#berserk villain

[ladygriffith]

REVEALED! The real villain of Berserk: The Skull Knight

(The Skull Knight) (Thulsa Doom)

Kentaro Miura has mentioned that Berserk was inspired by Conan The Barbarian (Robert E. Howard).

Conan the Great is a fantasy novel by American writer Leonard Carpenter, featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in April 1990.

In Conan you have the kingdom of Aquilonia (Latin Aquilae means eagle, like Falconia means Falcon).

Conan rescues the dwarf Delvyn, jester to Balt. Delvyn, however, is not the fool he appears, but the secret instigator of the invasion and servant to Kthantos, an evil demon.

Delvyn feeds on Conan's anxieties about his advancing age, while heightening his concern over the amoral and ruthless Prince Armiro. 

Concerned by rumors Armiro has imprisoned his former lover, Queen Yasmala of Khoraja, he decides to liberate her and so gain intelligence on his foe.

He rides disguised across Koth to the Tarnhold, Khoraja's infamous prison fortress. Gaining entry through an underwater passage guarded by a giant water spider, he finds Yasmala indeed present, but in voluntary retirement. Armiro and some of his retainers, who had secretly followed Conan, burst in on the two; in the incursion, Yasmala's maid, Vateesa, is critically injured.  The enemies renew their combat, but Conan falters when Yasmala begs him to spare Armiro, now revealed as her son.

The demon god Kthantos, playing both sides, visits Yasmala, who is nursing the comatose Vateesa in their new prison. The demon attempts to possess Yasmala, a fate she evades only to fall to her death.

News of her demise reaches Conan he assumes Armiro responsible and guilty of matricide, kindling his wrath against the prince all the more. Kthantos then appears in a dream to Armiro with an offer of power; the prince is skeptical, but reports the dream to his subordinates as a holy visitation. 

Delvyn encourages him to envision himself emperor of the world with the godhood such a role implies, a notion previously implanted. After a disturbing dream in which Conan imagines himself drawn to his doom, he awakens to word that an army equal to his in size has entered the plateau from the Kothian side—Armiro and his host, guided by the prince's dream.

The antagonists face each other at the temple, which proves the lair of Kthantos. As the demon god hails them, Delvyn and Amlunia incite the two rulers to personal combat, the prize being mastery of their combined armies and the world under Kthantos's patronage. Both monarchs, realizing they've been used, are suspicious of the god but otherwise game, as each believes the other the instigator of Yasmala's death. Their confrontation is interrupted by Queen Zenobia, driven by chariot in relays all the way from Aquilonia. With her is the partially recovered Vateesa, now revealed as the queen's mysterious visitor. They reveal Conan that Armiro is not just Yasmala's son, but his own as well.

This balks Conan while inflaming Armiro to new fury as he vents on Conan the distress over abandonment that has afflicted him his whole life. The fight is on, and Kthantos manifests in triumph. Vateesa recognizes and denounces the demon as Yasmala's murderer, uncovering its machinations. At this the two kings put aside their quarrel and turn on Kthantos, toppling a shattered pillar into the well from which it issues. The dwarf Delvyn remains, released from his patron's spell, and is revealed in his true form—a giant twice the size of Conan. Shunned by humanity, he had studied ancient lore to achieve vengeance, which had led him to Kthantos. In his diminished guise he had played the fool, enticing kings to the demon's service until, in the troubled Conan, he had found what he deemed the perfect tool, to be first used and then supplanted. Now unmasked and thwarted, he challenges the king. Conan has his soldiers dispatch him.

Under truce, and still uncertain of their feelings for each other, Conan and Armiro resort to their advisers and diplomacy. A modus vivendi is envisioned in which both monarchs will pull back from Ophir and respect each other's spheres of influence, abandoning pretensions to sole mastery of the Hyborian world.

(Conan the Swordsman)

Kull of Atlantis or Kull the Conqueror is a fictional character created by writer Robert E. Howard. The character was more introspective than Howard's subsequent creation, Conan the Barbarian, whose first appearance was in a re-write of a rejected Kull story. Kull's mortal enemy is the sorcerer Thulsa Doom.

