Chapter 134: The Last Stand

Seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two, three, four, five. I stood there, waiting for the Demon that would be my death to come to me. I had 480 Health, 231 Stamina, and 1220 Mana to my disposal, and I intended to use every last point, every last Stat, every last Spell and Talent, every last muscle in my body, thought in my mind, and droplet of determination left in my soul to bring that Demon’s home plane up to the Overworld and make him experience a living hell. I didn’t care if I died. He would not get to enjoy it.

I felt completely paranoid in my time waiting. There were a few boulders around me, fallen from the sheer cliffs making up the walls of the canyon, and it was like I kept hearing footsteps or hearing movement from around here. But when I checked my surroundings for the hundredth time for some sort of ambush, I saw nothing. It was only a few minutes, but evidently waiting any amount of time for your certain demise didn’t seem to be exactly healthy for the mind.

So when I saw, over the horizon down the road, a cloud of dust approaching me, it almost felt like a relief. Followed directly by what seemed like a heart attack as I realized that, realistically, I probably only had a minute or two left before I was dead. I’d experienced death before—seen my Health drop to 0, seen the “You have died” notification, everything—but I’d never experienced that feeling of losing consciousness and never regaining it. Seemed like I’d finally get to know what the full package was like.

The cloud of dust approached closer and closer, and I saw more and more detail in the familiar sight. The silhouette sprinting at supernatural speed. It was him.

Step after step after step after step as he traveled pace after pace after pace after pace. Closer and closer, until—

You have cursed Level 61 Devil with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, he loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and his Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.

56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1077.

You have struck Level 61 Devil for 58 damage using Ray of Frost.

You have cursed Level 61 Devil with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, his Dexterity score is lowered by 7.76.

25 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1052.

I unleashed my barrage of curses on the Demon the moment he was in range, and then sprinted forward, myself. Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, Gravity Well—all of the effects tore into his Status and weakened his immensely-powerful body. Not a terribly impactful effect, but every bit counted.

“Right into it, huh?” I could hear him laugh right before I got into striking range.

Index, I thought, I want live readouts on whatever you can tell me about this guy. Health, Stamina, abilities he might activate, stuff like that.

“Health? Well, after that Ray of Frost and about a second of Crippling Chill, we’re at, what, ninety-nine point… eight percent? Not much to tell you in that department.”

Just tell me when it starts falling low!

I knew about some of his abilities from experience, and Index had given me a bit more specific knowledge while I’d waited for him to arrive. I knew he had two main pieces to his arsenal: first, his physical power. That much was obvious. One hit from him was enough to kill most low- to mid-level things. Second, his ability to set pretty much anything he wanted on fire at will. Honestly, despite the fact that his physical attacks dealt so much damage, that was what scared me most about him.

The thing about the attacks was that I could at least control when he hit me. Sure, I couldn’t control it very well considering his immense speed, but it was at least something I could attempt to protect myself from. The fire? That was at will. No defense, no countermeasures. And even if it would take longer to kill me that way, I would pretty much have nothing I could do about it the moment it started. I certainly couldn’t fight against him while my skin was melting off, that was for sure. Maybe once that Bond with Ainash Ranked up more, and I had a more sizable Heat Resistance to protect me from the fire, but as-is, I had basically no countermeasures against that ability.

So, while being within melee range of him was absolutely dangerous, it was also my core strategy. If I kept him moving, dodging, and on his toes, he wouldn’t have the time to stop and set me ablaze. I just needed to keep him busy. And maybe, just maybe, I could somehow chip away at his Health until he died. Or, more likely, I could at least force him to work a bit before he killed me. And maybe feel just a little bit of pain.

The moment I got close enough, I reached out to try and grab his arm in an Expedite-boosted lunge, the spiked gauntlets of Dark Plate forming a claw ready to grasp him and activate Noxious Grasp. But just before I could reach him, he shifted his body to the side, leaving me nothing to touch but air.

I stumbled past him and instantly turned to lunge again for another strike.

“Eager, are we?” He asked in an infuriatingly conversational tone. Why couldn’t he just take this seriously?

