Chapter 305

Etson, Florida - 1:00 PM

“Get out of here!” I commanded the others before flying towards the attic.

The fact that I could ragdoll him and vice versa immediately threw Doppelganger out of my head as what this monster could be. If that were the case, then our respective Constitutions would have made such forced movement impossible. That narrowed things down. Perhaps a Ka, which was a copy of my vital essence made from my death, or maybe an Evil Twin looking to take my place.

With that unfortunate facial hair, I was leaning towards the latter.

My thought process was interrupted. I was only halfway to the attic when I was tackled back down onto the ground. We rolled, and I slammed my head into his nose. Their Shield went up, blocking me, so I grabbed his arm and flung him away. The monster flipped in the air, landing with their feet on the wall. Instead of falling, they stayed there.

His gaze turned to Tommy and Gabrielle, who were hesitantly lingering, and I was about to try to protect them when the house creaked nearby. Several of the wall studs broke from the force of his telekinesis, but none of them went towards the others. They spun so their sharpest points faced me and tried to pierce me through. I Lifted pieces of debris and concrete from our first collision, blocking and throwing the projectiles off course.

“Or stay, sure!” my double complained as he looked back at me. “Lord knows you’d only be getting in the way.”

That made me scowl. He had a personality which meant it wasn’t a Ka, but I would have said Sara knows instead of Lord knows. I was leaning even more towards Evil Twin territory now. That would explain why the Angel side of the enemy, which led to the Prime Doppelganger sacrificing itself, wasn’t telling him to stand down.

Then again, Seraphim was still standing there with a shit-eating grin on his face. It looked like he wanted a front row seat to the fight, probably to make sure things went according to plan.

My body double surged forward as I got back on my feet. He moved at Crash Test speeds, and I threw up four Force Fields to stop him. The first three broke like glass, but slowed him down. The last one shattered, too, but by then I was ready. I lowered my body and flowed backwards to get the angle right. When he was about to hit me, I activated Crash Test in return.

My good arm wrapped around his leg and my bad one, which was only mobile due to Lift, slammed into the other me’s groin. We both took the backlash damage as we were evenly matched, but I was in the better position. To his credit, he didn’t whimper at the low blow even as I suplexed him into the ground.

We rolled again, this time because I wanted to, and I slammed him onto the couch in front of Seraphim. The furniture broke down the middle, and I backed off.

“Decidedly uncool, dude,” my double wheezed as he rolled over.

“Yeah, like you weren’t planning on doing something similar if there was an opportunity,” I scoffed before looking back at Tommy and Gabrielle. I pointed towards the door. “Get out of here!”

The Justicar was the first to argue. “We can he—”

“You think you can get support to fight a lookalike of me in Anthony’s Faithful town?” I challenged. “Get out of here before you accidentally swing at the scum sucker and get put down or, worse, attack me in the confusion.”

“Yeah, get the fuck out of here,” the other me demanded as he stood up, still cupping his crotch. “I’m going to need you both alive so I can take over this city properly.”

My Tyrant’s Will flooded out from me, complete with the Black Flames. He did the same, and the feeling of overlapping dread was enough to make Gabrielle break ranks and pull Tommy away with her. I felt my stats become lower and both the Marks of Excess and Rot start to drain him, but I was under the same effect.

<<<>>>

[[Patron Quest: Defeat Evil Anthony!]]

Sorry this took so long, Seraphim was blocking information to any Patrons marked as anonymous. I had to ask Ishmekarab for help.

This is an Evil Twin. It doesn’t look like he has all of your knowledge, but he does have the advantage of having a properly working body. He appeared just outside of the house so there’s a possibility that he was made after Seraphim arrived and observed you.

The scenario hasn’t been updated and the beacon hasn’t been lit despite being injured, but I think destroying him will end it. There’s just some kind of weird interaction happening because you’re you and he’s a copy of you.

Objective: Kill the Evil Twin.

Reward: 40,000 points, the Strings of the Puppeteer spell book.

<<<>>>

“Seraphim, what happened to our finale, huh?” I asked, trying to gain the time to read the quest. “Coe’s out there right now, just waiting for you to smack him down.”

Not that I thought he was capable of stopping the Rubberbuilt, especially now. I was mostly just sore that the administrator had come swinging like this even if it had been my idea to linger.

“He’s still on the menu,” Seraphim said smugly. “But, the devil you know and all that. Make his demise painful, but swift. I don’t have all day.”

“You got it, boss,” my double said.

“Boss? Him?” I repeated, making my disgust clear as I pointed at the scum sucker. “Gross, dude. That’s just gross.”

