The Doppelganger.
The Final Abyss, which had existed for hundreds of years, saw and felt everything as time slowed.
The Skeleton King charging toward it.
Blink magic to put distance between them.
And then…
SHWAK.
A soft rush of air reached its ears, and golden swordlight filled its vision.
It all happened—and ended—in an instant.
So quickly that the monster of the abyss, born in the deepest reaches of the Demon Realm, couldn’t even react.
Slice.
Hot.
The strike it could neither block nor dodge split the crown of its head. It carved through flesh and bone, devoured its organs and mana, and raced down to its crotch.
Like a bolt of lightning.
Ah.
The Doppelganger staggered backward with a silent sigh.
No—at the moment it felt itself take a step, it crumpled, spraying a fountain of blood.
SPURT!
Its blood-red view tilted slowly.
As the Doppelganger realized it had died, the bond that had held a soul tightly captive for three years was torn away.
Siegfried Bassmann.
The Doppelganger could feel it clearly.
The mana, memories, and carefully hoarded vitality of the Grand Mage once hailed as a hero were draining away like the tide.
The ticket for the last flight out of here had just sold out.
Splash.
Its body, split cleanly in two, fell into a pool of blood.
A death no one could deny.
And a resurrection that defied the natural order.
Pop!
Reborn with a new life and a new body, the Doppelganger threw itself forward without hesitation.
It had failed to escape with Teleport magic, but there was still a way out.
Get as far away as possible. Even if it costs every life I have left!
It had lived for hundreds of years.
Throughout that long life, it had survived by prostrating itself at the king’s feet. It had been promised certain rewards when the coming day arrived.
The commanders of the Demon Realm’s seventy-two legions? Even those arrogant, mighty beings could never hope to share in its glory.
Besides, many of them were already dead.
How it had laughed when it learned that Leviathan, one of those commanders, had been killed by Jin Taekyung.
But it couldn’t die like a dog here. Not when it was destined to stand at the Great King’s right hand.
I have to survive. I can’t die here.
The Doppelganger ran with all its strength.
Toward an exit from the temple it had hidden in case of emergency.
Toward the countless glories waiting for it in the near future.
Only then did it realize.
At this very moment, only its lower half was running for its life.
Slice—
The delayed sound of the cut reached its ears.
The Doppelganger’s already-severed upper half tilted in midair.
Its eyes grew distant as it watched its lower half run on, still moving with its original force, unaware that the body had been split apart.
“You son of a—”
SH-SH-SH-SH!
The rush of air swallowed its unfinished words.
As its upper half scattered into dozens of pieces, the Skeleton King’s sword moved again.
Thrust!
“Ghk.”
A stifled groan.
The Doppelganger writhed, reborn from one of those tiny pieces with a new body. It was hard to believe it had died so gruesomely only moments ago.
Even with its chest pierced, its bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the exit.
Damn it. Damn it!
The Doppelganger cursed soundlessly and regretted what it had done.
How many souls had it stolen from humans over the past thirty years? How many of those humans had been considered strong?
It didn’t know. Even the Doppelganger couldn’t count them all.
They had been little more than a harvest. Like a farmer gathering the eggs his hens laid each morning, the Doppelganger collected human souls and spent most of them without a second thought.
It hadn’t mattered.
No matter how many it used up, it could simply replenish them. Even if it didn’t, it had enough.
No—it had had more than enough.
Until today, when it met a monster wearing human skin.
Swish.
A cold breeze brushed its nape. A sharp blade cut through its neck, and death and rebirth arrived together.
No. They came again and again, like a record stuck on repeat.
Slice! Thrust! SH-SH-SH!
It was cut, stabbed, and broken into dozens of pieces that scattered through the air.
Each time, the Doppelganger died and came back as a man, a woman, or an old person. Drawing on the powers and memories it had stolen from them, it edged closer to the exit.
A hundred meters1 became dozens.2
Dozens of meters became a few.3
It threw away its lives one by one—lives that were no longer expendable, each one precious now.
I can’t… I can’t lose any more.
Fear rose with the word Erasure.
The lives that had once numbered around a thousand were gone.
Feeling its vitality dwindle until it could count what remained on both hands, the Doppelganger summoned every ounce of strength and stood up again.
Slide. WHOOSH!
Its body regenerated in an instant, like the beanstalk in an old fairy tale. Reborn in a grotesque way words couldn’t explain, the Doppelganger hurriedly rolled aside.
Slash!
Pain like a burn raked down its back.
But its desire to survive was stronger than the pain that lingered. As the Doppelganger threw itself forward, heedless of its life, the Skeleton King reached out without hesitation.
Thud-thud-thud!
The Doppelganger staggered and swallowed a surge of blood.
Something white jutted from the middle of its chest. Another bone fragment had pierced its calf and lodged deep in the ground.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The Skeleton King’s low voice came from behind it, followed by a rush of wind.
