Strongest Incubus System

The dead did not run.

That was the first thing that bothered Damon.

Dozens of them advanced through the snow at a slow pace, maintaining an irregular formation, with ancient weapons dragging behind them or resting over frozen shoulders. Some wore armor from different eras. Others had nothing but torn travel clothes, as though they had died trying to reach the fortress.

All of them were looking at Damon.

None showed any interest in Ester, Aria, or Jian Yue.

"This is personal," Aria commented.

"I noticed."

Jian Yue fully drew his sword.

"Stay behind me."

Damon looked at him.

"No."

"You do not possess the Heavenly Body."

"I still know how to use a sword."

"Without Xue Lian’s memories."

Damon spun the ordinary weapon in his hand.

"I knew how to fight before I met that woman."

The first dead man arrived.

He was tall, with half his face covered in ice. He carried a broad sword in both hands and did not change speed when he entered range.

Damon waited.

The dead man raised the weapon.

Vertical strike.

Simple.

Damon stepped off the line, let the blade hit the snow, and cut into the side of the knee.

The sword entered.

No blood came out.

The dead man turned without showing pain and attacked horizontally.

Damon ducked.

Slower than he expected.

Much slower.

Without the Heavenly Body, his reflexes felt trapped inside something heavy. He still knew exactly what he needed to do, but his body took a fraction of a second longer to obey.

The blade passed over his head.

Damon stepped inside the dead man’s reach and drove his sword through his chest.

Nothing.

The man grabbed his clothes.

"Shit."

Damon abandoned the sword and struck the frozen elbow with both hands.

The joint broke.

He twisted free and recovered the weapon before the dead man could close his fingers around him.

Jian Yue advanced.

"I told you—"

"Wait."

Damon cut the neck.

The head fell.

The body remained standing for two seconds.

Then collapsed.

The snow around it began pulling the pieces back together.

Damon watched.

"Of course."

The neck reconnected.

The man stood again.

Aria stepped back. "That seems unfair."

"It usually is."

Three more arrived.

Jian Yue did not wait for permission.

He pierced the first with his sword, rotated, and cut both arms from the second. Ester pulled Aria back when the third threw a spear.

Damon barely dodged.

The tip tore his sleeve and cut his arm.

Pain.

Real.

Warm.

Damon looked at the blood.

"You’re bleeding," Ester said.

"I noticed that too."

"I don’t like it."

"I like it less."

Jian Yue destroyed another dead man’s head.

The body fell.

And began reconstructing itself.

"It doesn’t work," he said.

"It works for delaying them."

More dead were advancing.

But something was wrong.

Damon noticed when the man with the broad sword returned to him.

His posture had changed.

Before, he held the weapon in a heavy, simple stance.

Now his front foot was slightly open.

The sword rested near his hip.

The same position Damon had used.

"Ah."

Jian Yue heard him. "What?"

The dead man advanced.

This time, he did not attack vertically.

He feinted.

Damon reacted to the expected strike and almost took the blade in the ribs when the man changed its path.

He retreated.

"He learned."

Aria looked at the others.

"From you?"

"Yes."

Jian Yue cut another body.

The corpse reconstructing beside him immediately changed the way it held its sword.

Copied Jian Yue.

"Not just from me."

Ester understood.

"The more we fight them, the better they get."

"Exactly."

Damon observed the group.

Every confrontation taught the dead something.

Techniques.

Reactions.

Patterns.

Maybe even abilities.

Jian Yue used a cold technique by reflex.

A thin layer of ice appeared beneath his feet.

Three dead stopped.

Ice appeared beneath their boots.

Jian Yue went pale.

"Don’t use Qi," Damon said.

"I noticed."

One of the corpses slid over the snow using exactly his technique.

Aria took two steps back.

"So what’s the plan?"

"Stop teaching them."

"Excellent. How?"

Damon looked toward the fortress.

It was still distant.

The dead formed a line between them and the Tomb.

They did not need to win.

They needed to get through.

"Run."

Jian Yue looked at him. "Chen Mo said not to run inside the fold."

"We’re not in the fold anymore."

Aria had already started.