I once again fell past him as he easily dodged my strike. I turned around and, this time, tried a new strategy. I still needed to make physical contact in order to get that Fester with Noxious Grasp active, as well as initiate Sanguine Bond. Every piece of my arsenal mattered here. So I reached out in an attempt to grab him with my right hand once again, just like I’d done before, but this time, as my left was moving back as I twisted my body for more reach, I turn my left hand’s palm to face the Demon just before he dodged and shot a Ray of Frost straight into his eyes.

You have struck Level 61 Devil for 60 damage using Ray of Frost.

You have cursed Level 61 Devil with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, his Dexterity score is lowered by 7.76.

25 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 968.

“I really thought— Ah! You dick!” He shouted in pain at the sudden source of damage.

And in that moment, my hand reached his arm and brushed past it.

You have cursed Level 61 Devil with Sanguine Bond. For the next 10 seconds, or until Level 61 Devil is further than 10 paces away from you, the following effects are true:

It loses 6.21 Health, 7.76 Stamina, and 9.31 Mana per second.

You gain 1.55 Health, 3.55 Stamina, and 4.65 Mana per second.

238 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 730.

With a split-second activation of both Sanguine Bond and Noxious Grasp, I managed to hit him with both effects. At this point, he had five separate debuffs wracking his Stats, Health, and Stamina. Certainly nothing to scoff at, but he still seemed relatively unfazed—only a minor fleck of annoyance on his face. Maybe some of it was a ruse, though—acting tough just to get under my skin.

I turned again with my hand raised, ready to cast Ray of Frost. At this point, my goal was just to keep him within 10 paces, but far enough away that he couldn’t hit me. And, whenever an effect wore off, I needed to approach again to reapply it. Not exactly an easy job, but maybe I could manage it.

Xhag’duul turned toward me. “Okay. It seems like you want to skip the formalities. If anything, I’m pleased. At least you understand the gravity of what’s about to be done to you.”

And then he lunged forward. The moment he began to move, I activated three stacks of Expedite on myself and stepped to the side in an attempt to avoid his strike. And with the extreme boost in mobility, I actually managed to do so. In what felt like slow-motion, his open hand flew right past where my head used to be, a gust of wind blowing by my right ear in the wake of his arm. I backed away again.

With my Mana running so low after all three activations of Expedite—it’d just run below 550—I was forced to deactivate the constant drain of Gravity Well, or be forced to face running out of Mana very soon. And the moment I did so, Xhag’duul stood up a little bit straighter. Though, honestly, when comparing his immense strength to his relatively light body weight, I doubted Gravity Well was doing much to actually hinder him.

He sighed and shook his head. “So you actually managed to avoid an attack, huh? It’s fine, I guess you’ve gotten some practice against me in a previous timeline. Though, really, that terrified look on your face really does make up for the extra effort I have to spend. It is just so cathartic to look at. Maybe you’ve already heard me say that too, though? Say, where are those two others you keep hanging around? The girl and the pet?”

I took a breath. With my passive Mana regeneration and Sanguine Bond running, I was getting back around 6 Mana every second that passed with him just standing around talking. “Nowhere you’ll find them. They’re long gone by now.”

“Oh, so what, this is some sort of distraction then? Hate to break it to you, but that’s a pretty moronic plan. I’m not looking for them, dumbass. I’m looking for you. It doesn’t matter if they survive—I still win. I’m happy whether they live or die. Did you not even think about that?”

What was he talking about? This wasn’t some game with win and loss conditions. My goal wasn’t to just make him unhappy as possible. Did he not even realize? He must’ve had a pretty twisted view of me in his head.

“Oh well,” he shrugged before I could respond. “I was looking forward to killing them in front of you, but I guess I’ll just have to settle with seeing you scream in agony.”

He raised his hand in a familiar motion—he was about to try and use that Inferno ability on me! Before he could, I dashed forward in a desperate attempt to keep him occupied. One, two, three Rays of Frost shot from my hands, all hitting his body as I sprinted at him.

His hand continued to raise, his fingers closed together to snap, but just before he did, I tackled straight into him, body colliding with his in a rush of Dexterity-enhanced speed.

And it was like hitting a solid stone wall.

You have been slammed into something. 23 damage.

Your Health is 457.

My body crumpled up while he stayed completely still, not relenting or moving a single bit despite my best efforts. I heaved out an “Ugh!” from the sudden, unexpectedly-solid impact of what could only generously be called a “tackle.”

