I Already Hate This World!

[Author's Note:

IT'S ELDEN RING! I finally got the next chapter out for this story! For those of you worrying about the next chapter of my story Monster Girl Quest Eeveelution, I'm hoping to get the next chapter for it done either tonight or by tomorrow.

For inspiration for this stories and the scenes it will contain, I've been listening to songs maybe by the artist on YouTube known as Aviators, more specifically his song Godhunter. I recommend listening to it!

Anyway...ON WITH THE STORY!]

***

When the Universal Will of the Elden Ring Universe felt that a new existence was being integrated into itself, it not only acknowledged his existence, but was even delighted to have him merge with its greater self.

After trillions of years of watching the Outer Gods, powerful beings that were just a few steps lower than itself in terms of power, impose their will on the innocent souls that inhabited the worlds within it, the Universal Will was not pleased with the way things were turning out. However, as an abstract entity on an even higher plane than them, the most it could do was slowly change the rules of the universe to put the Outer Gods at a disadvantage. After countless years and rebirths of the Universe it watched over, the most it had accomplished so far was subduing the weaker ones, while the more powerful ones could still send emissaries and vassals to do their bidding.

Without a big change, it would likely be a few hundred more cycles before the Universal Will got the result it desired.

Now, though, it had a Conceptual Spirit to add to the board, and one whom embodied Revenge at that. From what the UW had examined of his soul, he was bound by its definitions of right and wrong, being wholly incapable of causing harm beyond what is deserved. What really caught the UW's attention, though, was his ability to not only return any type of damage to the one who caused it, but for it to also be PROPORTIONATE. He'd be capable of giving the Outer Gods a taste of harm they caused, without them being able to stop him.

With all of this in mind, the Universal Will went about imparting all of the knowledge it believed would be necessary for the teenager's new position as a Spirit of Revenge, as well as changing the boy's appearance and name to suit his new purpose.

His name would become Nemesis, or Nem for short. Despite this being the name of a female goddess from one of the mythologies of the boy's old world, it fit the best, as she was the Goddess of Retribution. It also matched with how he would be the enemy of all of the Outer Gods.

As for his body, it was a simple choice. It made him of average height, at about 5'9, with snow-white skin and shoulder-length hair, representing the purity of his purpose. Contrastingly, his irises would be so dark that they almost merged with his pupils, signifying how he could see evil in anyone who had it within them, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. As a finishing touch, he was given two wings, one as white as his skin and the other as black as night, whose wingspan stretched out to eight feet and could fold up comfortably against his back. The reason for these? Surprisingly enough, they were to fit in better with the more powerful denizens of the world, as all of the Gods and Demigods had similarly interesting appearances.

For his wardrobe, the Universal Will determined that Nemesis would not be needing anything too bulky or defensive. Any enemies that couldn't one-shot him would have the wounds they inflicted returned to them; while those who COULD instantly kill him were pointless to defend against in the first place, and could serve as experience for him to learn how to dodge. So, the UW gave him clothing reminiscent of what he regularly wore in his old life: A hooded jacket, t-shirt, jeans, socks, and tennis shoes. All of them were white with black designs, such as the outlines of wings on the back of his jacket and the laces of his shoes, and also bound to his soul. The latter was mainly so they could mend, adjust to changes in his body (such as extending his wings), and manifest with his revivals so he wasn't naked upon coming back to life.

All that remained was to finish bestowing the information Nemesis would need to carry out his new purpose and the Endless Task given to him before being transmigrated. It didn't take the Universal Will long to settle on the best way to introduce the new Spirit to the world he'd find himself in upon waking up. If it had a face, it would smile at the plagiarism it was about to commit in relation to Nemesis' old Universe.

***

The boy formerly known as Jackson Whit had thought he was prepared for whatever process assimilation into a new Universe would entail. More specifically, he was prepared for pain. Putting aside the absolute hell the last month of his life had been, he was used to agony on multiple levels, from light bruising to shattered bones. It came with having an abusive family.

Fortunately for him, there was no physical pain whatsoever involved in his transmigration. The Isekai Department of the SRAC had long since put safeguards into place that would numb the clients transferred to other Universes, preventing them from experiencing the utter torture of having their soul deconstructed and reconstituted into a shape that would fit into their new world. And that's just the ones who don't have a Species Reassignment in their transmigration package. Needless to say, they learned their lesson after the first few psychological breaks their clients experienced.