Thulsa Doom is described by Howard in "The Cat and the Skull" as having a face "like a bare white skull, in whose eye sockets flamed livid fire". He is seemingly invulnerable, boasting after being trampled by one of Kull's comrades that he feels "only a slight coldness" when being injured and will only "pass to some other sphere when his time comes". Thulsa Doom is the most authoritative and powerful sorcerer. One of his most notable abilities is shapeshifting, allowing him to claim various identities. Often impersonating someone else. He was able to hold his own in a sword fight against Conan or Kull.

Thulsa Doom is also seen as controlling the elements and being able to call up a storm out of a calm sea. While Thulsa Doom cannot be killed – even when pierced by a sword or thrown from a great height – he's vulnerable to steel being driven through his body, such steel acting to imprison him and prevent Doom from getting away.

Thulsa Doom is the prototype for many of the future undead evil wizards in Howard's stories. he is also called the 'Skull face' and he has foresight of the most possibilities.

He appeared when he and his legions invade the lands of Cimmerians for the first time, leading to a massacre of the people there including the young Conan's parents (the father was killed by Doom's dogs while the mother was decapitated by Doom with the father's sword). As the young Conan became a gladiator after years of slavery, Conan swore to avenge his people's tragedy by killing Doom.

Posing as the nobleman Ardyon, he forms an alliance with four rebels who actually dethroned the hero, and set him on a quest to regain his lost kingdom. Thulsa Doom sent members of his Black Legion to ambush Kull and Brule, though they won the fight. Thulsa observed the battle through a magic crystal. Kull and Brule's ship was later attacked by a sea serpent, with which Thulsa may or may not have had anything to do.

Thulsa Doom/Ardyon learned of the curse of Torranna (essentially, if a scarred man wore the crown and sat on the throne, he would be unable to ever leave the throne), which he determined to bestow upon Kull. Thulsa Doom drew Kull into Torranna and had him undergo a series of trials to gain the crown of Torranna. Thulsa Doom revealed himself to Kull, challenging him to one final battle. Thulsa Doom pulled Kull into a pocket dimension for their final battle. Kull managed to slash Thulsa Doom's face with his sword, but was ultimately overpowered by the necromancer. Thulsa Doom returned them both to Torranna, but Kull rallied long enough to push Thulsa Doom onto the throne and place the crown on his head. His face scarred by Kull, Thulsa fulfilled the prophecy and fell victim to the curse himself. Thulsa's power were drained by his curse as the city of Torranna collapsed, seemingly crushing him. Kull, luckily, escaped, and then returned to Valusia to retake his own throne.

Set in the time of King Arthur (though Arthur himself doesn't appear onstage) Thulsa Doom comes back to life after 18,000 years on a sinister deserted island. Recognizing Cormac Mac Art – an Irish adventurer who joined a band of Danish Vikings – as a reincarnation of his old enemy King Kull, Thulsa Doom immediately resumes his ancient vendetta and relentlessly seeks to kill Mac Art.

The Riddle of Steel In the beginning, we see Conan's father explain the Cimmerian lore concerning the ancient Giant Kings of earth stealing the forging secrets from the god Crom. Conan's father tells him that he must learn by himself the riddle of steel. Giving him a hint, he tells him that you cannot trust anything in this world, except for one thing; and, showing him the sword of steel he just forged, he says: "This you can trust." What he does exactly mean by "this" is not clear.

Years later, Conan tracks down and confronts Doom and his raiders. Doom tells him that he has abandoned the pursuit of steel, because flesh is stronger. To prove his point, he beckons one of his cult followers on a cliff to come to him. Enthralled by her faith, she steps off the cliff and falls to her death. This, the ability to lead loyal followers who are willing to die for you, is real strength for Doom, and he reproaches Conan for not recognizing where his own strength is. Then, in his final confrontation with Doom, as he is subjugated by Doom's mind control, Conan looks at the damaged sword and somehow frees himself and kills his enemy with one thrust of the still sharp sword. It is implied that, in that instant, he figured the riddle and the true answer to the riddle. Which these are, however, we are never told  Fans have come up with several explanations over the years. One is the Nietzschean idea that will is indomitable and stronger than both steel and flesh. 

