I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1170: Northern vs Bairan [part 2]

Something about the entire atmosphere of the battle shifted the moment Northern moved. And he could suddenly feel it in his bones.

Bairan was about to get really serious with him.

[Whispering Gale has been activated]

The wind itself became Northern’s weapon. Air currents erupted around him in violent spirals, propelling him forward at speeds that carved a vacuum trail through the desert. Sand exploded outward from his launch point, and Illusioned Hefter—still invisible—sliced through the displaced air with a whistle that became a scream.

Bairan’s odachi came up. The Sword King didn’t move his feet—only his blade, meeting Northern’s charge with a perfectly timed upward slash that should have bisected him from hip to shoulder.

[Phantom Strike - Refraction has been activated]

Northern’s body bent impossibly mid-charge. The trajectory of his attack twisted like light through a prism—what appeared to be a straight thrust suddenly came from Bairan’s left flank instead. Illusioned Hefter materialized for a heartbeat, aimed at the Sword King’s stomach.

Bairan’s odachi was already there. He’d seen through the refraction, read the true angle through some impossible perception. Lightning erupted from the parry, but Northern had already phased his blade, letting it pass through the deflection to strike from yet another angle.

[Opponent has used a unique ability]

Bairan suddenly split into multiple defensive positions simultaneously. Northern’s blade found the Sword King’s guard no matter which angle it manifested from—as if Bairan had already moved to counter strikes that Northern was still deciding whether to make.

[Echo has been activated]

Northern’s strike landed once. Then landed again 0.5 seconds later—the echo of his attack repeating itself with identical force and precision. Bairan parried the first. The second caught him in the ribs.

The Sword King slid backward three feet, boots carving trenches through sand.

There was no blood or cut. His body had somehow absorbed the impact without taking the wound. Northern was left with his mouth slightly agape. It was like his sword passed through the Sword King.

He frowned a moment later and shot forward.

[Lightning Rod - One Strike has been activated]

Northern’s entire body became a capacitor. Every ounce of his power condensed into a single point—his blade, his will, his existence all compressed into one perfect attack. The air around him ionized, creating visible distortions. Illusioned Hefter blazed with accumulated force, no longer invisible but burning with condensed potential.

He thrust.

[The Opponent has responded with an overwhelming ability]

Bairan’s odachi didn’t move to parry. It was already there—had been there, would be there, existed in all moments of the strike simultaneously. The blade intercepted Northern’s thrust in the past, present, and future at once.

Northern’s eyes trembled.

’What the...’

The collision created a shockwave that atomized the sand within fifty feet, turning it to glass and then to powder. Northern’s condensed strike shattered against Bairan’s blade, and the backlash sent him tumbling backward through three dunes.

[Infinite Iteration has been activated]

Northern’s body regenerated the damage mid-tumble. Crushed ribs iterated back to undamaged versions. Torn muscles rewound to wholeness. He came out of the roll already attacking, barely slowed.

[Eclipse Step has been activated]

Northern vanished into his own shadow and emerged from Bairan’s, his blade already cutting upward toward the Sword King’s spine. The attack came from impossible proximity—from within Bairan’s guard, inside the defensive perimeter where the odachi couldn’t reach.

However, it was useless. For that frozen instant, Bairan became completely undetectable—existing in a ”dead moment” outside of time itself. Northern’s blade passed through empty space where the Sword King had been, and then Bairan was behind him, odachi already in motion.

[Reversal has been activated]

The incoming strike’s vector reversed mid-swing. Bairan’s odachi suddenly cut toward the Sword King himself with equal force. But Bairan simply let the blade continue its motion, flowing with the reversal, converting what should have been a counterattack into a spinning slash that came at Northern from a new angle entirely.

Northern barely got his blade up in time. The impact drove him to one knee, sand exploding beneath the force.

[Full Impact - Recoil has been activated]

Every hit Northern had taken—every parry that had jarred his arms, every deflection that had sent him tumbling—the kinetic energy of all of it stored in his body, building like a battery charging. Now he released it all at once.

His next strike carried the accumulated force of a dozen exchanges. Illusioned Hefter became a blur of concentrated violence, aimed at Bairan’s center mass with enough power to shatter mountains.

Bairan’s body moved without conscious thought, positioning itself between heartbeats in the perfect counter-stance. The odachi came up at a precise angle that caught Northern’s empowered strike on the flat of the blade and redirected it harmlessly skyward. Lightning discharged along the deflection path, creating a pillar of electric fury that reached the clouds.

Northern spun with the deflection, already planning his next—

Bairan’s strike landed between Northern’s heartbeats. In that infinitesimal moment of vulnerability when Northern’s heart was neither contracting nor expanding, his body betrayed him. Every muscle froze. His blade stopped mid-motion. His breath caught in his throat.

The odachi’s lightning-wreathed edge stopped one inch from Northern’s throat.

They held there—Northern paralyzed by his own biology, Bairan perfectly still with his killing blow paused at the perfect distance. The moment stretched, both warriors locked in the crystallized instant.

Then Northern’s heart beat again.

[Wind Embrace has been activated]

The wind itself caught him, yanked him backward out of the blade’s path even as his body remained frozen. Air currents grabbed his limbs and pulled, creating distance between him and the Sword King’s edge.

Northern gasped horribly, staring at the distance with a stunned and terrified gaze, sweat pouring down his face.

The odachi had completed its cut through empty space. Almost immediately, Bairan flowed forward into the opening Northern had left, blade coming around in a horizontal slash that would bisect Northern at the waist.

[Shadow Step - Supreme Shadow has been activated]

Northern’s shadow surged upward like a living thing, interposing itself between his body and Bairan’s blade. The odachi cut through the shadow—and the shadow screamed. It was cut. It bled darkness. But it bought Northern the fraction of a second he needed to recover.

[Mirage has been activated]

Northern’s next attack became seven visual copies. Each one looked real, moved real, would cut real if it connected. Bairan faced an avalanche of steel, each blade coming from a different angle, each one potentially the killing stroke.

Bairan’s eyes tracked each attack for a microsecond. His blade moved in a simple figure-eight pattern, and somehow—impossibly—every single one of Northern’s seven attacks met the odachi’s edge at precisely the point where they had no momentum, no leverage, no killing potential. The Sword King had identified the flaw in the technique instantly and exploited it with surgical precision.

Northern pressed harder. He had to—staying at range meant death. Close combat was his only chance.

[One’s True Self - True Clone has been activated]

Two Northerns split from one. Both perfect copies, both wielding Illusioned Hefter, both attacking with identical skill and intent. They came at Bairan from opposite sides, their blades phasing in and out of visibility in synchronized patterns designed to create inevitable openings.

Bairan’s single slash became dozens. Phantom afterimages of legendary cuts overlaid his own strike—each one the perfect technique of some long-dead master warrior. His odachi existed in multiple states simultaneously, covering more angles than should have been physically possible.

Both Northern clones met the phantom strikes simultaneously. Both were driven back, both bleeding from shallow cuts that appeared across their arms and shoulders. The wounds burned—not just flesh, but something deeper.

Both Northerns were about to stand when one of them frowned coldly and looked at his shoulders.

He had grown accustomed to his new body even though it hadn’t been a day—every part of his body, he could feel with impossible detail. So he noticed the slight change immediately.

’My wounds aren’t healing?’