Drip.

  A simple, familiar sound.

  Heavy and rhythmic.

  So subtle that one wouldn’t often notice it.

  Before me, my sister, Mia— stabbed through the heart from behind.

  The doppelganger stood there quietly, staring at her and glancing over at me, who stood there in silence.

  It was a fatal wound, yet she still raised her arm to reach out towards me.

  I was coughing out mana material, as the inverted arrow had pierced cleanly through my abdomen.

  “Still alive enough to move, huh? Your soul is quiet a resilient one. You seem to have more mana than the others did.” The other me murmured.

  He raised her up and pulled out the blade in a single swift motion. Mia’s body fell to the ground.

  “But no matter, your body is still devasatingly human. This is the end for you.”

  She struggled to stand up.

  Again, she stretched her hand out towards me.

  “Yoi…ya…” Her mouth moved, a harsh whisper escaped her lips.

  Just two syllables.

  A nickname that had imprinted over me the past few months.

  A nickname that she gave me.

  A nickname gifted to me by my sister.

  I reached out to her.

  ~Damn it!

  An internal scream. Mana burst from my body, breaking the chains and dispelling the magic circle.

  Instantly, my wounds closed themselves as I ran to her side.

  “Sis!” The word spilled out of me.

  I knelt down, lifting her into my arms and grabbed her hand.

  Her pulse was weakening. Her mana signature dissipating.

  Yet, still she smiled at me.

  “That’s… the first time… you called me… your sis…”

  I frowned at her, pouring all my mana into trying to heal her.

  Her body was healing but I could still feel her presence fading, her pulse slowing.

  I glanced at the other me.

  But he did nothing, he simply stared at us as if looking for something. His face expressed only disappointment.

  “Healing her won’t do anything.” He muttered. “I severed her soul from her vessel, using the technique of a version of us who became an exorcist and shrine priest.”

  His voice went into a hushed whisper.

  “Yet it still clings to that body… her soul is much more resilient than I expected. It’s hard to believe she’s human.”

  I looked back at Mia.

  “Awh… don’t look so sad, lil bro.” She mumbled in between coughing out blood. “It’ll be okay…”

  She placed her other hand on top of mine, and gave me an even brighter smile.

  “You were always…” She coughed. “A strange one… But…”

  With every word she spoke…

  “I always loved you, and always will.”

  Her life seemed to slip through my fingers more and more.

  “You… have a good memory… don’t you?”

  Her presence.

  “So don’t worry…”

  The safety she gave me.

  “I’ll always be with you… in your memory… won’t I?”

  Everything faded.

  “So we’ll be… together forever, so… don’t cry.”

  Everything disappeared.

  “Yoiya.”

  Her hand fell to the floor. Her body felt cold.

  I couldn’t sense anything from her.

  Not mana, not heat, no pulse, and no breath.

  In my arms, lied a perfectly repaired hollow shell.

  But it was empty.

  There was nothing there.

  Nothing was left.

  Nothing but…

  “How pathetic. Crying over a human?” The doppelganger spoke with disgust in his voice.

  ~Crying?

  I had not yet noticed it.

  But water was indeed streaming down my cheeks. My eyesight had blurred, my heart had sunk.

  It felt as if I were underwater. Yet, it didn’t feel heavy like the Sea.

  Instead…

  “I was going to watch you suffer, but this is just disappointing. I might as well…”

  I could hear him mocking me. In the corner of my eye, I saw him raise his blade above his head. The blade slowly grew in length and size, it’s mana presence growing in both density and range.

  Yet—

  —instead…

  It felt like something began to boil inside me.

  “...Kill you now.”

  The blade fell swiftly towards the back of my neck, like a guillotine execution from darker ages.

  CLANG.

  I stared into his eyes— the other me’s crimson red eyes.

  I felt nothing, could think of nothing.

  I could only feel my blood boiling, my mana overflowing.

  The pain quickly began to vanish as I felt my wounds closing.

  He stared back at me. And then with a grin, he muttered a single sentence.

  “Good. You know now how I felt! The suffering, the pain of not having anything.”

  I opened my mouth to speak a response. Only a single word left my mouth.

  “Silence.”

  The air around me warped. Heat bled from my skin in waves, not flame—pressure.

