Life Hunter

But they knew that the overwhelming presence they felt had no peer in the entire continent. Of course, they all noticed Chulainn on Arima"s shoulder, and also recognized the serpent tail and his head, it was a lot similar, if not the same as the monstrous beast they saw arriving through the gate.

In the end, as Arima caught the attention of everyone, the latter waved his hand and every monster in the area disappeared into nothingness. One more time, the students held their breath, their understanding of the world was slowly crumbling apart. Ofia observed with a shocked expression the entire fight zone. She couldn"t find any monster on the horizon.

She looked back at her teacher and one more time widened her mind to imagine the full power of Arima. But no matter how she thought about it, she couldn"t imagine it. It was like every time she tried to probe Arima, her mind would automatically say it"s not possible that he is not stronger than this.

"Alright" Arima"s voice jolted awake the minds of all his students "I came here to give you your next training" He declared and snapped his fingers. When he did that, a wave of spirit struck the students and they all felt something strange going through them.

At the same time, an odd figure formed in front of them. That figure slowly became clearer and its appearance was then revealed to each student, shocking them beyond words. A perfect copy of themselves was standing just in front of them.

Ofia was the same, as she stared at her own double "They will be your training partners from now on. They"re you, literally. I want you to fight them, a.n.a.lyze them, and find the openings and weaknesses of your own techniques" Arima explained and everyone finally understood.

They all had the same thought at the same time: "(It"s only an imitation anyway)" The moment they thought this, Arima grinned "Don"t underestimate them, nor lower your guard. They are exactly as strong as you, don"t misunderstand. It"s me who created those clones, it"s an easy thing for me to create something at your level, I could have created a magic beast capable of beating you all at once if I wanted to do so"

When they heard Arima"s words, the whole cla.s.s instantly regretted the prideful thoughts they had just earlier. Being prideful and arrogant in front of someone like Arima is the last thing they could hope doing.

"Now, let"s start" Arima said and the clones all trembled before taking the same stance and expression as their original.

Ofia looked at her clone and gulped. The exact same stance, the same look in the eyes, reflecting awareness and seriousness. She seriously felt like she was seeing herself in a mirror. Just that her "reflect" was now physical and was releasing an aura.

Ofia took one step forward, but her clone directly charged at her. Ofia bit her lip, she had to admit that she hesitated in front of her own clone and lost the first move. It wasn"t all of it, the clone actually used her resonance directly and became a harpy to attack Ofia.

The latter was shocked and urgently resonated too, she clashed with her reflection with her claws and dug out the earth a bit. Ofia jumped back at the impact and called her bow to shoot. But at the same time, the clone created a bow too and aimed at Ofia.

The two of them shot an arrow of light in the same instant and the arrows filled with energy exploded in mid-air. Even after that, arrows started flying everywhere around those two and the explosions stacked.

Meanwhile, in the whole area, the other students were experiencing something similar. They had been spread across the entire area and all of them were fighting with their clones, but most of them were also losing to the latter. Only the ones like Irian and Ferzia were actually perfectly fighting at the same level as their "copies".

Ferzia raised her great sword and clashed with the other side"s. The two dark elves, original and clone, were fighting aggressively and smartly. Not even wasting a movement or a second of the fight. The knew each other perfectly, after all, if one makes a mistake, the other instantly recognize it and take advantage of it.

On Irian"s side, it was just a brutal fistfight. The two of them were laughing madly, using their claws under the bear form to attack the other. Most of the students kept their distance from them.

Now, back on Ofia. She conjured a sort of light star in her hand and threw it at her opponent and so did her clone. The two stars collided and formed an explosion that released a great amount of light of different colors, producing a magnificent color show.

Ofia retreated after that explosion and one more time shot an arrow that collided with her clone"s "(This isn"t right)" Ofia thought while fighting against her reflection. Then, she heard Arima and Chulainn talking since she was pretty close to them.

"You"re a h.e.l.l of a teacher" Chulainn remarked and Night snickered.

Arima shrugged "They"ll find out soon" He said and glanced at Ofia. The latter felt the gaze on her and trembled a bit. She focused back on her fight and started thinking about the situation. She looked around and observed her cla.s.smates battling.

She, of course, noticed that the originals actually didn"t have the advantage on their clones. But the more she thought about it, the more confused she became. She determined that it wasn"t Arima"s style to do this. He wouldn"t give a training so shallow to them. If they just think about the instructions he gave, it was just self-training.

At some point, Ofia was struck by the shock wave of an explosion and was forced to retreat. At the same time, she happened to witness something a few hundreds of meters away. A pair of students teamed up to fight their clones. At first, Ofia didn"t think much of it since she saw that even the clones could imitate teamwork.

But she then realized something as her eyes widened. She smiled, she had finally understood the biggest problem with this training session and what was the best solution to it. She spread her wings and flew away.