“In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control, even over his own will. Man takes up the sword in order to shield the small wound in his heart sustained in a far-off time beyond remembrance. Man wields the sword so that he may die smiling in some far-off time beyond perception.”

What about Griffith / Femto then

Antagonist Villain

Antagonist vs. Villain

Griffith is the Antagonist of Berserk:

Antagonists are plot devices that create obstructions and challenges for your protagonist, while villains are evil characters with malicious intent

A story’s villain is always an antagonist, but not every antagonist needs to be a villain

Often, antagonists are other characters who have their own goals and their own obsessions. Unlike the villain, they don’t necessarily take pleasure in causing the main character harm—they just happen to have desires that conflict with the protagonist’s desires.

Many antagonists are compelling characters in their own right, since they’re not necessarily bad people. They can even go through character development and grow throughout the course of the story.

Skull Knight is the Villain of Berserk:

The villain in your story is the character whose primary motivation is malicious destruction. They’re usually the main antagonist of the story, causing the biggest source of conflict for the hero. Many of them remain hidden until the finale or hide their true intentions to create a plot twist.

He gave Guts the cursed Berserker armor, feeding off of his life force for vengeance. His hatred and darkness is consuming his flesh and SK wanted to kill the moonlight boy, who had helped Guts not to lose himself and hurt his party.

His astral form prevented Guts from killing Casca and falling into madness. Skull Knight could foretell the future but didn't prevent the eclipse. He also tried to kill Femto to stop the birth of Falconia, the peaceful city for human race.

He started the cycle of revenge and sacrifice when he probably tortured the clergyman who transformed into Void who called the god hand upon him.

Clearly, Griffith was an innocent child before he was corrupted by the God Hand giving him a behelit.

Finale Skull Knight Theory

I think Skull Knight will be the End Boss of Berserk and Guts will have to fight him.

Using the power of the Yobimizu no Tsurugi (Sword of Resonance/Actuation), Skull Knight can cut through dimensions. Time is often referred to as the "fourth dimension" 

Guts will win against him and take Skull Knight's Sword. He will cut through the dimension and time travel to Griffith's childhood.

When the clock struck notice the flashing purple light which opens a dimension and Guts appears before Griffith?

You have the same purple hue when SK visits him and Casca. Also The SK's eyes have the hue.

In Conan you have Doom who looks a lot like the Skull Knight. In Conan in the end he is revealed to be the main villain and Conan has to fight him!

Griffith is torn between his dream which is the castle and Guts. HE CHOOSES GUTS and runs towards him. Meaning they will see through the manipulation of those who forced his destiny and defeat the God Hand as well as Skull Knight.

Griffith's love for Guts is the only thing keeping him from losing his humanity, and Guts's too. Griffith is no narcissist. He is misunderstood and manipulated. As he grew up, he was corrupted. A tragic character, whose true will was taken from him.

Great foreshadowing there. Guts will save Griffith set it all right this time! They will beat their fake destiny.

[lintsins]

just gonna leave this here.

If you’re wondering who the other two are, read this

(semi-related to my Bingqiu Jinlan City Reunion Weeb AU fic)

[paint-it-dead]

you, a regular berserk fan talking about griffith's transformation: ambition too great and continuous dissatissfaction with one's reality lead to the continous pusuit of unattainable, hollow dreams and ultimately, to the destruction of one's self

me, an intellectual: the eclipse is the berserk equivalent of conversion therapy.

[vad0n]

[fritzmonorail]

The four twinks of the apocalypse

[erens-princess]

♡ :: when they’re orphans and murderers with a tragic backstory 💋

[lcatala]

the three types of sci-fi: Blindsight: wouldn't it be fucked up if the universe had no meaning? Children of Time: wouldn't it be cool if the universe had no meaning and we get to find our own? Exordia: wouldn't it be fucked up if the universe had meaning?

