World Seed

“There’s someone up ahead!” I called back as I hurried forwards, wanting to reach the source of the voice as soon as possible.“What are you talking about?” Sharon looked at me curiously, having apparently not heard it. I wonder if she hasn’t tried to talk to elemental creatures using mana yet? Either way, I know what I had heard.Yin and Yo simply followed along silently, and in the next room, I found the source of the noise. It was the boss room for this dungeon floor, as expected. However, aside from a swarm of shadow bats, there was also a black flame blazing against the back of the room. In the center of the room, on the floor was a thin boy with pitch black skin, and a circular halo resting vertically behind his head. His body was doubled over, using his arms to protect his head as two identical boys were kicking at him.“What the…” Sharon was the first to speak up here, as she was right behind me when I started running.Celeste, what am I looking at?The AI quickly responded in my head. “The boy should be a type of Shade, I think. Not sure if he’s a pure one or not until we ask him to check his status. But the other two… Their auras perfectly match his, and yet they are hostile to him. Most likely, they are--”Before she could finish telling me what was going on, a black spear flew at me from the side. Turning to look, I saw Yo… or what looked like Yo, but with an entirely black body. I was worried that something was controlling her, but then I saw the slime girl running up behind Yin and just entering the room.“Dopplegangers…” I groaned, watching as a second Yo formed, followed by two each of myself, Sharon and Yin. “I… really hope they can’t copy everything.”“We can work on that later.” Sharon said, taking a fighting stance. “You want to save that boy, right?” When I nodded, she smiled slightly. “Good, then all we have to do is kick some ass and grab him.”I nodded again, looking at my own clones. “Sounds like a plan.” Opening my mouth, I did a concentrated two hundred point laser breath on the closest John clone. However, both of my clones opened their mouths, and black bursts of energy shot out, crashing together in midair, likely fighting back my own mana breath. With my Aura Sight, I saw that what they were using was pure dark mana, so I tried going with fire next.Using my Fire Manipulation, I created a small fireball and flinged it at the target clone. Instead of copying me, this time the other clone jumped in front of the fireball, and erected a black wall of energy around them. Unfortunately, the fireball was harmlessly absorbed by that black wall. “I...I’m not liking our odds here.”I tested again with a stone spike, but again they used a shadow ball to negate it. Although these things were not able to wield all of the elements like I could, it seemed like their elemental aptitude was poured entirely into Dark Affinity.Sharon nodded beside me, taking a deep breath and looking towards the clone army. Her voice was forceful, and held an air of command about it as she spoke. “Stop!”The clones, which had been getting ready to charge up, momentarily froze. However, the black flame in the back of the room surged brighter, and they were soon moving again. The two Yo clones, as well as the Sharon clones all rushed in to engage in melee, while the John and Yin clones stepped back, apparently preparing to use their magic.“Well… I’m out of ideas!” Sharon called out, having apparently tried to use the advanced form of her Wild Voice to control the creatures.“Yin, telekinesis!” I looked over to the storm bird. These things were shadow constructs, and obviously not perfect ones. If they were, they’d be using other elements on us. Heaven forbid, my clones might have decided to use time against us, then we would be in trouble. My hope here was that they did not have physical brains, and thus were unable to reproduce psychic abilities. Pretty ironic since this was the psychic planet. If the Ha’vosh came down here, this boss would be useless.Yin nodded, her body changing in a shower of sparks to take on her human form. Surprisingly, her two clones immediately reshaped themselves into her human body as well. “Sharon, don’t use your animals. Groves are undetectable, so it can’t copy your animals until you bring them out.” She nodded her head slightly at that, while I looked towards the black flame in the back of the room.“What about me, daddy?” Yo called out happily, and I looked over to see that she was currently being impaled by one of her own clones, and being punched by one of Sharon’s.“Uhm… see if you can eat them?” I really didn’t know what else to say about that. If these things hit her core, she’d be in trouble, but she seemed to be protecting it well.“Mmm… Alright!” She turned to look towards her own clone. “You look yummy~!” Suddenly, Yo’s body seemed to explode outwards, wrapping her clone as it struggled to get free. I had to admit, this was unnerving to watch, but her clone was gradually dissolved inside of herself. Meanwhile, the other Sharon clone reached Yin, and the other Yo clone reached Sharon.Yin, having gotten into her human form to use telekinesis, held out her hands and focused as the barehanded shadow elf charged her. I could see her furrowing her brows in frustration while the clone’s body seemed to slow down. I had to quickly raise a wall of stone between them and my own clones as balls of shadow were thrown at her to try to prevent her from doing the next part. The next part being to rip the clone in half, literally. The Sharon Clone had her upper body completely ripped off of her lower one, both halves falling to the ground while Yin also collapsed from overusing her psychic power.I rushed over to the human-form bird, and gave her a psychic stress relief pill. “Take that. You did a good job there.” I smiled to her, and she nodded back with a relieved expression.It seemed that as long as she was in her human form, her clones were rendered essentially useless in the fight. Although they shot black lightning bolts at my earth wall from their hands, the magic was not strong enough to penetrate. Yin’s only real offensive power in this form is telekinesis, after all.Soon, however, my wall was smashed down by a series of thick black spheres that my own clones had shot out. One of the balls smashed against me, throwing me back into the wall.