Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1217: The One Left Standing (31)

\'Is he trying to get the cage away from me or is he...?\' Replicus thought, but then he had to dodge another slash then and another and another.

What was this madman trying to do?!

Replicus leaped off the great stone portrait.

Skullius gave the smooth stone a disgusted look, having recognised who it was sculpted after, and he continued his relentless assault.

The Soul-Burdened Warmoth made a gesture with his hands, and the great portrait bellowed with power; its second Primary assault function was unleashed.

A great ball of blackish-grey energy spawned right next to Skullius.

...!

The Hybrid Luman didn\'t need to look at it to recognise what it was.

He immediately slipped into the darkness just before it detonated with enough oomph to level Pelian, turning it to ash!

The two Territories shook at the ensuing explosion, but they held.

Skullius had been successfully repelled.

He looked at the Warmoth with boiling hatred from a distance.

There was a short pause.

Replicus found himself dumbfounded.

Skullius\' series of sword slashes just now...

The real target of those slashes...

Was Replicus perhaps mistaken?

The Hybrid Luman had clearly put in a lot of work to keep his soul safe from Replicus\' clutches.

The Warmoth had also put in a lot of work to find it. Well, Beyrmir did.

As Replicus had said before, it was, in the end, Skullius who helped him get to the soul and simultaneously revealed how he had hidden it outside Aigas in the first place.

Earlier, Skullius had used the Noboboyama wrapped around Jiggorrhax, and Limitless Paradox to slash apart the world in an effort to kill both Replicus and Beyrmir. Replicus had escaped but one of Beyrmir\'s bodies had been completely destroyed. A black patch where the Rules of the world had been disintegrated remained as evidence of the power of the attack. This... was the key. This black patch was a mix of Stagnant Space and the great void outside Aigas. If navigated through correctly, it could lead outside Aigas!

Right after his body was destroyed, Replicus had given Beyrmir a telepathic order to take the chance and use his second body to travel outside Aigas and search for Skullius\' soul. As Jiggorrhax and Skullius were convinced he was gone, it was the perfect strategy.

It had taken a while for Beyrmir to find the soul and return. The great void was... an odd, dangerous place. He had to be careful. However, in the end, he had done it.

No doubt, it took a lot of work.

So then... why?

Replicus scowled.

Null Life Essence ran through his throat and he projected his words.

"Why are you trying to destroy your own soul?!" he barked at the Hybrid Luman.

Skullius narrowed his eyes as he floated through the darkness back towards the giant, crooked hand in the middle of his Territory.

He didn\'t answer immediately.

Indeed, his aim had been to destroy his soul with an empowered slash just now. However, it wasn\'t as suicidal of an act as it had appeared. In fact, it was the opposite, at least according to Skullius\' hypothesis.

His nostrils flared.

"I had my misgivings, but I cast them away moments ago. This is the best way to end this once and for all. If your ideals are a pestilence that corrodes a living being, then the soul is its carrier! Perhaps man need not have a soul at all, just a body!" Skullius spat.

Huh...

Replicus shook his head with a look of incredulity.

Was he hearing this right?

"Just how much more madness do you intend to ingest and process? How can a-"

"I don\'t need to be understood by the likes of you!" Skullius cut him off and his mask burst apart from his face, revealing a ferocious, hateful visage.

Aphotic Catacomb of the Daemon trembled. A surge of power permeated through it from the outside.

Replicus didn\'t miss it.

What was it now?!

The white ring on Skullius\' middle finger began to shine with greater luminance than before.

"How I\'m enlightened and exalted above folk as small-minded as you will continue to be a mystery YOU will struggle with!" he roared, and Replicus could have sworn he felt the darkness within the Territory rush towards Skullius.

The Luman continued, his voice soaring.

"I AM A DIVINE! I UNDERSTAND HOW MY BODY AND SOUL WORK BETTER THAN ANYONE!"

"IF I SAY A SOUL IS WORTHLESS, YOU BEST BELIEVE IT IS, AND THAT I CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT!"