[theladyeowyn]

female character meme: a female character in a male-driven series   ↳ Ilsa Faust (Mission: Impossible)

I’ve saved your life twice. I won’t be able to do it again.

[middlearthxsun]

The falcon of darkness light

Reblog if u wish to support a small artist :)

[defnotkanyewest]

Why are all the top 10 anime villains lists always just 5 mass murderers, 2 child abusers, a pedo, a rapist and a teenage volleyball player

[micolash-cage]

My take on the legendary Berserk scene where Griffith finds the egg of the king during the eclipse just moments before disaster

Sadly my toaster of a phone camera will never be able to do this piece it's justice 🥲

[hi-there-buddies]

Me, reading and watching Demon Slayer for the first time: Wow this is amazing

The anime community: it’s actually not tho. Demon Slayer is so mid

Me: Oh… I guess so. I was probably just caught up in the hype

Me, rewatching seasons 1-3, and watching season 4 as it comes out: This is the most entertaining thing in the world, actually

[swallowtail-ageha]

I cant believe reddit has reached the level of "marika has had to be raped by hornsent because berserk reference"

[conostra]

Griffith's Relationships

The White Hawk. The White Phoenix. The King of Falconia. The Savior. Femto. The Blessed King of Longing. Once, the greatest mortal to ever wield a sword. The bane of the Black Swordsman. The most beautiful man alive. Him with a stature nothing short of pure magnificence. You know him. You love to hate him. I’m talking about one of the greatest characters not just in manga, but in all of fiction: Griffith.

Griffith is one of many examples of how masterful Kentaro Miura was with a pen, be it pressing against a notebook or a panel. An incredibly written character, as complex as they can come, with some of the most complicated, deep, and tragic relationships I’ve ever seen put to any form of media.

Here, I’ll be discussing what is inarguably a core tenet of Berserk: Griffith’s relationships. With two exceptions, there is no dispute that Griffith’s relationships are the singular most important part of the media he resides in, there is no debate over whether or not they are still crucial parts of understanding both Guts’ disposition, and the world of Berserk. Griffith’s different approaches to interacting with those in his vicinity warps the very world itself, and his whims shape the very nature of the conflicts the protagonist engages in.

Here, in 6 parts, we will be dissecting Griffith’s most important relationships through Berserk, how they shaped him, and what they explain about who he is and how he got to where he is now.

Part 1: The Boy, and The Hawks

Part 2: The Governor.

Part 3: The King.

Part 4: Charlotte.

Part 5: The Wings of the Hawk (1)

Part 6: The Wings of the Hawk (2)

______________________________________________________________

Part 1: The Boy, and The Hawks

Throughout the story of Berserk, Griffith goes through many changes, some more drastic than others. But no change is more pivotal than the one caused by a certain young bird who flocked with him and the Hawks when he first started his journey. Before Guts, before Casca, Griffith was no one. He was a commoner, no more than a child, starting his own little group of misfit warriors to become… something. Whatever it was, surely, it must set him on the path to his dream. But to the others, whatever that something was did not matter. It was of no consequence to them whether that mystical something ever came into fruition. All that mattered was that Griffith was the one who was pulling them along with him into the smoke that obscured their immediate war-torn futures.

Among them was a young boy. Younger than Griffith, even. So young, he would even bring his toys onto the battlefield. A young boy who admired him from what he thought was afar, but in actuality could be only a few feet away at times. It was like admiring a star, or, as Griffith puts it, “the hero of some story.” A hero not too unlike the toy knight Griffith found one day in his satchel, no owner left to claim it, as he lay on the ground, blood pooling around him as it soaked through his bare clothes, no armor, merely a tunic and a dream. A dream to serve alongside Griffith. A dream to aid Griffith in achieving his dream, a small dream, a dream to aid another man’s story.

