Chapter 995 Our Will
The two soared far into the clouds and penetrated them, continuing their flight into the deep green past them, where a horrid presence of Undeath swirled about freely.
Skullius' eyes would have bulged if he had any.
What had Fulgardt just said?!
Did he just say that…
'The next…Fulgardt?'
"YOU SOCKETHOLE!" Skullius screamed and punched his long-haired foe. His fist did no damage at all. Fulgardt's laugh, which came next, only served to add an unamusing tone of complete helplessness.
The Immoral hurled Skullius across the sky with such a force that Skullius' pale white figure became lost in the boundless green space.
"You can't fight against me, Skullius! You can't resist! From the moment you took on my Legacy, you had already lost the battle! You celebrated getting stronger, thinking that each instance was a small, personal victory, but you were wrong!"
As though the sky was a cartoonishly large trampoline, Fulgardt kicked off it and shot like a comet right to where Skullius was spinning as he flew. He grabbed his collarbone again, and chucked him far in another direction!
"What did you think my WILLS were? That they were a plot for me to rise again in the flesh? To incarnate? Don't take me lightly! A WILL passes on an idea! It doesn't bring its previous host along! There's no need! There's a natural order to this world, you know, which goes beyond Rules!"
Again, a disoriented Skullius was nabbed mid-flight and thrown far.
"All the WILLS were preparing you for continuing my work against those blasphemers! All of them, not just the ones that made Aigas! They are equipped with precious knowledge! Precious resolve!" Fulgardt yelled, his voice thundering across the skies. He caught up to Skullius once again, and drew his face towards his. "I was ready for there to be no one capable of continuing what I started. That was why I placed my corpse right before the door to the chamber. If there proved to be no one worthy, my immortal corpse would continue to absorb the powers of everyone that came into my Labyrinth bloated with nothing but greed and inevitably failed the challenge. After a time, it would rise and tear down Aigas in a wild rampage. But of course, that was just a last resort."
Skullius' socket flames were spinning, but he was conscious, and he could hear all that Fulgardt was yelling. He was flung once again.
"But YOU came along, Skullius! Desperate to live! Yes, you will take over!"
"THE FLESH I WILL!" Skullius barked.
The Reflection suddenly shot up from below, parting the clouds and grabbed Skullius as it soared high.
Skullius could hardly be thankful. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
The mystery behind that thing that almost sapped all the powers he had gained back in the Labyrinth….
So that was what Fulgardt had been planning. He really had wanted someone to attain his Legacy, but he also had a failsafe.
But then… if his body was 'immortal', then how did he die? Better yet, Skullius could tell – quite obviously – that this Fulgardt wasn't a figment of his imagination. He existed as something on par with what Skullius was right now. Something like a soul.
Perhaps, since Fulgardt was said to have reached Divinity, his soul was unbound by the Rules governing Aigas. But then… why wasn't he carrying out his crazy scheme himself? Couldn't he bond his soul and body again?
Skullius didn't bother to ask.
That had merely been a side thought, after all.
What truly filled his mind was the thought of himself getting warped by Fulgardt's philosophy. All those WILLS he had received. Their purpose was to…
"TOMATO FLINGER!!!!"
A boisterous voice crackled from way below, beyond the clouds.
'Sila!' Skullius thought and commanded his Reflection to head down.
Right then, however, the Reflection was suddenly smacked away, and Skullius watched it disappear into the green canvas around them.
The Boneman grunted as Fulgardt grabbed him again. This time, Skullius tried to poke his eyes out, but his fingers merely bobbed off the Immoral's eyeballs. Fulgardt sneered and the next thing Skullius knew, the two had plummeted to the weak island with staggering speed. They landed right beside a deep gorge, carving out a crater on the ground.
Skullius was dragged up, his fractured frame looking like it could shatter at any moment. He tried to resist, kicking at Fulgardt, but to no avail.
"Look," the Immoral said, his eyes staring deep into the gorge.
Skullius grunted and looked. He already knew what was within it, but was surprised by the state it was in.
"Sila!" he called in concern.
Deep within the gorge digging into the Reflection of Skullius' Soul, was indeed the Tower General Sila, his blurred, unclear figure bound by chains of light.
It was just as Skullius remembered from that time Sause had appeared within this place, but…
Sila had grown very small, so small that he looked like a defenceless toddler jailed for a ridiculous crime.
The Tower General seemed to be looking up, though his facial features couldn't be seen.
"You've gotten a real friend you know, Skullius," Fulgardt said as Skullius quivered. "He's been giving up his soul's energy to keep you alive since you lost yourself. Soon, he will more than likely disappear, as if he had never existed."
Skullius opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
He hadn't thought… he didn't think… he couldn't have imagined that…
"Sila…" he murmured.
Skullius remembered that blast of energy from Rayn's Territory. The first micro thought to enter his mind when he had appeared here, had been that he had died again, but as time passed, he had convinced himself otherwise. He knew that he should have been dead, especially with how his soul had been messed up because of that Territory, and it hadn't made sense why he wasn't. Until now.
Skullius didn't even know how to feel.
"You see this. This is a gift to our cause. You are inheriting the soul of an Incandescent Stager and you will wake up feeling new and driven," Fulgardt said, his eyes still locked on Sila. "You will pursue a greater purpose now, and with strength enough to back it up. You'll have it easier than I did when I started. Trust me, much easier."
Skullius attempted to release himself from Fulgardt's grip.
"You really think I'll just fold? You think I'm that weak?!" he barked.
"Oh, it's not about weakness or strength. You're simply in too deep. If it were you before you inherited a single one of my WILLS, you might have been able to fight against this. That was why I never showed myself. I only guided you as best as I could with everything I could get my hands on from within you. That guidance field… it's rather interesting."
Skullius struggled again, but to no avail. He felt another mysterious tide wash over his erect desire to resist, but he was failing, just like that first time.
"Why…why don't you just DO IT YOURSELF?! This is your mission, right?! Didn't you get your ass beaten by Rayn just hours ago! Don't you want to go out there yourself, grab your own body and hunt down the Deities yourself! This is YOUR grudge!" Skullius bellowed.
Fulgardt laughed again. His mirth was especially unbearable.
"It's our mission, Skullius. Ours. We will destroy all these false gods and introduce the world to the primordial being that deserves all praise. The fact that it's only us, makes this assignment worthwhile. The high difficulty brings about the best prize," Fulgardt said casually. "Besides, I failed once. I died even. I'm not a Deity. My Divinity has its limits. I can't return from death, and after it, I become something as obscure as this. Something between a soul and a vague concept."
"And this goes way beyond grudges, Skullius. I inherited hatred from Him and so I fight as though it were personal. You will inherit this too, and you can't betray me."
Skullius felt another tide of unknown influence wash over his mind, diluting his thoughts. It was as though his mind was reacting favourably towards Fulgardt's words.
'Damn it! This isn't good!' the Boneman thought. He was trying to resist, but the reason why he was resisting kept slipping out of his fingers.
Suddenly…
BOOM!
Something foreign and blunt smote the island and the skies, causing them to shake terribly.
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