Coop felt the animalistic determination to challenge the Icon of Mana smoldering in his blood. It was like a rival was occupying territory that should belong to him. He wasn’t terrified by its transparent display of defensive prowess, he was aggravated by it. His hand was steady as he raised his sword, and before the Icon took another step through the searing fallout of Lyriel’s magical barrage, he took action.

Just in case the Icon’s unwavering march was all a bluff, Coop followed up on his companion’s assault himself. He shot forward, dragging his sword back as he lunged across multiple hexagons to meet the monster head on. He slammed his foot into the ground and twisted his torso with all his incredible strength, seizing the moment to demonstrate his own substantial power before the dust had fully settled.

His sword carried the solidified aura he had mastered during the tower climb, creating a streak of irresistible mana before it cut through the shadowy mists that surrounded the Icon. The fog split like a gray sea as the aura-infused blade traveled through, bolstered by all of his accumulated stats.

Rather than anything tricky, he was aiming to flip expectations and crush the Icon. He’d answer the unasked question of who was stronger right away. The monster made sure to catch his blade with its shield, rotating to protect its opposite side and sending an explosion of black and white sparks scattering between them, but because Coop wielded his raw mana, it wasn’t only a challenge from his blade. The sharp edge of his aura sought to cut at the monster’s essence, but it stopped before digging through its armor, as if the shield itself was equally empowered with an identical affinity.

A billowing cloud of mana blasted across the point of contact, chasing Coop’s momentum, visibly revealing the way the atmosphere shifted as the pair clashed, but the Icon easily withstood the solidified aura. It looked down on Coop, treating his attack like nothing more than a gust of wind.

Coop internally panicked, understanding the threat represented by his opponent immediately. He couldn’t underestimate its rugged defenses. This thing was a tank of a caliber he had never experienced and nothing about it revealed a single weakness.

They were both moving before their colliding arms had fully recoiled. Coop contorted himself into a backwards strike from the exact opposite direction while the monster attempted to counter attack around its own shield.

The Icon should have had the advantage given its relatively shorter path, but their blades still met each other at an equidistant point between their bodies. It clearly intended to continue the challenge directly while he tried dancing around its protection to find an undetected weak spot in its armor. There was an obvious difference in their methods, as if they were following two branches on the same procedural tree.

Multicolored mists blasted across the chamber, immediately shrouding their conflict in a swirling stew of spectral grays and abyssal blacks. This duel would be hidden in darkness, though the strobe effect of the sparks created whenever they clashed would reveal just enough to keep them from disappearing completely.

Coop tightened his grip on his ethereal sword, the solidified mists of the manifestation burning with the abyssal energy from his aura as he sank into the focus of combat. He channeled Fog of War to match the Icon’s dark mists and whipped his blade black and forth, seeking to reclaim the initiative with an aggressive assault. His aura curved as it extended, trying to find a vulnerability, but the Icon accounted for his manipulations to block and parry across orbiting trajectories, catching both blade and aura at once.

Where Coop’s movements were as fluid as possible, demonstrating the unthinking shifts of weight that came from countless battles and were perfectly aligned with his exact distribution of stats and physical specs, the Icon was different. It lacked the natural rhythm Coop had derived in his extensive grinds. It had no heart or breath to set a beat, and it paid no heed to a constantly fluctuating mana pool the way Coop did. There was no flow to its actions, but it was like a freight train absolutely blasting through snow on the tracks whenever it swung.

With every blow they shared it became more obvious that the Icon of Mana wasn’t him. It was undeniably similar, implementing similar tactics, and even perfectly copying his intentions, with identical affinities, but it wasn’t the same. A lot of the details were correct, but it lacked subtle, almost imperceptible nuances that were only exposed once they started fighting. It was like it was a genius amateur rather than a veteran of combat.

“That ain’t me.” Coop grumbled through his clenched jaw as he tried to wrench the initial momentum back into his favor.

Coop knew better than anyone that he wasn’t a genius. His experience had to be earned one fight at a time. To imitate it without the same effort was ridiculous. Insulting, even.

The Icon didn’t reply to his midfight commentary. It simply kept fighting, completely undaunted by what might have only been a technical difference between the two contenders with identical foundations. When Coop took a step forward, sword slipping beneath his opponent’s guard, the Icon took a step back to receive the blow and stifle the aura. It was a fraction of a second slower, losing a millimeter of ground that it should have been able to hold had it read his obvious intention properly.

Then, when it tried to chop Coop in half, almost overcorrecting to its minor mistake, it was too obvious, giving Coop enough time to prepare a fraction of a second in advance. The way it was implementing the same tactics with a bulkier body, different armaments, and nonidentical stats resulted in an imperfect copy that just wasn’t quite right.

