The lake consud him, enveloping him entirely; the cold, dense water felt like a chilling embrace. He felt himself being pulled down, the cold seeping into him more than just physically—his very soul turned icy.
When he opened his eyes underwater, he no longer saw anything resembling before; of course, he was no longer in that lake. He was standing in an open field, the sky above stained a bloody red, but the landscape... it resembled his previous dream.
A flowery field, now replaced by Red Spider Lilies...
He could sense a huge, overwhelming presence in the air, an imminent tension, a negative feeling. The wind was strong, sweeping across a landscape that seed more desolate, and the distant sound of crackling flas caught his attention, pulling him toward this strangely curious and malevolent scene.
"Vergil..." a familiar voice called.
He quickly looked in front of him, to his left, to his right, and finally turned around. The sight made his heart stop for a mont.
The voice belonged to her, the woman he had first encountered, the one who had cared for him, the first kiss he had shared with her—so morable it would never leave his mind...
"Ada..." he murmured.
Ada stood there, her expression serene, but sothing was wrong with her; clearly, this was not the Ada he knew. The wedding dress she wore, the sa from his previous dream, was completely stained with blood, but what really drew his attention...
Her eyes... they seed distant, almost unrecognizable... Just... empty... Before he could say anything, a horrible scream sliced through the air.
He spun around and saw Katharina and Roxanne. Both were lying on the ground, their expressions frozen in pain and agony. Blood flowed from deep wounds on their bodies, and their eyes were filled with fear.
Katharina had been cut in half, while Roxanne had been brutally dismbered... all four of her limbs severed and torn away.
"No... NO!" Vergil ran to them, his heart pounding, but as soon as he knelt beside them, their bodies began to disintegrate into ashes. He tried to touch them, to hold them, but his hands passed through their forms as if they were ghosts.
"S-Sorry..." he stamred, his mind in a panic. He looked at Ada, who rely observed everything with a disturbing calm.
"You failed, Vergil," she said softly. "You couldn't protect us." She spoke with no emotion, a gentle smile spreading across her face as her blood-stained body began to burn.
"You lost all of us... We were all stolen, killed, and dismbered because of your weakness..." Ada said, still smiling...
"You are weak."
He felt an overwhelming pain in his chest, as if his heart were being torn to pieces.
He tried to speak, but his words caught in his throat. It was a nightmare... no, sothing worse than that.
It was a distorted, cruel reality devoid of rcy, where he settled for the unsatisfied feeling of becoming stronger, for having no reason... It was the end of so tiline where he had chosen to remain an Ordinary Demon...
He closed his eyes as the worst possible scenario engulfed him... His eyes couldn't remain open, and he almost fell into the abyss... but...
Suddenly, everything changed again. He was back in the lake, gasping for breath as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened. But before he could process it, he was pulled back down into the dark waters.
This ti, he found himself in the midst of a dark forest.
The moon faintly illuminated the scene before him. The trees around him seed to be moving, whispering unintelligible words.
Vergil heard the sound of light footsteps behind him.
"Vergil?" It was Katharina's voice, soft and gentle, but laced with a hint of pain.
He turned around, and there she was. Katharina was smiling, but her body was marked with scars and open wounds. "You... why did you leave ?" she asked, her voice broken by suffering.
"I... didn't leave you..." Vergil tried to respond, but his body froze in fear. Each ti he tried to approach, she seed to drift further away, her eyes filled with a silent accusation. "Katharina, I swear, I never..."
The words died on his lips as an imnse shadow erged behind her. A monstrous figure, with glowing eyes and sharp claws, rose from nothingness. Without warning, the creature plunged its claws into Katharina, lifting her fragile body off the ground.
"No!" Vergil shouted, but it was too late. The figure vanished into the darkness, taking Katharina with it. He ran toward the void, desperate to save her, but there was nothing there. Just darkness.
He felt his throat tighten, and despair washed over him. He had failed again.