"Finally, a rule I like."

Damon ran after her.

He immediately felt the difference.

Without the Heavenly Body, the snow was deep.

His legs sank.

The air burned his lungs.

The cut on his arm kept bleeding.

Even so, he ran.

The dead reacted.

Not all of them.

Only those who had fought.

They ran too.

Damon noticed.

"The others are still walking."

Ester looked over her shoulder.

He was right.

Most were still advancing slowly.

Only the dead who had exchanged blows with them started pursuing.

"They don’t learn by watching," Damon said. "They have to receive it."

Jian Yue shoved a corpse away with his shoulder instead of using his sword.

The dead man fell.

Stood.

And began using his body the same way.

"Don’t even touch them."

"This is getting way too specific," Aria complained.

A spear passed between Damon and Ester.

Damon did not look back.

They continued.

Fifty meters.

One hundred.

The faster dead began catching up.

Damon heard footsteps immediately behind him.

He ducked by instinct.

A sword passed over him.

He did not answer.

Did not block.

Did not attack.

He simply kept going.

The dead man tried again.

Damon changed rhythm.

Two quick steps.

One short.

Another quick.

The sword missed.

Damon smiled.

"You can’t copy what you don’t receive."

The dead man kept trying.

Damon changed his movement with every attack.

There was no technique.

It was improvisation.

A different decision every second.

The sword passed close to his stomach.

Damon turned.

Another corpse tried to grab him.

He jumped sideways.

Landed badly.

His ankle protested.

He continued.

Jian Yue began to understand.

He stopped fighting like a disciple of the Open Door.

He simply avoided.

Aria was already doing that naturally because she had no technique at all.

Ester simply shoved away anyone who got close using her medical bag.

Damon saw it.

"Ester."

"That doesn’t count."

"You hit one of them."

"It was with medicine."

The dead man who had been struck by the bag now carried an nonexistent bag in his hand.

Aria nearly tripped from laughing.

"He copied it."

"I hate this place," Ester replied.

They crossed the first line.

Then the dead stopped.

All of them.

Damon slowed as well.

Silence returned.

The dozens of figures remained behind them, motionless, staring.

None pursued beyond that point.

Jian Yue was breathing heavily.

"Was that it?"

Damon looked toward the fortress.

"I doubt it."

The snow ahead began to move.

Bodies emerged.

Not dozens.

Four.

One in front of each person.

Damon studied the one rising before him.

No armor.

No weapon.

Simple clothes.

Dark hair.

Similar height.

Same face.

Aria looked at her own copy.

"No."

Ester became serious.

Jian Yue tightened his grip on his sword.

Each of them stood before themselves.

Damon’s copy opened its eyes.

Red.

He recognized them immediately.

His eyes before the Heavenly Body.

Before the inheritance.

Before the white hair.

The Damon who had existed before Xue Lian.

"Now this is interesting," he murmured.

The copy smiled.

"You think so?"

The voice was his.

Aria quickly looked at Damon.

"Yours talks?"

"Unfortunately."

Aria’s copy spoke too.

"You always write because you’re afraid of forgetting."

Aria went still.

Ester heard something from her own copy, but Damon could not make it out.

Jian Yue went pale when the man before him opened his mouth.

The voices were not shared.

Another individual trial.

Damon’s copy approached.

"You left her memories behind."

"Yes."

"You left the root."

"Yes."

"You left the body."

"Yes."

"But you still brought one thing."

Damon frowned.

"What?"

The copy smiled.

"You."

"That would be difficult to leave behind."

"That’s exactly the problem."

Damon fell silent.

The figure continued.

"You think you got this far because you refused to be the heir."

"That was part of it."

"You refused sacrifices."

"Yes."

"You refused to possess the cold."

"Yes."

"But you turned every refusal into something else you possess."

Damon did not answer.

"I am different."

"I do not obey."

"I do not sacrifice."

"I do not possess."

The copy tilted its head.

"You built an identity around being the one who does things differently."

Damon tightened his grip on the sword.

The figure looked at the weapon.

"And now you intend to fight anything that proves otherwise."

"You talk too much for a snowman."