Griffith wondered, as he placed the boy’s toy back on his chest, whether, when he died, he felt comfort from his dream. Or, perhaps, did he die in agony, unable to achieve it? Was death the start of a new dream, or the end of all other ones? Was it even the boy’s dream that he felt as he slipped away? Or was it the dream Griffith imposed upon him? He did not know the answers.

But he knew one thing- that he could no longer idly hope for his dream to be achieved. He knew he could not simply throw enough numbers at the board, have enough fights, gain enough men, and maybe he’d get lucky, and his dream would simply fall into his lap. He would have to take initiative. He would have to work for his dream, would have to devote every waking moment, every sleeping moment, to the pursuit of that dream. 

One night, later on, upon returning to the castle, Casca finds Griffith with a man known for… having a particular taste regarding young boys. Later on, she finds him, bathing himself in a nearby river. He begins to quite literally tear into himself, ripping open his arm in a perfect metaphor for how he feels. He claims he has logically reasoned out that what he did was necessary in order to make sure that he gets the funds needed to properly helm a militia the size he will require. But this is only after admitting that he feels that he must be as filthy as those who follow him, because he does not deserve to be clean when his dream is smeared in the blood of thousands who follow his words.

Despite his supposed recovery from this mental break, and despite his claims, the scene of that young boy, dead on the battlefield, with his only belonging encapsulating the lofty ideal to which he held Griffith, broke him. It could have, should have broken any man who would be in the same situation. But it did not just break Griffith. It melted him down, only to reforge him again. That young boy pushed Griffith to do whatever it takes to achieve his dreams, and to accept that casualties will occur. It was a notion Griffith accepted, but not one he fully understood until it was there, laid bare in front of him, forcing him to either confront it, or to give up. And Griffith confronted it. And it warped him. As the story progresses, we see that Griffith is still affected by the death of this young boy, and that his blood still stains crimson all of Griffith’s decisions. 

Without this death, perhaps Griffith is content to simply grow the Hawks through skirmishes, through battle, and through battle alone, until another opportunity presents itself. Perhaps Griffith does not sleep with the old man. Perhaps Griffith does not engage in the activities he does later on in the story, assassinating rivals in his chase of his dream of a throne. Perhaps he does not pull Guts as his sole equal in the depravity he lowers himself to for his dream, sending him on an assassination mission where Guts has a realization of equal magnitude to his own. But Griffith does not recover from this spiral. Perhaps, if this child did not die as a result of Griffith’s own actions, perhaps The eclipse never occurs. Perhaps Griffith must work ten times as hard, it takes ten times as long, but perhaps Griffith does not become the false emotional stonewall he acts as. Perhaps he gains a new dream, perhaps he does not, but either way, perhaps he can have that journey with those he loves, he values, to keep him company.

And Griffith loves the Hawks. All of them. Perhaps not to the same degree, but for all of them, Griffith feels this same type of patriarchal, shepherd-esque obligation, with perhaps the exception of Guts, and Guts alone. He takes on the burden of making the hard choices, of putting himself through hell, to attempt to mitigate the harm they can potentially receive as much as possible. He bears the weight of every victory, every loss of every individual, all willingly given for the sake of his dream. He alone bears the cross of being the head of the Hawks, at every step of their journey.

And this makes his decision at the Eclipse all the more powerful. Some may think that Griffith made the decision because he did not actually care about the Hawks, those who would so loyally lay down their lives if he were to so much as ask. But no. The thing that makes Griffith’s decision to follow that through, to sacrifice all of the Hawks for the sake of his dream so sickening, so gut-wrenchingly despicable, is that he does care. He values each and every single life that was lost at the hands of the apostles, and the demons that began to ravage his party at his behest. He has to care. After all, the Behelit requires him to sacrifice whatever he values most in order to give him his chance at his dream. 

All this death and mayhem, yet underneath it all, it is the scarlet blood of a single child, barely younger than him, that tinges Griffith’s memory. 

