Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1482 Speed Mirage!

"Why did you ask?" Darian grinned and replied. "There's no specific cause for it. During my climb up the combat tower back then, I didn't manage to advance very far. I hit a stage where the upcoming levels surpassed my capabilities, and when they inquired if I'd consent to leaving a soul fragment to serve as a fighter for later challengers, I consented. It appeared straightforward back then. Since I couldn't progress much in the tower on my own, I figured I'd at least ensure that those who followed would face tougher challenges in their ascent. That's the full extent of my logic."

Max nodded calmly, though inside, he was inwardly mocking Darian.

The explanation Darian provided wasn't just unpersuasive. When scrutinized in light of the true implications of surrendering a soul fragment, it was so fundamentally broken that Max struggled to grasp how anyone might think it could withstand even the slightest examination.

A soul isn't something a cultivator can tap into and restore without repercussions. It's the essential essence of an individual, the foundation from which all aspects of cultivation stem, and detaching even a piece of it from the entirety isn't a trivial setback that the leftover soul bounces back from swiftly through mere relaxation and exertion.

Such an act creates a profound and grave injury, one requiring ongoing and meticulous efforts to mend, capable of derailing a cultivator's advancement by years, and lingering marks in the soul's structure persist well beyond the repair of surface-level harm.

Any cultivator with a solid grasp on the soul's true essence knows this well, and those who've progressed sufficiently in cultivation to qualify as a stored warrior in the combat tower would comprehend it more deeply than average.

The notion that someone with such knowledge would willingly allow the extraction of a soul fragment simply because they'd fallen short of their desired height in the tower climb, and thus chosen, driven by some vague and spiteful grudge, to complicate the path for succeeding cultivators, wasn't a genuine drive.

It resembled a tale pieced together from mismatched elements, cloaked in offhand wording to hide how its core reasoning crumbled upon facing actual facts.

No one would exchange that for such a motive. The price was far too targeted, too intimate, and too enduring to trade for anything as fleeting as the thrill of seeing others stumble where you'd tripped yourself.

"That's enough talk," Darian declared with a smile. "Time to battle."

The energy emanating from him upon uttering those words was no longer the restrained, controlled force from their conversation. It surged outward in full force, the fifth level of the Rebirth Realm making its presence known through an oppressive weight that saturated the entire room from bottom to top.

"Bring it on," Max declared, tightening his fist.

Darian's grin expanded, evolving into a look infused with true enjoyment, the face of one who'd awaited the go-ahead to start and now relished it completely. He advanced with a solitary stride, measured and leisurely, and in that instant, the scene transformed.

A second Darian materialized next to the initial one. Soon, another emerged in a new spot, followed by yet another further away, and one more after that, all clad in matching robes, bearing identical features and the same broad smile on their faces, until Max found himself encircled by a group of dozens of such forms.

Each perfectly mirroring the true one, each gazing at him with that identical gleam of wild, intense glee, their chuckles erupting from every angle at once and overlapping into a cacophony that permeated the space, evoking a profound disturbance born from the eerie blend of the known and the distorted.

The disciples observing the live feed beyond the tower sprang into reaction right away, their exclamations swelling into a chaotic surge of rival analyses as they sought to identify the spectacle unfolding on the displays overhead.

"Is that some projection method? A skill rooted in illusions?"

"I believe it's a duplication art. He's actually divided into several forms."

"They can't all be authentic. Just one is the true self. The others have to be some sort of creations."

The assembly persisted with such speculations, every speaker contributing their take to the clamor, until Elder Seraphina interjected. "That display on the screen isn't a projection method," she stated. "It's neither an illusion nor a duplication skill. Darian's employing something known as Speed Mirage. He's traveling at such immense swiftness that he can hold multiple locations simultaneously in the same timeframe, and the lingering echoes of his motion are so vivid and persistent that they appear identical to the real form visually. Each of those shapes encircling Max represents a spot Darian has already left, held in place by the raw velocity of his shifts among them, with the genuine one hidden within, darting too rapidly for sight to distinguish from his residual path."

She hesitated briefly, her face altering to show real intrigue as she continued, "I'm curious about Max's counter to this. From what I remember, Max lacks this level of quickness."

The disciples who'd shared their guesses took this in quietly for an instant, then realization rippled visibly across the gathering, expressions shifting as the gravity of Max's predicament took hold.

The thirtieth level was infamous as a typical barrier for disciples scaling the combat tower, a stage where steady climbs met an insurmountable obstacle, and the Speed Mirage perfectly accounted for that notoriety.

Facing it, the standard counters open to a cultivator were greatly curtailed, and the viable alternatives demanded either velocity rivaling or surpassing Darian's, or sheer might potent enough to render accuracy moot by engulfing all spots in one go.

"Let's watch how Max overcomes this hurdle," Joe remarked, his grin reappearing with the smug assurance of one witnessing outcomes align with their initial forecast. "For any other disciple, even at the ninth or tenth level of the Rebirth Realm, overpowering the foe outright might be feasible here, leveraging the cultivation disparity to offset the informational deficit. Yet Max sits at the third level of the Rebirth Realm."

He allowed that figure to linger briefly before proceeding. "The gap in cultivation with Darian is already wide enough that raw strength isn't an easy solution even in routine scenarios, and this isn't routine. Pinpointing the actual form amid those numerous Speed Mirage remnants, all while contending with the near-range strain of a fifth level Rebirth Realm presence, isn't a feat a third level cultivator could plausibly pull off. I'd declare this the point where the climb concludes."