The copies collapsed onto the Hydra.
Each head swung violently, and a litany of jaws snapping shut was heard as it culled the copies at a frightening rate.
Sunny found himself within the army of himself. Sunny zeroed in on the Hydra head that seemed to make the correct choice and unleashed its 'Will', the bastard almost ruined Sunny's plan.
It seems like the intelligence varied from each of the heads, so Sunny would kill the one that seemed the smartest.
One of the Hydra's heads swung violently, it crashed into fifty copies, and its jaws slammed closed on twenty more.
That's when one of the copies near it came alive. Sunny's blade flashed quickly and went nearly unnoticed under the Hydra's eyes.
Curving into the large neck of the Hydra, Sunny was augmented by three shadows while two more augmented the sword. At the last second, Sunny also unleashed his Supreme Art.
Instantly transferring more shadows to amplify the blade in the last second.
The head lopped off in an instant, and Sunny disappeared using Shadow Step. Taking a look at the Hydra in the distance, Sunny was about to engage quickly while it was disoriented from losing a head, but noticed that two more heads were growing back slowly.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Sunny said in frustration.
I'll go for the body instead. Sunny thought.
The head regeneration rate was slow. Sunny felt his blade siphoning his essence. The silver lining was that they were definitely gonna get reborn with a nasty headache and soul damage.
Shadow-stepping in Sunny released all of his incarnations. Currently, the Hydra had six heads. Two more regrowing, meaning Sunny could temporarily hold back each head with an incarnation while the seventh one appeared behind it.
Unfortunately, the blade wasn't shadow-bonded, so that meant Sunny only had one copy of it. The blade flashed and released two strikes onto the Cursed Monsters Shadow.
Each of the heads felt a rush of pain, and each incarnation seized the opportunity and let out devastating attacks into its body.
The Hydra's heads snapped back in retaliation, two of the heads opted to attack the same incarnation in a surpise attack. Sunny felt one of the jaws snap shut on his other arm while fended off the other head.
Surprisingly, none of the incarnations helped him. That was because in another second all the Hydra's heads seized up again. This time, one incarnation attacked its shadow and the other drove [The Thrill] into its body.
As Sunny stabbed into its body, he actually let the blade stay there. Then, with all his titanic strength, he punched the pommel of the sword.
The blade entered the Hydra's body like a cannonball.
The other incarnations fought off the heads when they actutely noticed that the Cursed Monster was actually stunned from the devastating attack
Needless to say, each Incarnation then attacked Shadow.
The oversized creature's creatures eyes went wide and then fell over, and Sunny heard a voice.
[Your shade has been destroyed.]
"What?!" Sunny thought.
[You have defeated a Cursed Monster.]
Wrapping all of his incarnations around himself, Sunny disappeared.
Back in the mansion, Sunny noticed all the battles ended at the same time. The Wolf and Slayer should be starting the battle with the Cursed Demon any moment now. It looks like they managed the end battle by throwing the Cursed Monster into the tentacles to defeat it quickly. Which was good.
Whatever that abomination was, it must have been deemed annoying enough that it couldn't be killed quickly. The Wolfs Will wasn't great since it was a Shade, but Slayer's was great. Sunny took a moment to look at his soul sea.
Sunny was not in a great mood. Whatever that Cursed Demon did, Abundance had been utterly destroyed and had not recieved the chance to be dismissed. All the Wasps had to have been destroyed as well.
Using his shadow sense, Sunny observed the Sacred shade approaching the Cursed. From its powerful shadow, Sunny noticed that it had a humanoid look when it was like the creature noticed Sunny's gaze somehow.
Sunny instantly retracted his shadow sense from the creature.
"Ah, this thing is going to be annoying to beat." Sunny lamented to Kai.
The archer had just joined Sunny on the roof of the mansion.
Kai was about to respond when Sunny let out a string of curses
"That damned, stupid traitor!" Sunny roared.
"What happened?" Kai asked.
"It's Abundance, I made an oversight. That bastard can take over shades, I thought it was destroyed. I'm going to enter the battle. If it takes the Wolf as well, the battle might be lost." Sunny said.
Thinking about the handy bracelet, Sunny would definitely upgrade it to tell the difference between a destroyed Shade and a lost one. It was incredibly frustrating, but no matter.
Unfortunately, the Hydra Sunny had just been defeated and had received numerous blows to its shadow, rendering it useless and unsummonable because of the damage it suffered.
"Stay here, if you see an opportunity, take it," Sunny said briskly.
The battle between the two had already started. Manifesting a pair of dark wings, Sunny took off, leaving Kai on the roof.
"How am I supposed to seize an opportunity if I can't even look at the Cursed Demon?" Kai said quietly.
Maybe he meant if the Cursed Demon took control of someone else? Kai thought.
The Sacred Shade of the Wolf leapt over Abundance, paying it no mind. Today, he wouldn't be hunting some worm. Slayer jumped into the air, soaring high. Down below, she let out a volley of arrows, striking at Abundance.
Activating the enchantment, its movement instantly slowed and halted for a few seconds. Letting out some more arrows to hide the Obsidian Wasps appeared next to it, shielding it from the arrows using their body.
That didn't stop Slayer as she kept letting the arrows loose, now looking closer for the gaps between the wasps.
