This was my decoy Syera.
Yikes.
“It’s so bad.” I winced, looking at her. She was me, if I’d been run over by a car and covered in soot after.
And she was all I had.
As long as the yellow-scaled guy didn’t see it, then it might work.
“Run away,” I whispered to my “likeness.”
Yet as I whispered to her, my divination magic floated out to cover her. My eyes widened as the likeness of me adjusted, drawing in and pushing out where needed, until I was looking at my reflection.
My mouth dried, and I reached out fingertips to touch her. I gasped when my fingers encountered solid form. Every part of her was an exact replica of me, and the key to binding my smoke had been my magus magic.
This was huge! This meant so much that I couldn’t fathom in the space of five seconds. I’dneverheard of this magic.
And I just couldn’t give the impossible phenomenon the awe and appreciation it deserved right now.
A floating sensation filled me. I rarely felt this sensation because this deep state only arrived when I was immersed in my magus magic. I’d realized in this exact moment that I had focused too much on my demon magic since arriving in this realm. I should be focusing on whatallof my power could achieve—the things that only a magus-demon combination could create.
I would rectify that error if I lived.
My voice floated out. “Run now, magic of mine. Run for me.”
The calm and echoing quality to my voice filled my soul, too, and as my magical decoy slipped away between the sharp rocks that could not hurt her, I crouched in wait, listening to the closest footsteps.
A call went up. “Oyx Wehy!”
Those closest to me raced away.
“Thank you,” I purred, slipping from the rocks in the other direction.
I raced to the checkpoint, doing my best to stick to the shadows of the largest rocks in case the crowd decided to betray me. I didn’t see why they’d stay quiet. They wanted to be entertained.
I was most of the way there when their call went up. I lifted my gaze briefly to spot those demons who were standing and pointing. I had no idea where my decoy was, but she was working beautifully. Half the crowd was torn between me and whatever was going down to the far left of the checkpoint.
I still had to kill, though. I couldn’t be sure if the demon I’d kicked away onto the rocks had actually died.
I’d make my kill closer to the checkpoint.
The ground flattened into a rolling expanse of the slipping and smooth stone as the checkpoint came into sight. No cover now. This was the crowd’s favorite part. The part where a demonfelt hope at reaching the checkpoint. That was also when a player might feel the most despair.
Oranges and yellows were ahead and closing in on the checkpoint. Some of them were turning on each other to make their kill. Looked like the unlikeliest of contestants would survive to see yet another round of Tiers.
I readied my power to open a portal. There was an orange at the back of the herd with my name on him.
A roared order from the far left stole my focus.
I squinted to where the huge group of demons battled me. Fake me.Wow,Decoy Syera could really move. But she was tiring. The power in the smoke I’d given her was finite.
She staggered at a blow from a purple, and a voice rose above the others.
“Ia Mio.”She’s mine.
A red, stronger than the others, evident by the deeper hue of her scales, stepped forward from the line of other reds. The purples and blues halted at her order and drew back their smoke.
The red female swayed in a predator’s gait to my decoy, her killing intent clear in every step. “I thought you were meant to be powerful,” she mocked.