Feeling him close in, the Doppelganger gritted its teeth. The bone fragment pinning its calf to the ground held as firmly as a stake.
Crack!
Though far weaker than the Skeleton King, its new body was still easily strong enough to belong to an A-rank Hunter.
The Doppelganger tore off its leg below the knee and moved the one leg it had left.
It summoned all its strength and kicked off the ground.
BOOM!
A deafening impact rang out, and a fierce wind swept over its body.
Its eyes burned with longing at the sight of the temple entrance, now right in front of it.
If I can just get out of here.
If I can somehow avoid Erasure…
I swear I’ll turn the world you tried to protect into ashes.
It reached toward the secret door that would open only for it.
SHWEEEE!
From somewhere far away—
CRUNCH!
A streak of light tore through space and swallowed the Doppelganger whole, ripping and smashing its body apart.
As its vision went black, a voice pierced its ears.
“You fucking bastard. You invite a guest over and then try to leave?”
How cold that voice sounded.
And how hot the flames bursting from the spearhead buried in its body.
Fwoosh.
ROOOAR!
The Doppelganger writhed in blue-white flames, its vision dyed blue and white, unable even to scream.
Until the body that had once belonged to someone else, and all the vitality within it, burned to ash.
Until every lie it had built up burned away, leaving a single truth behind.
Step. Step.
Whoosh.
Wind followed unsteady footsteps, scattering the ash.
A black, gray-white shadow stirred amid the thick layer that had settled on the ground.
“…So that’s it.”
Supported by the Skeleton King, Jin Taekyung stood before it. A faint light shone in his eyes as he looked down at the shadow.
He saw through to the one truth of a being made entirely of lies. To its pathetic essence.
System Level 10 Doppelganger
“So this is all you were.”
“……!”
The shadow—no, the Doppelganger—trembled.
Just standing there left me short of breath.
My senses were fading and my vision was blurring, but my racing heartbeat sounded as loud as thunder.
Thump. Thump-thump.
Was this the price of pouring all my strength into that final strike?
My whole body trembled. If the Skeleton King hadn’t been supporting me, I would’ve collapsed already.
But I didn’t fall.
I pushed back the sleep demon pressing in from every direction, pulled away from the Skeleton King, and stood on my own two feet.
Then I looked down.
At a shadow as small as a child, made of an evil purer than any child could ever be.
At the hideous being that was now nothing more than a shadow.
“Yeah. This was all you were.”
I repeated the words I’d said earlier, almost to myself.
The Doppelganger trembled as if it were afraid. Looking at it, then at the Level window floating over its head, I nearly let out a hollow laugh.
System Level 10 Doppelganger
Level 10.
That was all. Nothing more, nothing less.
For a Hunter, that was the very bottom of F-rank. For a Murim martial artist, it was a Third Rate swordsman who’d only just begun to sense internal energy.
That was the Doppelganger’s essence, revealed by the Truthful Eye. Its origin. Its one and only truth.
All this, because of a thing like this…
I swallowed the rest and clenched my teeth.
When I closed my eyes, flames flickered in the darkness.
A city in ruins.
Bodies lay scattered among the smoke rising everywhere. The screams of those still alive rang in my ears.
How many people had died because of the Doppelganger’s terrorist attacks and the monsters?
How many had lost their homes and had to say goodbye to their precious family and friends?
Hundreds of thousands? Millions?
I didn’t know.
More than thirty years had passed since the Doppelganger slipped into this world. I couldn’t even begin to guess what it had done behind the scenes.
Grind.
My fists tightened.
Blood seeped from the skin where my nails had dug deep. I opened my eyes, but none of it went away.
Not the ruined city. Not the emptiness in the dead people’s eyes or the cries of those still alive.
I remembered it all. It was branded into my eyes and ears, impossible to erase.
And of all those things, only one was here before me.
Crush.
“Ghk. Guhh…”
My foot, charged with internal energy, pressed down on the shadow.
The Doppelganger, writhing and groaning, begged me for mercy. It could feel pain, even in this cursed form.
“S-save me…”
“Save you?”
“Y-yes. Anything. I’ll do anything! I will!”
For a moment, I just stared down at it. Then I gathered the internal energy I had left and sent it surging toward the tip of my foot.
Crack. Crunch!
“AAAGH!”
I watched the Doppelganger scream.
Then the Skeleton King placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Human.”
“What?”
I’d only asked a question, but when the Skeleton King saw my face, his lips moved quietly.
“…Nothing.”
What kind of face was I making? Did I look exhausted? Or was it twisted with a rage he’d never seen before?
Probably the latter.
The Doppelganger had stopped screaming the moment it saw my expression.
It spoke in a voice full of fear.
“I-I didn’t want to do it! Have you forgotten? It was all on the king’s orders!”
The king.
Demon King Asmodeus.
At the name that came to mind with its cry, the anger gripping my body and mind wavered.
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