“Congratulations on passing Stage 17 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 18.”

Mira wiped the tears from her face as she found herself teleported to an arena. The mechanical voice then rang out again.

“Welcome to Stage 18. This is the Shadow Fight Stage. In this stage, you will fight a shadow of yourself. Beat the shadow to pass the stage. Begin!”

When Mira heard this, she saw a shadow appear in front of her. It looked exactly like her, except that it was a shadow.

Mira took out her scythe and the Shadow took out its scythe at the exact same time. Mira wanted to test something out first before actually fighting. She slashed towards the shadow and the shadow immediately slashed at her as well, but from the opposite direction.

“It’s like I’m fighting a mirror. I feel like this shadow isn’t actually its own separate entity and is actually just me fighting myself.” Mira said to herself.

Mira then just stood there and waited to see if the shadow would attack, but no attack ever came.

“I see. That seems to be the case.”

Mira threw a couple of ice needles at the shadow, but the shadow also threw ice needles at her. The ice needles collided and blew up in the middle of the air from the collision of each other. Mira felt like this shadow might actually be a great sparring partner. Mira wanted to take a bit of time to spar with this shadow to see if she might find anything that will allow her to defeat it.

Mira then began slashing, twirling, and swinging her scythe around as she kept attacking the shadow. The shadow had copied every one of her moves, but Mira just kept only using her scythe to attack. She didn’t feel like using her Ice Dao to fight just yet as she wanted to see if she could defeat it with just her strength and skill with the scythe alone.

Of course, if this stage was so simple then it probably wouldn’t be the 18th stage in this god-forsaken trial.

Mira kept building up the momentum of her scythe with every swing and twist of her body and the shadow did the same. It was a very beautiful sight. The scythe is commonly seen as objects or weapons of death or reapers. Even in the cultivation world, scythes are meant for people who do not look for the thrill of battle, but large-scale one-sided slaughter. People who use these weapons are generally extremely ruthless. But right now, there was a certain elegance to this battle. It was like a choreographed dance.

Mira’s mind began to slip into a trance-like state as she just began to rotate her body, twirl her scythe, and slash towards the shadow. It was actually very relaxing to fight against something like this. She couldn’t win, but she couldn’t lose. With this mindset, she could focus purely on just swinging with everything she had and not have to worry about killing her opponent or hurting her sparring partner.

Mira’s skills with the scythe were also becoming more fluent and tighter. She was leaving fewer openings in her swings and tried to become more efficient with her movements. She was also improving her footwork. After the two of them sparred for many hours, Mira’s movements and swings became a bit more refined, but it was hard to tell as the shadow did the same thing and improved with Mira.

Mira came out of her trance-like state and realized that she was able to comprehend the insights that she has gained over the last 2 years in the way of the scythe. Mira was happy with her gains and now only wanted to think about how to defeat this thing. If she can’t defeat it with her scythe then she will have to defeat it with her Dao. Her Absolute Ice Dao was perfect for this. What was it that she was working on in the Dao Stage? Controlling ice that wasn’t hers! And this ice… was technically hers. Shouldn’t that mean that controlling the ice from the shadow shouldn’t be too tall of a task?

Mira started shooting very thing but sharp ice needles at the shadow. She started focusing on the surrounding ice that didn’t come from her. All she had to do was move the shadow’s ice needles out of the way of her own.

Mira kept this up until she was able to move one of the small ice needles and let hers pass by. That small ice needle made its way to the shadow and dug into its leg. Mira was happy that she was able to hit the shadow, but a little sad that it took her so long to control the ice, but doing it once would make it easier for her to do it again.

Mira then kept on shooting ice needles at the shadow and was able to move the ice needles of the shadow much better and faster after several hundred tries. The shadow was now covered in tiny holes caused by the ice needles. Mira decided to end this. She threw a larger Ice Needle towards the shadow’s head. The Shadow threw the same ice needle towards Mira’s face, but Mira focused on that needle and slightly changed its trajectory. Mira’s ice needle passed through without any trouble and dug inside the head of the shadow before Mira blew it up. The top half of the shadow’s head was blown up and Mira heard the mechanical voice telling her that she had passed.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 18 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 19.”

***

“Congratulations on passing Stage 17 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 18.”

Maria felt like a weight was lifted off of her chest after she passed this stage. She was able to come to terms with killing that man before and also started to understand that this was only the beginning. Even so, this didn’t change her personality or outlook on life, and she still remained the young and innocent little girl at heart. Maria didn’t know yet, but on future battlefields, this contradictory side of Maria would be extremely terrifying for her enemies as Maria would always have a look of innocence on her face as she killed. Like she was just collecting flowers with her friends.

“Welcome to Stage 18. This is the Shadow Fight Stage. In this stage, you will fight a shadow of yourself. Beat the shadow to pass the stage. Begin!”

Maria saw that she was dragged into an arena and saw a shadow that looked almost exactly like her. She immediately drew her sword and the shadow did the same thing. Maria dashed towards the shadow and started slashing, chopping, and stabbing away. But her moves were countered with a mirror image of her own as the shadow did the same thing.

“So it’s like this, huh? How annoying! How am I supposed to beat myself?” Maria asked out loud.

She continued to swing her sword at the shadow, but soon they just started sparring. Maria felt her sword skills becoming more fluent and swift. Maria then had a great idea! Since this shadow was such a great sparring partner then she could use this to improve her sword skills and maybe start to have a unique style. Maria liked that her Light Dao was free and unfettered and wondered if she could do something with her sword skills. She wanted to make them unpredictable and free. She didn’t really know what that meant, but she wanted it. And so the two began sparring.

Maria also happened to go into a trance-like state as she began to digest the insights she had gained in the way of the sword over the last few years. Her movements became swifter and tighter. Her moves were starting to gain a trace of elegance to them as they become more fluent. They fought for hours on end as Maria’s skills in the sword continued to improve. She was by no means a genius with the sword and had little talent for the sword, but through continuous battles, she was able to gain a lot of insights into how to use a sword properly. This stage was much more beneficial to Maria than it was for Mira as Maria’s skills had a lot of room for growth. Due to this, Maria was able to notice a significant amount of progress when she came out of her stance.

Once Maria was able to digest her insights, she wanted to end this. But she wanted to do it with her own strength and not use her Dao. She wanted to incorporate a unique style into her attacks. Maria took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to shut off her senses as she only focused on the area around her. Maria wanted to attack the shadow with moves that not even she could predict.

Maria sensed the shadow in front of her and lunged towards into and started to swing her sword. Maria now started trying to shut off her mind as she only wanted to rely on the sword and intuition. She didn’t want to make any conscious effort. Maria started to clear her mind and soon went into a state that seemed neither awake nor asleep. Either way, Maria kept swinging her sword.

The shadow was still able to copy her movements, but all of a sudden a slash came out from Maria and the Shadow didn’t use the same attack. This slash came and struck the shadow’s throat as its head was removed from its body. The shadow soon vanished after losing its head, but Maria kept swinging until she felt there was no more enemy and soon she heard the mechanical voice telling her that she passed.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 18 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 19.”

***