Without warning, a new wave of clones materialized across Stonecliff.
This time, there was no dramatic descent.
They simply existed.
On rooftops.
Inside alleys.
Clinging to walls.
Standing in doorways.
Fifty.
No—eighty.
Each clone was different.
Some were grounded, heavily reinforced, their lightning condensed into thick, armor-like shells.
Others were slender, faster, their bodies semi-transparent, tuned for speed and aerial maneuvering.
A few… barely registered at all.
Stealth variants.
Lancelot watched from above, not interfering.
Let's see how far you can go.
The Nigerians felt it instantly.
Yoma staggered.
"So many…," she whispered.
Her illusion field flickered as external interference pushed against her spirit essence.
Taiyor's sword reacted before he did.
The blade split into three separate segments, hovering slightly apart, linked by strands of spirit essence.
"Contact," Taiyor said calmly.
A clone lunged from the left.
Taiyor's right-hand segment elongated into a spear and pierced it cleanly through the chest.
Before the clone could dissolve, the left segment flattened into a wide blade and decapitated it mid-discharge.
The third segment reformed into a hammer and crushed the remnants into the ground.
The entire sequence took less than a second.
Another clone attacked from above.
Taiyor looked up.
The sword segments merged into a single curved blade.
He spun.
A crescent of compressed air and lightning tore upward, splitting the aerial clone in half.
But more came.
Grounded clones advanced in formation, shields of crackling energy raised as they moved together, step by step.
Taiyor exhaled slowly.
"Adaptive formation," he muttered.
Aisha raised her arm.
Heat surged but this time, it didn't repel.
The clones adjusted.
Their outer layers flared, lightning condensing into counter-fields that pushed back against the heat pressure.
Aisha's eyes widened slightly.
Stealth clones struck.
One appeared behind Mausa, blade forming mid-motion.
Taiyor moved without thinking.
His weapon thinned into a wire-like filament that lashed backward, slicing through the stealth clone before its attack completed.
"Behind!" Mausa shouted anyway.
Taiyor nodded once.
His sword changed again.
This time, it disintegrated.
The blade shattered into dozens of floating fragments, each orbiting him independently.
"Dispersed mode," Taiyor said quietly.
Each fragment struck on its own—flying like bullets, cutting down approaching clones, adjusting trajectory mid-flight as new threats emerged.
Lancelot leaned forward slightly.
Fragmented weapon control… that requires constant spirit output.
Indeed, Taiyor's breathing deepened.
Sweat ran freely now.
But his movements did not slow.
If anything—they sharpened.
Yoma's illusions thickened.
Entire streets duplicated themselves. Walls shifted. Clone attacks passed through false bodies, struck phantom weapons.
Clones reacted.
They began attacking areas, not targets.
Wide bursts of lightning tore through illusions indiscriminately, collapsing false constructs and forcing Yoma to retreat step by step.
Her lips trembled.
Aisha stepped forward.
She slammed her foot into the ground.
Fire erupted—not as flame, but as thermal distortion, bending space violently.
Clones caught within it warped, their forms destabilizing as internal lightning lost cohesion.
Several detonated.
Others retreated.
But again—they adapted.
Clones began rotating in shifts, sacrificing units to probe the limits of heat pressure, illusion delay, weapon morph speed.
Taiyor laughed once, breathless.
"So this is how the knight of Britainna fights," he said. "He must be a crafty one". Tayor laughed once more.
High above, Lancelot's expression remained calm. I have used 10 beads of spirit essence once my spirit essence remain 5 I'll engaged them in close combat buf something still worries me thier captain has only used 1 bead of spirit essence since the battle began
Minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then fifteen.
Clone after clone fell—but never without cost.
Taiyor's weapon fragments reassembled and reformed repeatedly.
Each transformation demanded spirit essence.
His reserves were deep—but not endless.
Aisha's heat barrier flickered under sustained pressure.
Yoma's illusions grew thinner, less layered.
Mausa's earth control was reserved—held back deliberately.
Aisha noticed.
"Now," she said quietly.
Mausa nodded.
He pressed his palms into the ground.
The stone beneath them softened instantly, reshaping into a downward spiral.
At the same time Yoma acted.
Her spirit essence surged.
She didn't create illusions of movement.
She created an illusion of outcome.
