Chapter 55

Methode recruits Wirbel and his teammates, splitting the load so his group handles Denken's copy while she pins down Fern's. The duplicates that have already fallen begin reviving, and every pairing settles into a draining slog meant only to outlast the demon directing them. Frieren, hunting for a gap her student can exploit, lets her own copy wound her so that it overextends in turn.

Fern seizes the moment, hammering the clone with Zoltraak and a barrage of follow-up spells that leave it mortally hurt. The dying copy retaliates with a hidden ground-cast spell that flings Fern into a wall and shatters her staff, but the same desperate move bares it completely, and Frieren burns it down. With the duplicate gone the seal collapses, Frieren strikes the defenseless Spiegel, and the dungeon is cleared.

Sense gathers the survivors before a heap of treasure and declares the second stage passed, crediting them with work worthy of first-class mages. Twelve advance, among them Frieren, Fern, Ubel, Denken, Methode, Land, Wirbel, Kanne, Scharf, Laufen, Ehre, and Dunste, while Ton is cut. Moments after the victory, Frieren is found wedged inside a mimic and needs Fern to pry her loose.

Methode likens a clash between skilled mages to an intricate game of rock-paper-scissors, full of unpredictable counters. Before the decisive exchange, Frieren warns Fern that beating the copy will take a wider opening than a flicker of lost mana sense, and she promises to invite an attack to manufacture one, trusting Fern to surprise her. The ground-cast technique that breaks Fern's staff is, by Frieren's reckoning, a peak of magic she had not been forced to use in roughly eighty years. Outside the ruins the failed candidates regroup, and a curious Edel chats up Richter about the rescue golems before he asks who she even is.