The ground beneath Sunny exploded into dust as the creature charged.
It was a surreal and deeply unsettling sight. The abomination wore his exact face and it was closing the distance with a posture that Sunny knew intimately because it was his own. The creature raised a flawless copy of the Midnight Shard, bringing the black blade down in a vicious, whistling arc aimed directly at his collarbone.
Sunny did not flinch. He twisted his foot, anchoring himself against the ground and brought his own tachi up to meet the strike.
The two blades collided with a deafening ring of steel. A shockwave of displaced air kicked up a cloud of dust around them. The force traveling down Sunny's arms was immense, perfectly matching the absolute limit of his physical strength. He gritted his teeth, shifting his center of gravity to bleed off the pressure before pushing back.
'Out of all the terrifying things here, the poor bastard chose my face?' Sunny cursed internally.
He genuinely felt insulted. The Chained Isles were overflowing with towering abominations, ancient demons, and horrors that defied words. Yet this wretched thing had looked at all those options and decided that a SHORT femboy(Ok sunny might not have said those exact same words…) with a face that would rival jade beauties was the optimal form for his murder. It was flattering in the worst possible way.
The creature did not give him time to complain. It disengaged with a rapid backward step, perfectly mimicking the movements of his, before lunging forward again. It thrust its blade toward Sunny's chest in a flurry of rapid strikes.
Sunny parried the first two blows with ease. He recognized the pattern instantly. It was his own defensive combination, the exact sequence he used when testing an opponent's reach. The mimic was flawless in its execution. Every twitch, every shift in balance, every angle of the blade was a perfect mirror image.
But it lacked the most important thing. It lacked his devious, thoroughly paranoid mind.
Sunny let the creature push him back, feigning a momentary loss of balance. He allowed his sword arm to dip a fraction of an inch too low, creating a glaring opening near his ribs. It was a sloppy mistake that no rational fighter would ever make against a lethal opponent.
The creature took the bait instantly. It stepped into his guard, aiming a killing thrust at his exposed side.
Sunny smirked, he did not try to block the incoming strike. Instead, he allowed himself to fall backward, dissolving entirely into the dark shadow cast by a tree behind him. He vanished from the physical world, leaving the copied Midnight Shard to slice through empty air.
A split second later, Sunny erupted from the shadow pooled directly beneath the creature's feet. He drove his tachi upward , aiming to sever the imposter's spine.
The creature realized its mistake a fraction of a second too late. It tried to twist away, but the Midnight Shard bit deeply into its side, carving a long gash through the copied armor. Instead of crimson blood, a strange, viscous silver liquid sprayed across the pale stones.
The abomination let out a distorted, unnatural hiss that sounded a little too much like his voice. It scrambled backward, putting a dozen meters between them as it clutched its bleeding side. Its dark eyes locked onto Sunny, lacking any human emotion but radiating a cold, calculating intellect.
"It seems to think you are a major threat," Cielle noted from the sidelines.
Her voice was perfectly calm. She was standing a few paces away with her white wings folded against her back, leaning slightly on her spear. She watched the bloody duplicate of Sunny with mild, unbothered interest, like it was damn pigeon. (Mike tyson?)
"I am a major threat," Sunny snapped back, keeping his blade raised. "And you could help instead of providing a commentary."
"You looked like you were winning," she replied simply.
She was right, of course. Sunny had already realized that fighting this thing was fundamentally a puzzle. It had copied his aspect and his weapon, but it could not replicate the chaotic, unpredictable nature of how he actually utilized them. He was already planning his next sequence. He was strong, he was fast, and he was infinitely more cunning than a mere reflection.
The creature seemed to reach the exact same conclusion. It stared at Sunny for a long moment, evaluating the deep wound on its side and the dark, treacherous intent radiating from its opponent. It realized that fighting the original owner of this deceitful combat style was a losing proposition.
Suddenly, the creature's form began to ripple.
