The brief pause that followed felt like the calm before a storm. We all stood there, staring at the perfect copy of Wei Lin, processing the implications of what we'd just witnessed.

This wasn't just a shapeshifter that could mimic appearances. This thing could become any one of us, complete with our cultivation methods, our techniques, and our spiritual foundations. It was like fighting ourselves, but with the advantage of genuine Elemental Realm power backing every ability.

When it became Wu Kangming, it had access to those monstrous sword techniques. When it became Wei Lin, it could absorb and redirect our attacks through his marketplace. And if it became Luo Yichen, it would gain his reflection abilities and sword mastery.

But what if it becomes me...

"Azure," I thought urgently, "what happens if this thing shapeshifts into my form? Would it gain access to the World Tree Sutra? The two suns?"

"I honestly don't know, Master," Azure replied, his voice tight with concern. "The level of mimicry we're seeing shouldn't be possible. If it can truly replicate your inner world..."

The implication hung unspoken between us. My cultivation method was already unusual enough to draw attention. If this copy started manifesting red and blue suns, or demonstrating world-walking abilities, it would expose secrets I wasn't ready to reveal. Especially not in front of the whole sect.

My eyes narrowed as I studied the Wei Lin copy. I couldn't let that happen. Whatever the cost, I had to prevent this thing from taking my form.

The copy, still wearing Wei Lin's face, raised its hands, and I felt my heart sink as I recognized the technique it was preparing.

Lightning qi began to gather around its fingers, but this wasn't the refined control Wei Lin had demonstrated. This was Elemental Realm power channeled through Wei Lin's techniques, creating something that was fundamentally more dangerous than either component alone.

"Scatter!" I yelled, activating Verduring Step just as the copy unleashed its attack.

The lightning that erupted from its hands wasn't a single bolt but a storm of electrical death that covered the entire battlefield.

I barely managed to teleport to safety behind a distant tree, feeling the heat wash over me as the attack passed. When the light faded, the entire area where we'd been standing was nothing but a crater of melted stone and glass.

Wu Kangming had somehow deflected the worst of the attack with his sword, the blade glowing white-hot from the absorbed energy. But even he had been driven to one knee, and I could see fresh blood on his robes where the electrical discharge had found its mark.

Luo Yichen hadn't been as fortunate. The lightning bolt had struck him before he was able to reflect it. He was now on his back twenty yards away, his Mirrorwater Blade lay beside him and his robes smoking from electrical burns. He was still breathing, but barely conscious.

"One down," I muttered, using Verduring Step to appear beside the fallen cultivator. A quick check confirmed he was alive but out of the fight. His spiritual pathways had been scrambled by the electrical attack, leaving him unable to channel qi effectively.

The copy turned its attention to us, and I watched with growing dread as its form began to shift again.

Wei Lin's features dissolved like melting wax, reforming into the pale, expressionless mask of Wu Kangming. But this time, there was something different about the transformation. The spiritual pressure radiating from it was denser, more refined.

"This is getting out of hand," Wei Lin said, moving to flank the copy from the left while Wu Kangming approached from the right. "Every time it changes forms, it gets stronger."

I positioned myself behind the creature, thick vines already growing from the ground in preparation for another binding technique. "It's learning from each transformation," I realized. "Not just copying our abilities, but improving on them."

The copy proved my point by drawing its sword and executing a technique that was definitely Wu Kangming's style, but amplified beyond anything the original could produce.

The blade moved in a perfect arc, trailing streams of silver qi that cut through space itself. But instead of a single cutting line, this attack produced dozens of them, creating a web of spatial distortions that turned the air around us into a maze of deadly edges.

Wu Kangming's eyes widened as he saw his own technique enhanced and turned against us. He raised his sword to deflect what he could, but there were simply too many cutting lines to block them all.

I activated Verduring Step repeatedly, dissolving and rematerializing as fast as I could manage to avoid the spatial cuts. Each teleportation carried me to a different plant in my network, creating a flickering pattern of green light as I danced between the deadly attacks.

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Wei Lin wasn't as mobile, but he had other options. His spiritual marketplace flared to life, different stalls activating in sequence to absorb and redirect what attacks he could manage. Lightning disappeared into his storm stall, spatial distortions were processed by his void stall, even the sword qi itself was partially absorbed by his Black Market.

But there was too much power behind the attack for even his tenth-stage cultivation to handle completely. One of the spatial cuts caught him across the chest, tearing through his robes and leaving a deep gash that immediately began bleeding profusely.

"Damn it," he gasped, pressing his hand to the wound. "At this rate, we're all going to be eliminated."

The copy didn't give us time to recover, itt shifted forms again, becoming Luo Yichen this time.

