The first clash split the earth beneath them. Cracks spread endlessly, while the air itself trembled like shattering glass.
Yan Zhi was hurled back, yet his sword remained firm in his grip. His flawless self walked forward lightly, each step leaving behind whirlpools of darkness that devoured stone and dust.
"I am real," Yan Zhi hissed, gripping his blade tighter.
But his double smiled—the same smile, colder.
"Real? You are nothing but a shell of scars. I am what you were meant to be. Without flaw. Without burden."
The shadows around them burst. Faces emerged—Lian, his father, the elders of the sect. Their voices overlapped in a single chorus:
"You will fail. You were never worthy."
The sound tore into his skull, ripping at his soul. Yan Zhi swayed, but bit his tongue until blood spilled. Pain anchored him.
"Yes, I am flawed!" he roared. "But that is what makes me more than your emptiness!"
He lunged. His shadow blade pulsed with his heartbeat. Each strike tore not just the ground but the very air, leaving fractures of reality.
His flawless self gleamed, unyielding. With a single swing, the perfect blade swept, splitting the false heavens.
Black light carved across the sky. Shards of space fell like broken glass.
Yan Zhi screamed, raising his blade, but the force flung him across the ruined plain. Blood spattered, bones screamed.
Yet he stood again. The shadows around him spun wildly, as though the world itself rejected their duel.
"We are both shadows. But unlike you, I will not embrace emptiness. I choose my wounds."
He drove his blade into the ground. A surge of shadow rippled outward, swallowing fractures, then burst toward his enemy.
The collision shook the Fourth Layer to its very core. The world trembled on the edge of collapse.
When the storm of darkness finally cleared… only one figure remained standing.
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