Above ground, Lancelot felt it.
Victory.
Clones dissolving.
Enemies falling.
The princess freed.
He descended once more.
Slowly.
Cautiously.
Below, the battlefield replayed itself—Taiyor collapsing, Aisha kneeling, Yoma bleeding, Mausa crushed under rubble.
Convincing.
Too convincing.
Lancelot stopped mid-air.
His eyes narrowed.
…No.
He extended his senses deeper.
Through the illusion.
Through the earth.
He felt it movement underground.
Lancelot straightened.
A slow smile touched his lips.
"Interesting," he said softly.
He did not pursue.
Instead, he recalled his remaining clones.
Lightning faded.
Stonecliff fell silent.
Deep below, the Nigerians ran.
The tunnel sealed behind them
.
Aisha exhaled.
Taiyor wiped sweat from his brow.
Yoma swallowed.
Mausa glanced upward.
"What now?"
Aisha's gaze hardened.
Stonecliff lay silent.
Not the peaceful silence of sleep but the suffocating stillness that followed calamity.
Cracked stone streets glistened faintly where lightning had scorched the ground. Broken rooftops leaned at unnatural angles, shadows stretched long and distorted beneath the moonlight, and the air itself felt bruised, vibrating faintly with residual spirit essence.
At the center of it all stood Lancelot.
He hovered several feet above the ground, cloak unmoving despite the breeze that whispered through the ruined district. His eyes scanned the battlefield slowly, methodically, taking in every detail.
No enemies.
No movement.
Only destruction and the lingering echo of conflict.
His clones had vanished.
His lightning had dissipated.
And yet…
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
They should be here.
That was the first thought that crossed his mind.
Not hope.
Not doubt.
Expectation.
The Nigerians had fought too well to simply vanish.
Lancelot extended his perception again.
Spirit essence radiated outward from his core, flowing through Stonecliff like invisible currents. It seeped into walls, slipped between broken stones, traced every alley, every rooftop, every collapsed archway.
Nothing.
No heartbeat.
No breath.
No spirit signature.
The battlefield was dead.
Too dead.
"This is convincing," Lancelot murmured.
He descended slowly, boots touching the fractured stone street without a sound.
Ahead of him lay bodies.
Taiyor.
Aisha.
Yoma.
Mausa.
All sprawled across the ground in varying states of ruin.
The princess's carriage lay overturned nearby, its door torn open.
Inside princess Emilia.
Unbound.
Alive.
Unconscious.
Everything aligned.
Every logical thread tied neatly together.
Lancelot walked toward Taiyor's body first.
The man lay face-up, chest unmoving, sword shattered beside him. His green-and-white uniform was scorched, torn, soaked with blood.
Lancelot crouched beside him.
He reached out and pressed two fingers against Taiyor's neck.
Nothing.
No pulse.
He moved to Aisha next.
Her body lay half-kneeling, frozen in a position that suggested she had tried and failed to raise a final barrier. The ground around her was cracked in a circular pattern, heat distortion still faintly visible.
He straightened and turned to Yoma.
She lay on her side, eyes half-open, blood streaking from her temple. Her expression was peaceful—almost serene.
Too serene.
Lancelot stopped.
Illusion users don't die peacefully.
That thought was not instinct.
It was experience.
Lancelot extended his hand toward Yoma's body.
Spirit essence flowed.
The illusion did not break.
It held perfectly.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"A delayed collapse illusion," he mused. "Layered with emotional imprinting."
He stood.
Then he laughed softly.
Not mockery.
Amusement.
"Well played," Lancelot said.
Deep underground, Yoma screamed silently.
Her knees buckled as she collapsed against the tunnel wall, hands clutching her head. Blood trickled from her nose, dripping onto the earth below.
"Hold it—hold it—" she gasped, teeth clenched.
The illusion above was still active.
Still convincing.
Still alive.
Maintaining it felt like holding a collapsing city together with her bare hands.
Her spirit core burned.
Not metaphorically.
It burned—colors flashing violently within her domain, essence cycling at a rate that threatened to tear her consciousness apart.
Aisha caught her before she fell.
"Yoma," she said urgently. "Talk to me."
Yoma laughed weakly.
"He's… he's looking at them."
Taiyor stiffened.
"Can he see through it?"
