The air screamed as two massive arrows, forged from pure shadow, crossed the distance between them and beast saint in the span of a single heartbeat.
Cielle stepped forward and threw both her hands out, her green eyes wide with sudden exertion. The air between them visibly rippled as she pushed her Seraphic Domain to its absolute limit. The two heavy projectiles hit the barrier and immediately began to bleed momentum. They did not stop completely, but the domain warped their vectors just enough to drag their speed down from a blinding blur to something the human eye could actually track. It looked like the arrows had plunged into a wall of invisible, thick water.
Sunny stepped into the distorted path of the first arrow, swinging the Midnight Shard with everything he had. The impact nearly dislocated his shoulder. The sheer force traveled down his arms, numbing his fingers and sending him skidding backward across the cracked stone. Beside him, Stone Saint raised her heavy dark shield. She caught the second arrow with a deafening crack that forced the towering demon to take a full step back.
The Beast-Saint did not pause to admire its handiwork. It smoothly notched three more arrows, drawing the dark bowstring back like a guileton over their head.
Sunny realized they were entirely pinned down. The beast was using Saint's devastating power to keep them trapped at a distance, bleeding their stamina with every shot. He commanded his Ascended demon to charge, hoping to close the gap and force the mimic into a melee engagement.
The moment Stone Saint took a step forward, the towering stone creature simply melted. The heavy armor dissolved into pale skin and dark silk, the towering frame shrinking back into the familiar shape of Sunny himself. The mimic dropped seamlessly into the shadows, completely bypassing Saint's heavy sword swing. It emerged a second later atop a tree branch fifty yards away, its dark eyes analyzing them with intelligence.
Then, it shifted back into Stone Saint and raised the dark bow once again.
Sunny stared at the shifting horror with spite. It was a perfect adversary. It mirrored their weapons, it mirrored their physical strength, and it flawlessly executed their Aspect abilities. If this battle continued, they would be dismantled.
Then, a dark, bitter realization bloomed in his chest. Hi mind caught a snag in the creature's absolute perfection.
If the abomination mirrored his soul perfectly to copy his Aspect, it did not just copy his powers. It copied the fundamental laws woven into his very being. It copied his Flaw. And more importantly, it copied his innate ability. It must have had copied the Shadow Bond.
A wave of intense, suffocating self-loathing washed over him. He hated the Shadow Bond with every fiber of his being. He hated the invisible chains that wrapped tightly around his throat, waiting for his master to pull them. Relying on his own slavery to win a battle felt like a disgusting betrayal of everything he fought so hard to escape. He wanted to win through cunning, through skill. Using the curse that stripped him of his freedom made him feel physically sick.
But as another shadow arrow shattered the stone inches from his boots, Sunny knew he had absolutely no other choice.
He gritted his teeth, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, and recalled Saint back into his soul sea. He could not allow the beast to keep using her devastating bow.
"Cielle," Sunny barked, his voice tight with urgency and panic. "Get as far away as possible!"
Cielle turned and launched herself into the air, her massive white wings beating hard against the stagnant wind. She shot toward the edge of the floating island, her slender form a blur of motion against the pale sky.
The mimic upon the tree branch did not hesitate. It shimmered and shifted, the stone armor dissolved, replaced by Cielle's plain tunic and familiar face. Two pristine white wings erupted from its back, and it took to the sky, chasing after her with terrifying, speed.
Sunny cursed violently as he sprinted across the island, tracking their silhouettes against the clouds. The beast was fast, and it was gaining ground on the real Cielle. His mind scrambled for a solution, finally catching on a crucial detail he had known.
Sunny did not know the deep, twisted reasons why she kept that specific Echo manifested at all times. He knew there was a profound weight to it, something she guarded closely and never spoke about. Asking her to dismiss them felt like a violation of a silent boundary they had established. But the mimic was raising its iron spear mid-flight, preparing to impale her from behind. Flight was simply not an option for the beast anymore.
"Unsummon your Echo!" Sunny screamed, his voice tearing his throat as he pushed his legs to their absolute limit.