  My mana no longer flowed. It surged. It writhed. It clawed at the world for release.

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  I didn’t form a spell. I didn’t think.

  The world simply bent to the shape of my rage.

  The doppelganger’s expression recoiled violently at my response. His tongue clicked. His focus wavered for an instant.

  In that same instant, a massive magic array expanded from beneath me. Glowing runes and circuits etched into the crumbling walls— across bricks, wood, and torn cushions.

  I could feel the air grow heavy with an extremely dense mana. I could sense it warping, twisting, changing constantly.

  It was much like how energy in the Void was: unpredictable and naturally chaotic to the point it would often be called Chaos itself.

  The other me’s blade immediately dissipated, causing him to instinctively back away from me.

  He flicked his fingers together to try to ignite a flame, but not even a spark was produced.

  “That won’t work.”

  I had already rushed up beside him, swinging my leg up for a swift kick.

  He threw up his arms in a cross to block and was sent flying into the wall, which he simply bounced off of like it was a trampoline. This allowed him to transition to a flying kick.

  I grabbed his leg and swung him into the floor fast and hard enough for him to rebound off of it.

  With my knee, I propelled him upwards a bit more and then unleashed a kick to his back, sending him flying through the ceiling.

  I leapt up after him, immediately delivering an axe kick to send him hurtling back to the earth.

  Dust erupted from below, erasing him from my line of sight.

  “Ugh… Ech…”

  The doppelganger grumbled, growled, and groaned as he brushed off the dust. He spit out a thick clump of mana material, making a clanging noise as it hit a metal tray on the floor.

  He looked up at me with a frown.

  “You’re not even looking at me…”

  I did not respond.

  I couldn’t feel bothered to give a reply.

  For all I could see was a thick black outline of a person, with a vague expression.

  I could hear him, but nothing he said mattered to me.

  All I wanted was to erase him.

  ~Erase…

  ~Erase. Erase. Erase.

  I started to gather the erratic energy twisting and looping in the field.

  It was dense, visible and any that wasn’t already became visible as I began to gather and build it.

  I remembered the Void.

  The endless flowing energy.

  The boundless nothingness.

  The infinite chaos.

  The unbreakable continuity.

  I remembered it all.

  ~Convert stable mana into unstable mana.

  ~Let it leak. Let it go rampant. Let it entangle and encompass all that is tangible.

  As I held up my arm, dense, erratic black energy began to wrap around it like chains.

  The shape before me— the other me leapt up at me. His arm warped and twisted into a blade.

  He swung long before he reached me, the blade reaching out like a whip towards my neck.

  But it was slow.

  I leaned to the side and caught the blade with two fingers. With a swift chop of my hand covered in black mist, I severed the blade from his arm.

  The arm-blade instantly disintegrated as I held it.

  I glanced down at the familiar-looking figure again.

  He had been moving slower than when we initially fought.

  No teleports and his speed has considerably decreased.

  His form flickered—identity slipping, memories unraveling.

  He was fighting the field as much as he was fighting me.

  A sharp pain shot through my arm— the mana-infested arm.

  The void gnawed at my nerves, hungry to unmake the limb it flowed through.

  I winced.

  But this also told me something.

  I rushed the doppelganger, prepared to pummel him. He expanded his remaining arm into a massive shield to block my barrage.

  “Guess void spells are difficult to create and maintain in the mortal realm.” I stated flatly as I delivered a final punch to destroy his arm-shield.

  The other me gritted his teeth. A limp arm replaced the first one I destroyed. He threw it at me and it wrapped around me like a tentacle.

  He stared at me painfully.

  His tentacle grip tightened.

  His thoughts poured into me.

  ~”LOOK AT ME, DAMMIT. I AM REAL.”

  ~”YOU CAN’T REJECT REALITY, YOU FOOL.”

  ~”I AM THE REAL ONE. MY LIFE MATTERED TOO.”

  ~”WE ARE THE SAME. JOIN ME.”

  But each thought disappeared without an echo.

  Each thought blurred my vision of him.

  Did any of it matter?

  Perhaps it did.

  But I could only remember Mia dying in front of me.

  And eventually, only the doppelganger’s outline remained in my vision.

  “To say that you mattered after killing someone who mattered to me…”

  I spoke the words instinctively on reflex.

