From Sirin's perspective, the scene before her was nothing short of hell.
She shrank slightly behind Bianka, hugging the Scepter infused with the Authority of Dream tightly in her arms—this artifact was the only thing that could give her a shred of security at this moment.
On the contrary, the yellow Homu Hero, having picked up the "Hero's Sword" again, looked overflowing with confidence. Its wise eyes stared fiercely at the two Shus.
Yes, staring at both Shus.
Sirin's gaze moved cautiously back and forth between the backs of the two Shus on the left and right.
Identical backs.
From height to stance, the two even had identical expressions.
They wore the same white flaming robes. The only difference was the folds in their clothes... and even this difference was reflected in the previous second of one and the next second of the other.
They were fundamentally identical!
But what truly frightened Sirin wasn't this physical uniformity, but the synchronized, almost tangible tension and hostility radiating from them.
The gentle, patient Shu who usually looked like a good person had hidden away.
Replacing him were two fierce beasts cornered in a desperate situation. Even a trace of their leaked aura carried a bone-chilling sharpness and deterrence.
She knew this appearance wasn't put on for them.
Shu had never directed such undisguised sharpness at "his own people." Never, not even now. All his emotions were directed at the other Shu...
Even if it was against himself, he would absolutely never target them.
What Sirin felt from these two backs was a seething unease, an extreme anxiety like standing on the edge of a cliff while the rock beneath her feet was slowly cracking.
This anxiety was so intense that it even spawned a trace of... fear?
Yes, fear.
It was a fear born of the scenes that would occur in the future.
This extreme anxiety and fear made the current Shu exceptionally sensitive, like a fully drawn bow ready to unleash a thunderous reaction at the slightest disturbance.
Sirin didn't even dare to breathe deeply, afraid that her slightly heavier breathing would become the last straw breaking this dangerous balance.
She dared not ask questions even more.
There were too many questions she wanted to ask... but she didn't dare say a single word.
Because she sorrowfully discovered that she couldn't tell them apart.
Not just in appearance and power.
Even the palpitating restlessness she felt now, that fear of the "known" future, was emanating synchronously from both backs!
Like two perfectly synchronized tuning forks emitting a tremor that resonated with her soul yet whose source was indistinguishable.
All she could do was hug the Scepter in her arms tighter. This was the last bit of confidence the "real" Shu left her.
On the other side, Bianka stood to Otto's side and rear. She too was looking at the two Shus with eyes full of worry.
Unlike Sirin's sensitivity to emotional fluctuations, Bianka's perception leaned more towards her own intuition.
But at this moment, even the unreasonable Kaslana intuition seemed to fail on the two Shus.
It wasn't that she couldn't feel the oppressive atmosphere in the elevator that was about to freeze into ice, nor was it that she couldn't detect the anxiety radiating from those two bodies.
It was just that her focus was completely different from Sirin's.
In Bianka's intuition, the strongest thoughts radiating from these two Shus were a highly alert assessment and a heavy worry.
There was no problem with this.
The problem lay in the fact that the object of this assessment and worry was each other's strength, reaction, energy characteristics, and combat habits.
Like top chess players deducing every possible move of the opponent in their minds, or beasts measuring each other's claws and strength during a confrontation.
Their brains seemed to have turned into supercomputers, taking the other as the sole variable, frantically calculating the winning probabilities of countless encounters, the results of energy clashes, and models of destruction to the surrounding environment.
The arrow of that worry pointed clearly outwards.
It pointed to Otto and Sirin in this elevator, to Kiana, Mei, and Bronya who were not here, to the countless staff and researchers in the base below, and to the newly reborn Sapphire City further away.
It pointed to every existence that could possibly be affected by this "collision of equal powers."
Yet, it pointed to everyone except himself.
He was afraid.
Bianka clearly captured the essence of this emotion.
"An unknown existence with exactly the same power level as me has appeared near the people I need to protect."
"He might cause destruction, and I may not be able to stop him one hundred percent."
This was the true source of the anxiety and tension deep in the minds of both Shus. It was the instinctive reaction of a guardian placed under the most extreme stress test.
Extreme anxiety mixed with a high sense of responsibility, generated the moment the greatest threat was equated with one's own power.
Bianka could even feel that in Shu's mind right now, the "other party" probably didn't carry the identity tag of "another Shu" at all.
In Shu's perspective, he was a simplified abstract threat parameter.
A high-risk unit whose energy level, reaction speed, and combat skills were roughly equal to his own, who had an abnormal resonance with the "Scepter," whose purpose was unclear, but who possessed extremely high potential destructive power.
As to why this "high-risk unit" looked exactly like him?
Why did the other party's behavior so closely resemble his own?
These questions might exist in Shu's heart, but they were definitely not doubts about why the other was similar to him. Rather, it was a vigilance that his own abilities could perhaps be "replicated" to threaten those around him.
Personality positioning?
Self-identity?
The first reactions inevitable for ordinary people encountering a "mirror image" seemed completely nonexistent here for Shu.
In his heart, excluding the factor of power, everything else about the opponent probably had absolutely nothing to do with the name [Shu]!
Don't be fooled by how normal and reasonable everything Shu was doing now seemed.
Ordinary people cooperate with inspections because they want to prove they are the real one and then eliminate the imposter.
Shu cooperated with the inspection because another existence seriously threatened others, and he needed to give everyone a clear target to attack, preventing that existence from hurting everyone.
Okay, it was a very convoluted distinction... Even when Bianka sorted out these two differences herself, she didn't feel there was much difference between these two cognitions.
Of course, it was also possible that she secretly dozed off during Rita's expression class tutoring.
Bianka didn't know how to describe that instinctive anti-logical difference until a word suddenly popped into her head.
Tool.
Right... Shu was like he had discovered a dangerous tool that could hurt people and simply wanted to destroy it.
Of course, there was another possibility.
Shu considered himself a tool as well.
A tool that would not hurt them.