Sunny landed violently next to Abundance and gave it a command.
"Stop!" he bellowed. Since Abundance was a Shadow, it should've heeded Sunny's but it only charged as if the command fell on deaf ears.
Shit, Sunny thought. Jumping back up into the air, he detached an incarnation.
The incarnation and Slayer would defeat Abundance and the Obsidian Wasps, while Sunny would take the majority of his power and help the Wolf.
Shadow-stepping near to the Sacred Shade of the wolf, Sunny watched the battle unfold for a moment. Sunny saw a humanoid figure dodging the wolf's claws and leaping backwards.
The Cursed Demon was incredibly eerie and nimble. It looked human, but it had four extra mouths. Two were on its cheek, and two were actually on its hands. Solidifying its odd look was its deep red eyes, which looked as if it had been drenched in blood.
The strangest part? It was that the Wolf wasn't even getting close to the Red-eyed demon. Its sharp claws always missing.
It's using will to keep the wolf back and probably using its sinister powers as well. Sunny thought.
Detaching one more incarnation, Sunny let it augment the Wolf to give it a more potent will. That was one of the things Shades lacked after all.
Gripping [The Thrill] tighter Sunny launched himself forward only to stop mid-way. Blood poured out of his nostrils, and his eyes started bleeding blood red tears.
Assaulted by a mind attack, Sunny reeled back. The Red-eyed demon found itself next to Sunny and used its hand like a dagger, stabbing into Sunny.
Grabbing the Cursed Demon's hand, two incarnations appeared by Sunny, and struck forward. Only for the incarnation on the right to get assaulted by a mental attack and miss. The other incarnation on the left was easily avoided by the sinister creature.
As it dragged its hand out of Sunny's abdomen, the mouth bit and chewed on its way out.
"Aargh!" Sunny let out a low groan. Being stabbed and chewed at the same time wasn't pleasant.
The Wolf leapt forward, attempting to push back the Cursed Demon, but it seemed like it was fighting an illusion and was always a step too late.
"Damn", Sunny thought. It seemed like the brief encounter the Sacred Shade had by itself seemed like it was enough for the deadly Cursed Demon to start enthralling the Shade.
"If I hadn't given it an incarnation, it would probably be attacking me now." Sunny thought.
Sunny quickly turned into a shadow and remanifested himself. He was now a shadow with no blood and no ears.
"It seems like on top of its insidious mind powers, it has powers related to blood. So maybe it's like a mind virus?" Sunny though quickly.
Taking a shadow-step and communicating the shade, Sunny launched a pincer attack on the Cursed Demon.
The Cursed Demon raised both of its arms towards Sunny and the Shade. All five mouths opened up in unison.
"Not good." Sunny thought.
A string of weird noises came out of the Cursed Demon's hands, and although Sunny was remanifested with no ears and tried not to listen, something strange happened.
Sunny always had an understanding when it came to shadows. He could tell the shadow's moods or the overall feeling of the Shadow. It was a type of communication that he never thought could be used against him and only ever considered it a boon.
This attack that the Cursed Demon launched was a multi-faceted attack that went through anything that it could communicate through, truly fitting of a mind virus.
Sunny and the shade both stumbled.
Even the incarnation that finished defeating Abundance and the Obsidian Wasps stumbled. Slayer looked at the incarnation warily, slowly unsheathing her short sword.
Sunny's mind felt like it went through razors, and this momentarily weakened him to such an extent that the Shade's summoning actually dismissed itself. It wasn't easy to summon a god after all, and Sunny no longer even had Mind Weave.
Looking up slowly, Sunny noticed the Red-Eyed demon was staring holes into him. That's when he felt one of his incarnations suddenly move on its own to attack Slayer.
What? Sunny was momentarily shocked, then it made sense. Each incarnation represented one of Sunny's individual helpers. They were his power but ultimately his helpers.
There was also 'Will'. This Cursed Demon simply believed he could enthrall one of the incarnations, and it did successfully.
The incarnation launched a lazy attack at Slayer, which she gracefully warded off. With a blank face, the incarnation continued to launch attacks at Slayer.
Sunny attempted to wrestle control of his incarnation again while he resummoned his shade.
Sunny held off on summoning Abundace for now since controlling fewer Sacred shades freed a large amount of mental energy.
Sunny also unsummoned [The Thrill] and just made a sword out of shadows.
"This guy won't fall for any tricks either." Sunny thought.
If he was capable of sensing minds, then a few soulless copies of Sunny weren't going to distract him at all.
With the wolf back in battle, Sunny pushed himself forward. His mind still felt like it pins and needles, but he would have to continue on.
Sunny summoned shadow chains around the Cursed Demon attempting to bind it, but it quickly melted the chains as if its hands possessed an acidic touch.
The Wolf pounced forward, trying to sink it's claws into the Red-Eyed man, but the it was too nimble, jumping backwards. Sunny shadow-stepped behind him, raised his sword to swing down, when he was met with another mental attack as the mouths opened up.
Sunny pushed through, but his attack was already way slower, and the 'Death Will' encompassing the sword only sliced his forehead.
The Sacred shade of the wolf wasn't idle and pounced forward.
The Cursed Demon was about to deal with the Wolf that found itself in its flank when, for the first time in the battle, it froze.