So, the boy technically didn't feel even the slightest bit of discomfort in his incorporeal body as he was reincarnated as a Conceptual Spirit. No, the problem came with the rush of knowledge that came with the integration.

Scenes played out before his eyes in rapid succession, yet they burned themselves into his mind. Battles were waged between humans, giants, demi-humans, and gods; civilizations rose, merged, and fell, with their citizens falling with them; and everything culminated into an entity he somehow knew to be called the Greater Will, an Outer God, sending a shard of its power down to the world below to stake its claim.

As he was trying to sort through all of the knowledge that had been seared into his brain, an aged voice echoed through his mind. It was accompanied by dramatic music and still images that depicted some of the scenes the Spirit had seen played out.

***

(A/N: I recommend reading this while listening to the intro to Elden Ring, either using the game itself or YouTube. I'm essentially copying it word for word, until the last few lines, after all.)

The fallen leaves tell a story.

The great Elden Ring was shattered.

In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between.

Now, Queen Marika the Eternal is nowhere to be found,

and in the Night of the Black Knives, Godwyn the Golden was first to perish.

Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring.

The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering.

A war from which no lord arose.

A war leading to abandonment by the Greater Will.

Arise now, ye Tarnished!

Ye dead, who yet live.

The call of long-lost grace speaks to us all.

Hoarah Loux, chieftain of the badlands;

The ever-brilliant Goldmask;

Fia, the Deathbed Companion;

The loathsome Dung Eater;

And Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-knowing!

…

And one other. Whom grace would bless for the first time.

A Tarnished in name only.

Cross the fog, to the Lands Between

to stand before the Elden Ring.

And become the Elden Lord.

***

As the voice faded away, the teenager was once again left in the empty void. It didn't take him long to realize that the download of information had continued throughout the cutscene, and had even stopped near the end. He now had all of the knowledge the Universal Will determined was necessary for him to start his new life.

He now knew of his destination: the Lands Between. A Land made up of many environments, and inhabited by creatures both amazing and horrifying. A place once ruled by a Goddess, appointed to her position by the Greater Will, yet now lay in ruin. A culmination of battlegrounds where her demigod children fought for the right to take the throne.

A new name was given to him, as well: Nemesis. His memories had been altered so that he could no longer remember his old one, but that was fine. He wasn't particularly attached to his old name, anyway. Or his old body, for that matter. They only reminded him of his terrible family, anyway.

As for his new body, he sent a thanks to the Universal Will for giving him a complete set of memories pertaining to how it looked, felt, and how to operate the new appendages and powers. He wasn't exactly keen on the idea of taking time to examine his body and its features, when he was now aware of the kind of deathtrap the world he was being sent to was. Sure, he could revive after death, but that didn't mean he WANTED to.

The only thing that disappointed him was the fact that his wings were useless for flight. They could help him glide, and possibly be mounted with special blades or other metal bits for battles, but his body was too heavy for them to be of any use for actually flying.

It was just as he was starting to speculate on whether or not the magic in the Lands Between could help him with this, that his transmigration was completed. The sensation of going from floating in a senseless void to suddenly being subjected to all senses at the same time was enough to make him take a step back, holding one of his hands up to his head.

"Damn," he muttered to himself, idly noting how his voice echoed around him. "Could've given me a bit more of a warning."

Luckily, there was very little light in whatever location he'd been transported to, so he wasn't temporarily blinded as he blinked open his eyes. He was standing in what looked like a run down church. There was an altar behind him of a faded statue of a woman in robes Dust and mold covered almost every inch of the area, from the scattered chairs, to the rotten support beams that somehow kept a wooden walkway elevated on the left side, and even extending to the large hole in the ceiling that gave the teenager a perfect view of the dark, cloudy sky above. The sorry state of the building even extended to patches of grass and bushes that were growing out of the missing chunks of the stone floor, spiderwebs covering the spare planks of wood that were lying around, and the randomly placed bookshelves positioned along the wall whose books had long since decomposed.

Whereas most people would be confused over where they were in this situation, Nem was perfectly at least somewhat aware of his location. This was primarily due to the fact that after taking a look around and soaking in the environment, a memory was triggered in his mind that gave him the name.

