The Sixth School Ch. 022

Olivia's explanation that the copies of him didn't have self-awareness was in a way right and in a way wrong. It wasn't that the copies were zombie-like drones that only responded to commands. Instead, it was as if a copy of Greg's personality was transferred to every clone of his that was made by the scroll. With his personality copied over to them, they could interact naturally in any setting just like Greg would. The only difference is, they would consider any order given by the main mind, which was Greg, to be law and would stop at nothing to accomplish it. According to Olivia, this was part of the enchantment weaved into the scroll to ensure that one didn't make duplicates of themselves only to later have a disagreement with said copies.

Greg was currently standing in the very same cave that his uncle had found, watching the fight through the very same scrying pool that his uncle had used to spy on him. Having learned of this place in the course of interrogating his cousin, Greg didn't hesitate to commandeer it for his purposes. His cousin Nolruk was currently lying belly down on the floor next to the wall. His head was turned towards the wall, the paralytic that was currently flowing through his system making it impossible for him to turn around or see it when Olivia took on a corporeal form.

In truth, this wasn't where Greg wanted to be. After the plan had been settled and his duplicates made, Greg wanted to rush back home and protect his family and allow his copies to do all the work of attacking his uncle. Olivia, however, had informed him that this wasn't a wise idea. By using the hive scroll, they had given themselves the same weakness that his uncle had. In the same way that his uncle was the weakest link when put together with the dark crawlers, Greg was now the weakest link on his side. This wasn't because he was exceptionally weak or anything. It was simply because if anything happened to him, all his copies would be like marionettes with their strings cut. They had come up with a great plan that had a great chance of success, but for better or worse, for it to work, they couldn't risk losing the original Greg, and as such, he was forced to avoid both battlefields.

Greg had sent one of his copies running towards the town. Greg had bought shoes of haste for every single one of his clones to give them the extra speed of movement they'd need when dealing with the dark crawlers. It was only the clone that he sent towards the town that he also bought subtlety pants for. He needed it to move through the forest as quickly as possible and get back to his family. Based on what Olivia had said, Greg had taken a gamble. According to Olivia, controlling a summoned creature gets increasingly harder the greater the distance between the summoner and the creature itself. Given the distance between them and the town, and the fact that his uncle was still new to magic, chances were that other than asking the dark crawler to hide deep below Greg's house, his uncle had no way of having the dark crawler mark the occupants of the house. It was only if Greg failed to show up that his uncle would come back to town and be better able to command this hidden card of his. Given this, Greg had made his first copy reach his house seconds before the second one appeared before his uncle. With his uncle seeing one of his copies appear, he would have no reason to command the worm under Greg's house to do anything. Not when he thinks he has Greg firmly in the palm of his hand.

Unlike his uncle, Olivia knew how to mark a moving target as the conduit of the scrying. The bird that was currently watching the fight between Greg's clones and his uncle, could freely move if it felt it was in danger. it, however, would settle down very quickly once it was safe and continue to observe the fight. Through its eyes and that of his clones, Greg watched as the dust cleared from the crater that had been left behind by the tier-three alchemical bomb. The number of clones he had had now gone down by three. The first two had each tried and failed to kill his uncle because one of the dark crawlers had protected the man. This time Greg was certain that regardless of what the man or the worms, tried, there was no getting out of this last attempt. His clone had simply been too close to the man when the bomb went off. Even if the last of the three dark crawlers that had been with the man appeared, then it too would have been destroyed by the explosion. It was because of this certainty that Greg could barely believe his eyes when the dust cleared up to reveal his uncle still on the ground but under a grey shield that kept him safe from any harm.

The shield was covered in ichor and viscera. No doubt, some of it was from Greg's clone, but given the copious amounts that Greg could see, it was clear that the third dark crawler had tried to come to his master's defense before it was reduced to mush. Half of its body was still buried in the ground. Its head and the first half of its body, however, were reduced to bits all around the crater.

"Fuck! How hard is it to just kill one person?!" Greg ground out through gritted teeth, unable to help his frustration.

"Send the other two clones. Now!" The urgency with which Olivia gave the instructions made Greg's heart skip a beat. Without asking why, he made the last two copies in the clearing to run towards the center. Greg knew that the familiar wouldn't panic unless the situation was serious enough to warrant it. The two clones that had been waiting at the edge of the clearing immediately turned into blurs as they shot towards the center of the clearing and threw themselves into the crater inside which his uncle was.

