Chapter 62: High on Life, Part 4

Darkness. The darkness was oppressive as if it were physical. Sylvester slowly realized that there was something very physical pressing against his chest. Piercing through it, penetrating it.

He opened his mouth. A stream of blood flowed between his lips. It was like a macabre lipstick.

Although not without effort, he reconstructed what had happened to bring him here. The aircraft had crashed. The portal machine may not have survived the impact. And now, he was under the rubble. Buried in darkness, with a piece of wood impaled in his chest like a stake.

He coughed, spitting out more blood in the process.

No, that wasn't important. What mattered was that the enemy this time had no need to get close to kill him. He remembered it perfectly. The enemy had pulled out a knife. The world it dragged him into might be nothing more than an illusion, but he could die in it; otherwise, it wouldn't have bothered preparing to deliver the finishing blow.

He could die there; he had no doubt. It was real enough for that.

And, although his nature as a Champion allowed him to resist, he kept returning to that place more quickly. If he didn't hurry, tearing apart the debris, searching for the machine, he would be lost. In the real world, he was sore, but he could keep fighting all day. Pain was just pain, and even if he spat blood, it's not like he was dying; nothing essential was broken or lost. Even if it were, it would regenerate anyway.

But inside there? In the alien illusion?

There, he was genuinely weakened, unable to move, at the mercy of the enemy. If he didn't hurry, he thought as he blindly pushed the debris away, he was going to die.

He hadn't hurried enough.

Suddenly, he was back in that place. Back under the executioner's 'axe.'

"Wait..."

The enemy didn't waste time with nonsense, but Sylvester saved himself anyway. At the last moment, he grabbed the knife by the blade, stopping it just millimeters from his left eye. The blade was long enough to reach his brain, of course, and he would simply die. He wasn't as strong as he should be in this place.

If he were, his wounds would have already healed. Thanks to this power, the enemy could easily kill him, ignoring his incredible strength and regenerative abilities. In the real world, he might be able to split him in half like nothing, but they weren't in the real world. This thing was the most dangerous enemy he had faced in reality.

And Sylvester wasn't even sure yet if this being in front of him was one of the Champions or if anyone in their species could do these things. If it was the latter, did they have even the slightest chance of victory?

He knew it was his mistake; strange creatures of all shapes and sizes had appeared through one of the now-closed portals in Kaleidoscope, but he hadn't expected something as inhuman as this!

An attack for which there was no defense. A being that perhaps didn't even need to use its special abilities to crush him.

"You're going to die anyway. If not now, the next time you return, then I'll stab this into your brain before you realize it. Before you're entirely here. I know it goes against the natural survival instinct of any living being, but it's better if you give up. Only suffering awaits you if you fight."

His hand trembled as he struggled with him. It didn't matter; Sylvester's hand, wet and slippery with his own blood, trembled the most. He didn't have the upper hand.

That was very true. Sylvester closed his eyes.

However...

"I understand. I've been resisting all this time, but..."

"Are you going to give up? Then let it go already."

"It was useless. So I understand." Sylvester opened his eyes behind the dark curtain of his hair. His pupils were perhaps too dilated, as if he were drugged. "My life is a game in the hands of some mad god, a meaningless game. I understand!"

His painful declaration changed the world.

A target icon appeared above the enemy's head. In the corner of his vision floated the objective's description: Kill the enemy.

There was something that was probably the creature's name, but he couldn't read it. It's not that it was vital information, but for him, it only appeared as four question marks.

He suspected that if he tried to concentrate, understand, and read it, his head would explode, so he didn't even try.

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All he needed to do was kill his enemy, anyway.

His life was a game.

Okay, he would accept it and play it. As long as he was the winner in the end, surviving to see the credits, he could accept anything.

"How is this possible?"

Despite his condition and the unfavorable position, Sylvester mysteriously began to gain the upper hand in the struggle. So from the beginning, he had only needed to let go, relinquish control. But... When had he had control of his miserable life?

He started to laugh, bordering on hysteria.

If he took one more step, it would inevitably collapse. Unraveling. Unraveling irremediably.

Sylvester didn't wrench the weapon from the enemy's hands, but he didn't lose the struggle either; it simply came to an abrupt end when the knife broke. He stood up, and, for the first time, the enemy recoiled.

He could win. He would win.

He had never had another option.

