Chapter 943: A Mirror to the Truth [Bonus 9]
Rishia jumped back, returned to her full dragon form, and released a wide breath of purple fire that engulfed the entire hall, forcing the three Arthurs attacking her to pull back to avoid being consumed by the flames.
As she landed, she switched to her human form, watching all three warily.
The Arthur who had been muted, the one with fists coated in destructive energy, looked down at the shattered pieces of the mirror wall he had punched earlier. He picked up several shards, coated them in destructive energy, and hurled them at Rishia.
The fragments flew straight through her flames, cutting through the sea of fire toward her, and naturally, Rishia sensed them and tilted her head to avoid them.
In that instant, one of the shards, still functioning as a mirror despite being wrapped in destructive energy, reflected her image to her. The sight of her own face made something click in her mind, and her eyes widened as realisation dawned.
She glanced down at her body, then snapped her gaze back up and returned to her dragon form again, unleashing a breath toward the spear-wielding Arthur, who had leapt into the air to throw his weapon once more.
With three of her tails, she blocked the sword wielder’s slash coming from her left, then used her shadow to teleport away from the fist wielder attacking from her right.
Rishia reappeared from the shadow of the sword wielder in her humanoid form, grabbed him by the collar, and flung him into one of the mirror walls, shattering it and sending shards scattering.
She then moved like lightning to evade the incoming spear and fists, snatched one of the airborne shards of the broken mirror wall, and looked at her own reflection in it.
She observed how the universal laws of time and space reacted to her existence as she experienced time and occupied space, then immediately looked up and scanned all the remaining Arthurs within the mirror walls.
All three Arthurs she had chosen earlier attacked simultaneously, and as their attacks flew toward her, Rishia focused on the one she had earlier decided was definitely not the real one because of the words he had spoken.
Without hesitation, she pointed at him and shouted, "You!"
The moment she spoke, both the three Arthurs who had been attacking and their attacks already in motion froze.
The one with fists coated in destructive energy dispersed the energy around his hands and opened his mouth, his voice now ringing out without being muted.
"Oh, so you did get the hint."
The fact that he could speak again meant there was no longer any need for him to be muted, because Rishia had made the correct choice this time.
The hint he’d been trying to give her—the reason he had pointed at her first before pointing at himself—was to tell her to look at herself before trying to look at the Arthurs to determine which one was the main timeline version.
She had been focusing on them first and not herself, which was understandable since she had been instructed to figure out which one of them was from the main timeline.
But the way she could have figured it out was by looking at herself first, by observing how the ambient laws of time and space reacted to her existence and comparing that to the Arthurs around her.
She was from the main timeline, just like the Arthur she was meant to find. Therefore, there would be a similarity in the way the ambient laws of time and space responded to her and to the main timeline Arthur’s existence, which would differ from how those same laws reacted to the other Arthurs.
She realised this when she saw her own reflection in the shard of glass that the Arthur who had given her that hint had thrown.
A round of applause echoed throughout the hall, all the others clapping for Rishia as they disappeared one by one until only one remained.
The one who had given her the hint stopped clapping at the last moment and waved at her.
"It was nice meeting you, Prime Rishia," he said before vanishing, returning to being a mere possibility that had not come to pass, dissolving back into the river of time.
Left where he had stood were a few runestones, which Rishia silently picked up.
Then the real Arthur jumped down from the mirror wall he had been standing on and said, "Floor 4 cleared."
Rishia, however, gave him a deadpan stare and said, "You do realise you could’ve made that a lot easier for me, right?"
At that, Arthur shrugged and replied, "Well, where would’ve been the fun in that? I’ll have you know I had to deal with parallel versions of you, and I figured out none of them was the real one without any hints from anyone."
As soon as he finished speaking, the broken ground beneath their feet flashed with light, and both of them were instantly teleported to another hall that looked similar, except this time the walls were plain white instead of mirrors reflecting everything.
The moment they appeared in the hall, waves of cosmic and law energy came rushing at them from every direction, energy that poured into their bodies, merging with their existences and bringing about changes within them.
Arthur groaned immediately, clutching his head as overwhelming streams of information flooded his mind. Rishia also groaned in pain, her eyes growing hot, as though they were on fire.
They had cleared Floor 4, and along with the base soul power reward for completing it, even though they hadn’t faced any enemies in direct combat, their senses received massive expansion packs.
