SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 566: It Could Not Copy His Judgment

Leon knocked the Reflection’s weapon away and followed with two simple attacks.

The first was meant to probe its defense.

The second made it shift its right foot.

Immediately afterward, the guardian placed its own feet in the same position Leon had used.

The copy was clumsy, but only for a moment. During their next clash, the Reflection corrected its balance, adjusted the height of its blade to match Leon’s, and began stepping in the same rhythm.

It could study ordinary movements as easily as techniques.

Leon broke the pattern before it became comfortable. He cut high, changed his grip, then sent the blade low.

The Reflection blocked both.

Its second defense barely arrived in time. Leon stepped in, ready to take advantage.

The guardian folded space.

Its crude displacement carried it to his left. Before Leon finished turning, copied fire struck his shoulder and spread over his conscious armor.

The silver sword came directly behind it.

Its edge dragged across the bronze-gold surface, leaving a bright line from shoulder to chest. The force drove Leon back two steps.

His armor flowed over the mark and erased it within seconds.

The Reflection watched closely.

It did not create armor of its own.

So far, it had reproduced techniques Leon consciously performed and movements it could observe. The living armor acted independently, which might place it beyond the guardian’s ability to copy.

Leon refused to treat that as certain.

A few exchanges were nowhere near enough to understand every limit of an unknown Tower guardian.

They continued trading blows.

Anything Leon repeated became a liability. On the third use of the same sidestep, the Reflection moved early and positioned its blade where he should have ended up.

His instincts warned him.

Leon halted halfway through the motion, turned his hips, and guided the silver edge past his ribs. His return strike landed in the center of the guardian’s chest, but the sword failed to break through. Adaptive reinforcement gathered against his force, turning what looked like ordinary silver into a defense calibrated to him.

The Reflection withdrew.

Its borrowed face had improved. The higher eye had lowered into place. Its mouth and jaw now matched Leon’s proportions, while its stance had grown close enough to his that the fight resembled a duel against an imperfect image.

The creature could copy where he put his feet.

It could match the angle of his sword.

What it did not possess was the experience that decided how one action should lead into the next.

Leon carried nine integrated years of experience from a warrior who had survived more fights than this construct could ever stand around and watch. That experience gave him more than the memory of how to swing a blade. It let him feel commitment, hesitation, and poor balance before his conscious mind had finished sorting out what he saw.

The Reflection learned a movement once it witnessed it.

It could not take the judgment behind that movement.

Leon chose to build the fight around that weakness.

He advanced with a direct thrust along the center line. The technique was deliberately plain, the sort of motion taught to someone on their first day with a sword.

The Reflection stopped it with its forearm.

Leon pulled back before the counterattack came and returned to guard.

The guardian had now seen the thrust.

Next, he had to teach it to believe that seeing was enough.

They fought through several ordinary exchanges. Leon reused pieces of his earlier rhythm and allowed the Reflection to become increasingly confident in its predictions.

The silver guardian began pressing him.

It mixed copied fire with short spatial folds, shifting between angles while using footwork taken from Leon. Neither copied technique equalled the original, but together they forced him to defend against attacks from multiple directions.

Another blow clipped his armored shoulder.

The armor endured.

Leon retreated and recreated the opening from before.

His feet settled into the same stance used for the center-line thrust. His sword lowered to the same angle. His body appeared open in exactly the same place.

The Reflection recognized it.

This time, it did not wait to defend.

It launched the copied thrust first, attempting to hit Leon before his expected attack could begin.

Its weight committed forward.

His instincts caught that commitment at once.

Leon discarded the thrust.

He dropped his point and stepped outside the line the guardian expected. The silver weapon passed beside his ribs, while the Reflection’s own momentum carried it into the gap Leon had offered.

Its core became exposed for the first time.

Leon moved inside the reach of its blade and drove his sword through the middle of its chest.

The Reflection tried to correct itself.

Its torso twisted as it attempted to copy Leon’s new angle, but too much of its weight had already gone into the stolen attack. By the time it witnessed the change, it was too late to use it.

Holy energy ran down Leon’s blade.

The core broke.

Silver light flashed weakly through the construct. Leon’s copied face smoothed away, and the weapon extending from its arm melted back into the limb.

The guardian collapsed onto the polished floor.

Leon kept his sword ready until the last trace of energy vanished.

[Optional Guardian Defeated: Covetous Reflection]

[Optional Treasure Available]

[Mirrorheart Tempering Shard — Epic]

[Effect: Strengthens resistance against copied, stolen, reflected, or imitated versions of the bearer’s abilities when absorbed.]

The barrier sealing the far end of the room disappeared.

Leon walked toward the floating shard.

Its mirrored surface showed him a distorted face, one eye positioned higher than the other. The flawed image vanished as soon as he closed his hand around the crystal.

He placed it in storage beside the Spatial Tempering Crystal.

Neither Epic treasure would be absorbed until he reached somewhere secure. Integrating one while still inside an active Tower trial would leave him exposed.

The Tower registered the choice.

[Optional Treasures Claimed: 2]

[Gatekeeper Enhancement Applied]

[The Gatekeeper has acquired Technique Mimicry.]

Leon stared at the last message.

The Gatekeeper could now resist spatial abilities and might be able to reproduce techniques used against it.

Whether its Technique Mimicry carried the same limitations as the Reflection’s remained unknown.

The Tower gave him nothing else.

Once again, Leon had made the final encounter more dangerous.

Even so, the Mirrorheart Tempering Shard had been worth claiming.

He simply had to remember that every reward he took reshaped the enemy waiting at the end.