By then, I had finished reading the quest. My call on this guy being an Evil Twin was spot on, though Seraphim played his hand too early in my opinion. It would have been better to pull this card out later. He had access to my class, skills, passives, and gear that I was wearing. Anything I pulled out of my inventory, he’d have access to.

Not only that, but the Evil Twin also copied my combat experience from this run, though not my specific memories or what I remembered through the Ouroboros Tattoos. There was no way I could trick him into reliving my memories for the first time like I did the Prime Doppelganger. It meant he wasn’t as dangerous as that monster had been, but I hadn’t exactly been slacking on this run; he had plenty of fights to pick and choose from.

So I needed to keep it simple. No weapons that weren’t already available such as the Scalpel of Angelic Healing sitting in its little extradimensional space. I hadn’t spent much time doing hand to hand combat in this run, so I would have the advantage. At least, I would if I could move this body properly.

By the time I had locked into the fight, the Evil Twin seemed to have healed up. Sara’s quest reward, which she had to have traded for very quickly, gave me an idea. The Vambrace of Wires disappeared into my inventory before reappearing on my left arm. Its metal rope was released from the polished equipment and snaked towards my hand, untwisting into several smaller pieces.

The monster in front of me disappeared from sight. My Fae Step was on cooldown, but I was expecting him to be completely fresh. I saw it coming; if he was part me, then I was going to react accordingly. This was not a fight I was reluctant to get into.

My left hand lashed out upwards as the other Anthony appeared in the air beside me, and I stopped his foot from colliding with my face. I grabbed it and started throwing him downwards while I Pulled the two broken pieces of couch towards us. He twisted out of my weak grasp and landed on the ground before holding up both hands. Force Fields appeared in front of them, blocking my projectiles.

I took a step forward and jabbed at his back. He shimmied forward, but I was already overextending and struck him in the spine. My double rolled his shoulder, causing the blow to glance off, and he spun around with his leg in the air. I ducked and went to grab him for another throw, but the two pieces of couch that I had stopped manipulating came for me as he flew to the ceiling.

Knowing better than to dodge since they would just be redirected anyway, I put up Force Fields of my own. I tested the couch halves with my own psychic power and ripped them apart by their wooden frames. The parts he was controlling crashed into my barriers while he had to put up his own.

The wires, individually, spread open the fingers on my left hand as my Evil Twin turned to face me. His elbow was raised to strike me in the head, and I blocked it with my right. He twisted in midair, augmenting his path with Flight, and led with a kick. My hand reached for his leg, but it was blocked with a Force Field of his own.

I put up Shield just in the nick of time, and it shimmered as I was pushed backwards. He grinned at me. “Feeling a bit slow there, pal,” my double said. “You feeling okay?”

“Nah, not really,” I replied, flexing the fingers I couldn’t feel with the Cable Conglomerate. I jerked my head towards Seraphim. “But I feel better knowing I’m not working for the world’s biggest asshole over there.”

“It’s a gig. What can you do, eh?” he chuckled with a shrug before getting back into a fighting stance.

“Not be a part of the problem, for one.”

“Oh, but it’s so fun being problematic!”

I Pushed away a Constructed blade that appeared behind me and surged forward. The Evil Twin started moving even faster than he had before, and I knew he had activated another of my skills that were on cooldown.

<<<>>>

[[Skill]]

Cheetah Sprint

For up to 60 seconds, double the speed of any forms of movement that you have. This skill has a cooldown of 12 hours.

<<<>>>

Shield was still up, but he broke through it with one clean blow before attempting to follow it up with a knee to my balls. Apparently, he was still sore about that. I Constructed a blade in front of his strike, and he pulled back, but not before his momentum sunk it a few inches into his body.

I adopted a boxer’s stance and stepped forward when he stepped back, keeping him within arm’s reach. While this kind of infighting was dangerous against a faster opponent, I felt confident this was the best call. If I kept up the pressure, he wouldn’t get the most out of Cheetah Sprint.

As if sensing the challenge, my double stopped retreating. His Cable Conglomerate extended towards me and around my arm. I spun, pulling out of the spiral just as it closed up, and he attempted to sweep my feet out from under me. He was met with another Constructed blade.

The Evil Twin used Orbit to slow down the blow before he could potentially lose part of his leg, and I leveled a strike at his chest. He used the same playbook I did, Constructing his own impediment to keep me from hitting him. The difference was that I had already prepared.

I grabbed the blade with my left hand, which was protected by the wires, and spun it between my fingers. My attack changed from a straight punch to a quick slice as I pivoted my whole body. The Evil Twin’s own Construct was used against him, but it disappeared before it could do any serious damage. Even though it made for some decent protection, the Cable Conglomerate had been slightly damaged by the maneuver.

