My Alter Ego's Path to Greatness

The familiar human form wrapped in sunset-colored radiance. His nemesis, whom he had faced several times before, and with whom he had to engage in fierce battles each time, was right before his eyes.

'Society Master.'

A sense of crisis surged, and alarm bells rang in Harris's head. He had certainly expected him to be unable to move easily, yet here he was, suddenly revealing himself. Moreover, it was such a sudden appearance that no sign of it was detected by the formation set up around the area.

"Tch."

Whoosh—

With a single push of his foot, he retreated far back, gripping his bow tightly and heightening his tension. The spirits he had summoned also gathered around him, entering a staunch defensive posture. Harris, a spirit archer type, specialized in long-range sniping that actively utilized evasion. Confronting such a formidable enemy at this close range was…

'Wait, that's…?'

As various thoughts flashed through his mind in quick succession. While contemplating whether to retreat or call for reinforcements to properly engage, Harris's eyes narrowed. His starlight pupils, hidden by the helmet, flickered incessantly, meticulously analyzing the clues he had missed in this sudden situation.

"Ah."

Only a few seconds had passed from when the attack was blocked to when he retreated and grasped the situation. Then, finally realizing the source of his unease, Harris muttered a complaint.

"...You really gave me a scare."

Before the Secretary stood the figure of the Society Master, still wreathed in light. But upon closer inspection, he could be certain. That was not the real one, but merely its shadow, a projection of a fragment of its thoughts.

'A false alarm. Is it some kind of sacred art using divine power?'

Perhaps he had been more tense than he needed to be, having considered the possibility that the Society Master himself might actually appear. Of course, that didn't mean the current situation was entirely optimistic. Even so, it had effortlessly blocked his full-power attack just by appearing.

[Adeline.]

"Ahhh—! My Lord! This lowly servant beholds her master!"

[It seems you've gotten tangled up with a troublesome one.]

"I, I am sorry! It is due to my lack of ability…!"

A booming voice spread out, and a heavy presence pressed down on all sides. The Secretary was already kneeling before that presence, not even paying attention to Harris, repeatedly bowing her head. Even though it was clearly not the Society Master himself but only a fragment of its projection.

[I am sorry, but now is not a good time. Unfortunately, due to the damage to my divinity, interference from Earth is stronger than ever.]

"I have no excuse, my Lord. This too is a trial given to me. I will bravely overcome it and prove my worth!"

[Hmm….]

The thought-entity of the Society Master, a human form made of divine power, turned its head to look at Harris. At the suspiciously dressed stranger, surrounded by numerous spirits and on guard.

'…Did it recognize me?'

Harris swallowed nervously as he cautiously assessed the situation. He had played a part in the fight that had unfolded in Auterika before, so it wouldn't be strange if the Society Master recognized him. Even if he had only engaged from extreme long range and had never faced him directly, for someone of his level, identifying an opponent by their energy signature alone would be trivial.

[Maintaining this projection is reaching its limit. I do not have much time left.]

But contrary to his expectations, it showed no particular reaction. Whether it was merely not showing it, or if it was restricted in some way because it wasn't the main body, he couldn't tell. The entity looked down at the Secretary, who was still prostrating herself before it, and solemnly continued to speak.

[Adeline, my apostle. I shall grant you a divine body. With your own hands, personally punish the one who obstructs the Opening of the World and offer their spirit and flesh as a sacrifice.]

"Ahhh! Thank you for your grace, my Lord!"

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, its body disintegrated into light in an instant and began to be absorbed into her body, which was kneeling before it. Harris, who possessed Saint-level knowledge of divine power, could understand what that meant at a glance.

'Divine Descent?'

The Secretary was a priestess who served the Society Master as a god, and an apostle who had directly received power from him. In that ritual, said to be performable only by a select few even among the highest-ranking clergy, her divine power surged explosively and began to boil fiercely.

"Ahhh! I can feel the Lord is with me! Glorious and holy!"

A powerful wave spread out around her, and from the weapons made of divine power that she wore, a hot energy like magma blazed up. At that aura, clearly different from before, Harris slightly frowned.

'I knew it wouldn't end easily. Phase 2, huh?'