The copy laughed.

Exactly like him.

"See?"

Damon advanced.

The sword passed through the copy’s chest.

Nothing happened.

The figure kept looking at him.

"First response: violence."

Damon pulled the sword free.

The wound closed.

"That was predictable."

"Yes."

The copy punched him in the face.

Damon fell into the snow.

Pain exploded through his jaw.

He turned before the second strike and kicked the figure’s leg.

Nothing.

Another punch hit him in the stomach.

The air left his lungs.

Damon rolled away.

Stood with difficulty.

The copy remained still.

"Without the Heavenly Body, it hurts more, doesn’t it?"

"A little."

"Without the memory, there is no ready-made technique."

"I have my own."

"Without the root, you can’t change the environment."

"I don’t need to."

The copy advanced.

Damon raised the sword.

Stopped.

Lowered the weapon.

The figure stopped too.

Damon breathed slowly.

That thing reacted to him.

It did not merely copy.

It existed because he kept trying to defeat it.

"You’re not an enemy."

The copy smiled.

"Finally."

Damon sheathed the sword.

"Then what do you want?"

"Nothing."

"I doubt that."

"That’s the point."

Damon remained silent.

The figure approached until it stood less than a meter away.

"You left everything you received from Xue Lian because the door demanded it."

"Yes."

"If she tells you to take all of it back?"

Damon looked toward the fortress.

"Depends."

The copy smiled.

"If she says you need to kill someone?"

"No."

"If she says the world will end?"

"I want proof."

"If she says only you can decide?"

"I ask why."

"If she says you are the successor?"

Damon looked directly into his own face.

"She can say it."

"That doesn’t mean you are?"

"No."

The copy began to dissolve.

The snow left its feet first.

Then its legs.

"Then who are you?"

Damon thought.

He could answer vampire.

Incubus.

Damon.

Noble.

Lover.

Idiot, according to Ester probably.

None of them seemed like the answer that thing wanted.

Then he understood.

"Whoever I decide to be when I need to decide."

The copy disappeared.

No light.

No symbol.

Only falling snow.

Damon looked at the others.

Aria was still arguing with her own version.

"I’m not afraid of forgetting."

The copy answered something.

"I like recording things."

Something else.

"Those are different things."

The figure disappeared.

Aria stared at the empty space.

"Bitch."

Damon smiled.

"Productive?"

"Don’t ask."

Ester finished shortly afterward.

Jian Yue was the last.

His copy remained before him while he held the sword so tightly that his fingers had gone white.

Damon did not hear the conversation.

But he saw when Jian Yue finally released the weapon.

The sword fell into the snow.

The copy disappeared.

Jian Yue remained still for several seconds before retrieving it.

"You okay?" Damon asked.

"No."

"Great. Then it worked."

Jian Yue gave him an irritated look.

Damon pointed forward.

The fortress had changed.

It was no longer on the horizon.

It stood before them.

The white wall rose hundreds of meters, so high that it disappeared into the clouds. Towers stood above, silent and covered in ancient ice.

At the center was a colossal gate.

And before it stood the guardian.

Cracked white armor.

Broken sword in hand.

The same man from the memories.

Jian Yue’s ancestor.

Jian Yue stopped breathing.

The guardian looked at him first.

Then at Damon.

His helmet slowly opened.

An aged face appeared beneath it.

The same features as the Jian bloodline.

The man planted the broken sword into the snow.

"Four doors."

Damon approached.

"That’s what they said."

"Four renunciations."

"That too."

The guardian looked at the ordinary sword at Damon’s waist.

"One thing still remains."

Damon stood still.

"What?"

The man raised one hand.

Behind him, the Tomb’s gate began to open.

White light passed through the gap.

"Now you need to decide whether you want to enter."

Damon frowned.

"After all this?"

"Especially after all this."

The gate opened wider.

On the other side, a single figure sat on steps covered in snow.

Long white hair.

Eyes closed.

Xue Lian.

Not a memory.

Not a projection.

Not a voice inside him.

She was there.

The guardian looked at Damon.

"You found the door."

His voice became quieter.

"That never meant you should cross it."

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