Both of his hands grabbed the sides of my head, pushing the blades I Constructed out of the way, and he brought me down to meet his knee. I wasn’t willing to put something dangerous there for him to slam my face into, and my nose caved in from the blow. Sent reeling, I pointed in his direction.

All of the Starstones behind me lit up as they activated, and they shot around me towards my enemy. He grinned and opened his mouth, having already prepared himself for some kind of attack, and released a golden beam of energy that covered my whole half of the room. I gritted my teeth at the wide attack and threw myself to the side.

The Evil Twin simply turned. I had an innate resistance to holy energy so it wasn’t as bad as it should have been. It still hurt like hell, though. The drywall disintegrated wherever the light touched it, and the studs fared little better. Once again the house creaked in protest as its insides were destroyed.

I hid behind what should have been the sturdiest thing here, and he was forced to close his mouth when I used Seraphim as a shield. I had seen mindless monsters attack administrators before, and I knew they were just as susceptible to instant death as players were.

It was odd, though; if he had Entwined With The System, then he should have known he would be fine.

<<<>>>

[[Skill]]

Entwined With The System

Your connection with the system is so hardwired into your very being that you can even make it work in situations where you no longer have access. You have become a part of the system, just as the system is a part of you. You gain the following benefits.

Angel Of Death: If it has life, you can take it away.

Hard To Kill: You are no longer affected by instant death effects regardless of their source.

<<<>>>

Hard To Kill would have kept him from dying for even attempting it, and Angel of Death meant that he could have actually hurt Seraphim.

I really didn’t think the evil version of me would have been worried about a little collateral damage. It was possible that he didn’t have this one even though he was supposed to have access to everything I did. Entwined With The System was something I had never heard of before in my centuries of life, so it might have been something specific to me.

That was the most likely theory, anyway.

I stepped behind Seraphim. Simply killing the administrator here was tempting and I raised my hand as if to do so, but it was too public. At least Abbatrastoria’s death had been in the middle of literal nowhere with no witnesses. There was no Dealer to dispose of the body, either.

Bouncing off of the wall, I jumped over Seraphim’s head to return to melee range. A Construct appeared in front of me, and I simultaneously flew backwards and used Drop on myself. I flipped onto the ground and resumed my charge, summoning the Scalpel of Angelic Healing.

The small tool wasn’t much on its own, but it was something. The Evil Twin’s Starstones all started to ignite, and the sounds of bottle rockets once again filled the room as they shot towards me. Scrambling to a stop, I Constructed large plates to take the damage for me. They were hardier now thanks to the Belt of the Warmongering Mystic, but those projectiles did a lot of damage.

I essentially had to dismiss and reapply each of the Constructed barriers after every hit while backpedalling to get distance. He ran around the room, knocking over chairs as if they weren’t in his path, as I dealt with the twenty Starstones as quickly as I could. My double jumped onto the wall, riding along it on the Heelies, until he lunged for me.

His eyes widened in surprise as I dropped each of my barriers and stepped towards him. There were still four Starstones left, each one dealing at least four hundred damage. They were forced to go wide when they altered their trajectory to track me, and I reached out. The Evil Twin tried to pull himself back, but I wasn’t having it.

The individual wires of the Cable Conglomerate shot out from my fingers, piercing through his chest and changing direction to gain purchase. I Pulled him in with both that and my Warmind powers. Even though he resisted, I really only needed to stall him. My forward momentum carried me the rest of the way.

With the wires drilling in through his body, heading towards big ticket items like arteries and organs, I tried to lift him over my head to put him behind me. My double was still fighting my influence, and I had to duck underneath him, physically moving him where I wanted him to go. His own Constructed barricades went up to protect him now that he was in the path of the Starstones.

In that moment of distraction, I struck. The Scalpel of Angelic Healing went for his throat, looking to slice open his jugular and carotid artery. It met resistance as he attempted to Push it off course, and I gave it a simple flick.

He might have been able to affect steel, but pure energy was another matter. Distant Slice activated, bridging the gap and slicing into the Evil Twin’s neck. He gritted his teeth, trying to minimize the damage by shifting, but it was too late. The attack blew through his windpipe.

It wasn’t fatal, not with Demigod’s Durability, but it did cause him to do something drastic. He had activated Dark Sacrifice to help tank the blow.

My double’s skin started dying as necrosis began to set in and black mist roiled off of him. This was the more extreme option the skill offered, the same one I activated for a second against Aaron. It hurt but wouldn’t alter his ability to fight. Not negatively, anyway.