"The Chapel of Anticipation," he mused out loud. Unfortunately, the name was literally the only piece of information he received. A quick re-examination of his mind and memories drew him to the conclusion that, while he did have all of the information he needed about the world downloaded into his brain, the majority was locked behind multiple mental barriers that would only release said information when he encountered specific locations, animals, and enemies.

How was he so certain of this? Well, the Universal Will had decided to be cheeky and sneak of confirmation of his suspicions behind those barriers as well, only to be triggered by him coming to that conclusion.

It was at that point that the Spirit determined that the Universal Will was a smartass, and should only be referred to with respect on sparing occasions.

With his introspection and environmental examination completed, Nemesis decided it was about time he left this run-down church. Not only because he was at least 50% certain it could collapse on him at any moment, which he wouldn't be able to heal himself from because it was classified as random environmental damage, but also because he was pretty sure he smelled a corpse nearby and didn't want to wait around for it to decompose.

A dozen steps toward that door was all it took for said corpse to come into his field of view. It looked to be a woman in a filthy robe, skirt, and fillet (he had no idea why the thing on her head was called that.) She was seated on the ground up against the wall, her throat slit and her head lolling to the side. Whoever had offed her hadn't even had the decency to close her eyes after doing the deed.

In front of the body is a message, etched into the ground with glowing letters.

[Though the path be broken and uncertain, claim your place as Elden Lord!]

Nem highly doubted that the woman was the one who wrote this. Logic dictated that the words were written by whoever it was that killed her. Though he didn't know her, he did do her the justice of reaching out and sliding her eyelids shut.

"May you rest in peace," he whispered, before turning away and heading to the large set of double doors.

A firm and prolonged push was enough to open the wide, revealing the rest of the area to him as he stepped out into the open night air. It only took a single quick look around the area to conclude that it was just as rundown as the inside of the chapel. What looked like the shattered pieces of a stone guardrail lay strewn out across the overgrown floor. Tattered banners with a crest he couldn't quite make out sprouted up like trees every few yards. Wooden boxes lay in various states of disrepair in the corners. And that was just the immediate space around him.

Another memory triggered, drawing his attention inward. The Chapel of Anticipation wasn't just in poor shape, it was also situated on a small group of rock outcroppings that towered as tall as mountains. They were connected by wood and rope bridges and wooden staircases, as all of the stone methods of traveling had crumbled. A massive statue of a soldier of some kind extended even further into the sky on the next outcropping over, and a smaller one could be seen in a courtyard below it that looked like a woman being crucified, but without a cross.

The cherry on top had to be the fact that there was no obvious method of traveling from the Chapel to the mainland that he could spot in the distance through the fog. In fact, what he could see was actually a massive castle the likes of which he'd never seen before.

"Why couldn't I have been dropped off there?" he grumbled to himself. It would definitely make more sense to put him somewhere that wasn't stranded in the sky.

Letting out a sigh, Nem determined that it wasn't worth it to complain. If he didn't get a move on, he might fall victim to something that actually WAS able to reach this place somehow, probably with flight. With that in mind, he made his was down the only stairs available, despite the fact that they were obviously unstable and didn't have any measures in place to keep him from falling into the abyss. As such, he made sure to stay as close to the wall as possible.

Next came the rope bridge that swayed in the wind over what might as well have been a bottomless abyss. Let it be known that while he was definitely cautious when navigating the obviously unsafe environment, he didn't feel much fear. Compared to the shit he'd been through in weeks leading up to his demise, death by falling wasn't as terrifying as it should've been.

He was more interested in taking in the atmosphere. Upon reaching the end of the bridge, his eyes strayed to the mostly-baren trees that dotted the grass-covered stones. The eerie way they swayed with alongside the yellowed leaves of the nearby bushes gave off a creepy atmosphere that he could appreciate. Paired with the large archway just a few dozen yards away, leading to a large courtyard with the statue of the woman, it definitely gave one the feeling that they were about to encounter something terrifying.

In fact, Nem had been introduced to enough video game tropes by his friends to connect the dots to this most likely being what they would call a 'Boss Arena." If he was reading things properly, he would likely meet a large and/or incredibly powerful monster the moment he stepped through the archway. Unfortunately for him, there was no way to get around it, as the walls that enclosed the courtyard extended all the way to where the ground dropped off into the abyss.