High above the ruins, Cielle heard him. She folded her wings and commanded them away. The beautiful white feathers dissolved into her back, as if merging into her skin. Gravity instantly took hold of her. She dropped toward the ruins, landing hard but safely on the ground, her feet cracking the ground beneath.
Then, she stopped moving entirely.
Sunny watched in mounting horror as Cielle just stood there, completely and utterly still. Her arms hung limply at her sides. Her green eyes stared blankly ahead, entirely unresponsive to the chaos of the battlefield. It was as if she was locked in a state of absolute, doll-like stillness. She looked lost in a place he could not reach.
Sunny felt panic seize his chest.
"Cielle! move!"
Meanwhile, the mimic was caught completely off guard. Mid-flight, its wings simply ceased to exist. The abomination let out a distorted shriek as gravity violently reclaimed it. It plummeted from the sky like a shooting star, crashing brutally into the center of the plaza. A massive cloud of debris plumed upward as the impact shattered the pavement, sending chunks of rock flying in every direction.
Sunny did not wait for the dust to settle. He activated Shadow Step, diving into the darkness and emerging directly in front of the paralyzed Cielle. He positioned himself squarely between her and the crater, his Midnight Shard raised in a flawless defensive guard.
The beast dragged itself out of the rubble. It was battered, its copied clothes torn, and it was leaking fluid from a dozen blunt force wounds, but it still wore Cielle's face. It raised its iron spear, its deadpan eyes locking onto Sunny without intent. The invisible, oppressive weight of the Seraphic Domain expanded outward once again, warping the air around the creature.
Sunny charged down the collapsed roof to meet it, just as he did, the beast thrust its spear toward his chest, expecting him to dodge or parry. Sunny did neither. He threw his weight completely off balance, leaning into a sloppy, terrible angle that left him entirely exposed. The creature instantly attempted to warp his trajectory, but because his initial vector was entirely wrong, the spatial distortion actually corrected his posture, to be precise sunny had lucked out.
This had happened only one time, in a spar of theirs. Cielle activates her ability reactively, like an instinct, most of the times, she does not control the direction she is bending the vectors at, she told him it took too much concentration.
Sunny simply had to already be in the wrong direction, after all this beast could not match her intelligence, it was most definitely relying on pure instinct. Just as sunny thought, the invisible pressure snapped him right past the iron tip, carrying him safely into the beast's inner guard.
Btw let me tell you, this is not a viable counter to sepharic domain, sunny just got really lucky and the fact that the mirror beast does not have high intelligence lead up to this, so yeah. But Thats also true that moving unpredictably in the domain would counter it, its just you would have to move before cielle can process you. Basically some bs i pulled…. Man im just a creative writer.
Sunny smiled grimly. He swung the Midnight Shard, aiming a vicious horizontal slash two full feet to the left of the creature's neck. He struck at empty air.
The beast did not even try to block. Its copied domain reacted automatically, grabbing the vector of the sword and bending it away from the intended target. The invisible spatial curve dragged Sunny's blade sharply to the right, pulling it directly into the mimic's exposed collarbone.
The black steel bit deep into the flesh. The beast staggered backward, letting out a hiss of confusion.
"You are using her face," Sunny whispered, his voice dripping with cold malice as he stepped forward. "But you have absolutely no idea how her powers actually work."
Sunny pressed his advantage, unleashing a flurry of intentionally misaimed strikes yet just fast enough so that the thing could not see them. He slashed at the empty air above the creature's head, only for the domain to pull the heavy blade down violently into its shoulder. He thrust widely to the right, letting the domain guide his sword straight into the beast's ribs.
The mimic grew desperate. It tried to compress the space between them to trap Sunny, but Sunny simply dropped into the shadows, emerging behind the creature. His blade came down in countless strikes.
Silver fluid coated the ruined stones. The beast fell to one knee, the sepharic domain flickered slightly. It raised the iron spear for one final, desperate thrust, aiming blindly at Sunny's chest.
Sunny stood his ground, letting his gloomy shadow wrap around his arms to augment his strength. He was ready to finish this, fully prepared to enact the darkest, most repulsive gambit he had ever devised.