Now he was on a timer, and one more deadly than Cheetah Sprint’s to boot. Every second he was locked in this form, his maximum and current hit points would be lowered by 1%. In exchange, his stats became higher and he both took less damage and dealt more. His fist slammed forward. I managed to put a Force Field up in time, but he punched through it and slammed into my chest.

I would have been sent flying into the wall, but the Cable Conglomerate had a good hold on my Evil Twin. It still pushed me backwards, my arm extending, and he Constructed a blade in his hand. I made a calculation, and decided the trade off was worth it.

The wires I had sent into his body spiraled throughout as I went through with the attack. Two skewered his heart, one pierced an intervertebral disc near his skull in an attempt to paralyze him, and the last two sliced through his lungs and stomach. The Evil Twin coughed as the small tendrils caused catastrophic damage.

And in the next instant, my arm was lopped off at the elbow despite my Bones of Steel passive. The psychic damage caused by the Constructed weapon rattled in my brain, and I backed away. His wounds started to miraculously heal as he pulled the Cable Conglomerate free from his body, and I knew I had activated his Heavenly Hero passive.

<<<>>>

[[Passive]]

Heavenly Hero

Heroes are known for surviving no matter how difficult the task, and those heralded by the Heavens are even tougher than most. Your body knows the form it needs to take, and is resistant to wounds and effects that try to change it.

Your recovery speed increases to 50% of your Constitution stat per minute, and missing body parts will regrow slowly. Once per day, if you would die, survive with 1 hit point instead. You become invulnerable to everything except damage from Demonic sources for 5 seconds, and you regain 4% of your hit points per second during this time. Angelic skills cost 10% less to activate or sustain.

<<<>>>

His healing was also my healing, and I would regain 10% of my own hit points over the next five seconds. It wasn’t enough to fully regrow my arm, but it stopped the bleeding and fixed me up all the way to my wrist.

Tapping the Vambrace of Wires, I pulled it and my missing limb back into my inventory only to put the protective gear back on my right arm. I stepped in and raised my leg, kicking the Evil Twin onto the floor. In the same motion, I put my foot on him.

“You can’t do this to me!” the Evil Twin yelled, his throat healing over thanks to the passive. He had ended Dark Sacrifice the moment Heavenly Hero had activated, which was a smart move since he would only have ten seconds to live at that point if he hadn’t.

An aura of desperation and madness emanated from him, replacing that of the Tyrant’s Will. It made me wince as my mind was assailed by terrible thoughts and hallucinations, but his insanity aura wouldn’t work. He couldn’t have known any better, but madness effects hadn’t been effective on me for a long, long time.

I vaguely wondered what that said about my mental state, and then disregarded it. If it didn’t work, then it didn’t work.

“I think you’ll find that I can,” I replied easily.

Four Constructed blades appeared above his limbs and slammed downwards. He attempted to block them with Force Fields, but I used Spin to deal consistent damage. His own weapons popped into existence behind me, and I turned to slash at them with the scalpel. They were parried and Pushed away just as his barriers broke, but there was no scream of pain as he was nailed to the floor.

I moved backwards as I continued to avoid the onslaught. My double started getting tricky, dismissing his Constructs and recreating them all around me. The chairs of the room became my barriers as I Pulled, Lifted, Dropped, and Orbited them into defensive positions. They weren’t nearly as good as the Constructs or Force Fields, being only made of wood and fabric, but they did their job while my abilities recharged.

The whole time I defended myself, I waited patiently, watching the Evil Twin like a hawk. I was expecting Overclocked Body, and he hadn’t dared use Break Free, either. That might have also been something only I could do since it was given specifically by a World Boss.

As if my expectations manifested it, I saw my double’s blood start to evaporate as he activated the skill. His body overheated and he managed to lift his arm upwards through the Constructed Blade keeping him on the floor. He moved as if the pain didn’t bother him, it probably didn’t, and he turned to physically pull the other one free.

Our eyes met, and I opened my mouth. A golden glow appeared in the back of my throat, the beginnings of a two-second startup time, and he grimaced.

A Constructed dagger appeared inches behind both of our heads, one created by him, and the other by me. Both were sent flying to the side with Orbit. In the span of a second, it had happened five more times, each one faster than the last. The fact that he could keep up with me was admirable, but this was the end.

The Evil Twin attempted to fly upwards, to escape, but I Constructed four weights inside of the arm and leg wounds that I had caused and Dropped them all.

“You son of a b—”

A golden light washed over the room as my Dragon’s Breath finally finished charging. I released it into the world as a deadly beam meant to eradicate all evil, even ones that looked like me.