Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 34: A Unique Power

"...Hun?!" I look around, confused, seeing ruins that catch me completely off guard. I stand up, noticing that the place I’m in is completely destroyed. Paying closer attention, I realize it’s Aurora Island.

But the shock lasts only a few seconds and then vanishes. It’s Aurora destroyed, but my trained mind spots inconsistencies.

’The material is far too old, I’m alive, and the ruins seem inconsistent with the moment I fell asleep...’ I take a deep breath, thinking about what this is.

’Is it some kind of ability? An illusion?’ I walk out of the wreckage of the academy, but my heightened spatial perception doesn’t detect anything moving for miles — no humans, no animals, not even monsters.

’Strange... what’s happening...’ I try to think, but nothing comes to mind right now. I leave the academy and look at the streets and buildings; the ruins are far too ancient for any damage to be recent.

’Did something just appear?’ Strangely, something pops into existence out of nowhere within my spatial perception. It wasn’t something hidden revealing itself or moving, but something emerging from absolute nothingness, which sets off an immediate alert in me.

’I think I know what this is... but I need more concrete proof.’ I climb a building skillfully and hang from an iron bar with my tail, upside down, while I observe the direction in question.

’...’ More spatial signatures emerge, scattered around. From here, I can see some of them. They’re generally monsters. I watch them roam, but their movement is strange, not consistent with real monsters.

’Fear monsters are literal manifestations of humanity’s fears, so the way they move and hunt humans strongly reflects the fear that spawned them... all the monsters I’m seeing are far too standardized.’ Even for monsters that are copies of each other, there are still minor differences in patterns.

I spend some time watching the monsters wander and notice that more and more of them keep appearing, but they don’t seem to know where I am, and they aren’t very strong.

’...’ I look at my hands. I still feel the chip’s limitations, so it’s not like the simulator. That means I can’t use my powers freely, or I’ll risk danger.

"Ashlyn... it’s you, isn’t it?" I figure it out quickly. These inconsistencies, combined with the setting, give away that it’s Ashlyn. And since I fell asleep in the classroom, I was vulnerable to her power if she found me sleeping, which must have happened.

’This is interesting... I’ll be able to see how her power works...’ I look up and see I’ve been found. A monster that resembles a black tiger, but with six eyes and a mouth that opens vertically as if its head is splitting in half, is approaching.

’All the monsters she’s created seem to have the same power level...’ I leap from up here as the tiger jumps to try and catch me. As it gets close, I spin in the air, kicking its head and locking my feet around its neck for a spin.

I twist the tiger’s body, slamming it onto its back on the ground while I use its body to cushion the fall. The debris ends up piercing the tiger and making noise, which draws other monsters.

’Is Ashlyn here? Is she watching this? Does she want to test me? How far will she go? And if this is inside my mind, what happens if I die?’ I get very curious about this ability.

In combat, it’s pretty useless since you can’t just make an enemy fall asleep mid-fight, but for intelligence gathering, or with support from someone who can knock an enemy out, it’s quite useful.

’The monsters seem based on animals... how uncreative...’ I start killing every monster that approaches with extreme ease, and as the environment becomes a pile of bodies, the attacks become more frantic, as if Ashlyn is getting frustrated.

"I can do this all day," I say to her, in case she can hear me. I’m not using my powers, so exhaustion is minimal. Even before I had prosthetics, I could last three whole days on physical combat alone. After the prosthetics, fighting for an entire week is possible, though very exhausting and draining from lack of sleep.

Most of the monsters die in one hit from me, unable to even touch me, and after some more time, Ashlyn seems to change her approach. She stops sending monsters.

And then she sends a copy of me. I see myself, but with somewhat monstrous features. It’s almost offensive.

’Is this how Ashlyn sees me?’ The "Me" she created has arms and legs formed by a strange black fluid, while its skin is completely gray and full of black marks, as if to simulate my prosthetics, even though they don’t look like that underneath.

’Practically only the face is mine...’ The monster rushes at me in a quick charge, and it is undoubtedly more powerful than the other monsters.

