The weakness of the Astral Body had always been clear.
The skill itself could not truly be harmed.
Attacks passed through it.
Weapons meant nothing against it.
But the moment the original body was struck directly, the entire skill would collapse and enter a long cooldown period.
Alex knew this weakness very well.
That was why he had constantly kept distance between himself and the astral body during the fight. As long as there was enough space, he could instantly swap positions and avoid fatal hits.
It was the core of his fighting style.
Survive.
Swap.
Counter.
Repeat.
Meanwhile, what Alex had not expected was for Eric to figure out the weakness so quickly.
His system had analyzed the technique and immediately displayed the solution.
To strike the original body, Eric first needed to lock the astral body in place and prevent a safe position swap.
That was exactly what he did.
Eric's bladed arm remained buried through the astral body's stomach area.
The fake body itself wasn't injured, but the positioning created a dangerous problem.
If Alex swapped now, he would materialize directly into the blade.
Alex realized it instantly.
'Damn…'
That tiny hesitation was enough.
Before the astral body could move away from the sword…
Before Alex could create distance…
The rocket fist had already arrived.
Boom!
The metallic fist slammed heavily into Alex's stomach.
His body folded slightly from the impact before he was launched violently through the air.
He flew over the ground at terrifying speed, crashing through branches as he was pushed farther and farther away.
Meanwhile, inside Eric's helmet, the smile on his face slowly disappeared.
Because the astral body was still standing there.
It had not vanished.
"What…?" Eric growled inside his helmet.
"System, what is happening? You said it would be destroyed!" he shouted angrily.
But he wasn't given time to vent.
The astral body suddenly pulled itself away from the blade.
The very instant it broke free, Alex swapped positions with it.
In one moment, Alex had still been airborne, carried upward by the detached rocket fist.
In the next moment, he was already standing a short distance from Eric.
Bang!
Alex stepped in and drove a hard punch into Eric's side.
A clean sucker punch.
Eric was blasted away, but before he could fully tumble, the stabilizers and thrusters from his suit activated instantly.
Fssshhh!
The suit corrected his balance mid-air and stopped him from crashing.
Meanwhile, the astral body that Alex had abandoned was already falling from the sky behind him.
The fake body hit the ground.
The moment it landed, Alex swapped positions again.
Instantly.
Right after he moved—
Boom!
A blast tore through the position where Alex had just been standing.
The attack passed harmlessly through the astral body like it was smoke.
Eric had fired the counterattack almost immediately.
'How did he figure out the Astral Body's weakness so quickly?' Alex thought while staring at Eric carefully.
'Even if he guessed it… he still shouldn't know how to stop the position swap that fast.'
Alex narrowed his eyes slightly.
'Good thing I reacted in time.'
'If I didn't use the overlap fast enough, I would've been caught.'
Naturally, Alex had not yet reached the proper warrior stage required to fully use the Astral Body skill.
Under normal circumstances, someone at his level shouldn't even be capable of maintaining it.
But Alex had skipped those limits through technique and control.
Still, shortcuts always came with a cost.
The Astral Body consumed an absurd amount of qi just to remain active.
And every position swap drained even more.
At this rate, Alex knew one thing clearly.
He could not keep this fight going forever.
Normally, Alex would not even be able to swap positions three times before completely running out of qi.
The Astral Body technique consumed too much energy.
Far too much for someone at his level.
To solve that problem, Alex had been using the Overwrapping ability the entire time.
While fighting, he kept his artificial qi core active, forcing it to continuously absorb qi from the surroundings. At the same time, he maintained the Astral Body skill.
One side consumed qi.
The other side replenished it.
A dangerous balance.
But that balance came with a price.
Because the Astral Body and the artificial qi absorption were already occupying Overwrapping slots, Alex had only one slot remaining during the fight.
Only one.
And he had placed Vibration Strike into that final slot.
That meant one important thing.
The Reflection Effect was no longer active by default.
'If that hit had landed while Reflection wasn't active… the Astral Body would definitely have entered cooldown,' Alex thought.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
'But at the last second, I switched the Vibration Strike slot with Reflection.'
