My Goddess Mother Gave Me A SYSTEM AND KICKED ME OUT

{Soma, Zero, and Valna I need you to buy time. Work together instead of attacking separately. If you attack tandem then she won’t be able to retaliate.} said Hikaru

Zero and Soma stood up both breathing heavily ready for another round. Zero poured as much mana into his body as he could since the previous levels failed to allow Zero to keep up with Sophia. Zero ran towards Sophia followed by Soma. Zero sped up and tried to slash Sophia but she easily dodged the attack and the kick that followed. Sophia readied a palm trust but was forced to retreat as Soma attacked from her blind spot yet again. Sophia lunged at Soma to attack him but Valna used her spear to perform a sweep attack which Sophia still managed to dodge and was about to retaliate with a light beam. The beam was fired but a wall of shadow appeared in front of Valna to protect her.

Sophia began to look annoyed as she swiftly moved with lightning speed towards Soma. Sophia readied a palm strike but at the last minute, Soma turned into mist and reappeared behind Sophia ready to strike. Zero also teleported in front of Sophia ready to slash her when suddenly his point of view shifted and he was struck from behind. Zero flew and crashed into a nearby tree as he coughed up mouthfuls of blood.

{What… happened?} asked Zero

{I don’t really know, you and Soma were ready to attack her for the front and back when you suddenly switched places and were facing away from Sophia. She then attacked the both of you from behind.} said Valna

Sophia then turned to look at Valna and with a flick of her wrist, Valna was suddenly in front of Sophia who then proceeded to punch her into the ground. Valna had barely managed to use her arm to block the attack but the force of the punch shattered her bones. Shadow spikes shot out from the ground to stab Sophia in the back when suddenly they disappeared and appeared stabbing Valna. The spikes quickly stopped and retreated but Valna was in pretty bad shape.

{Be careful I think she’s manipulating the world around you. Azalea try to create a domain to hinder that ability.} said Yoko in a hurry

Heeding Yoko’s orders Azalea raised her hands and the sky began to turn blood red. Soma turned into a flurry of bats to avoid Sophia’s attack when she flicked her wrist except that this time nothing happened so she looked up at the sky and noticed the domain. Sophia then turned to look at Azalea and failed to notice that Soma had reformed behind her. Soma wasted no time and with all his strength managed to cut off her head. Sophia’s body went limp and she collapsed on the ground.

“Is it over?” asked Alucard who had healed enough to awaken a little while ago.

“Doubtful such an attack would not kill her let alone me.” said Soma as he readied himself.

“Soma’s right get ready.” said Zero

However, seconds passed as nothing happened when they heard clapping. The clapping noise echoed throughout the enclosed space making it hard to pinpoint its origin. Suddenly Zero pointed and said, “There!”

The group looked up and saw Sophia floating in the air looking down upon them. They were really confused as they turned to look at Sophia’s body lying on the ground near Soma. Sophia then said, “Congratulations on defeating that. I’m honestly surprised that you managed to kill it even though it let its guard down.”

“Damn, so this whole time we’ve been fighting a fake?” asked Valna in surprise

“Yes, and a poorly made one at that. It could only exhibit 10% of my full abilities.” said Sophia in a mocking tone.

The revelation shocked them as they had so much difficulty handling a mere copy and a weak copy at that. The crushing truth that they were outclassed was now starting to hit them when Sophia snapped her fingers and her copy resurrected instantly. Worse yet, another copy appeared next to the original copy. Things had really begun to look dire now that they were face-to-face with 2 copies.

‘Damn this is looking bad, I knew we’d be outclassed but not by this much. She shouldn’t even be able to use half of her power in that body. Even then with all that she's playing with us as if we’re children. I think my best move might be to gather everyone and run. I won’t be able to get Mina’s dad but that’s an unfortunate sacrifice.’ thought Zero as he started to make plans to escape

{I have an idea Valna and Zero hold those 2 off while.} said Soma

{Okay I hope this works.} said Valna as she charged toward 1 of the copies.

Zero sighed as he also charged at the other copy. Valna summoned 4 dark flame spears to coordinate in order to fight the Sophia copy. This was something she would have avoided doing if possible, since in a fight such as this mana was one's lifeline. Valna and the others were using their mana to heal and strengthen their physical capabilities as much as possible rather than a big flashy attack that would easily be dodged by Sophia. Valna and Azalea’s mana pool were the smallest in the group so they had to be more careful than Zero or Soma.

Valna changed her weapon into a scythe and did a sweeping slash which she dodged simply by flying over it. Sophia's copy 1 charged at Valna but a flaming spear shot at her causing her to stop and fly up to dodge the attack. Valna produced her wings and chased after copy 1 followed by her 4 spears. The copy fired light beams at Valna but they were blocked by the flames spears rotating and defending Valna. The copy then fired a large beam attack but Valna launched her spears at the copy before teleporting above it. The copy dodged the spear by flying up only to be stuck in the face by Valna’s spear causing the copy to fall to the ground.

{Hmm. this is weird the copies moves have become easier to read.} said Valna

{Yes, I noticed that too. Hitting them isn’t easy but it is not impossible like before.} said Zero

{It might be that she controls them remotely and moving 2 of them reduces her ability to move them efficiently. That might mean that if we force her to make more then we might win.} said Alucard

{That could be true but let’s be careful regardless this might be a ploy to get us to lower our guard and finish us off.} said Zero

As Valna flew down to confront the copy she sent her spears to attack first. The spears impaled the ground and the dust cleared but the copy was nowhere to be found so Valna stopped in the air mid-dive. Valna looked around and found that the copy Zero was fighting with had also disappeared. Zero flew to Valna’s side and asked, “Did you see where they disappeared to?”

Valna sensing something was wrong then hovered back to back with Zero and responded, “No.” She and Zero looked around for the copies but found that they were nowhere to be found. Suddenly a rope of light wrapped around the 2 and they saw the 2 copies of Sophia about to attack from above. No matter how much they struggled the light rope refused to loosen or break so they prepared for the worst.

Before the copies could strike they were suddenly encapsulated within orbs of dark water. This was Yoko’s dark tide spell that she invented against Valna fusing a water spell with darkness so Zero and Valna easily recognized it. The tides then froze and began to crack then shattered breaking the copies into pieces.

The light rope disappeared and Valna and Zero looked around confused about what happened. When they looked down they saw Mina breathing heavily and fall down to her knees. The dark tide spell must have come from her but she couldn’t have used the spell since she didn’t have the dark attribute. They wondered how this was possible when they finally received a message.

{Looks like my plan was a success.} said Hikaru