"THE SOUL LEARNS FROM THE BODY, AND THE BODY LEARNS FROM THE SOUL! MY BODY HAS LEARNED ENOUGH ABOUT MY SOUL TO QUALIFY AS AN ENTITY CAPABLE OF BEARING THE QUALITIES OF BOTH!"

"I OWE YOU FOR THAT REALISATION, FAKE! I WAS INTIMIDATED BY THE IDEA THAT I COULD BE WRONG, THAT IT COULD ALL GO SOUTH, BUT FUCK IT! WHEN HAVE I EVER BEEN

WRONG?!"

Replicus was astonished.

This bastard was serious.

The energy he was mobilising now, was all for one last attack to destroy both him and the

soul, most likely!

\'Just when I thought I had the upper hand!\' Replicus thought, a bit of fear creeping into his

bones.

Skullius exhaled a cloud of steam, as though expelling the last bits of his rageful rant just

now.

"This is it, fake! Either way, your route towards victory ends here. ALL OR FUCKING NOTHING! Either I destroy you and the soul and continue living, or I destroy you and the soul and I die! THIS IS MY LAST GAMBIT!" he declared.

Aphotic Catacomb of the Daemon shook vehemently and incessantly. Skullius was being truthful. He was going all out.

If there was one bit he lied about, however, it was the fact that this was a gamble where he really didn\'t have much confidence in what would happen if he destroyed his soul.

In truth, he had a lot more confidence in this than he wanted Replicus to believe.

It was true. The body learned from the soul and the soul learned from the body. After some time in a being\'s life, the soul and the body became equals. This was the first trait imposed by Divinity. This was why, even though Fulgardt died, he hadn\'t ceased to exist. His body still existed in the Labyrinth, active, and his consciousness resided in the legacy he had created.

But Skullius wasn\'t Fulgardt and he wasn\'t Divine... yet.

While indeed his body was already very strong, destroying his soul now was a risk. To mitigate this risk, he had added something else to stabilise his existence if he should destroy

his soul.

The Stolen Angel.

At first, its sole purpose was to be a firm counter against Territories, but later on, the Hybrid Luman gave it greater, glorious purpose.

The Stolen Angel was Skullius. There was no difference between the two except in physical features. The Hybrid Luman hoped it could serve as his soul\'s replacement!

Thus, he boldly set to attack.

He wasn\'t going for unleashing his Secondary attack function anymore. He was going beyond,

pulling all the stops!

Replicus clicked his tongue.

He turned to the hundreds of people he had saved so far. Some of them were getting nervous.

Among them, he couldn\'t sense Theurien or Silrat.

This fact made him even more hesitant to ditch the enticing thought of not giving an undead\'s ass about everyone else and simply doing what he had to do.

Thus, using one of his External Primary functions, he began teleporting the many, saved victims outside the Territories, and far, far away from their vicinity!

\'I\'ll have to save them all now. No way I\'m letting Theurien die before he sees his daughter

again. And Silrat... well, I can\'t betray a friend to death. There won\'t be another Allora if I can help it. And definitely not by own hands!\' he thought determinedly.

With two of his hands, Replicus once again held the Fallen Reincarnator\'s Shadow and drew

the string on it.

Skullius, on the opposite end, exhaled another steaming breath and called:

"Daemon\'s Stygian Mimic."

Right then, the great, twisted arm reaching from the abyssal darkness below, rose, making

way for the rest of the body which it was connected to.

Replicus shuddered.

What emerged was a truly hideous being.

Like its arm, it was plagued by small, bony limbs that protruded from every inch of it,

warping its overall appearance. But despite that, it being a humongous skeletal figure with an unnaturally wide ribcage, was more than evident. Its skull had nine horns growing off the top, each plagued by nine, smaller, golden-white figures that seemed to be hanging onto them for dear life. Whenever these figures moved, there was a clang no different to that of a bell.

Nine sockets also assailed the face of the skull, but an even deeper darkness was vividly brimming within them. The skeleton crouched on the blank darkness as though it were a firm platform, and gazed upon Replicus\' Purified Cadaver\'s Impartial Felicity.

Skullius extended his right hand forward, and his middle finger, where the white ring was

slung, pointed ahead.

"The one left standing..." he said into the darkness, "...will be me."