act49side

We have lived as ourselves. This is why we are different from you.

Lived as... humans?

You see yourselves as human, and try to bring delusions varied to bear against me.

You relied on the power you stole from me, ingratiating yourselves with those puny insects, but you still had to humble yourselves, hiding your claws and fangs to make yourselves look harmless.

Is that what you mean by living as a human?!

You still do not understand... You can never understand, for you have never lived.

And I am well-aware... from where your arrogance stems.

With but a glance, you can look from the beginning of time to its end. Though your consciousness has traversed the great void for eons, you have never had kin you could converse with.

You are simply a god declaring Itself supreme over a pitiful plot of empty space.

I know full well what this feeling was like.

Until the day someone gave me a name.

You are nobody's fate... Not the people of this land, or we twelve.

And there is one thing you will never understand: against someone who already has nothing to his name...

...Fate is utterly powerless.

Very well... Since you dare to repeat your foolish challenge, I do not mind shattering your delusions once more.

I killed you once a hundred-and-twenty years ago! I shall kill you again with but a flick of my wrist!

Is that meant to scare me?

I am already accustomed to losing.

I have already lost too many precious, precious things. I have lost the entire board.

My dignity, my honor, my trust, my freedom, myself.

My family.

Did you really think someone with nothing more to lose would be afraid?

But you?

Are you not afraid you will suffer another ignominious defeat, like a thousand years ago?

Is this fear not what makes you hesitate to step forward?

...A jest, at this hour!

You desire in vain to replace me, to steal away my body. Why would I allow you to do as you please?!

I need only stir this body awake first—

The Feranmut extends Its talons, talons as great as mountains.

Countless Feranmuts in countless Tombs extend Their talons, countless talons as great as mountains, and point them towards the same proxy.

It does not matter if this is a dream. So long as that loathsome face is wiped away in all of them, there will be nothing left to stop Its awakening.

What is this...

An incomparably brutal blow slams into Its body. A strength It is familiar with.

It knows, that in this split-second, It has lost Its connection with Its enormous body.

Who could cause such harm to Its form?!

The space shakes, then warps, and tears...

As if a thousand years worth of martial prowess has been channeled into a single strike, ripping apart the edges of the dream.

Why are you—

Always so meddlesome!

I knew you would say that.

I also promised that, were things to arrive at this stage, I will be with you.

Besides, I also wanted to bring her to meet you, to let you know that all your years of planning... were not for naught.

Through the boundary between dream and reality, Wang sees the token Chongyue clutches to his bosom...

And then, their eyes meet.

You should leave...

Live.

Live, and come back to us.

I will not make you any promises.

The distance between them stretches with speed.

Even though he is a Grandmaster of kung fu, a thousand years old, a human body is still only a human body.

The force piercing the veil between truth and fiction quickly dissipates, but the voice of that brother Wang is so fed up with still reaches his ears.

Then I will look for you. I always will.

Suit yourself.

What did he... What did he do?!

But it does not matter! IT DOES NOT MATTER! No matter what he did, it was only for an instant... AN INSTANT!

No longer shall he disturb us! Nor will any of your ludicrous, insignificant... <i>siblings!</i>

This is my dream, with only you and I!

I thought I would have to bring all my strength to bear to defeat you, but it seems you are still weak, still liable to collapse at the slightest of breezes. You only have a single stone left...

I will barely even have to lift my finger... to crush you! To annihilate you!

And those poems, those laws, those martial arts... Such irksome pests. I need only use the strength I saved for you to isolate you from those meddlesome insects!

You are unfit to die by my claws. You are only fit to be cut down by your reflection's blade... Now DIE!

Hah... Is that so?

To die is your end, not mine.

Yes. In all these causal chains, in all these possibilities, in all these dreams, you will die.

These countless repetitions within this dream have eroded away, hollowed out your most frenzied imaginings. And all without you knowing.

Have you not noticed how intricately linked you and I are to this dream you used to trap me?

You have been chained by your hateful, vengeful impulses... Your evolution has reached its end.

And we have already surpassed you.

But your body will persist.

I... will take your place.

And how will you do that? With your isolated stones, and with your own body, so ready to fall apart?!

You dare assume... I only have my stones... and this body of mine?!

The near-dead proxy uses the last of his strength to lift his sword.

The deranged Feranmut gives one last howl of rage.

<i>The cold moons split stones; the fierce sun chars boards...</i>

<i>Ashes to ashes, a farewell to the ages.</i>

Memories from time immemorial pour down like a torrential rain, washing away Its enormous, empty consciousness.

The remnant consciousness slips and slides about the land of dreams, trying to find a single scrap of something, anything, to use as its foundation...

But those dreams are now as blank as unscribed bamboo slips, with only the grain of the wood to provide texture. There should be people and events written upon them, yet such things cannot be grasped.

...It has lost.

Without doubt.

You wish to seize Its body, take Its place. But what of your siblings?

They will not see me again, nor will they come to fill this void you have left behind.

That said, I will not disappear. I shall always be with you.

No matter who sits upon this corporeal throne, a void shall form. Since you have no intention of filling it, I shall haunt this place eternally...

...To torment the master of this body?

...To usurp Its will, to torment Its mind, are but two sides of the same tongbao.

There <i>will</i> be something to fill your vacancy.

All that is left of you now is emotion. Abundant emotion, but that matters not in the face of this shattered consciousness. If it did matter, Its rage would have filled it long ago.

...Hah. That will not be a worry.

The one replacing you shall be far more terrifying that you have ever been.

The proxy steps forward, leaving the white creation behind him.

The Feranmut, about to drown in Its own hollow mind, lets out a bitter cry.

Soon, even that cry filled with pain and defiance dies down, leaving only an echo, reverberating throughout the room.

(Murky dying gasp)

You are about to die.

...I am going to die?

Who am I? Why will I die?

...You were the most arrogant of dreamers. In your dreams, you pushed evolution to the endless sea of stars.

But this egotistical evolution was cut short by humanity, that humanity you saw as nothing.