Now, he saw things he had never seen before. For example, a bar blinking above the enemy's head. It didn't have numbers, percentages, just a green color. It was full.

Of course, it was full. Even as someone who hadn't touched a video game for a long time, it was obvious that it was a health bar. How could it not be full if he hadn't touched the enemy even once? That would change soon, however, he thought.

"It doesn't make sense," the enemy insisted.

Sylvester smiled sweetly at him, as if they were old friends.

"Poor fool. Nothing about this madness makes sense."

He took a step forward.

At that very moment, the funhouse mirrors appeared out of nowhere, showing his twisted reflection, and rushed towards him at great speed to crush him.

That's what they did. Crushing him between them as if trying to make him burst. But it didn't hurt him at all, how could it hurt if it wasn't real, and he didn't even have a moment of panic. Because now he saw a way.

Destroy the mirrors: 0/10

Alright, he thought, and the mirrors flew instantly as if Sylvester had become the center of an explosion. The glass disappeared after violently shattering.

Destroy the mirrors: 10/10. Objective accomplished.

"Impossible. You're not even one of us."

Sylvester laughed again.

"Maybe you're not the favorite."

The enemy, no, the prey turned around and started running. Strategic retreats were one thing, but he felt like he was doing it just to buy time to think. That he was driven by fear, not a rational decision.

They left the circus tent, even though they hadn't been there a moment ago.

Only then did the enemy turn around, recognizing that fleeing was useless. Now they were in an open field. They had nowhere to hide, no way to disappear... At least following the logic of reality, which wasn't true. It was dangerous to assume anything.

But the enemy felt like they couldn't escape or had decided they could try something. Otherwise, they wouldn't be standing there with determination. With that, at least, he could count.

Dozens of ghostly weapons appeared behind the enemy, shining like freshly spilled blood, an angry red.

Sylvester mimicked his action almost instinctively, only his were a different color. Almost transparent blue. From the corner of his eye, he saw that his objective hadn't changed. And that he was still standing, he could still win. If he were defeated, it would say "OBJECTIVE FAILED" after all. There was something relaxing about taking a deep breath and letting go of the reins of his life and his own destiny. Or rather, finally admitting that that's how things were and had been for a long time.

He felt like his feet weren't touching the ground.

"I'll drag you from wherever you hide and tear you apart."

Ghost bullets were fired as they ran to collide in the middle of the illusory space.

No. They didn't run; instead, they flew towards the other. And they didn't exactly collide; only their ghostly weapons clashed, shattering with a single impact as if made of glass. But each one lost was quickly replaced. The wall of weapons behind them didn't seem to diminish for a moment; rather the opposite.

They refused to collide in another sense. When it seemed they were about to, they recoiled backward and upward as if they had agreed upon it. Rising above the roller coaster, above the merry-go-round. Rising above the skeletons now populating the fleshy circus of death. They seemed like toys, but at the same time, very real burnt flesh hung from their bones. The contrast itself was as nauseating as the smell.

One could imagine one of those skeletons standing in some poor kids' science classroom. Were they entirely fake? Were they lost souls, victims of their enemy? He couldn't know, and it didn't really matter. They shouldn't be able to reach him, and anyway, they moved purposelessly and staggered from side to side. He didn't believe they posed a threat even in the worst situations.

Isn't it obvious? They're the customers of this circus; they're just passing through.

In the air, Sylvester and the unknown alien clashed their arsenals over and over. The air filled with the sound not of metal against metal but of breaking glass.

"I'm not the favorite, huh? I'm sure, this is unfair. You shouldn't be able to do even half of what you do. This is your first contact with space ***; even if you were a *****, it shouldn't be that easy."

Maybe it was because there were no words for those things in any human language, but he didn't understand the two most crucial words. Each one felt like a knife in his forehead. He grimaced, squinting.

"Maybe it is that easy, monster, have you thought about that? Maybe our species is simply superior and deserves to survive more."

Bathed in the red light of hellish flames, the enemy responded mockingly laughing.

"You wish. No, something changed. You must have unlocked a new Ability or something; otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten you on the ropes so easily. What changed?"

"You said you refused to attack, that you decided only to defend and wait."

"Huh? Yeah, what about it?"

Yeah, for him, it must have seemed like a change of subject. He didn't see what he had to see.

"Perhaps the difference is that I'm not swimming against the current; I've finally accepted my role."

High on Life, Part 4: END