"Rover… are you okay?", After leaving the phantom, Abby saw that Rover hadn't spoken for a long time, and a trace of worry appeared on his fluffy face.
"I'm fine."
Rover raised her head. Her delicate fists hanging at her sides were tightly clenched, and an unmatched determination burst out from her golden eyes.
———
"Where is this?" Zane slowly opened his eyes. What came into view was a completely unfamiliar sky.
Around him, strands of strange blue code gathered into countless beams of light, gradually floating upward into the sky.
"So this is heaven…"
Zane seemed to recall what had happened before. He shook his head and let out a self-mocking smile. Sure enough, trying to be a hero ends like this…
"So, does this mean I can finally become a heroic spirit!"
Still this optimistic even after dying. Very Zane.
"But… am I forgetting something?"
Zane lay on the ground and thought for a while. In the end… he almost fell asleep.
To stop himself from drifting off, Zane sprang up from the ground like a carp leaping out of water.
Only then did he realize he was deep inside a place like a vertical shaft. High walls filled with a high-tech feel surrounded him in a circle, and he was right in the center.
Like a lamb penned in, or like being at the deepest point of somewhere. No freedom, no sunlight. All he could see was a pitch-black sky and endless loneliness.
Zane withdrew his gaze, curled his lips, and a look of disdain appeared on his face.
"By the way, what kind of Heroic Spirit Hall looks this shabby? Alaya, Gaia, get out here and get to work, renovate this place properly!"
The moment Zane finished speaking, a voice he was extremely familiar with, yet carried a hint of unfamiliarity, suddenly came from not far away.
"You're finally awake."
Zane jumped in shock. He had just called for Alaya and Gaia to come out and work, and someone actually responded…
If things went wrong, he might end up getting remembered by them and then have a bunch of Heroic Spirits summoned to beat him like a Demon God Pillar.
With a trace of confusion, Zane looked in the direction the voice came from. He saw a figure standing about fifty meters away. On that person's handsome, fair face was a faint smile.
"Long time no see… no, I should say, nice to meet you for the first time.", As he spoke, the man gave Zane a slight gentleman's bow. He looked exactly like a rich young master flirting with a proper young lady.
But what he got from Zane wasn't a greeting, but a shout, "What the hell!? Help, there's an imposter!"
At this moment, the person standing opposite Zane was none other than another version of Zane himself, about eighty to ninety percent similar, just looking a bit older.
Paired with that somewhat stiff smile on his face, wasn't this just an imposter mimicking his appearance?
Facing Zane's shout, the other Zane acted as if he didn't hear it. He slightly raised his handsome face, the corner of his lips lifting into a cold smile, while a long blade appeared in his hand and was planted into the ground.
"Step forward, challenger. Let me see whether you deserve the name Zane."
"?"
Zane frowned, still not understanding the situation, when the other man continued speaking.
"It has nothing to do with choice, nothing to do with life or death. At this moment, countless ideals converge into a single great wish. This is... the name of 'Salvation'!"
Hearing this, Zane couldn't help but twitch his eyelid. How should he put it? It was like watching a recording of himself acting overly dramatic when he was younger, the kind of embarrassment that runs from the top of your head down to your toes, making you want to strangle your past self.
If the person in front of him was really himself and not an imposter, then his next line would definitely be, "Ah, I've wanted to say that line for a long time."
The slightly older Zane scratched the back of his head with his other hand. The cold expression from before disappeared, replaced by a grin.
"But speaking of which, you came pretty late."
"What do you mean by that?", Zane still hadn't figured out where this place was, or why another version of himself had suddenly appeared.
But since he was already here, he might as well go with the flow.
"Considering your habit of getting yourself killed, the fact that you've only died three times by now is already pretty late."
Hearing that, veins bulged on Zane's forehead. He forced out a polite smile and made an internationally friendly hand gesture.
"If you don't know how to talk, you can just shut up."
As for the "died three times" part, Zane threw it straight to the back of his mind. He was already dead, so who cared how many times he had died?
But the older Zane didn't care about the gesture at all.
Because he was him. Flipping him off was no different from flipping himself off.
As expected of Zane. Even reduced to just frequency, his way of thinking was still uniquely strange.
But in the very next moment, the two who had been talking suddenly slammed into each other.
"Hey, who exactly are you? Why are you pretending to be me?" Zane suddenly charged forward like an arrow released from a bow, raising his fist and aiming straight at the other Zane's identical face.
The older Zane just smiled slightly. The massive long blade in his hand was swung with ease. In an instant, layers of wind blades formed a wall in front of Zane.
"I am you, and you are me. We are originally one…"
"Oh ho~" The moment Zane approached the wind wall, he twisted his waist and slipped past it from the side.
Then he pushed off again, closing in from the flank. His right fist shot forward like a cannon, carrying a whistling force straight toward the other's abdomen.
"I'd rather hear that line from a cute, pretty girl than from myself."
Zane curled his lips, his fists coming down like relentless rain.
Even though he didn't know the other party's goal, the fact that the other was holding a weapon against him…
There was no way he was going to stand there like some naive saint, talking endlessly and trying to persuade the opponent.
Even the white tyrant next door uses talk no jutsu only after blasting the opponent with a Star Burst first.
Truth only exists within the range of cannons.
Only after knocking the opponent down can you make them listen.
Against a weapon like a long blade, Zane needed to close the distance as much as possible. Pull the fight into close-range grappling.
That way, he could weaken the advantage of the long weapon, and in close combat, the long blade couldn't be fully utilized.
The older Zane clearly understood this as well. His footwork constantly shifted, adjusting the distance between them.
But if he wanted to retreat, Zane refused to let him.
Step in, strike, dodge.
The sequence stuck tightly to the older Zane, leaving him no chance to break away.
In the blink of an eye, the two fought from the center of the circular space to the edge, then kept shifting positions and returned to the center again.
Just as Zane's fist was about to reach the older Zane's face, a Swift Blade suddenly appeared in the latter's left hand. Gripping it in reverse, he thrust it straight toward Zane's heart.
Caught off guard by the sudden attack, Zane immediately halted and dodged.
But that was exactly what the older Zane wanted. When the Swift Blade missed, he abandoned it without hesitation.
Taking advantage of Zane's evasive movement, he bent his knees slightly, leaped up high with the long blade in hand, and brought it down in a heavy overhead strike aimed straight at Zane's head.