Due to the influence of the ritual, both the quantity and quality of her divine power began to explosively grow to more than three or four times their original state. If it was just divine power alone that was at that level, then her overall combat ability, including other skills, would be even greater. The Secretary, now in a Divine Descent state, was becoming a formidable enemy that even Harris couldn't confidently claim victory against.

However—there was one decisive difference between mediums like games and reality…

'Now!'

Namely, he was not a kind enemy who would wait for the opponent to finish transforming completely.

Whoooong—

Harris's star-shaped pupils shone, and 「Observer of the Milky Way」 captured a gap in the Divine Descent ritual. Of course, as much as it was openly displayed, the ritual itself was thoroughly secured, but even that was not enough to completely deceive Harris's gaze, who was also knowledgeable about divine power.

Goooo—

「World Tree Successor」, 「Nature Assimilation」, 「Call of Nature」, 「Natural Body」, 「Fairy Law」, 「Melody of Harmony」, and even 「Modified Nature's Eight Trigram」. All of his abilities harmonized together, and the power he had secretly gathered since the Society Master's appearance, while constantly watching for an opportunity, exploded all at once.

———!

Towards the Secretary, who had not yet finished preparing.

"Hectare!"

Rumble!

At Harris's shout, a giant stone wall rose from the ground. Not just ordinary stone, but a mass of rock infused with the energy of nature, so solid that it wouldn't crack easily. It rapidly increased in size and stood in the path of a figure, but.

Kwaaaang!

It didn't last long against the onslaught of a large hammer that soon flew in, shattering into pieces. It had only been able to briefly slow down the opponent, as initially expected.

'More troublesome than I thought. The formation is limiting my freedom of movement too.'

Harris clicked his tongue and frowned. Even as he retreated backward, he didn't stop moving his hands to keep the opponent in check, continuously drawing his bowstring. Towards the female warrior, the Secretary, who was scattering reddish light in streaks and rushing in like a tank.

Swoosh—! Thwack!

Boom! Kwaang!

Lightning bolts falling from the sky were blocked by her shield, and the flames that were engulfing the surroundings were pushed back by the wind pressure from her hammer. Sharp blades of wind merely scraped past the surface of her solid armor. Wrapped in sunset-colored radiance, silently breaking through all obstacles and advancing, her figure was truly like a divine general of the heavens itself.

'Tch, still, it's much more manageable than I initially expected….'

That was all thanks to the full-power surprise attack launched as if catching her off guard during the Divine Descent ritual. As expected, the ritual was protected by powerful divinity, but it couldn't be completely unaffected by a kill move that was launched head-on with full intent from the start. It would have been ideal if it had ended with that, but hoping for that much was too greedy.

"How dare you! How dare you! I will kill you, you infidel!"

Of course, the opponent didn't seem to think so. Her honorifics from before were gone, and her face completely flushed with blood vessels, the Secretary spewed out harsh words, causing Harris to shake his head from side to side.

"Wouldn't it be better to calm down a bit? That's not good for your health, you know…."

"To disrupt a glorious ritual! I will surely burn you alive and offer you as a burnt offering!"

"No, I just thought you were confident because you were openly carrying out your affairs while ignoring me right in front of you. Even safety insensitivity has its limits, if it was that important, you should have done it somewhere safe or paid more attention to security…."

"Shut up, shut up! I will surely rip out that tongue!"

He pointed out the facts item by item and expressed the unfairness of his treatment, but the opponent, with a face like a vengeful spirit and eyes completely flipped, seemed to have no intention of listening to him. Well, he had brought up the words mostly for the purpose of provocation anyway.

'But this is troublesome. It's taking longer than I thought. There's a time limit to the enhancement from Divine Descent, but….'

The problem was that the timeout for this operation would come before the Divine Descent was even over. Objectively speaking, wasn't he just a terrorist who had attacked the Pantheon's leadership? In fact, just lingering this long was already quite burdensome.

'I've used a formation utilizing natural energy to hide the traces as naturally as possible, but.'

Of course, even that couldn't last forever. Whether the formation eventually collapsed due to accumulated impact from within, or it was exposed by an external search, this situation would soon come to an end. Right now, it wouldn't be strange if the American Guardians burst in at any moment.

'…I can't let it end like this. If I miss this golden opportunity, I don't know when another chance will come.'

