(Eris POV)
Even though it was a four against one, this parasite still managed to hold her own against us.
It was not much of a surprise since she's a manifestation of all four of us combined so she knew us more than we knew each other.
She was even able to use four elements at once and with seemingly much better control than any of us, not to mention her sword skills were also basically a combination of ours as well.
In other words, this parasite is a fucking bitch.
"Fuckin' bitch using us to make herself stronger!" Bait mimicked my thoughts, ducking underneath the blast of fire that came from the parasite.
Laverna tried to take that chance to attack the parasite but she deftly deflected her attack and also Denna's without even looking at them.
The way that she was casually just parrying and avoiding our blows like it was nothing was starting to get on my nerves.
She even had the audacity to yawn at us, "ThIS IS GeTTING A lITTlE BoRING, IS thIS THe EXTENT OF WHAT YOU GIrLS ARe CAPABLE OF? I EXPECTED MORE."
"You talk awfully big for someone who basically benefited from our hard work," I pointed out while slashing my blade at her neck.
She barely moved as her wrist flicked back to parry my attack away with an infuriatingly casual air.
"WAS I NOt COheREnT eNOUgH? I AM ALL oF YOU. WHAt YOU ARE ABLE TO DO i aM ALSO ABLE to DO. I AM YOU BUT BETTEr!"
"This one humbly disagrees. You have yet to even be acknowledged by Master, how can you even claim to be better than we are? In fact, doesn't that make you a fake?"
"I AM REEEAAAALLL!!!" The parasite let out a roar which blasted all of us back from her.
"Pissed…" Laverna muttered.
Bait scowled at her, "Ya think? 'Aye thought she was jus' hungry!"
I raised up my sword again just as the parasite leapt towards us to slash at me, her face contorted in rage.
Despite me being able to catch her blade with mine, I was still thrown back from the force of her attack.
The other three weren't unscathed either as the shockwave was also enough to send them flying away from her.
Damn… Looks like she got really triggered by that comment. The fact that she really wasn't acknowledged by Master must have been an especially sore spot for her. Is she going through an existential crisis now?
She flew towards me with her sword raised to slash at my neck again and this time I did not try to parry it, knowing she was already much stronger physically than I was.
Instead, I used the flat of my blade to alter its course partially, just enough for me to duck my head and avoid the fatal blow.
Bait came up from behind her, her entire body wrapped in flames as she slashed her fire blade at the parasite's back, scoring the very first hit on her in our fight.
However, that only served to make her more annoyed as she turned around and kicked the other me in the chest.
If it wasn't because of the fact she had transformed herself into fire, her chest would have most likely been decimated by the force of that blow. However, it was still enough to blast her away to crash into one of the buildings nearby.
Denna and Laverna leapt at her from both sides, the former taking the form of water while the latter taking on lightning.
Both of them slashed their elemental blades at the parasite, giving her the barest of cuts on her arm before they too, were blasted away with a kick each.
I finished my preparations and turned myself into an earthen form, my body breaking apart to harden into stone and earth.
I reared back my fist and gave her face a punch of my own, my enhanced strength managing to make her jerk her head slightly before the parasite was glaring back at me again.
An explosive force exploded from my chest as I found my world being spun around, taking a moment more before I realised I was also kicked away before I smashed back down onto the ground.
"Fuck! How are we suppos'd to beat 'er?! She can take on all o' us even in our elemental form!" Bait screamed, firing off blades of fire that she easily deflected. "We need'a miracle!!"
That parasite is already this strong with using her physical strength alone, if she were to use any of the elemental blade techniques, I think we would be finished. Are we really going to let this bitch take over our body?
Of course not.
She rushed towards us again and, as one, the four of us let loose a blast of our own elemental blades.
With the four of us together, it's obvious that the power of friendship will prevail against he--
She shrugged off our attacks and slammed straight into us, once again sending us flying away.
I barely recovered in time to avoid an air blade that almost took my head, the other three also rolling away from her as she rained down slashes at each of us.
As though fed up with how we are running away, she flew up into the sky and slashed her sword behind her, tearing open a hole in the space itself.
From that tear, a giant meteor flew out of it and started crashing down on top of us.
Denna bit her thumb, "She even stole this move from Mester… This one truly feels vexed…"
I'm more curious about how this parasite even managed to do that but now is not the time to think about that.
The four of us encased our swords with our own Elemental Quarks before shooting them out towards the meteor, expecting to cut it into pieces.
Except… It didn't… And our attacks just bounced off its surface.
"Hmm… This one supposes this is as far as we can go…" Denna sighed in defeat, her sword dropping to her side.
I was just about to tell her off for giving up when a metallic 'ping' resounded through the air, right before the meteor was cut into two to split apart and fall away from the floating island we were on.
Right then, another me landed in front of us with her back facing us.
"Looks like you girls are in a pickle! Allow me to assist!!" She announced cheerily.
I blinked at her, I don't think we have more than five personalities, do we? Did a new one awaken?
"Umm… Who are you?" I asked.
She grinned and gave me a thumbs up, "I'm you from a Universe where I never pursued Godhood and honed only my blade under Master!"
Wait… What?
Another me suddenly appeared out of thin air beside her, "And I'm from a Universe where Master stopped taking in any more disciples after me."
"And I'm from the Universe where Master chose to leave with that stalker bitch!" A long haired version of me also appeared beside her.
That was the signal for even more versions of me to appear all around us, forming a literal army of myself, each of them claiming to be from a different Universe.
What in the world is going on?!