I stumbled back with a groan.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Xhag’duul laughed. He took a step forward. “I’m playing with you. You’re a toy to me. This is fun. What, you really think you can hurt me? You think you can stop me from doing something I want to do? You think you can kill me? You’re even more of a complete fucking idiot than I thought.”

Crippling Chill’s timer wore off, and so did Sanguine Bond.

“Well?” he said. “What do you have to say? Got any grand speech? Last words?”

I stood up straight, looking into his eyes. He looked at me. Then I rushed back at him again, recasting Crippling Chill right before I reached him in an attempt to catch him off-guard. But, faster than he’d been before, he sidestepped and slammed his fist into my back.

You have been punched. 61 damage.

Your Health is 396.

I stumbled forward from the sudden impact, falling face-first into the dirt.

“Holy shit!” Xhag’duul laughed. “You are trying so hard! It’s pointless, man! Pointless! There’s nothing you can do here. Total waste of effort.”

I got back to my feet, breathing hard. Fuck. Why was I doing this? He was laughing. Laughing! I knew I was going to die. And I’d promised myself that, if I died, I wouldn’t let this asshole enjoy it. But here he was having the time of his life.

What’s his Health at? I mentally asked Index.

“Uh…above ninety percent.”

I let out an exhausted sigh. Stamina?

“That one’s below ninety percent, but not by much. Closer to eighty.”

Well at least I’d made a dent. Still, seeing that his Stamina was still so high while my Mana—the main method I had of draining his Stamina—was already below half wasn’t exactly encouraging.

He wasn’t immortal, sure, but my efforts to hurt him were clearly not working very well. I just didn’t have the methods to deal any real damage to this guy. And the harder I tried, the more he seemed to enjoy it.

Though that did make sense. Every time he fought me in the past, he took joy in my suffering. He killed people in front of me just to see how I’d react, he pretended to believe my lies just to see me try and then burned me alive afterward, and now he was letting me fight in this sham of a battle just for the sake of the apparent hilarity of it all.

Or, no, not the hilarity. He was laughing, sure, but I thought back to when he’d first killed me. He was upset. He was stressed, and frustrated, and mad at the world, and he wanted to see someone else feel the way he did. He wanted to upset me, to hurt me, to make me feel hopeless, because that was what I’d inadvertently done to him.

So, to make him suffer, to make him look back at this moment and hate the memory, instead of love it, wouldn’t I just have to show him it was impossible to make me feel that way? Show him that his efforts were wasted?

So, despite the physical pain and the emotional turmoil of knowing my time alive was just about up, I laughed. And honestly, it was a pretty genuine laugh. It may have been dark humor, but my situation was still objectively funny. Someone as close as I was to escaping, losing my life now? After everything, all of the enemies I’d slain, and some asshole I’d never even met was coming to end it all? So I laughed.

Instantly, I could see some annoyance flash across Xhag’duul’s face. “What? What’s so funny?”

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” I said. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“What wouldn’t I get? Have you just gone completely insane, or something? Fucking dementia-ridden Humans. Maybe putting you out of your misery would be doing you a favor.”

“No,” I laughed some more, settling with a simple smile on my face. “I guess I just made my peace. I can’t control this stuff, so you win. You did well, and you deserve the victory. Good job, man. You’re strong, and you’re a pretty talented fighter to boot. It just makes sense that someone weaker, like me, would lose to someone stronger.”

“W-well, yeah, that’s true.” He seemed like he was trying to convince himself. “Yeah, it’s true. You’re weak and I’m strong. It’s ridiculous for you to resist. You’re a complete idiot for even trying, actually.”

“That’s fair,” I nodded. “I guess I’m a bit dumb. Maybe I was an idiot, but at least I realize now that I can’t fight fate. And I’m not doing something so hubristic as trying to claim my death isn’t fair anymore. I mean, saying something like I don’t deserve this, when that’s just how strength works? It was pretty idiotic of me, I agree. I do deserve it. Every last bit of suffering. So lay it on me.”

Xhag’duul furrowed his brow. And I knew why. Whatever his situation was, he felt like we were in similar predicaments. And he’d said countless times how his suffering wasn’t fair, or how he didn’t deserve any of it. This whole time, he wasn’t just trying to hurt me, he was trying to goad me into agreeing with him, by having me say the same things about my own life? All he wanted was someone to validate those feelings. And I refused to give it to him.

