[color=0072bc][b]"Pay it back in spades now."[/b][/color]

Despite Zelriane pressing the offensive, Bruce maintained his vague dissociation from the scene, though 'dissociation' really didn't describe it adequately. 

As he was, Zelriane's attempts at taunts were rendered moot on every level. Beyond listening to anything superfluous, Bruce kept track of the dispatching of his clones.

Fighting one so much faster than him made taking damage inevitable- thankfully, among other things, Bruce had improved his compartmentalization of pain drastically when he developed his phantom technique. Because, being that Bruce's true body was left more vulnerable state in exchange for using the more versatile, faster and infinitely reactionary material of his Sage state, the damage he took translated to more significant damage in direct correlation to how much material he used of his body. 

The benefits, particularly in his current fight, included disorientation that replicas composed of Earth-born material could not achieve, in large part because his inherent Ki came away with each 'Guardian' such that he could not easily replicate with other golems.

[color=0072bc][i]'May get uncomfortable'[/i][/color] 

The incomplete thought flashed across Bruce's mind and fell away, neither disregarded nor allowed to provoke concern. He simply acted.

He dug deeper, and the form of his true body visibly shrank a little beneath his robes. Phantoms appeared half a step to his left, right, and continued flowing out and fully forming. With each new double he seemed to grow a new head and arms, and his footwork was nearly indiscernible among no fewer than twenty-four feet.

Before he could make an offensive move, however, he sensed Oz's heavy presence through the scattered particles he'd left around the chamber. Those same particles shivered at a rippling power headed in their direction. Rather than avoid and give Zelriane more opportunity to either duck back or try disabling him, Bruce armed each phantom. 

Seeing twelve arms bent at different angles with alternating weapons, and seeming to grow out of one another- a mace and a sword often next to one another, though there was no obvious pattern- was a disorienting sight. 

Each of his phantoms lunged with their weapons- slashing crosswise, vertically, horizontally and heaving massive maces downward.