"No," Yoma whispered. "Not yet. But he feels it."
Mausa's jaw tightened.
"How long can you keep it up?"
Yoma swallowed.
"…Minutes," she said. "If I'm lucky."
Above ground, Lancelot walked toward the overturned carriage.
The princess lay inside, chest rising gently, her golden hair spread across the wooden floor.
He reached down and lifted her effortlessly.
Emilia stirred.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"…Sir Lancelot?" she whispered.
Her voice trembled.
Fear relief and recognition.
Lancelot looked down at her.
His gaze softened.
"Your knight has come," he said.
For a moment just a fraction of a second he almost believed it.
Then he felt it.
A lag.
Not in time.
In intent.
The emotion arrived before the cause.
A delayed emotional response.
Illusion.
Lancelot sighed.
"You're clever," he said softly, though no one was there to hear him. "But you made one mistake that's underestimating me even those i wished this was real but i am used to accepting reality."
He lowered Emilia gently back into the carriage.
Then he closed his eyes.
Spirit core: synchronize.
Lightning surged inward instead of outward.
Rather than projecting essence, Lancelot collapsed it into himself—compressing perception, sharpening awareness to a razor's edge.
The world slowed colors dulled sound stretched thin and the illusion cracked just slightly enough.
Underground, Yoma screamed.
Blood poured freely now, dripping onto her hands as she clawed at the earth.
"He's pushing back!" she cried. "He's folding his perception inward!"
Aisha slammed her fist into the tunnel wall.
"Mausa!"
"I know!" Mausa shouted.
He pressed both palms into the ground.
Stone shifted.
The tunnel ahead collapsed deliberately, sealing off one route while opening another deeper path.
"We're moving—now!"
Tayor lifted Yoma effortlessly, slinging her over his shoulder.
"Can you keep it up while we move?" he asked.
Yoma laughed hysterically.
"I don't have a choice!"
Above ground, Lancelot opened his eyes.
The illusion stabilized again
.
Bodies unmoving.
Princess safe.
Enemy defeated.
But now he knew.
And knowing changed everything.
He did not dispel the illusion.
He let it stand.
Instead, he raised one hand.
A single clone emerged behind him.
Then another.
Then five.
They did not attack.
They observed.
"Track," Lancelot commanded calmly.
The clones' lightning seeped into the ground, flowing through cracks, following disturbances in the earth.
Underground movement.
Clear as day.
Lancelot smiled.
Deep below, Mausa staggered.
"They're following," he warned. "Through the ground."
Aisha clenched her teeth.
"Endure a little more we just need to reach the mountains of Britainna reinforcement are waiting for us"
She turned.
"Yoma."
Yoma's vision blurred.
"What…?"
"Change is sense of direction."
Yoma froze.
"i don't have enough spirit essence if i do it there's a possibility that i will die," Aisha finished. "But if you don't, all of us will die."
Yoma swallowed hard.
Then nodded.
Above ground, Lancelot felt it.
The illusion shifted.
Bodies dissolved.
The battlefield changed.
Now only one scene remained.
A collapsed carriage.
A dead princess.
Her body lay motionless, blood staining her dress, eyes empty and glassy.
Lancelot stopped moving.
His expression went blank.
Underground, Yoma collapsed.
Aisha caught her again, holding her upright as Yoma's illusion locked into place.
"It's done," Yoma whispered hoarsely. "He'll think… she's dead and lost his cool and direction."
Taiyor stared at her.
Above ground, Lancelot stared at the princess's body.
Dead.
His jaw tightened.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Lightning surged.
Not outward.
Inward.
Crushing.
Compressing.
His spirit core pulsed violently.
Then he exhaled.
"…So be it."
He turned away.
No pursuit.
No rage.
Only cold, absolute resolve.
"If that is the price you chose," Lancelot said quietly, "then history will remember it."
He rose into the sky.
Stonecliff was left behind.
Deep underground, the Nigerians finally stopped running.
Mausa sealed the tunnel behind them completely.
Silence fell.
Aisha lowered Yoma gently to the ground.
"She did it," Aisha said softly. "She fooled him."
Taiyor looked upward.
"…For now."
Yoma closed her eyes.
"I didn't fool him," she whispered. "I redirected him."
Aisha's gaze hardened.
"And now," she said, "we pray he never finds out the truth."