The cycle repeated.
Vergil was killed, sliced apart, strangled, impaled, burned alive. Each ti he died, the deaths of his wives haunted him more deeply. Ada, Katharina, and Roxanne died in horrific ways, always out of his reach, always leaving him powerless. Each death was more brutal than the last, and each ti he returned, his despair grew.
But with every new life and death, Vergil began to realize sothing. Each ti he faced the deaths of Ada, Katharina, and Roxanne, he blad himself. He felt the weight of failure crushing him, but the lake was not just showing him their deaths; it was revealing sothing about him. It was his own guilt that kept him trapped in this cycle.
Vergil stopped, finally understanding that no matter how hard he tried to avoid or change the situation, he was always reliving the sa nightmare. The deaths were inevitable, just like his suffering.
The question echoed in his mind: Why do I want to be stronger?
The answer ca when he once again faced his wives dying before him, but this ti, he did not run in panic. He knelt beside them, accepting that at so point, he could not protect them from everything.
'Breaking the cycle of death... accepting death and... to hell with it.' Vergil finally understood that his desire to beco stronger wasn't just to protect the people he loved. It was to fill the void inside him, the insecurity, the fear of not being enough. He wanted to be stronger to redeem himself from his own failures, from his guilt.
He wanted to control the uncontrollable.
He realized that deep down, he was fighting against himself.
With this realization, the scene around him changed once more. This ti, he was not taken to a battlefield or a dark forest. He was in a shapeless, empty place. In the midst of this void stood a figure—himself.
Vergil stared at his own image. The reflection was covered in scars, a serious and weary expression. It was him, but at the sa ti, it wasn't. This version of him was a manifestation of his guilt, of his obsessive need to be stronger, to be invincible.
"Do you think getting stronger will solve your problems?" the image spoke in a cold tone.
Vergil didn't respond imdiately. He knew that this figure was an extension of his own feelings. For so long, he believed that strength would solve everything. That being powerful enough would make his fears, insecurities, and guilt disappear.
"I... I thought it would," Vergil said, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper.
"But that's not it, is it?" the figure replied. "You're afraid. Afraid of failing. Afraid of losing. And that strength you seek so desperately... it won't change that."
Vergil closed his eyes, letting the words penetrate his mind. He was tired of fighting himself. Tired of reliving the deaths of his wives, of reliving his failures.
"I want to be stronger," he murmured. "But... not to escape these fears. I want to be stronger to face them. To accept that I can't control everything, that failures happen, and that's part of being human..."
"You're not human anymore, boy." Viviane's voice whispered within him, and he opened his eyes.
"What you're experiencing now is rely a reflection of sothing that cos from within you. So remnant of an ancestor or sothing like that, this 'waste of ti' in battles you find tedious is just a reflection of soone who ca before you and considered the weak... weak."
"The contradiction that runs through your mind is an Ancestral Spirit that remained trapped in your lineage; that's why you're here. To cleanse your spirit." Viviane said as that version of him slowly disappeared.
"You want to be strong, but your first battles were dull, uninteresting... You were born strong but fought against the weak. That's why there's a contradiction in your essence." She said, appearing in front of him.
"It's ti to erase that weak human trait." She said with a mischievous smile.
Vergil felt a wave of frustration rising within him as Viviane's words echoed in his mind.
"Erase my human trait?" he repeated, his voice tense.
"And what is your purpose?" Viviane asked, with a teasing smile. "You say you want to face your fears, but when was the last ti you did that? When was the last ti you didn't run from your failures, but confronted them head-on?"
"The problem with mortals is this: you think too much, and while you change over ti, you develop complexes that affect your existence."
"Want to save your wife, Ada? Then it's better to start shedding that weak side and beco a God of War to do so." Viviane said as a light appeared in her hand.
"Being a Spiritual Ferreira tires , you know? Take it already." She handed him sothing... Sothing that he...
"Cut everything you see until you're free."
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