Her counterpart couldn"t react immediately but followed her soon after "Lena!" Ofia shouted when she had her sister in sight. The latter turned around surprised and looked at her sister, she saw her pointing at the clone behind her. Lena understood immediately and flapped her wings and flew toward Ofia, her clone also started pursuing her.

"{Is she asking you to fight with her?}" Lena"s soul beast, the eagle, asked.

Lena shook her head "No, I don"t think it"s that" She shortly responded and finally crossed by Ofia, the latter patted her shoulder before attacking Lena"s clone while Lena herself attacked Ofia"s.

"Seems like she understood your little lesson" Chulainn said to Arima "But, she didn"t choose the best opponent"

Arima smiled at his words "No, she perfectly chose her opponent" He retorted and Chulainn frowned.

When Ofia was confronted with her sister"s clone, she knew she had a great disadvantage. Lena was a lot stronger than her in close combat and her speed was also a lot higher, particularly in flight. But she never intended to fight with her head-on.

She halted in mid-air and looked at Lena"s clone approaching her at high speed. She closed her eyes and her aura was then gathered in her eyes. When she opened them, they had become golden with a black slit in the middle "[Eyes of the Gorgon]" She chanted.

When Lena"s clone realized what was happening, it was too late. Her body started turning into stone, starting from her wings. She then fell down and crashed on the ground, transformed in stone.

"…the stare of the c.o.c.katrice?" Chulainn said when he witnessed the scene.

"Yeah. Ofia came to me once to talk about it. She said that she couldn"t control the eye powers of the c.o.c.katrice and asked me for help" Arima said "So, I helped her a bit but it was her talent all along. Normally, if you use the soul contract, you can"t acquire all the abilities of the target. Particularly something so special as the eye powers of the c.o.c.katrice. But she did it" He explained.

"Of course, it has some downsides, it doesn"t work on animals and if she looks at a mirror with those eyes, she risks death. But in Lena"s case, its power is actually even stronger since she has the eyes of an eagle" Arima added and Chulainn nodded.

"Okay, she defeated her sister"s clone. But what about her actual sister right now? Won"t that girl"s clone also use the eye powers of the c.o.c.katrice?" Chulainn asked and Arima just motioned his head as if to say "look".

At the same time Ofia used her eyes, the clone also did the same but Lena actually ignored it and attacked her in close combat.

Chulainn frowned and looked at Arima for answers. The latter laughed "When Ofia touched her shoulder earlier, she gave him the "antidote". Her eye powers are like a poison that she keeps in her eyes and which are capable of attacking at distance. But she also can create an antidote to keep herself immune. That antidote, she pa.s.sed it on her sister to immune her" He explained and smirked at the cub on his shoulder "You didn"t notice?"

Chulainn sneered "Did you forget the form I"m in?" He retorted.

Meanwhile, Lena defeated her opponent with Ofia"s help and the two of them finally got rid of their clones. They then nodded at each other and flew in the opposite direction. They traveled from a person to another and helped them to beat their clone.

Ofia had realized that the biggest problem in this training was the students" mind. What they felt when they fought with themselves, except prideful and "junky" people like Ferzia and Irian, others would feel hesitant and anxious in front of themselves.

This training was most likely made for the students to feel that until someone actually beat their clone by teaming up in function of their affinities and then help everyone to win. And even if they didn"t win against their counterpart alone, they still fought with them for a moment before gaining more confidence by fighting with someone else.

That wasn"t all, like that, they could spot their own weaknesses even more easily when the clone was pushed back by a greater number. And finally, like that, this cla.s.s learned teamwork at the same time.

When Ofia thought about it. She affirmed in her head that it"s how Arima"s lessons should look like. When every clone was defeated, around an hour later, everyone gathered around Arima, a bit tired. Actually, the only ones that weren"t here were Ferzia and Irian, those two were in fact too prideful to have help from someone else and were still fighting.

Arima let them do what they wanted and just talked with his cla.s.s "You all are the ones I chose to register in the ranking compet.i.tion. In the next few days, I"ll pick the last ten members then we"ll enter the last month, where I"ll train you all personally" Arima declared and everyone nodded with enthusiasm.

"Good, I"ll transfer you back to the FDA in a second" Arima clapped and said. He approached Ofia then took Chulainn with one hand and the latter exclaimed in surprise when he was in Ofia"s arms "Take this guy with you. His gate was responsible for the destruction of your castle, tell him to repair it"

"…Ah?" Chulainn took a long time to react and Ofia held him really carefully and nodded at Arima"s words "Hey, wait a sec-" Before Chulainn could finish his complaint, he was teleported away along with Ofia and the cla.s.s. Arima then waited for his two last students to finish their fights and also left.

The same day, Chulainn restored the whole part of the city which was destroyed by the gate with a very wronged expression.