I cut low, aiming to sweep his legs, but he stepped around the attack and pushed in. His side was open, and I aimed my tail, but he batted it aside and threw a punch into my gut. The force sent me rolling. I got to my feet, expecting a second hit, but he stood in place.

His expression screamed disappointment.

"What a joke. Can't even score a single hit? I'm unarmed."

"Why are you stronger? I'm not repressing anything, that passive shouldn't be active."

"Say's who?" he growled.

"Says the system and it's skill."

"Oh? Because the system is so forthright about all of its capabilities. Surely you can explain your aura passive, right?" he sneered. He held out a hand and splayed his fingers. Multicolored flames gathered at the tips, similar to the one on his tail. "The one that's been suppressed by your stupid choices?"

I bit back my retort, realizing the stupidity of arguing with myself.

"I don't remember being this obsessed with talking."

The flames spread up to his arms and then faded, decreasing in size.

"You've always been mouthy to yourself," he answered.

He rushed forward. I lunged, forcing him to dodge to the right, but he pivoted faster than I could react. His boot cracked my knee, and I dropped. His fist rose underneath my unguarded chin and rocked me back.

The world exploded, and a memory started to fragment before a second hit crunched my nose, pulling me out of the scene.

A third rocked me back, and I headbutted the attack. It hurt, but Mordred cursed and kicked me away.

"You could die doing that to the wrong beast. Igas taught you that," Mordred said.

I sat up and found Zharia above me. Her flames were muted and she wilted under my gaze. She coo'ed softly before looking away.

"Please. If you wanted to kill me, you would have. I already tried that once, remember?" I groaned as I snapped my nose back into the correct position.

"You're not a masochist either, so why are you forcing yourself to be so pathetically weak!"

"I'm not!"

I rolled away from the incoming kick and smacked the butt of my spear into his leg. He tripped and I grabbed at his collar. I expected him to resist but he allowed me to grab him. I raised him up and tightened my grip, moving my tip of my tail against his stomach.

"What's the point of this? Some self therapy by beating the shit out of my clone? Should I have done what you wanted? Go around ready to murder everyone because they piss me off?"

He grabbed my wrist and bent it in the opposite direction. My tail pressed into his stomach, but he accepted the hit as his own wrapped around my neck and pulled. For what was becoming an all-too-common occurrence, my nose gave way as I smashed into the side of my throne. Pink blood splattered against the black crystal, sizzling away before the color drained.

Mordred yanked me by the foot, still using his tail, and threw me over the armrest. Before I could get up, he landed atop me and slammed his boot into my throat. His eyes burned a single color, a blood red that left faint trails in the void of grey around him.

He leaned down while my familiars whimpered in the background. "I'm you, you are me. I'm not some separate entity running around your head, even if you twisted your skill to become so. I'm saying you are weak, because you are. I'm showing you that you are weak because you refuse to release the shackles, even now that they're broken."

"Nice speech," I spat.

He slapped me and dragged me over the armrest and into the seat. I tried to stab him, and managed a scratch before he wrenched the spear out of my grip. He tossed it aside and strangled my tail in his freehand while pinning my arm to the black crystal.

"You're tired of this? Fight back. Use your aura. The seal on your soul is gone, nothing is hampering you."

I dug my nails into his forearm, and stabbed into the flames. "Fine."

Mana thrummed like a brass bell. From inside the realm the cool lake around us churned and threads rose into the air like a column. The grey void around us started to stutter, color flickering in. The mana rose higher and stopped.

The aura wouldn't come. There were no flames and the grey reinserted itself.

Mordred snorted. "You're not Teddy. We don't have skills the way he does."

"My aura is from a skill," I snapped.

"Not an active one." He slammed a fist into my stomach, shattering my control. The mana pillar lost cohesion and the threads unwound as it crashed back into the lake. "Think of Teddy's lesson. It's not just mana, or a skill. You don't need a skill to have an aura. Did you need such rules to fend off the curse? Would you have survived merging with the dungeon fairy by following such dogma?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Then what is the answer!"

Silence reigned.

Even the rustling of my familiars stilled as the very air paused.

I tightened my grip, trying and failing to force a reaction.

"I have been trying! You and everyone else keep expecting me to just—do things. Well, fuck you. And fuck them. I'm allowed a break." I screamed. His impassive face brought a pounding to my temples. "And you know what? What the hell am I even supposed to do? Give me a real answer. None of that vague bullshit. If you're me, then you know what's in my head. You know what I remember. Am I just supposed to move on from that? What about the memories I've been choking down? The guilt? The anger? "You want me to be more like you? Then why? Why the hell should I? How would being angry have protected Sam?! How the fuck would Wrath have helped anything!"

A flicker, a tiny flame. It appeared at the tips of my fingers, bending toward my nails. I wouldn't have noticed if Mordred hadn't released me. Through the brief pause I heard a discordant chime in the distance.

"If that's the thing that's holding you back, then there's only one solution," Mordred mumbled.

"I thought I said enough with the cryptic replies."

His eyes snapped downward and he stomped. Thick vines of gold sprouted from the lake and surged forward. They wrapped around my limbs, and held me down, proving even stronger than my clone.

Chomperz hovered down and stopped before Mordred, his eyes blazing with color despite the reality-sucking cloud.