It looked like liquid melting under intense heat. The dark armor lost its sharp edges, the black hair lightened into a loose pull of brown and orange, and the sharp, cynical features softened into a familiar, deadpan expression. With a soft rustle that sounded like shifting silk, two massive white wings erupted from the creature's back, catching the pale light of the sky. The replica tachi elongated and thickened, transforming into a heavy iron spear.
Sunny felt a cold knot form in his stomach.
"Damnation," Sunny cursed out loud.
He had to fight a perfect copy of Cielle.
The mimic did not waste a single second admiring its new form. It kicked off the ground with a powerful gust, closing the distance to Sunny with a terrifying, silent speed. It brought the heavy spear around in a sweeping arc designed to crush his ribs into powder.
Sunny did not panic. He had sparred with Cielle, he had fought alongside her, and he knew her reach. He stepped precisely to the left, bringing the Midnight Shard up at an angle to deflect the shaft away from his body. It was a perfect, textbook parry.
Then, he felt the oppressive, invisible weight of the Seraphic Domain settle over him.
The moment his sword moved to intercept the spear, the reality of the space around him simply stopped making sense. The distance between his blade and the incoming weapon seemed to stretch by a fraction of an inch, causing his parry to miss entirely. At the exact same moment, the trajectory of the spear subtly bent inward, curving past his guard.
The heavy tip struck a glancing blow against his shoulder. The impact threw him off balance, sending a jarring spike of pain down his arm.
'What the hell was that!' Sunny thought frantically, stumbling backward to regain his footing.
He had watched Cielle use her domain dozens of times, yet he had not experienced it first hand much. Standing inside the domain as its target was an entirely different nightmare. It felt like fighting underwater while the current actively conspired to murder him. Every instinct he had built over years of grueling combat was suddenly rendered useless.
The mimic pressed its advantage, lunging again, the spear thrusting toward his chest.
Sunny started reading the creature's intent and stepping outside its line of attack. He moved his body to the right, aiming to slip past the weapon and deliver a counterstrike. But the domain compressed the space on his left side, violently dragging him back into the center.
He was forced to drop to his knees, abandoning all dignity as the spear shaved a few loose strands of hair from the top of his head. He scrambled backward across the cracked stone, his mind racing to calculate the warped geometry of the battlefield. It was utterly terrifying. Cielle's aspect was simply too terrifying, a quiet force of nature which simply rewrote the rules.
"You are fighting my shadow wrong," the real Cielle said.
She stepped into the fray without waiting for an invitation. Her own magnificent wings flared open, a blinding flash of pristine white against the dreary island, as she activated her own Seraphic Domain.
The moment her domain expanded and overlapped with the mimic's copied field, the air itself seemed to groan under the conflicting pressures. It was an invisible, violent war. Air snapped back and forth, distances stretched and collapsed in unpredictable, dizzying ripples, and the ground beneath their feet began to crack and splinter under the sheer strain of the opposing spatial forces.
The interference instantly shattered the mimic's absolute control over the space around Sunny. The crushing pressure vanished, leaving the laws of the world intact.
Sunny did not waste the opportunity. He pushed himself off the ground, a murderous intent flaring in his eyes. If the creature wanted to play games with space, he would introduce it to the unrelenting violence of the shadows.
He darted forward, utilizing the erratic interference between the two domains to mask his approach. The mimic tried to bend Sunny's trajectory away again, but the real Cielle stepped forward in perfect sync. She thrust her own spear toward the creature's chest, forcing the copied domain to stretch itself thin in order to bleed off the vector of her attack. The creature was caught in a lethal paradox, unable to fully suppress Sunny's movement while simultaneously defending against a flawless mirror of its own power.
Sunny closed the distance and unleashed a blinding flurry of strikes. The Midnight Shard became a blur of dark steel, hacking at the creature's defenses from impossible angles. Cielle wore a simple tunic as a memory, while having many enchantments, it was not really suitable for taking hits. Sunny forced the mimic to continuously retreat. Cielle matched his rhythm flawlessly. She did not speak, she did not hesitate to occupy every single blind spot the creature possessed, her spear striking like a venomous snake whenever the mimic focused too heavily on Sunny.
