The amphitheatre trembled under the force of clashing doppelgängers, the air thick with the scent of sweat, dust and blood.
Kain ducked behind Aegis' newly evolved obsidian form as a blast of earth hurled by the clone of Serena Elental Guardian shattered against the golem's passive armour.
"It's creepy," Kain muttered, watching as his own mirror-image directed Vauleth to attack Serena's Starweaver, who was impeding the fake 'Bea's' ntal attacks, forcing the creature made up of starlight to reel back as a giant paw coated in magma headed toward it. The false Kain stood composed, calculating—too similar to himself for comfort. Every command it gave was a mirror to Kain's instincts, as if it had access to his thoughts a second before he spoke them aloud. "They don't only look and act like us—they think like us too."
The Starweaver's do of starlight dimd briefly under the pressure from dodging attacks aid at it. The fake Bea didn't miss the opportunity, and her ntal pressure surged. Balens pulsed with a soft, violet glow as Serena murmured another wish—likely to reinforce the Starweaver's barrier. She stood tense beside the collapsed, barely conscious first-year, her hair swirling gracefully in the wind generated by her elental guardian.
anwhile, her Prismarin, freed from its original doppelganger opponent, flickered in and out of visibility, weaving illusions to disorient the 'Balens' clone, but the doppelgänger's 'Balens' simply unravelled all of the illusions with a wish. Even worse, because they were not real people, naturally, the fake Balens had no qualms about side effects befalling his allies from extravagant wishes. Therefore, the fake Balens were a lot more active in the battle than the real thing usually was.
Seeing it simply wish one of Jade's contracts—the Shadowstrike Jaguar approaching it—to fall into a deep sleep, Kain finally got a sense for how annoying and difficult it would be to fight Balens if Serena wasn't always restraining it.
However, Kain noted that strangely, any of its wishes directed in the direction of himself were completely ineffective. Similarly, when a wish was made for Aegis' defences to be temporarily removed, the passive armour did flicker out of existence—for a re second before restoring itself.
Kain couldn't help but suspect that, since Aegis had a core capable of storing Abyssal energy—a mutant derivative of the higher-level Source energy which encompasses many other types of energy—perhaps a little bit of Source energy was present within Aegis to keep the wild corruptible energy in check? After all, Kain had observed how Source energy was capable of interfering with Balens' ability in the past.
With this idea in mind, and knowing it would be unable to affect him via wishes, Kain approached the doppelganger of Balens himself, with Aegis shielding him closely.
But as he left the cover of Serena's Starweaver's shield of light, sothing hit him—not physically, but ntally. A howl echoed through his mind, not a scream of sound but sensation—dull needles driving into his mind. The fake Bea.
Kain stumbled mid-step, clutching his temple. The weight of the pressure twisted his insides. His limbs slowed. The battlefield stretched, slowed. Sothing was wrong.
"Focus," Serena's voice cut through the chaos in his mind.
Kain barely registered her words before her Starweaver's launched an attack past him, spearing Kain's double through the shoulder. The clone staggered—just enough for Aegis to pivot and slam an obsidian fist into its chest, sending it skidding back. Thankfully, perhaps due to the attack on its master, the ntal attack on Kain also retreated.
The opposing 'Kain' seed to not have expected for Serena to interfere in the battle as it was attacking Kain, and began to focus more on her and her contracts as well.
"They're strong alone," Serena said, her tone clipped. "They are the equivalent of us at our best, while also being better than us in understanding our abilities. But they don't work well together. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so shocked at joining the battle. Not to ntion that doppelganger of my Elental Guardian is close to him, it could have easily intercepted that attack." She gestured to the opposing 'Elental Guardian' in its earth attribute form, who was standing nearby to the fake Kain but didn't make even the slightest move to block the attack for him.
Understanding clicked.
The clones were perfect copies of each of them—but they fought as individuals.
No synergy. No subtle communication, no instinctive trust. They weren't a team—they were a collection of perfect solitary players.
With the destruction of Kyria's and the first-year's clones, the nurical disadvantage and injuries on their side were soon made up for.
Bea continued to ntally tornt Jade's doppelganger, while Jade and Kyria moved closer to Serena and the three girls began to discuss how to most efficiently eliminate the remaining opponents.
anwhile, Kain continued his advance on the fake Balens—getting rid of it was the most urgent task.
Yes, thankfully the teamwork of the opponents was trash, but this Balens very much still coordinated with the clones of Serena's contracts and, without care for any consequences, wished for them all to temporarily be blue-grade.
Who knows, maybe it will wish for them all to beco indigo-grade next. The real Serena would never allow that, in fear of the repercussions, also Kain wasn't sure if such a huge jump was possible for Balens currently. But he didn't want to find out.
Finally in front of the spiritual creature that looked like an antique balance scale, he reached out his hand to grab it.
The creature was shaking and glowing in his hand, but like usual—likely due to all of the Source Energy Kain had absorbed—nothing happened to him.
Kain then strained every muscle in his body to try and snap the base of the scale into two.
Snap
The most annoying opponent taken care of, he turned to look at the others, only to see an eerily familiar sight of Serena shoving a familiar dagger into doppelganger Kain's heart, and all of the clones of his contracts either injured from being ganged up on, or preoccupied and unable to assist.
Serena looked up and made eye contact with the real Kain. A cold gaze while still holding the dagger in his clone's heart.
'Gulp'
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