The 1,118th battle.
Diopha no longer thought.
He acted.
The Alter Ego spoke.
"You cannot surpass me."
Diopha replied calmly.
"Yes, I can."
They unleashed everything.
Event manipulation.
Temporal alteration.
Self-annihilation followed by regeneration.
Burning lifespan without limit.
The space itself cracked.
Not once.
Thousands of times.
An infinite dungeon, infinitely resistant, began to fracture.
Zenkai watched.
"There it is."
"The passage from Level Zero…"
"…to Level One."
Diopha focused everything.
Not an attack.
A definition.
"I am the one who moves forward."
The strike launched.
Not a hit.
An existential act.
The Alter Ego shattered.
[All Abilities: Lv.0 → Lv.1]
The dungeon trembled.
Then Diopha collapsed.
Awakening — Dormitory
He opened his eyes.
The portal closed behind him.
Not a single second had passed outside.
Mini-Zenkai smiled.
"Welcome to the true beginning."
Two notifications appeared.
[Reward Obtained]
?
?
Diopha gave a faint smile.
The exams could come.
To be continued…
The battle was over.
But its echoes refused to die.
In a dimension where time had neither beginning nor end, Zenkai observed the remnants of the now-closed dungeon. The space that had once been infinite had folded in on itself, like a thought finally completed.
"1,118 confrontations…"
"And not a single one too many."
With a gesture, he projected the memories of the fight—not as a timeline…
but as a dissected truth.
Two Diophas — No Artificial Advantage
The image showed two identical silhouettes.
Same body.
Same system.
Same hax.
"Understand this," Zenkai declared.
"Your Alter Ego was not a 'stronger' version of you."
The images played in sequence.
Every ability the Alter Ego used already existed within Diopha.
"He had no extra power, no hidden privilege."
"He only had something you hadn't yet acquired."
The Real Difference: The Level of Understanding
The scene slowed.
We saw the Alter Ego use:
• Event Manipulation
• Artemis
• Lifespan combustion
• Voluntary self-destruction
• Situation rewriting
All without hesitation.
"Your skills were at Level Zero."
"His… at Level One."
Zenkai emphasized:
"Level Zero is possessing an idea."
"Level One is being able to manifest it without conceptualizing it."
The Alter Ego did not think about his hax.
He inhabited them.
Why Diopha Kept Dying
The deaths replayed.
Crushed.
Disintegrated.
Erased.
Rewritten.
"You copied his actions without copying his mindset."
Every time Diopha used an ability, he sought a result.
Every time the Alter Ego used it, he asserted a certainty.
"That's why you could die a thousand times without progressing."
"You executed. He existed."
The Turning Point — Instinctive Fusion
Battle after battle, something changed.
Diopha stopped looking for the right ability.
He tried something else.
"You began to fuse."
The images showed imperfect, unstable, sometimes incoherent uses:
• Event manipulation embedded within a physical movement
• Artemis used without conscious activation
• Deaths voluntarily accepted before the enemy's attack
"You stopped using your powers separately."
"You tried to become a whole."
Zenkai smirked.
"That was foolish."
"And exactly what was needed."
Battle 1,118 — The Only Death That Mattered
The final scene appeared.
Both Diophas stood.
Exhausted.
Broken.
But lucid.
"Until this moment," Zenkai explained,
"the Alter Ego had never truly died."
It had dominated.
Corrected.
Crushed.
But never been defeated.
This time…
Diopha did not attack with a specific ability.
He imposed a fused will:
• no temporal origin
• no causality
• no distinction between attack, defense, or existence
The strike hit.
The infinite dungeon fractured.
Not a local crack.
Conceptual fractures, spreading across a space both infinite and reinforced by Zenkai himself.
The Alter Ego fell.
And this time…
It did not rise.
"His death was the condition for exit."
"And you finally fulfilled it."
The dungeon closed.
Return to Reality — Diopha's Dormitory
Diopha lay unconscious on his bed.
Mini-Zenkai floated beside him, arms crossed, looking unusually serious.
"You finally understand, huh…"
He studied Diopha for a long moment.
"You didn't win because you were stronger than him."
He paused.
"You won because you reached the level of your skills."
Mini-Zenkai tapped the air in front of him.
"When a skill moves from Level Zero to Level One…"
"You can use it like him. Without thinking. Without forcing."
Then, more softly:
"Your Alter Ego dominated you in mastery."
"But you…"
A smile.
"You refused to give up."
"You tried everything. Even the impossible. Even the absurd."
"That determination…"
"He didn't have it."
He turned.
"Rest, Diopha."
"From now on…"
"You are no longer at Level Zero."
To be continued…