drift off strangely, the pull of gravity down to what could only be called a sea of lights – which he had only half-expected – proving to have truly been a myth.

Replicus floated away into the mirror clustered darkness, away from the ship.

‘I guess the caster of this Territory is the only one that can move naturally…’ he thought, and looked up to where his enemies had been sent by the cannon shot.

The woman with the red hair was unharmed, and so were her three partners. They stood on a mirror shard a hundred meters into the sky, looking down at the ship, and Replicus.

‘Even if we’re in her Territory, that shot of Gravity and Stagnant Space should have done some damage at least. Did she heal?’ Replicus thought.

The woman gave him a glare, and then a furious amount of mana fumed from her body. She looked to command the men by her side to draw closer to her, and…

Replicus’ sockets flashed continously.

What in the world…?

From the woman’s body, three ghostly human figures, pale and with their features indistinguishable from the rest of their bodies, emerged, crawling out of her flesh seamlessly.

The clothes they donned had a peculiar lustre which might have inspired a cheerful feeling, if not for the horrible visages of their wearers, which assumed that there was nothing lively about them.

It was unnerving.

These three entities… could they be souls?

‘No…’ Replicus thought. He knew what a soul felt like. The appearance was similar, but the overall substance was different.

The ghostly summons – one adorned in a heavy royal garb, another in an excessively large armour that was made for someone twice his size, and the last in a long cloak that revealed only his face and feet – swam into the red-haired woman’s three men, and they shook vivaciously.

From the distance, Replicus felt their presences change – sharpening and also… duplicating.

What kind of Hidden Class did this woman have?

If added to whatever he Territory could do, this could be a lot more problematic.

The three men had their eyes turn into wells of glowing silver that left sharp trails in the air at their slightest movement. The woman behind them smirked.

At once, two of them leapt from the mirror shard and hurtled towards Replicus’ ship with immense speed. The Penetrator saw pale rings blast outwards as they flew, soon reaching their destination.

He couldn’t afford to be distracted though.

‘She’s coming…’ he thought.

And surely, the woman, along with the possessed that remained at her side darted towards Replicus and soon arrived just before him. Unlike the Penetrator, the woman seemed to be able to switch between succumbing to the lumpy space and moving as though it didn’t exist without effort. Apparently, she could grant the same to anyone she chose.

“You have an interesting class…” Replicus said. In the time it had taken the woman to reach him, his four thought phantoms had made countless theories, reaching several likely conclusion that only needed a little more data for confirmation.

“You think you’ve figured it out?” the woman scoffed. “Do tell.”

Replicus laughed.

“As I said, stalling.”

“So what? You’re left incapable of using your abilities, your mana, your treasures…” The woman said with a cruel grin. “I will enjoy getting rid of a subpar Faction leader like you.”

The man beside her, his eyes aglow, churned and hurtled forward. He had been possessed by the ghostly figure which had been adorned in the bulky armour.

Halfway towards Replicus, his figure suddenly turned bloated, and pale, just like the ghost that was within him, elongating freakishly to become a half-man, half-serpent giant that donned the ghostly armour!

The mana… no, the Nitros this grotesque creature became coated with, obviously supplied by the red haired woman, caused the mirror shards around it to part, spin and reflect Replicus’ figure!

The Penetrator looked to wonder about the mirrors, and why they suddenly changed like so.

The red-haired woman, her Nedalia, as gifted by her Faction leader whom she adored to a religious degree, was pleased to see that the Penetrator didn’t seem to have accounted for this.

Was he foolish enough to have thought that the difficulty in mobility was the only aspect of the Primary functions of the Territory, and that the mirrors were more related to the Secondary functions?

Well, that would be foolish, not to mention wrong.

There was also-

…!!!

It had happened so fast…

Nedalia could have sworn she saw a flash of lightning and mist for a fraction of a moment just beyond the large ghostly body that had been about to smash into Replicus.

And then… a fraction of a moment later, a blurry fist decked in a stars was an inch away from the left side of her chest, nothing else visible beyond it!

If not for the fact that she could sense everything in her Territory with a sort of sixth sense, beyond her normal sensory abilities, she wouldn’t have seen this attack!

Instinctively, she moving up her left arm to block, but was a little late!

The punch connected and…

There was a loud crack, an overbearing force that rolled outward with the howl of blaring wind.

The full figure of Replicus emerged, starry armour, robes and all.

‘I see…’ he thought with this sockets dimming.

Nedalia’s chest had the appearance of a shard of a mirror that Replicus had just punched through, though to no avail, as the red-haired woman seemed just fine.

In fact, she looked thoroughly pleased. She looked up at Replicus’ tall figure and a pompous grin stretched on her face.

“My, my. You’re quite something. You can move freely here. How? Was that why you were so confident despite being in my Territory unguarded? Hahaha. You’re overestimating yourself, Bright Storm!” she said before grabbing Replicus’ trapped arm and pulling him down.

Right above the Penetrator, the large arms of Nedalia’s abomination locked together and came crashing down towards him!

The force that came from the attack was so great, it caused the dots of light below the trio to part and make waves of radiance!

Before the hammering force could connect, however, Replicus vanished from Nedalia’s grasp, as though he had never been there. The red-haired woman wasn’t so much disheartened as she was a little curious.

As soon as Replicus emerged a few meters behind the abomination, Nedalia popped out of a mirror shard behind Replicus, and slung her arm around his neck.

She squeezed with immense strength, holding Replicus tight, and once more, the other mirror shards around them spun and reflected Replicus’ image!

“Let’s see you escape this!” Nedalia screamed into Replicus ear – or what she thought was his ear.

Her ghostly abomination rushed towards them and threw its pale fist at Replicus’ chest!

However, once again, Replicus vanished from Nedalia’s grasp, and she saw him appear further away, drifting among the mirror shards high above.

Nedalia’s grin receded, replaced by a light frown.

‘Something is wrong here…’ she thought. ‘As soon as my mirrors reflect the image of my opponent, they should be paralyzed. I thought the first time he evaded, it was because he moved before the mirrors could take effect. This time…’

Odd.

This was too odd.

And what was up with that movement?

It wasn’t too much of a surprise for Nedalia that high level experts could simply move as they wished in this space because of their immense physical prowess, but she refused to believe that Replicus was on that level.

‘Let’s try this then…’ she thought.

Serenely, she held out her hand and began to draw in the air with two of her fingers.

As she did, a foggy line with a lazy glow was left along the path; straight erect, and without bend. Nedalia could see Replicus warily looking at this line.

She smirked… and then retrieved her fingers from the end of the straight, diagonal line of light.

WOOP!

…!!!

Before anyone knew it, Replicus had been crashed into by the glow, which lit his armour furiously after a loud whipping noise, imposing upon it a long strip along the chest!

The Penetrator was surprised.

The odd line of light had travelled so fast that he hadn’t been able to react, and now…

Looking closely at his armour, where the stream of light had hit, Replicus was rendered aghast to see that tiny little mirror shards were forming, following the line of damage!

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Yonder, where the large, arrowhead shaped mirror stood, reflecting the general space within the Territory, a murky blotch appeared on it, revealing something different.

The image of a handsome man with auburn hair showed, his eyes completely white and his body draped in a leather jacket. Beside him, to Replicus’ added surprise, was the figure of a wolf-like creature with thousands of threads spinning over its body to make what was its version of flesh…

The thought phantoms in Replicus’ head went wild.

This Territory…

Replicus had to get rid of it quickly.