[dadaonice]

Griffith's helmet from Berserk.

[maybeitsalivescribbles]

VH - Lost Soul

(tw: it’s backstory time for Vampire Hero, and it isn’t very nice. Lots and lots of torture mentions.)

Vampire Hero was in hell, although not for the reasons Villain thought.

According to his watch, he’d been trapped in this maze for hours. Amid the many gifts his vampire nature had given him, a sense of direction wasn’t among them. He’d tried to punch the walls, but that would have taken too long to burst through them. They were even thicker than the skull that had thought of such a stupid thing to build. What he could do was leaving a dent to make sure that yes, he’d been there before. He had his phone on him, but there was no wifi, so no way to use his GPS. He had very little battery left anyhow– he had emptied most of it to send his wife pictures of bats on his way, which was as far as he was concerned a very good and judicious use of it. All of that was already a bore, but to make the game even funnier, the labyrinth was full of traps.

Full of pathetic traps. The ground collapsed under his feet, rocks were falling on him, all of that accomplishing nothing – but it was annoying enough that it disrupted his concentration, preventing him to find a way out. That was not the main problem, though. There were screens everywhere, too high to reach, and Villain. Never. Stopped. Talking.

“What is good and evil ? Do you know for sure what the limit is ? Good is supposed to follow the law, but is the law always good ? Isn’t it pride to do what feels right ? You think you want to stop me, but aren’t you being selfish by doing what you want ?”

She’d kept going like that for hours now. Nails on a blackboard would have sounded nicer. Not only the words were as hollow as a dead snail, but the inflection of that pompous voice was unbearable. Vampire Hero was seriously tempted to hit his head against the wall to stop hearing anything, but that didn’t seem like it’d work in the long term.

At his limit, he stepped up, his lips pinched, and finally yelled back:

“Four words. Grow the fuck up.”

“That’s all you have to say ? You’re not much for philosophy.”

“You call that philosophy ? I hate to break it to you, but knowing that good and bad are social constructs is not some kind of genius insight. All I see is a kid yelling at me that she’s very smart. You don’t give a crap about all of this. You just want to prove to yourself how very superior you are.”

“Do you think you’re better than me ?”

“The bar is low.”

“Oh, because you’re good now ?”

Vampire Hero stopped dead in his tracks:

“Even before, I was better than you."

He raised his arms and bared his teeth, his voice loud:

"You think that you’re bad ? You’ve got nothing on me ! I lured people and made them dance with me over broken glass. I had them rot blindfolded in animal cages for days until they had to lick their own blood. I had cozy nights with them having a friendly little chat in the living room while I was drinking from a corpse, and they knew that if they broke they were next. I made them starve and eat their loved ones. And I loved it ! I loved all of it ! I loved the light dying in their eyes. I thought I was clever ! I am half the reasons you’re shaking at night !”

“Zdiiiiiiiingbonnng,” made the rock on Hero’s head. He sighed in exasperation and stopped talking, wiping gravel from his hair.

“I know about you.” said Villain. “The hero agency’s lackey. Aren’t you ashamed ? You were a great prince, once.”

“Actually, I never was really tall.”

“Go ahead, hide yourself behind this kind of childish retorts. But admit it: you’ve sunk low. You arrest people who weren’t caught like you and you bring them to the authority, like a good dog. Has it ever occurred to you how much of a failure you’ve become ?”

“No.”

“Then why did you stop ?”

“If I tell you the story, will you finally shut up ?”

“Perhaps.”

“Worth it.”

Vampire Hero jumped over a couple of spikes, groaned when he realized that his jeans had a new hole, and said:

“Once upon a time, asshole, I was living happily in my castle all alone. I was rich, I was immortal, I had everything I wanted, and what I wanted was a lot of toys.”

He glanced around him, noticed nothing that indicated he was on the right path, and sighed.

“By toys I mean humans, of course. I chose among the prettiest, kindest, bravest, and I tortured them to death. I hurt them until they didn't have anything to break. I was good at it. I experimented things that would give you and all of you so-called Supervillains nightmares for years. But, you know. Decade after decade, still doing the same thing – I was getting bored. I felt empt- aw man, a dead end again ?”

