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n?Lara Sanguis was seated in her semi-throne within her office, tapping the table lightly. Her face was pulled into a deep scowl as she thought of the events that had occurred in these past few years, which had set her back by a great amount.

nAnd also, the person who was at the forefront of these events.

n“Dante…” Lara muttered that name with a seething hatred only inferior to her despise for Luka.

nShe clenched her fists tightly, her entire body’s blood rushing through her veins as her anger peaked at the thought of the fellow. In the end, she could only release her grip and sigh helplessly, knowing that the current her was no longer capable of dealing with him.

nUnlike Dante, who had probably been growing in strength since their last fight, she could not grow at all as a clone. Her power was given, now developed nor worked for, so she would display the same amount of strength no matter how many years passed.

nThis was a source of distress for her, but she understood it was a failsafe from the main body. She knew herself best after all, and even though Lara was dedicated to the mission of the main body, who knew how the various stimuli of the various universes might affect her clones?

nOne should know that they were born and raised like normal beings in order to ‘gain citizenships’ of the various universes, meaning they had parents, childhood, and all that. They weren’t like Dante who sprung up in an alleyway and proceeded to rise to domination.

n“Maybe I should contact the others?” Lara hesitated as she asked herself.

nThe main body gave them strict commands not to link up or interfere with each other, something which they abided by, but the main body also gave them permissions to connect if a threat that was big enough to end their plans appeared.

nHowever, the question was, could Dante even be considered such a threat? Sure, he was strong and powerful for a lower dimensional being, but he was currently contributing to her overall plan by participating in the First Gate conflicts.

nSo technically, he was a pawn in her chessboard. Sure she didn’t like him, but that was more a trivial issue compared to the grand success of the plan. Besides, Dante was doing pretty well in the First Gate, which was a good thing right?

nLara was still contemplating her various issues as well as how to deal with things when the Central AI of the school let out an alarm into her AI chip. Lara herself was only barely able to even fire a few thoughts of alarm through her synapses before she was sent flying with a light push, crashing through her office and landing on the floor of the administration area.

nThe slightly busy admin area which usually had students and workers of the school bustling about to perform various tasks suddenly froze as everyone gazed incomprehensibly as the esteemed headmistress who had been planted face first into the floor, causing it to crack.

nOn top of her, with his knee pressed on her back, his right hand grasping her scalp and his expression one of neutrality, was Dante, a well-known second-year student who was also the nominal ruler of the universe.

nEveryone was aware that there was some conflict between Lara and Dante but most assumed it was just a casual power grab between two people who stood at the peak as to who got to actually sit on the metaphorical throne.

nHowever, seeing this scene and acknowledging the fact that Dante had literally struck the headmistress directly in public like this with no provocation made people understand that there was far more to this than politics.

nThis was Lara’s second time having her face planted by Dante and one time was already enough to haunt her. This second was definitely beyond what she could tolerate as Lara carelessly exploded with power, unleashing the full power of her authorities upon the area around her.

nA surge of elemental chaos emerged from her body and swept the area, destroying the entire administration building and causing the entire plane that the Eternal Academy was situated on to quake.

nLara pushed herself up from the ground and the power raged around her, her eyes bloodshot beyond belief as her lips curled into a terrifying frown of hatred. Meanwhile, Dante casually stood opposite her, covered in a golden-orange barrier that blocked out all the power from Lara’s outburst as he glanced at her coldly.

nLara’s pupils narrowed as she sized Dante up. “So what, you think because you have become half of an Origin being, you can now challenge me? You have no idea the true power of the various universes nor who is their ruler!”

n“Spare me the monologue. I am aware of everything and after I capture you, you will understand just how futile your plan was from the start,” Dante replied as he waved his hand and manifested a multicolored halberd from nothing.

nImmediately, Lara’s expression changed greatly as she took a solid step back. “Origin Laws! You can manifest Origin Laws! But how?!”

nDante did not give her an answer as he charged forward and struck out with the halberd, causing the air itself to sizzle with a strange power as it cut towards the clone. Lara immediately manifested a whip made of fire and lashed out, colliding with the incoming blow.

nThe whip was made out of pure white flame, and Dante immediately identified it as the unique Heavenly Annihilation Flame that could only be used by one who had pinnacle authority over the fire element.

nIt easily deflected his attack and even caused him to stagger a little, something that baffled Dante thoroughly. However, Lara wore a smile as she flexed the whip casually, her eyes narrowing coldly.

n“I don’t know how you gained an origin state of being nor how you managed to gain some rudimentary control over the most basic Origin laws, but it means nothing in the face of true authority, even watered down like this!” She declared in an arrogant manner.

n“Oh? I don’t believe you. Your authority had to make way for me before, and my power was far weaker then,” Dante shook his head and disagreed casually.

nLara laughed, a shrill thing full of malice and hatred. “That’s true. I don’t know how, but the powers you used before contained fragments of an authority and were far more condensed than what I had, so you could somewhat suppress me.” 𝘳𝘦.𝒸𝑜𝘮

nLara flourished her majestic elemental whip casually, causing a line to form in the ground that went straight to the plane’s next level underground. “However, a mere Origin power like yours cannot hope to match me even without an authority. Your Origin energy is thin and weak, while your control over Origin laws is clumsy at best and downright sad to watch at worst.”

nDante raised an eyebrow as he understood what Lara was trying to say. In other words, he was an entry-level powerhouse among Origin Gods because they all had infinite energy production cores like him but would have retained all their powers and improved them.

nSo not only did typical origin beings have an origin power system, they also had their own powers. In actual fact, nothing really said that Origin Gods necessarily had to use Origin laws for their Origin powers, it was just one option out of many.

nHowever, due to how Dante ascended, he had none of his powers left on him as they had all been washed away. Meanwhile, the Origin laws he was using to fight were strong in power but mediocre in control because this was literally his first time using them in combat.

nWith all of these combined, Dante was at adisadvantage while facing Lara for now. However, this did not deter him, as he understood that this was the best time to practice how to control his origin power in case he met other such beings in the future.

nIf he could quickly raise his skill in controlling Origin laws up before succumbing to Lara’s prowess, he could achieve a significant power boost. As such, Dante did not utter a word after that but rather charged forward with his weapon outstretched, this time imbuing some of his battle experience into his movements.

nLara was not flustered by this as she was not a weakling that sat in a big chair every day and barked orders at everyone but had killed her way to the top from studenthood till here. Not to mention that as the Commander of the Forest Fairies, she was nominally the strongest being below Myra in the entire multiverse.

nShe easily repelled Dante’s attack with a flick of her wrist, causing her elegant flaming whip to twist and curl in the air, striking at Dante multiple times like a group of snakes trying to bite a target. .

nDante remained calm even as he struggled to maintain the conformity of the origin law halberd he created and swung it rapidly to meet the attacks coming from all sides that contained slightly superior power.

nThis content is taken from 𝘪𝘳.𝘤𝑜

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