Coop jumped backwards, letting the dark sword whoosh through the air and crash into the alien material on the floor with a thump that shook the entire ship. Coop clicked his teeth as he retaliated.

He flickered through the mists, aiming to bypass the frustrating mana imbued shield in order to deal some real damage. He Vaporformed around the fight, passing across the enemy like a wraith before he reappeared an instant later on its flank, his sword already crashing through the air while the Icon still had its blade planted in the ground.

Coop attempted to land a killing blow as he emerged from the world of mists, chopping the monster across the neck, but the monster surprised him by matching his pseudo teleportation with its own. Coop slashed at empty air as the Icon reappeared where he had been standing a moment before, surrounded by a burst of black fog, this time facing him as if they had merely swapped positions.

It lunged forward and Coop rolled with his swing to the side, dodging rather than parrying before turning all the way around and resetting. The monster kept up the pressure, stepping forward with its shield up where it caught Coop by surprise again.

Its sword morphed into an obsidian spear that it thrust directly at his chest from behind its shield as it pressed forward, maintaining the pressure that Coop had sought to avoid when he slipped a step farther away. Coop furrowed his brow as he spontaneously dipped, refusing to abandon his own planned attack and completely lose the momentum of the fight. While squeezing his teeth together, bracing against the abyssal backdraft of the spear thrust, he sought to trade a direct physical strike for some glancing magical damage.

Coop passed through the ensuing blast of blinding energy, feeling it tear at his armor, sword too eager to land a real blow to be stopped. He could see that the Icon had overcommitted with its spear, leaning forward so that its shield ended up protecting just one side. Coop would make this trade every day of the week, and packed on the force to make sure it was worthy while his aura erupted.

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His blade landed beneath the stretched spear arm, carving through the armor and inches into what he expected to be flesh and ribs. The solidified aura went further, finding no resistance once he broke through the armor. A geyser of black mists shot from the gap instead of any type of blood as he recoiled out of the way of a potential counter.

The Icon stumbled a single step to the side before stabilizing and continuing the assault by twisting its torso to present its shield and press forward. Coop planted his foot, smelling weakness after avoiding a trap and lunged again, trying to deceive the monster with a feint to the right where the shield could still easily protect, then whipping his blade across the Icon’s torso to attack the weak side a second time.

The Icon swapped weapons and brought its longsword back out to parry just in time. The clang rang throughout the chamber as waves of mana smashed into each other, and Coop found himself surprised at how strong the monster still was. What would have been a mortal wound to any other creature had left no impact whatsoever. There was no hint of mounting weakness in its movements. They were still as solid as ever.

The Icon’s counter-attack was swift, if standard, stabbing at him when it detected an opening, but Coop deflected it without even summoning his round shield, turning it to the side as he wondered how he could win against an opponent that felt no pain and couldn’t be diminished. Then, when Coop would have pivoted, salvaging the momentum of the failed counter to attack again, the Icon raised its shield and pressed forward, completely dedicated to maintaining the pressure on its opponent.

The diamond shaped shield caught Coop in the face when he was looking for the blade, smashing his nose before he could completely avoid the damage. Though it was an insignificant blow, it lit a fire in Coop that drove him to return the favor. He wasn’t one to lose to chip damage, but neither was his opponent.

Coop disappeared into his mists, reappearing at unpredictable angles, but the Icon demonstrated the awareness that only a few enemies could match. It deflected his blows, reading his moves as if it could see into the world of mists, then entered its own fog so that they were both blinking around the arena, reappearing to clash swords before disappearing again. A hundred strikes were landed in seconds, their mobility in the mists incomparable to the real world.

When Coop opted to return to a more straightforward competition, the Icon obliged, if only because the heavy diamond shield seemed to give it the greater advantage when they stood toe to toe. It couldn’t utilize its advantage in mass if they were both incorporeal a majority of the time.

Coop kept slashing from the front, generating phantasms to try and at least distract the monster, but it ignored their presence until the shadows around its armor grew tumultuous and lashed out themselves, sending Coop’s manifestations back into the mists with an area of effect burst that slammed into his chest as well. Coop had the breath knocked from his lungs by the pulsing point blank magical attack, forcing him to stagger his attacks for a split second.

The next attack the Icon brought out from behind the shield was a repeated overhand chop delivered with unsophisticated strength, utilizing the burst of magical energy as a smokescreen, pouncing on Coop’s stumble. It swept its own shield aside in favor of fully committed strength as if it sought to end the fight on its own terms. Coop barely sidestepped, losing a few strands of hair as he planted his foot. He shifted to the flank of the monster, opposite the shield, while dumping his aura into the end of his blade and countering with a wild swing before being parried.