"Will you stop me?" Mordred asked.

Chomperz turned to face me, observing me. My breath caught, unsure of what to do. Something in his gaze felt more alive than I had ever seen from him. He quickly moved up and around, earning a wince from each of my familiars before turning back toward Mordred.

Chomp!

The dragonling took off and resumed his place atop the throne.

You too?

Mordred raised his claw and scratched at the air. Reality warped once again, tearing away as the void shone through the broken strip. Except it wasn't the void. Inside I caught sight of titanic tentacles pilfering through far-away stars. Mordred reached in and grasped two of them.

When he retracted his hand, he held two flaming orbs of gold that burned my vision like sunspots.

No.

"No," I choked.

"If you refuse to adapt, then I'll force it. If the memories cripple you, then it's time to forget their memories. Their faces." His hand tightened around the orbs and the edges of the gold flames started to sap away, dimming. "The same for the friend you treated like a sister. The one who's guilt you unfairly put on your shoulders."

"Don't you dare," I said, trying to break free from the bindings.

They wouldn't give, the golden threads were as strong as steel.

"Even if your fears of being the reason your parents died proves true, it won't matter. Neither will the guilt for Sam's sacrifice. Nor will the betrayal you feel for forcing yourself to forget her as you survived. And your fear of being the reason why billions of people die on Earth might be true as well. But it doesn't matter. They will stop being a problem as long as you're you're done feeling sorry for yourself. If not, oh well. Those threads won't break not while you keep abusing the skill. So give up."

Despite my protest the colors keep leeching away. On the surface of the flames, images flashed of the memories inside. Eventually, even my voice gave as a new thread circled around my throat, closing tight.

I looked to Chomperz who watched on, uncaring. To my familiars, who refused to meet my eyes.

No.

The memories shrunk, the two orbs now barely baseballs. Their bright luster reduced to a mere burnt yellow.

No.

I refused. I had to. Even if the damn skill cut off my limbs, I had to do something!

From baseballs, to apples. Even further they diminished until there were only marble's left. The faces on the surface of the orbs were blurry and unrecognizable.

No!

This was my realm, my soul. Those were my memories not his! So what if he was a clone of myself. So what if the gremlin thought himself better then me!

I refused!

Even as the threads sought to bind me, flames erupted from my body. They concentrated around my hands and chest, burning in a riot of color. To my senses they pushed the grey film away, snapping at it with hungry mouths. Fuels to the flame, oxygen to the fire, they burned and so did my restrictions.

I lunged and grabbed the damn demon's wrist and funneled the power into my grip. The once strong bones and flesh of the gremlin gave way and they snapped as easily as my own had moments prior.

The orbs were flung aside, while I rose to my feet and slammed the gremlin into the back of the throne. His tail wrapped around my waist but I moved first. My tail clung to his neck and I dragged him into the oncoming fist. The satisfying crunch of his nose breaking spurred me into the next hit.

Punch after punch, I coated the throne in a kaleidoscope of color. It dripped red, green blue and gold before transitioning to darker shades of pink and purple.

"Is this what you wanted? Huh? I give in, be the big, bad demon!" Punch, splatter. Punch, splatter. It repeated until his tail slipped from my waist and he stopped raising his hands. "Am I angry enough!"

The final hit crumpled his arm and it slapped into the armest with a resounding echo. The throbbing was more a war drum, vibrating my soul while the flames burned across my arms. I couldn't even see my fists, merely fist-shaped flames in their stead.

My breath came in ragged chunks.

As the gremlin layed unmoving, the throbbing started to slow. So did my breath, and the flames along my arms sparked while the grey cloud snipped away in fine lines.

Why-

His fingers caught my collar and pulled me down with surprising strength.

"Wha-"

"Co-ruggh."

His ruin of a face bubbled and his tongue slipped through busted teeth. But through the puddle of speckled blood, I caught the grin underneath. The wide, damnable smile with pearly fangs and teeth slowly flowing back together–into position.

"What did you say?" I demanded.

He pulled me closer until my ear nearly touched his tongue.

"Co-ward. They de-served to die."

Pain shot through my leg and I instinctively grabbed the tail piercing through my pants. I halted his momentum, but even then it continued to struggle, growing stronger. The world narrowed, and all colors disappeared except the red of his eyes and the pink surrounding my body.

I breathed in and sucked in the flames, letting the cold fire burn through my lungs. The chime in the distance sounded, and Chomperz started to fly closer.

On the exhale, I copied the motion I had seen play in the memory from the arena. My fingers straightened, and the cold energy surged through my arms and into the tips of my claws. In one easy motion, I pushed through skin and moved around bone. Reaching through the ribcage, I stopped, gripping the glass-like marble in the center of the gremlin's chest.

Mordred froze, eyes wide. However, the grin remained and he had never looked happier than that moment. Happier than I had been in a long time.

"Finally," he whispered. "Took long enough to get through that thick skull. That's how you wield anger, your fury. Not-"

"A blunt hammer fueled by rage, but a cold knife fueled by Wrath? Really?" I finished, ignoring the tingling of information appearing in my thoughts unbidden.

"Exactly."

I sighed and closed my eyes before tightening my fist.

"Fuck you."

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