Chapter 42: [42] : The Mirror Floor, Frictionless Movement

They stepped out of the stairwell and into Floor 6.

The environment changed drastically. There were no stone blocks. There were no iron chandeliers.

The room was vast and completely empty. The floor was made of perfectly polished glass that reflected their boots. The walls and the ceiling were made of the exact same material. It was a giant box of mirrors.

"I don’t like this," Kendra whispered. She gripped her plus 10 Sniper Bow tightly. "Where are the monsters?"

[Floor 6: The Mirror of Truth]

↳ Trial Objective: Defeat yourself to advance.

The heavy glass door slammed shut behind them and locked with a loud, magical click.

"Defeat myself?" Sloane frowned. "What does that mean?"

She got her answer immediately.

Three sections of the glass wall directly in front of them began to ripple like water. The reflections inside the glass didn’t match their movements anymore. The reflections stepped forward and physically walked right out of the mirrors.

Declan stared at the three figures standing across the room.

They were exact, perfect copies.

The Kendra clone held the exact same matte black composite bow. The Sloane clone wore the same white medic tunic and had her hands glowing with green magic.

And standing in the center was the Declan clone. It wore the pitch black Predator Coat. It wore the Spiked Striders.

The clone raised its right hand. The air distorted, and a massive, heavy iron polearm materialized in its grip. The plus 30 Warden Halberd. The tiny black hole spun violently in the center of the axe head.

"Oh, come on!" Sloane yelled. "The system gave him a black hole too?!"

Declan already has a grasp of what’s happening.

"It copies stats and gear," Declan said calmly. He didn’t pull out a weapon yet. "The system reads my inventory and duplicates the mathematical values. It thinks it leveled the playing field."

The Kendra clone moved first. It raised its bow, pulled the string back with terrifying speed, and fired.

The real Kendra reacted purely on instinct. She raised her own bow and fired.

The two arrows flew across the room and collided perfectly in mid air, shattering each other into splinters.

"I can’t hit her!" Kendra panicked, knocking another arrow. "She has my exact Agility stat! She shoots exactly when I do!"

Sloane was having her own problems. She threw a minor damage spell at her clone. The clone threw the exact same spell back. The spells hit each other and fizzled out.

"Are we just supposed to punch each other until someone runs out of stamina?" Sloane groaned.

Declan didn’t care about their fights. He was watching his own clone.

The Declan clone didn’t use Starfall. The system AI probably calculated that dropping a sun in a closed room with friendly targets was tactically inefficient.

Instead, the clone gripped the dark matter halberd with both hands and charged.

It moved fast. Seventy base Agility plus the ring stats. The clone crossed the glass floor in a blur of black leather. It swung the massive halberd horizontally, aiming to cut Declan in half.

The system AI triggered the weapon trait automatically. The mass increased by five hundred percent. The air screamed as the weapon tore through the room.

Declan ducked.

He didn’t use Void Blink. He just dropped to one knee.

The heavy axe head swung over his hair, missing by an inch. The sheer wind pressure from the swing felt like a solid punch to the face. The clone swing continued, smashing the halberd into the glass wall.

The wall didn’t break, but the entire room shook violently.

The clone instantly reversed its grip and brought the blunt edge of the weapon down in a vicious overhead strike.

Declan rolled to the side. The halberd smashed into the glass floor right where his head had just been.

Declan scrambled to his feet. He frowned.

’The system is too perfect.’ Declan thought.

The AI was calculating the fight based on numbers. It knew exactly how fast Declan could run. It knew his exact dodge radius based on his Agility stat. It knew the exact reach of the halberd. Every time Declan moved, the clone swing was already perfectly tracking his new position.

If he kept dodging, he would eventually run out of stamina. And if that halberd hit him even once, the Gravitational Annihilation trait would crush him into a meatball.

He couldn’t beat the system math in a fair fight.

So he had to change the math mid swing.

The clone ripped the halberd out of the floor and swung horizontally again, aiming for his ribs.

Declan didn’t dodge backward. He pulled up his system interface with his mind. He looked at his equipped boots.

He needed something flawless that is good in evading attacks.

"System," Declan commanded instantly. "Enhance the Spiked Striders to plus twenty. Now."

He had thousands of points left. The white light flared around his boots right as the clone halberd came rushing toward him.

The chimes hammered in his head, bypassing the safety warnings instantly.

[Spiked Striders plus 11... plus 15... plus 19... plus 20.]

[Triggering Conceptual Mutation...]

The physical shape of the boots changed on his feet. The heavy spikes retracted completely. The soles of the boots turned perfectly smooth, glowing with a faint, icy blue light.

[Spiked Striders plus 20]

↳ Trait Unlocked: Frictionless Movement

↳ Functionality: The user can completely remove all friction between their footwear and any surface. Momentum is conserved perfectly. Movement speed is no longer restricted by surface tension.

Declan saw the heavy halberd inches from his ribs. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The system AI calculated that Declan would either jump back or use Void Blink. It had already adjusted the angle of the blade to catch him on the retreat.

Declan didn’t jump. He activated Frictionless Movement.

He dropped to his knees.

On normal ground, dropping to his knees would stop his forward momentum completely.

But with zero friction, the smooth glass floor felt like pure ice. Declan didn’t stop. He slid forward with his existing momentum, shooting across the floor like a hockey puck.

He slid right under the horizontal swing of the halberd.

The system AI glitched. The clone eyes widened. It had not calculated a slide. It couldn’t physically comprehend a movement that defied the established physics engine.

Declan slid perfectly between the clone legs, instantly popping back up to his feet directly behind it.

He didn’t pull out a weapon. He didn’t need to.

He reached out his bare hands, grabbed the sides of the clone head, and twisted violently.

CRACK!

With his massive base Strength, he snapped the clone neck before the AI could even turn around.

The clone went completely limp. The massive halberd clattered onto the glass floor. A second later, the body dissolved into blue pixels, and the weapon vanished.

Turns out that the only thing you need to beat yourself is logic.

[Mirror of Truth]

↳ Player V Defeated.

Declan dusted off his hands. He looked across the room.

Kendra was still shooting arrows at her clone, creating a pile of splinters in the middle of the room. Sloane was just standing there, angrily glaring at her clone while it glared back.

Declan sighed. He casually walked up behind the Kendra clone, raised his fist, and punched it in the back of the head. It shattered into pixels.

He walked over to the Sloane clone and did the exact same thing.

[Floor 6 Cleared]

"You know," Sloane grumbled, lowering her glowing green hands. "You could have done that five minutes ago."

"I was busy fighting a guy with a black hole on a stick," Declan said. He pointed to the heavy iron door that just appeared at the back of the glass room. "Let us go. Four floors left."