They were an overwhelming force. They had survived the crushing depths of the Nightmare Realm, they had bled together, and their abilities synergized with a terrifying, natural harmony. The creature could copy a form, but it could not copy their shared history or the bond they had created over the year.
The mimic was taking heavy damage. Sunny managed to slip past its guard, driving his tachi deep into its thigh. A moment later, Cielle used her domain to accelerate her own strike, plunging her iron spear through the creature's copied wing.
Silver liquid poured from the abomination, staining the stone plaza. It let out another distorted screech, violently wrenching itself backward to tear its wing free from Cielle's weapon. It stumbled, its flawless composure finally breaking as it stared at the two humans advancing upon it.
'We have it' Sunny thought, a grim smile forming on his lips.
He decided to end the fight immediately, before the creature could find a way to escape or adapt. He needed absolute, overwhelming destruction to shatter this mimic once and for all.
"Saint," Sunny commanded.
The dark shadow pooled at his feet suddenly expanded, rising upward like a geyser of black water. From the depths of the darkness, a towering, magnificent figure stepped into the physical world.
Saint materialized in all her terrifying glory. Her sleek, dark stone armor absorbed the pale light of the sky, her form radiating an aura of crushing, bottomless dread. The ruby eyes burning behind her enclosed visor locked onto the bleeding mimic with an impassive gaze.
It was now a three on one battle.
Sunny and Cielle did not pause to admire their new reinforcement. They pressed the attack, driving the mimic backward toward the edge of the ruined plaza. Cielle manipulated the space around the creature, trapping it in a pocket of compressed distance, while Sunny darted through the shadows, cutting off its escape.
Stone Saint stepped forward with the momentum of a falling mountain. She did not bother with subtle feints. She simply raised her colossal stone sword and brought it down in a devastating overhead cleave.
The mimic raised its spear in a desperate bid to block the apocalyptic strike. It poured all of its copied power into the space above its head, trying to bleed off the energy of the falling weapon.
It was utterly useless. The mass and strength of the Ascended demon could not be negated by an awakened aspect ability.
The stone sword crashed against the spear. A shockwave of air tore through the ruins, shattering the nearby pillars and kicking up a massive cloud of dust. The mimic's knees buckled violently under the impact. The stone beneath its feet cratered, and the white wings flared wildly as it struggled to keep from being crushed into the ground.
Sunny moved in for the kill. He stepped out of the dust cloud, his blade aimed directly at the creature's exposed neck.
But the mimic was not done.
The creature shimmered for the third time.
The white wings dissolved into cascading droplets of silver liquid. The slender human frame expanded outward with a sickening, wet crunch, the pale skin darkened, hardening into polished, indestructible stone. The creature grew significantly taller, its shoulders broadening as sleek, heavy armor formed over its expanding chest. A terrifying helm closed over its face, and two glowing ruby eyes ignited within the dark visor.
Sunny felt the breath leave his lungs as he halted his strike, staring at the towering, perfect replica of Saint.
Before Sunny could shout a warning or command his own shadows to retreat, the Beast-Saint shifted its stance. It did not summon a heavy stone sword to match its original counterpart. Instead, it raised its left arm, and a dark, terrifyingly familiar weapon materialized in its stony grip.
It was the dark bow. The exact same weapon that the real Stone Saint wielded.
The creature drew the thick string back with a smooth pull. The tension in the dark weapon hummed with a lethal promise, the air around it seeming to warp under the accumulated pressure. In the span of a single heartbeat, two long, heavy arrows formed from the ambient shadows, locking onto the taut string.
The glowing ruby eyes of the Beast-Saint locked onto Sunny and Cielle.
The beast released the string. The air screamed as two perfect, lethal arrows tore across cielle's domain, flying directly toward their chests with unstoppable force, a divine execution.