Chapter 353: It's My Life Now
"..." I look around, seeing that the scene this time is a sea of blood. I see countless bodies, all resembling me, but at different stages of life — an Evelyn as a child, a teenager, an adult, a dragon, older, countless versions.
The whole place is deeply macabre, the sky a dark, deep crimson with black clouds. I'd say the image reminds me of something that would be defined as hell.
And one of them stands amid this sea of blood and bodies. I deduce she's the "messenger" this time, yet another copy of the Original Evelyn made to speak with me.
"So you're the Evelyn who's supposed to speak with me? Please, don't be as irritating as the other Evelyn," I say to her. She has a much more mature appearance, with a physique relatively different from mine, though still close to it since, perhaps because of the pregnancy, my body seems to have matured a little.
"...Why did you stray so far from the plan, Evelyn?" she asks me as if my life were a controlled script and I a character who stepped off the page. And starting with that question, she already irritates me.
"Because my life is mine." This is my life, and I choose what I do with it. No one has the right to dictate that — not even Esther is capable of dictating one hundred percent of what I choose and have chosen for my life.
"...You shouldn't have stayed with Esther. You should have killed her and made a puppet from her corpse. You shouldn't have had a child, much less contented yourself with being a prisoner," she speaks through gritted teeth, as if I should have followed a manual no one ever told me existed.
"What a shame your plans didn't go as expected," I shrug at her, speaking with mockery while she gives a cynical smile.
"You think this is better than what was planned for you? All the glory and—"
"No, I don't care. You don't need to say anything more about it. This is my life now. I like Esther, and I like the fact that I have a daughter now. It's not the best, and I know it, but it's my life."
"Your life!? You're going to say you like this? Being a weakling tied to a bed with a daughter from that woman who hurts you so much? Hahahaha, you've got to be shitting me, right? You must be extremely masochistic to enjoy a life that's as bad as a prisoner's — actually worse, right? Since your wife devours pieces of your body and your organs," she laughs at me.
"..." While she laughs at me, I draw my sword from the storage ring. I notice it's more of a projection than the real sword, but it serves for what I want to do.
"...Why did you draw the [Infinity +1]?" she questions while I take a deep breath.
"Shut up. You know nothing about me. Weak? You must be completely insane! I am everything I wanted to be!! I'm no longer the failure of the past, I'm no longer a coward. I have my own form of strength, I have a family, and I am the Demon Queen." Things I conquered through my own merit and by never giving up.
"It's true that it's not the best and maybe I could have better things, but I conquered all of this with my effort and I wouldn't trade it for anything, much less for something coming from the 'original' Evelyn. And no miserable little failure who gave up on living is going to mock everything I've conquered." I point the katana at her.
"I could hardly wait for the day I'd tear you to pieces, 'Original Evelyn.' Even if the real one never even existed at this point in history, you'll serve for me to take out all the hatred I have for you."
"Hahahahahahahaha, you think you can beat me? A weakling like you? You can barely hold that sword, you don't even have the strength to lift it properly without trembling, and worse, you don't even know swordsmanship!" She conjures a sword as well, and she hits the mark — the sword is heavy, and lifting it makes my hand tremble all over.
"You really want to face me? You must be the one who's insane. It seems Esther has finally broken you. You're lucky there's nothing that can be done, or Esther and your daughter would be killed!" She says something that makes me furious.
"Say whatever you want, you petty whore. At least I didn't give up on my own life and get all dramatic with 'Boo-hoo, I don't want to exist anymore, I suffered so much I wish I'd never been born.' Only a true failure would give up like that." When I say this, the face of the Evelyn before me twists in fury.
"I'm going to tear you apart, you little substitute bitch. You're getting too full of yourself for a mere substitute!!" She runs toward me. She's quite fast, and undoubtedly stronger than me. She delivers a downward vertical sword slash that I obviously don't have the strength to block.
Clash
A copy of me defends the attack, kicking her away. It's a temporary projection, a puppet identical to me full of Hikishin that delivers or blocks one strike and vanishes.
"...!!?" I advance against her, using threads as platforms and slingshots to propel myself forward since I'm slow. She launches a Hikishin slash forward, but I form a wall of indestructible threads to parry the slash.
"You think you can beat me with cheap tricks?" she speaks with notable hatred in her voice. At an absurd speed, she reaches me, but I teleport one of the puppets that make up this sea of blood in front of me, using the ability to teleport puppets close to me.
The Evelyn before me is bathed in blood as she misses her attack. I generate a temporary puppet that delivers a kick to her face, knocking her off my threads. Below her, an extremely taut thread, stretched so much it's about to snap, is released and functions like a whip.
Generating the same kind of effect that occurs when ropes holding massive ships snap, that Evelyn's arm is "severed" completely in a grotesque manner as she falls to the ground with an expression of shock.
I use the tension of the threads to launch myself forward, simply descending upon her. My blade pierces her chest as I end up breaking my wrists from the impact that reverberates through my body.
"Urgh..." I let out a groan of pain as the Evelyn below me seems incredulous at what I've done.
"You wretch!! I'm going to—" I interrupt her by shoving my hand inside her mouth, and using my powers as a nymph, I generate blood. I force her to swallow liters and more liters of blood at an extremely rapid pace.
"I'm going to explode you from the inside out, you miserable bitch!! Unlike you, I'm stronger here!! The Original Evelyn never knew she was a nymph, so she never learned spiritual powers or how to control matter, and she also never developed her dragon aspects like I did." My tail grabs her legs to keep her immobilized as I press myself down to hold her in place with my weight.
"!!!" Her belly begins to grotesquely swell and distend as her puppet body starts being flooded with blood. I hear the creaking of her puppet joints as if they're about to burst under pressure. Masses of blood spill from every orifice as she cries blood that seeps out from the lack of space.
"..." She grabs my neck with both hands, trying to suffocate me, but controlling the blood inside her the way Nerina taught me to control Hikishin in other people's bodies, I make the blood expand into blades that shred her body from the inside.
Her hands stop moving as she "dies," or rather, is disabled.
"...As I suspected... you're a puppet..." The Original Evelyn didn't leave mere projections. She left puppets of specific types to speak with me, created with the sole purpose of communicating with me and trying to make me follow the path she wanted.
"I will never follow the path the Original Evelyn wants!! Now I am the Original! That wretch never even got to be born, she has no right to try to dictate my life!! My life is mine alone, and I decide what to do with it," I say, watching the puppet dissolve into particles of Hikishin that I absorb.
"Damn..." I realize the atrocity that this method of killing someone is. I touch my blood-stained face, realizing the monster I've become over time. In the past, I would never have had the courage to kill someone like this, in such a grotesque way.
"...Haa... at least this might be useful..." I look around. Without that pest I just destroyed to get in my way, I can try to study this place. How did the Evelyn who was never born manage to do this if she never came to exist after what she did, and I existed in her place?
'This was because of Esther's powers, wasn't it...? Wait... does the puppet of Esther still exist?' Only that Evelyn who never existed, but nothing prevents the puppet made from Esther's corpse from still existing.
And if she exists, it makes sense how that Evelyn left this cursed "inheritance" for me. The puppet made from Esther's corpse must certainly be somewhere.
'If I could find that...' I can control any puppet, even the ones I didn't create. If I could find that puppet, it would be incredible.