’Does Ashlyn’s mental image change the monster’s strength?’ Though strong, the monster is slow. As it gets close, I trip it and then spin my entire body, slamming it with my tail and throwing it against the ground.

Before the monster can get up, I step on its head, hearing the dry crack followed by the wet sound of the head being crushed under the sole of my foot.

"Come on, girl, you can do better than that. I’m not that weak," I say mockingly to her. I know she’s listening, as she seems to have fallen for my provocations and created a "copy" of me.

’...Okay... this is... a problem.’ Thousands of copies of me begin to form. I know Ashlyn’s power is weaker in the physical world than in the [Nightmare Realm], but it seems her power in the [Nightmare Realm] is greater than I expected.

’If I’m not mistaken, the file called these [Shadows]. It seems she doesn’t have a well-defined limit yet on how many she can create.’ I start to get surrounded by the shadows, which form a siege.

"Ashlyn, this is amateur strategy, you know?" Several shadows rush at me, but I skillfully crush and pierce vital points of every single one that gets close with my hands, legs, and tail.

"Greater numbers don’t mean greater efficiency. Out of these thousands of copies, only ten to fifteen of them can attack me at the same time, and that’s already sacrificing precision because they might hit their allies." So many enemies only serve for a long battle of attrition.

"You’ll need more than 3,590 enemies to tire me out." I run toward the siege, destroying the heads of five of them with a single tail strike. They rush at me, but I climb on top of their heads, using them as stepping stones to escape the encirclement.

’Still, there are a lot of them. A war of attrition where she can create infinite copies of these would defeat me eventually...’ I look at a ruined building and then, with minimal use of my power, I destroy the remnants of its supports, causing the building to collapse over us.

I jump upward, entering through a window of the falling building, and leap upward again, smashing through walls. The building falls on top of the [Shadows], crushing them, while I emerge unscathed on top of the rubble.

"Tell me, Ashlyn, how many more copies can you make before you get exhausted? If this is all you’ve got, then honestly, I’m extremely disappointed that you think you stand a chance against me when you’re so weak," I provoke her again in a neutral tone, as I’m not sure what would provoke her.

She starts making copies of me again. The copies are faster and stronger now, following what I expected: the stronger the image she has of what she’s creating, the stronger the thing in question becomes. Since she saw my strength was greater than expected, her copies became stronger.

"Still way too weak," I tell her, knowing that the copies’ durability is the issue. It doesn’t matter how strong and fast they are; they have no durability whatsoever because I still haven’t been injured.

Kicking a steel girder bar from the collapsed structure, I form a metal staff to use as a weapon. I advance on the new copies, destroying them in seconds while getting bathed in a black goo I deduce is the [Shadows’] blood.

"..." I spin the staff in my hand and throw it, clearing a path through the hundreds of new shadows as I run toward another building. Cutting small structural points with my power isn’t too dangerous or exhausting because it demands very little from me.

I’ll keep doing this until she gets tired eventually, or gets too frustrated and gives up upon realizing that no matter how strong the copies get, they still die easily.

’It’s not that I have high durability... but I have experience.’ My durability is still as low as any human’s, but I have combat experience and, above all, tactics like damage mitigation, which I told everyone to learn.

’...It seems I can’t control it.’ Although this is my mind, from the very beginning, I tried to control aspects of the place or the environment, but it’s not possible. It seems only Ashlyn has the freedom to do what she wants.

’There must be some exit. The mind has limited processing power, so it’s impossible for this place to be infinite or to expand infinitely without causing exhaustion to Ashlyn herself...’ I deduce that since Ashlyn isn’t seeing my durability and can’t make the copies tougher.

In the end, each copy will get weaker after a certain point. After all, strength and speed without the durability to withstand one’s own power will only wreak havoc on the body itself.

’I just need to wait while I search for a way out. Ashlyn, if you keep copying me, you’ll self-destruct by creating only glass cannons... I hope she doesn’t have another trick up her sleeve.’