  His words scraped against my mind, but none of them reached me.

  Only Mia’s fading warmth remained.

  “Such hypocrisy will not go unpunished.”

  In that moment, his outline flared up in flames. I could sense a rage similar to mine.

  Two storms, born from the same sky, colliding.

  “Indeed.” His voice spoke. “I was an idiot to think I’d ever understand someone so different, even if it is myself.”

  Another tentacle shape burst out of his open shoulder socket. His head seemed to mutate to form horns depicting a dragon, or perhaps a demon. His legs grew hooves and a pointed tail shot out.

  He immediately rammed into me, his tail jabbing constantly at me as he kept me in his grip and slammed me into the wall.

  He clawed at me, whipped his tentacles at me, grew new limbs and threw those at me too.

  Each time, I parried and destroyed a few limbs.

  He kept pinning me with attacks, his limbs regrowing and his body mutating almost endlessly.

  All the while, the void in my arm writhed, eager to spread, eager to consume more than I could afford to give.

  I could feel my body failing—mana channels tearing, nerves burning, vision fracturing.

  If I didn’t end this now, the void would end me first.

  With some luck, I found an opening and kicked the other me away, sending him flying backwards. But he was no longer even close to human.

  Before me, a dragonic head with a body made of the limbs of a variety of animals. And underneath that? Simply a mass of mana with eyes still glowing with a malicious crimson flame.

  I looked to the side, seeing the lifeless bodies of Mia and her friends at the cafe once more.

  Seeing them reminded me why I was fighting.

  No, that’s not right.

  I had been subconsciously protecting them the whole time.

  I never forgot to begin with.

  I refocused my gaze on the twirling mass of mana material before me— a black, grotesque outline.

  One attack.

  That was all I needed.

  I leapt into the air, gathering and channeling mana.

  The other me followed, slithering through the air like a serpent on the hunt as it let out screeching roars.

  Ten meters.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  “Void.” I muttered a simple word. Simple, yet defining. The dense mana screamed as it coiled around me, threatening to infect my very being.

  Six.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  “Flame.” Another utterance. The twisting energy flared up, sparking and dancing around like fire as my focus burned.

  Two.

  One.

  “NOKI. WE ARE ONE.” The draconic mass screeched.

  I thrust my hand between us, redirecting all the Void energy in one direction. The corruption quickly faded from my body as it gathered in a sphere at my palm.

  “DISINTEGRATION!!!”

  A massive black beam shot out from the sphere, completely enveloping the amalgamation that once looked like me. It pierced through him, consumed him and spread outwards.

  Even the barrier was shattered by the sheer power of the blast, allowing the energy pulse to pierce even the clouds and sky beyond.

  When the magic dissipated, no trace of his body was left. Only a small burning sphere of mana that shone like onyx and pulsed like a beating heart.

  The walls, having lost the runic wiring holding them together quickly began to collapse toward me.

  I limped in the air, nearly falling out of the sky as I struggled to maintain my position with the little mana I could muster.

  I slowly reached out my hand to grab that orb— the orb that contained his essence.

  “Now you can rest…”

  When putting a soul to rest, it was said to be a sign of respect to crush their essence with your own will— using your own bare hands. One had to crush the essence to prevent the soul from being reborn and to return it to energy without conscienceness. To crush it using any other method would often be considered a sign of disrespect, apathy, and dishonor.

  ~Who came up with such a thing?

  It was, of course, Ener. The angelic primordial of energy that looked up to the first Primordial Existence, the first God, the first creator as his moral compass and an ideal all gods, both Outer and Inner, should strive to be. A god who loved his world so much he became obsessed with it.

  But in my exhaustion—I made a fatal error, I forgot something important.

  The moment I touched his essence it flared up and enveloped me in the same corruptive flame.

  I screamed out in pain, my mind melting as it split in two.

  Mana erupted around me, thin flames cutting and detonating the surrounding buildings.

  I fell. Debris followed.

  ~Yes. I had forgotten.

  ~A soul can only be put to rest if that is what it wishes for. And concepts remain forever from the moment they’re born. Simply put…

  ~A primordial concept cannot be put to rest.

  As massive chunks of metal and rock fell atop me, the light was blocked out and once again—darkness filled my world.