“Listen,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t working.”

“What? What am I trying to do?”

“You’re trying to…get in my head, or something. This is just some mind game to you. I know how you work. You trick people into helping you. That’s how you got those royal guards to spare you, how you got the Faeries to cure you, and probably how you got your two little companions to like you in the first place. You’re a fucking liar.”

“I don’t really see how that applies,” I shrugged. “I mean, I can’t really convince you to leave me alone, can I? I have literally nothing on you. You’re above me in every way. To assume that I could ever hope to escape your grasp, get out from under your thumb, take any sort of retaliation, that’d be pretty delusional of me, right? Even if you spared me, you’d just lord that over my head for the rest of my life. That I owe you everything. I don’t want to live in an existence so pathetic as one where I have to live every day worrying about what someone else wants me to do, what someone else thinks of me, worrying about if that someone else decides I’ve outlived my usefulness, and they want to kill me now. I’d rather just be free.”

He snarled and began walking up to me. “You know what? Sure. I think you have outlived your usefulness. Fucking asshole.”

I tensed up as I knew what was coming. But I couldn’t let the fear show. He’d just enjoy it if I did. “Sure. Go ahead. I deserve it for being so incompetent as to let you catch me in the first place.”

He grabbed me by my neck and threw me into a wall. Hard. Harder than he’d done before, apparently fueled by anger.

You have been slammed against something. 2.1k damage.

Dark Plate has triggered. Damage has been reduced to 240.

Your Health is 156.

I coughed out in pain as the Dark Plate crunched and took the blow for me. At least, it took most of the blow. I was still left with quite a bit of damage, though.

I fell to the ground in the familiar scene, reminding me of the first time he’d killed me. But this time, I knew not to give him anything to cheer him up.

I looked up at him as I activated Regenerate, healing what I could. If nothing else, just to help relieve the pain. “Nice arm.”

“Shut the fuck up!” He screamed as he approached me. “Why the fuck aren’t you dead?!”

“Got a Spell. Pretty useful sometimes. But feel free to try killing me again. Should work eventually.”

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Shut the fuck up!” The Demon stomped his foot into the ground over and over, causing a localized earthquake in what could only be called a child’s temper tantrum. “You’re going to fucking die! Don’t you get that? Die. You won’t exist anymore. Are you so fucking stupid that you don’t understand that?! How can you not be afraid? How can you not want to avoid it? How do you think it’s fair?! It’s not! It’s not fair! I’m killing you for literally no reason! You did nothing wrong, and yet you’re still being punished for it! Wanna know something? It was my mistake that caused all of this. I was the one who didn’t maintain our prisons well enough for Temporus to get loose. And because of that, all of this happened to you. My mistakes led to your suffering. How is that fair?!”

“Well, the powerful get to choose the punishments for the weak,” I said, trying to hide the fact I was gasping rasps of air through my lungs. I slid up, so I was at least sitting instead of lying on the ground. “I’m just not good enough to be able to defend myself. And it’s my fault for that. Even if you made a mistake, I still mishandled the situation afterward. And if you decide to punish me for that, then you get to do so. You’re probably wiser than me anyway.”

“You are so fucking stupid! You just don’t get it! How in the fuck do you not understand how fucking horrible this is?! What I’m doing to you is the worst thing a person could ever do to someone else!”

I just shrugged. Let it be over, I thought. The pain from hitting that wall, even with Regenerate, was awful. Maybe it’d get better in thirty seconds or so if I kept activating the Talent, but I didn’t think I’d be able to go that long without another hit. All I hoped for was that the hit would come before Dark Plate came back. That way I’d at least die instantly.

But there was one source of solace from the pain. From knowing I’d disappear for good soon. From knowing that I wouldn’t, after all, get that kiss back from Erani. From knowing I’d leave Ainash with a dead parent a second time. At least, even if I caused all that suffering to the people I loved, I’d get to cause all this suffering to the person I hated. It certainly wasn’t worth it—not by a long shot—but it was something.

“Fuck! You!” Xhag’duul screamed and marched toward me, fist clenched.

Guess this is it, I nodded to myself. End of the line.

But then, before he could reach me, Xhag’duul exploded in a ball of fire.

…What?