They dueled in that way for several more minutes, only exchanging minor damage despite the massive blows that rocked the whole chamber. Coop felt this strange sense that he could have the upper hand at any moment, but was still unable to actually claim any true victories. The differences between them weren't so conclusive that he could predict the outcome of any particular exchange. Whether his nose was broken and he was accumulating scrapes and bruises or not, he was landing much harder strikes on his opponent than he ever received, but if the difference in defensive layers was great, he might have been slowly losing without even realizing.

Coop was recognizing that this was the worst possible matchup for both of them. It was a fight between two tanks with firm foundations in defensiveness and survivability. He hadn’t identified a true physical weakness a single time and he sincerely doubted he was revealing many of his own. At this rate, the contest might go on until the end of days with neither able to take the upper hand, the way a true tank duel should.

They were competing primarily with pure power, each trying to take control of the fight in almost the same fashion. Every opening was seized and every attack was filled with incredible force and effort. Their blades did the talking, but there was a metric ton of mana bolstering their muscles. When the swords stopped each other, the auras kept going, smashing into each other so that the fight couldn’t exactly be considered a sword fight any longer.

The whole atmosphere of the upper chamber was in turmoil, mana cascading across the entire arena when they collided. It surged beyond the actual fight, waves continuously crashing as if the two fighters were dropping boulders in a bathtub with every attack. Between the sparks and their auras, the dim gray light in the center of the room was practically forgotten. If it wasn’t such a deadly struggle, it could have been a beautiful occurrence, like watching an effusive volcanic eruption in black and white, every strike an impact frame, but it was life or death for both contenders.

The next time they drifted apart, both recoiling from a collision of strength that had the seemingly indestructible hexagonal tiles bending beneath their feet, Coop quickswapped to a warhammer and called upon Inheritance of the Mists to smash the shield that so incessantly defended the Icon. He wanted to show this Icon what a judgment was actually meant to look like, with a gavel fit for the battlefield.

Coop had to tilt his head to the side as the Icon’s spear surged forward, nearly clipping his ear, even in the hyper-focused slow motion state, as the apparition never gave up on applying pressure. Coop’s eyes never left the Icon, his purpose crystal clear.

Even if he didn’t defeat the monster outright with his ultimate move, removing its defense would turn the tide so far into his favor there would be no coming back. He needed Inheritance to win, but he wanted to avoid the weakness that would come with holding onto the apparition for longer than a single blow. It wouldn’t do much good to diminish himself more than his seemingly insurmountable opponent if his gambit didn’t work.

The Icon of Mana was raising its shield with its spear still extended as time slowed, recognizing the threat immediately and reacting with more decisive actions than any opponent Coop had ever faced. The warhammer Coop wielded transformed into a legendary skull-splitter with a burst of energy as an apparition of a barbarian king appeared at his back.

The apparition didn’t waste words on flowery prose, gauging the contest with a keen eye and leaving him with a direct, forceful command for decisive action.

“Strike true, Champion! For Mankind!”

And he did, landing a crushing blow that sent the Icon sliding across the arena with the sudden escalation of power in real time. As the possession faded, Coop was already in the monochromatic world of mists, blinking ahead. He wanted to continue his assault before the Icon could recover. The Icon wasn’t the only one that understood momentum.

Coop reappeared just ahead of the Icon as it shot backwards, losing its footing completely. He was planting his feet before his opponent even hit the ground. The apparition had provided enough strength to rip the entire shield arm from its socket, leaving the Icon of Mana fully exposed while smoke streamed from its severed shoulder. It was flung off its feet, falling while Coop attacked.

He had quickswapped back to a blade, this time a nasty greatsword of is own, as he reawakened his mana pool with a flash of Rage. His entire body flexed as he put everything he had into executing the Icon, thinking it was only fair.

The sword ripped through the air as he roared, the red glow barely settling into the blackness of the abyss before the edge caught his target. It connected exactly where he aimed, cleaving the Icon at the neck and sending its helmeted head smashing into a nearby column just as its armored body hit the ground with a heavy thud.

The helmet ignited into a plume of black smoke as the battlefield grew quiet. Coop panted, staring into the fog where the motionless body lay. He was actually surprised the gambit had worked so well. The patience to weave Inheritance into the duel rather than force it into a contest seemed to have worked wonders. It was only because he had felt he had a technical advantage that he had been able to find the right moment to tip the scales far enough in his favor for a killing blow.

The other Icons of Mana wouldn’t stand a chance when he carefully utilized all of his skills if even the tankiest of them all could be taken down by his strength. But before he stepped away, the remaining gauntleted fist attached to the armor disturbed the swirling mists, grabbed his ankle, and squeezed.