To put it bluntly, Rishia’s eyes had their visual prowess elevated to an entirely new level, while Arthur’s spatial-temporal perception field had its perceptive capacity enhanced to a whole new degree.
That small amount of soul power they received turned out to be essential, as it was what expanded their souls enough to make room for the expansion packs to their sensory abilities, which were modifications taking place on both physical and spiritual levels, especially for Rishia, since her physical eyes had to be altered and her soul, where the optical ability was anchored, also had to undergo slight alteration.
After the upgrades to their sensory abilities, the two of them didn’t immediately move on to Floor 5.
They wouldn’t have been able to even if they wanted to, because their senses were completely out of sync.
For instance, Rishia was seeing too much, in her own words, as she was perceiving more than she wished to at any given moment.
Her Clairveil eyes weren’t always active since they constantly consumed cosmic energy to operate, so most of the time she depended on her normal eyesight, like any other being with ordinary eyes would, but now she was having trouble controlling the flow of cosmic energy through her eyes.
This made her special optical ability activate involuntarily, causing her to continuously perceive far more information about the surrounding reality than she required.
She was taking in more information, which meant her brain had far more to process, and there was also the spiritual exertion along with the constant cosmic energy consumption from the ability staying active.
As for Arthur, his perception field now processed far greater detail about whatever entered its range than it had before.
This was in addition to the fact that its maximum range had essentially doubled, and that expansion also extended the furthest distance at which he could apply the effects of his Authorities of Time and Space.
He now had to learn how to restrict the level of detail his perception field detected and relayed to his mind, regulating it so he could consciously adjust the degree of detail whenever he wanted.
It couldn’t be that every time he expanded his perception field, it analysed every insignificant detail, including the tiny grooves carved into random stones scattered across the ground.
He didn’t need that much detail.
Since Arthur had regained his Temporal Authority, he could calculate how much time had passed while he and Rishia remained in the rest area after Floor 4, training to manage their enhanced sensory abilities, along with sparring sessions conducted while those abilities were active so they wouldn’t lose control of them in the middle of combat.
A little over a month later, the two of them finally headed to Floor 5, and the moment they arrived, a restriction was placed on them, cutting off access to all their Authorities except for one Weapon Authority.
The world that welcomed them on Floor 5 was a vast tropical rainforest overflowing with dense greenery.
From the sight of it, it wasn’t difficult for them to conclude that Floor Five had been designed by Gervod as Arthur’s Axe Trial.
But unlike the other weapon trials he had undergone under the Levites, this particular trial had a massive timer hovering in the sky, visible through the gaps in the canopy.
It read 375:00:00.
"375 hours?" Arthur muttered, looking up at the timer.
That was half the time usually allocated for other weapon trials, and he silently glanced at Rishia to his left, understanding that the reason he now had half the time for this trial was because she was present as well.
"Is there an option to handle this solo?" he asked while summoning an axe into his hand and resting it against his shoulder.
There was no response.
He then looked toward Rishia and said, "There’s no solo option. Guess we’re in this together."
Rishia silently clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to adjust to the restrictive sensation of not having access to all her Authorities.
Only after some time had passed, when she’d completely stabilised the flow of her energy, did she finally channel her cosmic energy to conjure the weapon into her hand, testing its weight and durability before dispersing the energy that composed it.
Then she turned toward Arthur and said, "I’m ready."
And so the two of them moved into the tropical rainforest, the counter in the sky starting to tick down toward 0.
They spent the next 373 hours and 30 minutes attempting to escape the rainforest, which was filled with biologically mutated versions of the animals that would normally inhabit such an environment.
The final result of clearing the Trial and the Floor was an increase in vitality, both physical and spiritual.
In summary, they now possessed more HP and were more difficult to kill.
After Floor 5, the two of them rested for a considerable period before eventually directing their focus toward Floor 6, the floor Raikis had stated would certainly be the most difficult, and had implied that if either Arthur or Rishia entered alone, defeat would be guaranteed.
Out of the six Levites, only one remained whose floor they hadn’t entered: Wyndella, the Creation Dragon.
She was also the one Arthur had most strongly wished wouldn’t be the designer of Floor 6.
Unfortunately, things rarely unfolded according to one’s hopes.
Floor 6 would be the final floor of the Tower, and Arthur was certain that creation-based enemies would be waiting for them there.