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

Two explosions resounded one after the other even as the alchemical bombs in the hands of his clones went off one after the other. Greg didn't have to wait for the dust to settle to know that his foe wasn't dead yet. Through the link Greg had to his clones, Greg could feel a foreboding aura effusing out from the crater that had been expanded by the repeated explosions. Greg didn't have to hear it from Olivia to know. His uncle seemed to have realized that he had no way of surviving the onslaught that was facing him. As such, he seemed to be drawing on every ounce of power he could in a bid to take down his enemies along with himself. Drawing on all the mana that he could, the man was about to go berserk.

"Begin phase two, now!" Olivia instructed. The look on her face clearly relayed that things weren't going how she'd hoped they would.

Even if they failed to kill his uncle with the alchemical bombs, a critical point of their plan was that they had to eliminate the dark crawlers around the man. With them out of the way, phase two of their plan could be initiated. Phase two could be summarized in two simple words, carpet bombing. The reason they had been forced to use tier-three bombs was because of the dark crawlers, not his uncle. With them out of the way, mundane arrows should have been enough to do in his uncle. Greg, however, hadn't been willing to take any chances. Three clones emerged from behind the trees they'd been hiding behind. In their hands was a bow, and strapped to their backs, a quiver full of explosive arrows.

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

As soon as Greg gave the order through his link to the clones, a chorus of explosions could be heard ringing out through the scrying pool. Each of the three clones was repeatedly targeting the center of the clearing where his uncle was. Relentlessly, they kept sending arrow after exploding arrow at the shield protecting his uncle. Frustratingly, however, the arrows seemed to be barely making a dent in the man's shield. Greg and Olivia watched helplessly as the man rose off the ground and into the air. Powerful winds were swirling around the man even as he turned eyes that had gone completely black in the direction of the three clones.

'Space out!'

Greg had barely given the order to his clones when his uncle waved his staff. Looking at it through the scrying pool, the motion appeared casual. One would use more effort in trying to swat away a fly than his uncle put into that wave. Greg, however, felt his back soak with cold sweat as he could feel through his clones just how much power had gathered onto the tip of that staff. Before his clones could even take a step to distance themselves from each other, what could only be described as a black comet shot forward from the tip of the tip of the staff.

Three nodes in the network went dark.

The clearing became completely silent as the cold and unfeeling eyes of his uncle stared at the spot where the three copies of Greg had been. Right now, an even deeper crater had formed there as a result of his one attack compared to the one formed by the combined might of three alchemical bombs. Just by looking at it, one could feel the wrath and hatred that had been behind the attack. Even the trees around had not been spared as everything within ten meters of the hole had been reduced to splinters.

By a pure stroke of luck, the long-tailed wind hawk through which they were watching his uncle had been on the other side of the clearing and thus had been spared. This made it so that they could continue to keep track of their foe and know what was going on with him. For five whole minutes, his uncle remained in the air, levitating as he looked in the direction of the hole. It was almost like he was daring the decimated clones to come back to life and try him again. When, after five whole minutes, no new copies emerged, however, whatever power his uncle had been drawing on slowly began to recede. His body slowly descended back to the flat ground even as the inky black color faded from the man's eyes. As soon as the man's feet touched the ground, all strength seemed to leave him as he leaned heavily on his staff and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Greg didn't need telling to know that this little berserk episode had severely cut down on the remaining time that his uncle had left to live. Looking at the man's now, almost skeletal appearance, it was clear that the man had just burnt up almost nine-tenths of his remaining vitality. Two or three days would have been the most he could live, if that, after drawing on so much power. Greg, however, wasn't going to grant him even that.

One clone had gone to town to protect his family.

Five clones had blown themselves up using alchemical bombs in an attempt to kill his uncle.

Three more clones had tried to blow the man up using explosive arrows and been decimated.

That made a total of nine clones.

"Let this be a lesson to you, Greg," Olivia spoke in a cautioning tone of voice, even as the last of Greg's clones that had stayed roughly a hundred meters away from the fight, produced a floating dagger set. "The most dangerous time in a battle..." the familiar continued even as the daggers turned into blurs, shooting forward towards his uncle. "Is right after you think you've won!"

Greg watched as his uncle's head rolled off his shoulders and onto the ground, his body collapsing soon thereafter...

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