That single action had saved him.
The reflected force had pushed the damage away from his body before the technique could collapse.
Even Alex himself was slightly surprised by how fast he had reacted.
'That was too close.'
But while he was distracted by his thoughts—
Bang!
Something slammed heavily into his back.
It was Eric's detached fist again.
The force pushed Alex's body slightly forward, but the kinetic energy was instantly absorbed and redirected out of his body harmlessly.
The impact never fully settled inside him.
Meanwhile, the detached arm curved through the air and returned to Eric once again.
This time, neither of them moved immediately.
The battlefield suddenly became quiet.
Alex stood still.
Eric stood still.
The two simply stared at each other across the broken forest ground.
A brief standstill.
But while Alex remained focused on the fight, what he didn't know was that Eric was currently questioning his system internally.
[The Astral Body did not collapse because the strike was not strong enough.]
'This is bullshit…' Eric cursed inwardly.
'How can a punch from a stage four graded suit not be enough to break a stage two warrior's skill?!'
His jaw tightened behind the helmet.
The answer from the system came immediately.
[There are unknown factors affecting this fight.]
[Those factors were not accounted for during the suit's preparation.]
Eric's eye twitched slightly.
'Heck… now you sound exactly like Rhyssa,' Eric thought bitterly.
His gaze never left Alex.
Not far from him stood the Astral Body.
And farther behind that fake body stood the real Alex.
Eric understood the positioning now.
The fake body was acting as both bait and escape route at the same time.
'Calculate the amount of force required to destroy it,' Eric ordered internally.
The system immediately began processing.
Small streams of data flickered across Eric's vision.
A few moments later, the answer appeared.
Eric read it silently.
Then his expression changed slightly.
'I can pull that off…'
'But the suit will need time to charge enough power first.'
That answer only annoyed him more.
'Why the hell would I need this much force just to injure a stage two warrior?' Eric thought.
For the first time since the fight began, doubt crept into his mind.
Not fear.
Just irritation.
Nothing about Alex made sense anymore.
Finally, Eric exhaled slowly.
'I think it's better if I step in myself.'
The front section of the mechanical suit suddenly split apart with a metallic hiss.
Clank!
The armor opened outward.
Eric stepped out from inside the suit calmly.
As he walked free, both mechanical arms detached from the armor as well, disconnecting completely from the main body.
The empty suit remained standing upright behind him.
Armless.
Silent.
Meanwhile, Eric himself now stood outside wearing only the metallic gauntlet-like arms connected directly to him.
Alex immediately became alert the moment he saw the change.
Something about this felt wrong.
Very wrong.
Meanwhile, after Eric fully stepped out, the suit slowly closed itself again.
Then deep inside the armor—
Something began building up.
Energy.
"You've proven to be a real pain in the ass," Eric said coldly.
"No wonder my sister ended up liking you…"
"Enough with your nonsense!" Alex suddenly shouted.
His patience had finally snapped.
The moment his voice rang out, the Alex closest to Eric rushed forward immediately and swung a sharp kick toward Eric's side.
Eric smiled.
The system had already identified the movement.
That was no longer the Astral Body.
That was the real Alex.
'Now,' Eric thought.
Instantly, the suit behind him reacted.
The energy that had been building up inside it suddenly released.
To Alex, it happened too fast.
Far too fast.
A concentrated blast shot past Eric's shoulder like a beam of compressed light.
Alex's eyes widened.
He barely even had time to process what was happening before—
Boom!
The attack struck him directly.
Squarely.
The impact exploded on contact.
But it did not stop there.
The energy suddenly expanded outward violently.
The compressed blast spread into a massive wave of light.
A dome.
An expanding dome of pure energy.
Bright white light swallowed the battlefield instantly.
Both Eric and Alex lost sight of everything around them.
The forest vanished beneath the light.
The ground shook.
Trees bent violently from the force.
And the expanding dome continued stretching outward until it finally reached the second Alex standing farther behind.