"It's not like I can just refuse," he groaned, slouching his shoulders as he begrudgingly passed through the archway…

…

…

…and encountered nothing.

It honestly surprised him that nothing was jumping out at him and trying to rip him limb from limb. He briefly looked over his shoulder to confirm that nothing was there either, and the archway was clear of any barriers that would prevent him from turning back. Every fiber of his body was still screaming at him that this was a trap, so he proceeded as slowly and carefully as possible.

It was when he'd reached the middle of the courtyard, and was beginning to think that he was just being paranoid, when his suspicions were confirmed.

A creature left its hiding place behind the statue of the woman, leaping into the air with a level of agility that did not fit its size. It landed directly in front of the teenage Spirit, and would've impaled him on the sword it had forcefully lodged into the cobblestones if he hadn't instinctively taken a step back. It was covered in a large sheet of cloth with intricate designs woven into it.

Upon a closer inspection of the creature in the brief moment he had to do so, Nem was able to see that while it was just one monster, it was made up of multiple bodies. Human and animal bodies, all sewn together and merged in ways that would normal only feature in nightmares. Just the arms holding its two swords and shield were composed from at least three different arms each, allowing them a much greater reach. Looking at its many legs revealed feet, claws, and hooves. Judging from the way the fabric on its back writhed, it was highly likely there were even more limbs that were hidden beneath it.

"I fucking knew it!" Nem shouted, dramatically pointing at the Grafted Scion.

He would've basked in the fact that he was right for longer, but the monster quickly wrenched the sword from the ground and turned lunged toward him. Both of its blade swung in unpredictable patterns, while another arm slammed its shield into the ground. Tremors vibrated from the shield's point of impact, causing Nem to slightly lose focus as he tried to stay standing.

It was only after one of the blades slashed through his right side, splashing blood onto the cobblestones and shooting pain through his mind, that he remembered one of the easiest dodging methods he'd gained with his new life: his wings. The white and black wings erupted from his back and beat powerfully, sending him a few yards back and out of the way of the creature's combo attack.

Knowing that time is of the essence, Nem placed his left hand over the wound and mentally activated his powers for the first time. Whisps of black energy seeped out of the wound, the gash itself rapidly closing up as the blood he'd spilled reversed course and re-entered his body. Within five seconds, he'd returned to full health, only now he was holding a writhing ball of pitch black plasma.

It was fortunate that this was such a quick process, as the Grafted Scion had already finished its wild attacks by this point and was already skittering its way over to him, all of its weapons poised to kill him with extreme prejudice. At the halfway point, it made a short jump forward and spun in mid-air, its dual swords coming around to cleave its victim's head, torso, and legs into three pieces.

Nem didn't wait to get injured this time, diving beneath the monster and once again dodging outside of its reach. He wasted no time after getting back to his feet in crushing the sphere in his hand. This, in turn, released the energy, which rocketed toward the Grafted Scion. It impacted mere moments before the abomination finished its rotation, and the results were immediate.

An inhuman scream, so loud that the shockwave it creates sent loose stones and debris flying, erupted from whatever mouth the creature might have had hidden on its body. The sound of flesh being ripped open could be heard from beneath the fabric covering the beast, and a torrent of blood gushed out onto the floor of the courtyard. Since the damage transferred through the use of Nem's powers was proportionate, and the Grafted Scion was at least ten times the mass of him, the wound inflicted as a result was much larger than it was on the teenager.

Not wanting to give it time to recover, the Spirit flapped his wings to rocket himself forward this time, readying a fist. He was hoping that its sins, or maybe the sins of whatever poor creatures were fused together to create it, were enough to do a decent amount of damage.

Unfortunately for him, this attack became a double-edged sword when the abomination regained its bearings and saw him coming for it. It thrusted one of its blades forward for him to impale himself on, but despite seeing this, he was going too fast to stop mid-attack. The most he was capable of doing was slightly shifting his body so that it wouldn't pierce anything too important.

SCHLICK! BANG!

The collision was more excruciating than the boy expected it to be. The ornamental sword tore through his skin, shattered through two of his ribs, and just barely missed his heart by a few millimeters. While it didn't pierce his heart, it did end up stabbing through his lung and out of his back, immediately making it harder to breath.

