924 A Trial Designed To be Unwinnable

After the teams finished the Survival test, the Fourth Trial began after a little break.

"It's called Mirrors of Self," Varian laughed loudly to suppress the pain bubbling up inside him. "It's pretty interesting to be honest. The trial will produce a copy of the team and you have to pick a clone other than yourself and kill it."

Sarah was feeling that something was off with Varian. But the trial drew her interest and she blinked her bright eyes."…Isn't that hard?"

Usually, Sarah had a cold expression. But when with him, she had a cheerful expression. But this innocent and cute look…it was devastating.

Imagine a pure and cute girl looking at you with those eyes, it's crit x100.

Varian's heart twitched at her actions and he just wanted to pinch her cheeks. 'Wait, what the hell am I doing? Oh right!'

"Ahem, it's hard. The Sovereign can kill Prince or Hybrid. Hybrid can kill Prince. But who can the Prince kill? None!" Varian shrugged.

"But this is only the fourth trial, right? Even though this world's trial difficulty is higher than others, it shouldn't be the one that holds the teams back. I'm guessing more like seventh or eight." Sarah tapped her chin and commented.

"Well…"

— — —

"Then prince, please go ahead," The Sovereign of Emerald Duchy bowed lightly and pointed to the three motionless bodies standing in front of them.

They were the exact clones of the Emeraldy Duchy team!

"Fuuu~" The Prince exhaled deeply and picked the Sovereign clone. "I'll have to make it fast."

The Sovereign picked the Hybrid clone and the Hybrid followed the instructions to pick the Prince clone.

A bright light flashed and the three of them were seperated by huge walls. The walls of the room they're in turned into a mirror and the three found themselves in a mirror house of sorts.

But instead of their own reflection, they could only see the reflections of the clone they picked.

The Sovereign gripped his sword and slashed down. The Hybrid's clone was ripped into three parts and blew away into specks of dusts.

The Hyrbid's attack reached the Prince's clone and burnt it into ash.

Finally, in the mirror room with the Prince…

"Haa~" The Prince took a deep breath as the timer above his head slowly ticked down to 0.

Any attacks can only begin when the count down ends and the ones before it would lead to a penalty.

Of course, the Prince didn't attack. Even if he landed a successful attack, and there's no penalty, it'd be useless against a Sovereign.

Instead, he calmed mind and found a link between himself and this Sovereign clone.

'I knew it!'

The Sovereigns were connected to the Princes through a slave contract of sorts. It's not unbreakable but it's highly risky.

Other than the horrific pain it inflicted on the slaves, an absolute feature of the slave contract was—

"Dea—"

Boom!

Before he could finish the action, the air in front of the prince compressed and exploded at the intensity of a nuclear blast.

"What?!" The Prince's heart nearly stopped beating as a small light flashed in front of him and grew into a cloud of lightning.

The defense treasure on him opened up automatically and protected him from certain death.

The Sovereign clone didn't care and appeared in front of the prince in a blink. Clenching his fist at the side, he prepared to kill the Prince with a punch.

"Dammit!" The Prince cursed and finished off the link in his mind. "Death!"

Crack! BOOM!

The barrier by the defensive treasure broke apart like fragile glass and the treasure itself dissolved into dust as the menacing fist approached the terrified Prince.

'No! This is wrong! This thing is much stronger than the Soveriegn!'

When the Prince realized, a stinging pain filled his face and his skin split apart. In an instant, his face turned bloody and he looked like he was drowned in green paint.

But the Prince's eyes were wide open and stared at the fist that stopped inches in front of his nose.

"T-Thankfully…"

The Prince slumped to the ground and collapsed.

The other two had similar experiences, but they all passed.

— — —

"This stage is common in other Synthetic worlds too. So, that's why the Princes are handed a contract over the Sovereign," Varian explained. "Of course, this world is harder. If the Princes are careless, they'll die. This trial took

"Ah!" Sarah nodded repeatedly and cupped her cheeks with her hands. "70% are gone by now already! And there are still five mote trials. Sounds crazy."

"It actually is crazy," Varian sighed. "Think again, when this trial was made, there was no such thing as slave contract. Meaning, they intended for the participants to be able to kill atleast one of the other two."

"But they also have the Survival trial where a member needs to be weaker than the other two or else the horde which is as strong as the weakest team member will be too dangerous." Sarah pointed out.

Exactly.

If you want to pass this Fourth Trial normally, you'd want the teammates to be of equal strength with special restraints over one teammate.

Fire, Water, Wind or something like that. All peak level 9.

But if that's followed, in third trial, the team will face three hundred peak level 9.  There's no hope of victory.

"It's as if the trial was designed to be unwinnable," Varian narrowed his eyes. "The trials of other world don't have this harsh condition. In fact, two members can choose the same clone as an opponent and the members who won can support the ones fighting. So, the prince can fight his clone and wait for support."

"I've been meaning to ask," Sarah tucked the strand of her hair behind her ear and looked at him with a curious gaze. "Why is this world different from others?"

"Different…" Varian chuckled. "Out of all the failed products, this is a successful one."

"!"