The reflection technique it used next was Luo Yichen's signature ability, but amplified to ridiculous extremes. Instead of creating a few mirror images, the copy surrounded itself with hundreds of reflections, each one moving independently and wielding its own sword. It was like facing an entire army of overpowered Luo Yichens.

I tried to bind the real one with my vines, but with so many perfect copies moving in identical patterns, I couldn't determine which was the original. Every vine I sent out was immediately cut down by multiple reflected blades.

Wu Kangming was having the same problem. His sword work was precise enough to handle multiple opponents, but hundreds? Even his prodigal techniques had limits.

Wei Lin tried a different approach, sending out area-of-effect attacks that should have hit all the reflections simultaneously. But as the various elemental energies reached the crowd of copies, they simply flowed into each other, combining and amplifying before being redirected back at us with devastating force.

The battle was becoming increasingly one-sided. Every technique we used was turned against us, every strategy we employed was countered before we could fully implement it. The copy was learning our patterns, adapting to our tactics, becoming more dangerous with each exchange.

I was starting to think we might actually lose this fight when Wu Kangming did something unexpected.

Instead of attacking the reflections, he turned his blade on himself.

Not literally, but he used one of his spatial-cutting techniques to sever something invisible around his own body.

For a moment, I couldn't understand what he was doing. Then I felt it: his spiritual pressure suddenly spiked, as if he'd been holding back some fundamental aspect of his power.

"Big Brother!" Luo Yichen called out weakly from where he lay injured. "Not the seal!"

"It won't matter if we're all eliminated," Wu Kangming replied, his voice carrying an edge I'd never heard before.

Whatever he'd done, the effect was immediate. His next sword strike didn't just cut through the reflections, it erased them completely, leaving only the original copy standing amid the fading afterimages of its destroyed duplicates.

But the technique had cost him.

Blood ran from Wu Kangming's eyes and nose, and his usually perfect stance was noticeably unsteady. Whatever power he'd unsealed was clearly taking a toll on his body.

The copy, now back to wearing Luo Yichen's face, studied Wu Kangming with what might have been curiosity. Then it shifted forms again, but this time the transformation was different. Instead of becoming one of us, it began cycling through all their forms rapidly – Wu Kangming to Wei Lin to Luo Yichen and back again, each change bringing with it a different set of abilities.

It attacked with Wu Kangming's sword techniques while defending with Wei Lin's absorption abilities, then switched to Luo Yichen's reflections while maintaining Wu Kangming's spatial cutting power. The combination was proving nearly impossible to counter.

I was starting to panic when an opportunity finally presented itself.

The copy had just shifted into Wei Lin's form and was preparing another devastating lightning attack when I managed to get a full set of binding vines around its position. Unlike my previous attempts, this time I didn't try to hold it in place. Instead, I used the vines to create another Qi Disruption Array, the formation's interference making it difficult for the copy to maintain its shapeshifting ability.

"Now!" I yelled to Wu Kangming. "While it's locked in form!"

Wu Kangming didn't hesitate. Whatever power he'd unsealed was still active, and he channeled all of it into a single devastating sword strike. The blade moved through dimensions I couldn't perceive, cutting through space, time, and possibility itself to reach its target.

The attack struck the copy dead center, punching completely through its chest where a heart would normally be. The creature staggered, its form flickering between different shapes as the wound disrupted its ability to maintain coherent structure.

I saw my chance and took it.

Verduring Step carried me behind the wounded copy, appearing directly in its blind spot with my palm already charged with qi. I drove my hand forward in a perfect Phantom Strike, the technique designed to channel explosive force through a single point of contact.

My palm penetrated completely through the copy's back, spiritual energy erupting from the point of impact as the technique found its mark. For a moment, I thought we'd finally managed to defeat the creature.

Then I felt its form beginning to shift beneath my hand.

The copy's features were already changing, pale skin giving way to darker hair, Wei Lin's build morphing into something more familiar. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late to pull away.

The creature completed its transformation, and I found myself staring at my own face.

The copy had become me.

Its head turned in a motion that should have been impossible given our relative positions, rotating a full one hundred and eighty degrees to look me directly in the eyes. My own face stared back at me, but there was something fundamentally wrong about the expression it wore.

It was me, but empty. Hollow. Like looking into a mirror that reflected everything except the soul.

"Azure," I thought desperately, "tell me this thing can't access the World Tree Sutra."

But Azure's response was cut short as I felt something terrifying begin to happen. The copy's spiritual pressure was changing, growing more complex. And from somewhere deep within its transformed body, I sensed a familiar pulse of energy.

Red sun energy. Blue sun energy.

My own powers, manifesting in this creature's body with Elemental Realm strength behind them.

The copy's lips curved into a smile that was mine but not mine, and I knew our situation had just gone from desperate to catastrophic.