The circumstances were different from the Yul-ryeong user who operated in the shadows, and the Duke and Doctor who were willingly drawn into a trap. The Secretary was a figure who operated in the public eye… moreover, as a leading figure in the religious world of the Pantheon. If she felt threatened by this incident and decided to put on the public mask and hold out, he wouldn't be able to touch her carelessly. Carelessly doing so could not only worsen public opinion, but also cause unnecessary divisions among those who should be working together.

"I beseech thee, my Lord! Grant me the power to deliver judgment upon the infidel who obstructs the path of the Opening of the World!"

Just then, the Secretary, finally breaking through all obstacles and approaching Harris, swung her massive hammer at him. 『Dimensional Barrier Relaxation』 had loosened the restrictions placed on spirits quite a bit, but even that wasn't enough to suppress the opponent's momentum, which had been heightened to the extreme. In the first place, divine power itself was a higher-level energy.

Thwaack!

"Hmph!"

"Huh? What…!"

But the large combat hammer that had surged forward, cleaving through the air, did not hit its target. Before it could properly unleash its destructive power, the trajectory of the hammer, swung in a large arc, was naturally twisted by Harris's strangely extended hand.

Boom!

In the end, the hammer struck the empty ground. He retreated backward, avoiding the sunset-colored divine power blazing hotly from the cracks in the earth that were cracking and overturning, and grimaced. With one hand, he continuously massaged his wrist, which had deflected the attack.

'…Heavy. Even though I deflected it with the essence of yielding, it's this much.'

Until now, he had mainly used Nature's Energy and spirits to assist, but the 「Modified Nature's Eight Trigram」 he had learned was strictly a branch of martial arts. Moreover, it was an unsurpassed martial art with a comprehensive grade of S-rank, arguably the best in a dimension. For him, who had tasted the principle of martial arts through Hugo's 「Return to Origin of Myriad Styles」, applying it was nothing special.

'Although the efficiency is a bit lower.'

More than that, now that things had come this far, his mind became even more resolute. An opponent who shows this much potential even while under restrictions. If he let her live like this, she would definitely return as a source of trouble one hundred percent.

"You're scurrying away quite well. But how long can you keep that up?"

Then, whether the heat that had risen to her head from the previous attack had subsided to some extent, the Secretary, who had been rampaging like a runaway train, calmly opened her mouth. The harsh abusive language she had been spouting was also replaced by the polite facade she had initially worn.

"This barrier, it's using a formation, isn't it? I know it originated from the Murim world, but it's fascinating to see a spirit user employing it. A dimension where those two mysteries are mixed must not be very common…."

After frowning and pondering for a moment, she soon shook her head and let out a snicker. As if it didn't matter anymore now.

"Anyway, it's over now. Mysteries of the barrier type have their limits, no matter how much effort is put into them. It took a bit longer than I thought because it was more robust than expected, but."

At her confident attitude, Harris's expression hardened. As she said, the formation was indeed shaking from the accumulated impact, and considerable cracks had occurred. He had immediately exerted his full power to repair it after noticing, but original security, no matter how well done a hundred times, loses its value the moment it is breached even once.

"At most 10 minutes from now. Around that time, the Pantheon and Guardian elites will completely seal off the area and rush in here. It's a shame that I can't crush you with my own hands right away… well, it's just a matter of time being slightly postponed, you see."

The Secretary finished speaking and gave a radiant smile. Her smiling face, draped in reddish divine power, calmly spouting murderous words, was so eerie that she looked more like a minion of the devil than an apostle of god.

"At most 10 minutes, you say…?"

Of course, Harris, who couldn't feel fear, was not at all fazed by such threats. He calmly looked around and lightly nodded before slowly continuing to speak.

"It's a bit tight, but… hmm, that should be enough."

"...Huh?"

At his nonchalant reaction, the Secretary's face contorted. Then, soon regaining her composure, perhaps thinking it was just bluffing, she smirked. Her lips twisted in disdain, and arrogant eyes gleamed coldly.

But unfortunately for her. His demeanor was neither bluff nor overconfidence. That was because—.

「Individual Summons」

"Kahaha! It's been a while! I'd like to enjoy this leisurely, but it's a shame we don't have time!"

"...It would be good to leave some leeway. Let's finish this within 5 minutes."

He truly had something to believe in. The long-standing tradition passed down through generations of heroes of justice.