He turned on his heels, swearing. That was obviously the wrong way to solve his problem. The walls were smooth and impossible to climb, so it had to be arranged. He caught a rock and throw it against the hard surface with a little more strength than necessary.

“Well, anyway. I heard there was a great conqueror who wanted the world. I made my first travel since decades, by curiosity. I wanted to see by myself who could challenge me.”

“And you fought him and you lost ?”

“I told you to shut up. I met her, and not long after I was her lucky, lucky husband. I never had her ambition, but of course I supported her. She encouraged my own little hobby in return, so I became her special torturer. My life was even more perfect, and there was this void inside me, and I hated it, and I didn't understand it. And what happened happened. I tortured the wrong person.”

“Define wrong ?”

“It was the daughter of a vampire hunter.”

“A poor choice.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. The guy was really good at his job. He was already pissed off because of the world-conquering plan, but after I did that, well, he cursed my wife and I – oh, enough with this.”

Punctured by rock impacts, the wall in front of him wasn’t so smooth anymore. Vampire Hero took a run-up, jumped and landed on the top of it. He had a nice view on the labyrinth now. For the first time, he took the right direction.

“ That’s cheating,” complained Villain.

“I don’t care.”

“What then ?”

“What then ? I had a bad century. The hunter couldn't kill me, so he drank my blood to prolong his own life and tortured me. He got good at it, too. I felt what I’d made the others feel, but only at first – after ninety years it was back to nothing. I was 300 years old and reality was fading. I was a leech. I hadn’t made a thing for myself.”

“You mean you went soft because of a little torturing?”

“No. I got old. When you have a couple of centuries, this torture-people-to-death shit doesn’t have the same kind of kick anymore. You try to get creative, but it doesn’t help. You feel nothing. So there’s nothing else you can do but stop. And speaking of stopping, it’s your turn.”

Vampire Hero was now at the center of the labyrinth. He jumped to a silver door, decided he was too done with the whole thing to use the knob, and broke it open.

Villain turned towards him, a small smile on her face, and opened her arms in a welcome gesture:

“Behold, vampire ! This room have been made of silver walls and floor. You won’t be able to enter without squirming in agony and -

Vampire Hero stepped in. Villain braced herself for his cries of pain, but there was none. He still looked bored out of his mind. There was a long silence.

“That’s – that’s not possible.”

Hero laughed. A slow, sinister laugh that made Villain’s eyes open wide.

“What are you ?” she whispered. “You can’t be a vampire. You should be crawling on the ground.”

“Don’t you listen ? I told you I’ve been tortured for decades. You know what an immortal body does when it regenerates back for the hundredth time ?"

He pointed to himself. There was a subtle change in his appearance. He still looked like his unimpressed self, but his usual lightness was replaced by something much darker. It was his eyes. Staring into them was like gazing into some horrible, nameless abyss. There was nothing human about them. They could only belong to some ghastly creature who'd lived centuries, not particularly nice ones.

Vampire Hero chuckled, and Villain shuddered.

"It gets tougher," he only said. "I’ve lost touch and taste. I feel nothing. Nor warmth or cold, and certainly not pain. My body is cut from the outside world. There's not much that feels real to me. You know what it is?”

He walked towards Villain, who took a step back and said:

“I hope you realize you’re monologuing yourself.”

“Habits die hard. I want to go back tonight and kiss my wife on the top of her head, just in the middle. It’s our habit. That’s all that matters. If I have to be on this side to support her, so be it. I don’t care about evil or good, and it won’t prevent me to eat your vocal chords if you’re off again. So, are you going to keep talking or finally shut the hell up ?”

“You know what, I think I’m good.”

*

Vampire Hero is a recurring character. His job is to troll current villains. Check the Vampire Hero Masterlist or Tag for more snippets with him.

Or back to Hero x Villain Masterlist.