Demon Lord Shapeshifting System

Chapter 190 A Short Rest Into The Emptiness

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Harker realized that she was no longer moving, and that disturbed him more than her ability to erase his existence.

He was shivering, and was left in the lap of the mutilated Ice Giantess. Victoria observed him with empty eyes...

And he can't help but feel like he wanted to stay still as well. To stop moving, to accept that he was a part of the void too. 

"Run away." She suddenly spoke. "Move your hollow machine and run away from the void, even though you will never truly escape it."

Harker gritted his teeth. It's the same thing with Legion all over again. Only that…..

This was someone who believed that she still had identity, individuality, character, a higher purpose. It felt physically painful to be the one to bring her back to the void. The pain was so great that it was nothing compared to the icy, numbing pain, it felt more like being crushed by an immense weight.

"Why did you wanted it?"

"To become more than a little worm. I thought….." She smiled as if from a cruel joke, except the joke was on her. "I thought that perhaps I could be the big man this time. But a kinder one. When everyone is god, when everyone has equal power…. There is no need for wars, death, hatred, cruelty. But now that I sit to actually think, I realize I am a fool."

"Consume or be consumed…. That's the purpose of life itself. Even in death, you are consumed. Fight or succumb, it's all the same."

Harker also took a moment to sit and think of his own foolishness. And so, he stood up.

"It's done. You decide when the end will come for you, Holle."

Holle smiled. "Finish what you started, man. You are the in-between, but you must choose a path. You cannot meet things halfway."

"What if I want to?" Harker said. 

"Then you fail in your purpose."

"I don't want a purpose. I just want….. I just want to just be. Can't I do that?"

Holle did not answer for a while. Then….

"Do you know why I saved Joan when I could easily abandon her to the void?"

Harker knew why, but allowed her to say it herself.

"When I saw their bodies in that wreckage, trying my best to get out of one of the broken train's doors…. I thought it must be my fault that I have lived such an empty husk of a life. Because in the end, I never ran away. I stayed there, didn't I?"

She chuckled lightly. "I let Alphonse Seward consume me, and everyone else. Even his wife, even his friends, even myself….. I have come to consume myself, all these years. Consuming my own walking corpse under the cold and bitter tundra that I kept traveling. But if I could have at least one purpose..."

"That may be to let Joan consume me, so she may continue to thrive. To exist and become like man. I gave up my corpse to her. Everything I had left."

Harker felt the sting in his eyes. 

"I won't do the same. I won't consume you."

Holle reached out to him weakly with her pale blue hands. 

"Oh, but you must. I beg you. For at least, I am consumed by a man. My identity, my memories, myself…. I will be within a machine that has a mind, unlike if I perish from the world. I am scared of the world, I realize it now. Don't let me die from the world."

Harker took a heavy breath, and…..

He did it. 

This person's entire being washed over him and added to the current of everything else he kept the void of his own mind. A Pandora's box that he must carry all his life.

In this box, she was stored along with Blank, Ahanu, a priest, his mother, everything….. The moment it was released might be when he ends. 

But there was still much time before that. Everyone in his box was urging him to keep moving, to keep running.

To keep being a fool.

And a fool he will be, knowing the truth of good and evil, of life and death…. And yet still pursuing empty air and gas and heat billions of miles away.

He looked at the stars above, and screamed out from the pain and anguish he was carrying like the world itself rested on his shoulders.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

He attacked indiscriminately. A force of the void, and nothing but the void. He brought that void into the ones below him.

"It's him!" He heard someone yell.

It was the angel, Clementine. He ordered up various instructions to attack and stop Harker. But it was all futile.

Whatever efforts they made, every time they tried to attack…. It was lost on Harker. There was only that aching and numbness at the same time, and he let himself cry freely as he brought Death upon others.

He was a Consumer, a Destroyer. That was what he was.

When all of them had perished, he fell. He let himself fall, crashing into that ice until it cracked. 

Muffled shouts were all around him. But they were so distant. Like the stars that were the object of folly, of humanity's pride, always wanting to reach what it cannot.

Is there an end to it all?

There wasn't, and he had always known that. Yet he chose to forget, believing there was, and that if he reached that star, he would be satisfied. 

The moon shone over him, blood red. It seemed to look at him, like a red iris. The pupil, that one ball of pure darkness…..

Shown his reflection.

"I am An Xin."

The dark heart beating within a hollow shell.

But it was wrong. 

He was more than that. He had to reach out, to keep going and let the foolish him continue. The one with a righteous heart, the one that believes. 

And so Harker bursted out of the ice, gasping for air. He climbed out of the ice crack, coughing loudly.

"Harker, thank god!" Joan exclaimed as she helped pull him up. 

There were marks on her arm, as she seemed to have been bound on that bed of ice. It had sunk now, and was nowhere to be seen. 

Mina looked at him. "Are you….. Alright? You killed them all."

Harker looked at her. "I know…. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "You shouldn't apologize. I'm not mad with you. I am concerned."

She pressed her hand on his forehead, and felt that he was both freezingly cold and burning hot at the same time. 

"Harker, you are—"

Tired. He was tired of knowing, not knowing, succeeding, not succeeding.

He let himself sink into the void, just for a little while. That's how it is for us everytime we sleep anyway. A little moment into that dark emptiness.

And he allowed himself to stay there for a long, long time.