Chapter 71: A Fake Fake Imitation
I stared the "thing" in front of me down. It was a splitting image of me in Apolepstic mode turned demonic. And seeing it from an outsider's perspective is just... wow.
This thing could probably make even the most veteran of veterans shit enough bricks to build a castle. Sharp jagged metallic teeth that stretched nearly 280 degrees around his head. Empty black eyes with a dangerous purple pupil. Jagged jet-black armor that resembled a beast outlined its musclebound bestial figure. Razor-sharp claws.
Flame like purple plume that floated without any wind whatsoever. Its aura was crushingly dominating as if condemning you for being in its very presence, like a perfectly honed weapon, its killing intent was strong enough to collapse the common man. It held a giant pitch-black blade with burning purple cracks that formed a tree-like pattern from the guard up. It held its blade in a relaxed but ready form.
Its gaze nonchalant yet dissecting everything in front of it, finding out the best way to eliminate the threat. Like a machine, a perfect tool for murder. A being so used to death that it had become the very embodiment of it. The very presence of the being in front of me felt like the sickle of death pressed against my throat.
The T H I N G in front was like death itself, inescapable, no matter how hard you tried it would eventually reach you. Even if you kill the reaper a million times, it will still collect your soul.
Instinctively I knew what I had to do. I held out my hand and summoned the dead man's blade, a replica of what was in his hands, just smaller and without the purple cracks making it jumbo-sized.
Crouching down I shot out toward the figure but just as I arrived in front of it, I saw a sleek black edge enter my view, bisecting my head. And the moment my life slipped away from my hands I appeared where I first stood once more. the thing's position was reset too. As always, death was nothing more than an illusion.
Now I get it. I need to kill him to inherit the dark soul fully. I don't know why I had to kill a mirror image of myself but weirder things have happened to me. So I took position once again and used deadman style to move at extreme speeds and moved to its side. But as I did so something sent a chill up my spine.
Its eyes followed my movements. With extreme ease too, as if a grown man watching a toddler run.
I can move almost as fast as Ornstein. My speed is my strongest asset and that thing's just calmly tracked my movements with its eyes. Regaining my composure as fast as I lost it I held my hand forward and channeled an inferno but before I could let it out the shadows under my feet shifted, throwing me off balance. Before a giant blade emerged from the same shadows and turned me into a kebab.
I didn't even get to feel pain before everything faded to black.
After I respawned once more this time I channeled my speed to the max to appear 10 meters in front of it near instantly, and before it did anything I threw my blade at its face to throw it off, as I did that I also channeled 5 fire missies and locked them on the figure and released them.
Yet again the figure calmly responded by smacking the blade away and then crushing the flame missiles with its hands and feet, effectively parrying them. But this time instead of preparing another attack I went on the defensive and activated total concentration. From the cloud of smoke, the figure dashed out and arrived in front of my face slightly faster than me so all I could do was raise my arms in a cross to defend myself.
'Heavy!'
It felt like I was hit by a school bus instead of a fist, my arms creaked and broke as I was launched away by the blow, My feet dug into the ground and dragged as I put myself to a stop, but the moment I did stop, the figure had blurred above me and brought its foot down in an axe kick, crushing my skull underfoot.
...
It seemed like the figure did not attack me unless I attacked first. I also made another observation. I could not access the system here, no status, no level-ups, no inventory. I could summon my weapons but that was it.
And the figure was me, or at least a version of me. But there was one problem with that. It wasn't a perfect copy.
It was a fucking improved copy.
Whatever I did it responded by either parrying, countering, avoiding, neutralizing, or straight-up tanking it. It constantly had soul release and full potential on while I could barely maintain both for a minute. By the time it took me to cast one spell, it could cast two.
Its composure never broke. And there was a problem.
It wasn't inherently stronger than me.
Our skills and their levels are the same from what I observed after several hundred deaths. Our physiques are similar other than our usage of transformation. Then what was the problem?
He could use my body perfectly. Rapidly gauging the situation and acting accordingly, using umbra and armageddon blade like they were his limbs. It was like a machine, cold, calculating, and efficient.
I tried everything, every strategy I knew. I tried armageddon blade, I tried umbra, I tried lightning, I tried using force, I tried pushing myself beyond anything it could achieve.
It surpassed even then.
The more and more this dragged on the more I felt another option.
Giving up.
What can you do against a perfected copy of yourself? This wasn't like Ornstein who was more skilled and experienced than me. This thing was better at everything that made me ME.
If I let it win then I wouldn't have to die anymore. Besides, isn't that what I want to be? A powerful, efficient, and brutal war machine. Able to fulfill its task with ease and break after so. If I just gave up then it wouldn't take it more than a few hours to end it all.
How many days have I fought it? 30? 90? 140?
The more I do so the more the realization sinks in.
That's not the fake one.
I'm the fake one.
That is the real me.
I'm just a mask it put up to preserve the last shards of whatever it had left. I tried to fake my emotions in hopes of feeling them. No matter how I act like, what's below is a hollow murder machine, living fuel.
Something that only lives to prolong the flame.
The world had broken me long ago. John Moore died in the Undead Asylum. A deadman emerged with his name. A tool with a goal, soul long dead. The gnawing emptiness always tried to fully subsume me.
I tried to fill the hole with companionship, heroic acts, charity, you name it. I tried to save people, and help them however I could. All just to fill the gaping hole in my soul.
I tried to convince myself that they were the reason that I kept myself going.
*Sneer*
Doing it for them? Where did that come from? It's just a fake goal for motivation. A miserable attempt at creating some worth for myself. I tried using others to make myself useful for something other than murder.
It's all that defines my existence, I was created to murder before sacrificing my body and soul to fuel the flames.
Nothing that's what I am. Just a tool, for the happiness of others. A tool to light the flame, a martyr with nothing left. A hero of nothingness.
All because of one foolish bastard.
'Me? the guy who cried and screamed like an infant in front of the asylum demon is supposed to be that ''Chosen Undead''? Is that a joke or something? How is someone as pathetic and weak as me supposed to be that Chosen Undead? I guess the worlds fucked huh? I May as well sit here and wait until I hollow...'
'No, this won't do. I refuse to waste my second life like this. I won't give up just because some fat ugly bastard spooked me. I will become someone worthy of the title of the Chosen Undead. But above all, I won't give that fucker the satisfaction of making me give up.'
'The first I have to do is forget about the easy path. I refuse to take the easy path. It will make me complacent and soft. Someone who takes the easy path out won't survive in someplace like Lordran. I have decided, that no matter what happens, no matter how much I suffer, no matter how much I cry and regret I won't take the open door.'
Are you h a p p y now?
You didnt take the O p e n D o o r
You W O N you become the C h o s e n U n d e a d
Why couldn't you have just G i v e n U p ?
You just had to take the easy path, exploit his weaknesses. Done anything but no, you chose to throw yourself at him over and over in a desperate effort to prove yourself. You foolishly chose to gamble.
And now this is all that is left.
Everything else has been taken away. And when everything is stripped away what you are left with is nothing more than a hollow shell with no ambition, wants or strives. A tool that tries to convince itself that it isn't a tool. A completely useless existence.
Ha... Ha...
Do I have anything left to live for that isn't for others?
I already left everything they would need.
I have succeeded as a hero and as the chosen undead.
I have reached the ending.
...
I...
I...
I give up.
The black world faded out as memories perished.
And he woke up on his bed. In a familiar apartment, rays of sunlight entered through the window and touched his eyes. Slowly he got out of his bed. Slowly he sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes.
'Am I... finally free...?'
But then.
'Why do I feel sad?'
Why do I feel such sadness about this?
W h y ?
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