The Grafted Scion wasn't any better off, either. With the number of Tarnished that composed its body, and the amount that it had slain in this very courtyard was well into the double digits. As such, the bones in its arms fractured from the force with which Nem skewered himself upon the teenager reaching the hilt, allowing him bypass the range usually granted by the arm and land a solid punch on its greater mass. It was subsequently launched across the courtyard, directly into the statue.

While agony lanced through the entirety of the monster's entire being, it was still able to stand back in and get right back to the battle. Torn ligaments, broken bones, and ruptured organs made no difference to it, as it had plenty of backups within its hulking form. Pain was but a small price to pay for the fulfillment of its purpose.

Nem, on the other hand, was looking around as he once again drew the damage from his body and into his palm. All of his observations so far hinted at the fact that this was a fight of attrition on both ends, as logic dictated that limbs weren't the only body parts that this creature had in excess. As such, even if he kept sending his injuries back to it, the battle would be much longer than he'd prefer it to be.

It was impossible for him to escape through either of the archways, as they were now covered by what looked like a mixture of sickly yellow and black gas. 'Dividing Mist,' a stray piece of information that was released into his brain told him it was called.

'Not helpful,' he internally growled, glaring at the creature as it prepared to rush him again, even though he hadn't even finished healing his own lungs.

He was only halfway through with removing the damage left by the sword when it leaped into the air and pointed both its blades and shiel downward. It looked like it didn't care whether it skewered or crushed him, at this point. It just wanted him to be a stain on the ground.

Not wanting to aggravate his wound by moving his torso around too much, he relied on his wings once again to get him out of the danger zone. His split focus did make it so he wasn't able to make it very far beyond the radius of the slam attack, which left him wide open for the amalgamation of bodies to swipe sideways with its shield, knocking him through the air and over to the left side of the courtyard. This side didn't have a wall to enclose it, though; only a ledge that dropped off into the abyss.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" the teenager shouted as he skipped across the hard stones, picking up scrapes, bruises, and a few nasty rashes from when his skin skidded across the stone. Luckily, his momentum only carried him to the edge and not over into the empty sky, but that was a cold comfort with the amount of suffering coursing through him. "Has anyone ever told you that you're an ASSHOLE?"

Although it was too feral to understand speech, the Grafted Scion felt satisfied with the amount of harm it caused the boy. This was the longest any new Tarnished had lasted against it since it was placed there to stop them. As such, it slowly approached the collapsed form of its fallen opponent, seeming to revel in the sense of satisfaction that came with finishing off such a worthy opponent.

Despite its prowess in battle, the creature exhibited its lack of true intelligence while doing this, as it gave Nem the perfect amount of time to remove all of injuries and gather them all into a much larger sphere than the last one. He hid it by curling up around it, waiting to catch the monstrosity off-guard.

It was as the creature was standing over him and about to plunge one of its swords into his skull that he used both of his hands to crush the orb, releasing the flood of black energy from its confined state. The Grafted Scion even able to register what it was seeing before its body absorbed the mass of concentrated suffering. It collapsed as its main sets of legs were crippled by countless fractures. One of its primary set of lugs was also torn wide open, leaving it struggling for breath. It may have only needed a few brief seconds to switch out the functional organs with the backups in its body, but that was just enough for Nem to strike.

With the monster standing directly over him, he spotted a head with long hair and a circle of gold that looked like a headband to him. Reaching out with both of his hands, he dug his hands into the abomination's face and glared directly into its eyes as they snapped to him in shock.

"Got you know, Jackass," the teenager grinned maliciously. "Memory is fleeting, but Sin is Eternal. Taste the pain of your victims, and know true horror. RETRIBUTION!"

Just like that, the light faded from the Grafted Scion's eyes and it stopped moving altogether. It wasn't dead, as it was still breathing after changing its primary set of lungs, that was the only sign that it was still alive. Its mind was now trapped in a hell from which it could not escape until it had lived through not only the pain, suffering, and death that it had caused in its current state, but also the actions taken by the beings that made it up. If left alone like this, it would likely stay comatose for months as it was slowly tortured.

Fortunately for the monster, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, it wasn't going to survive the night to experience everything. With Nem having crawled out from beneath it and glaring at its immobile form with no small amount of hatred, its doom was assured.

Contrary to what most may believe, the hate in the boy's eyes was not due to the fight he'd had with the creature up until this point. Instead, it was due to what it saw in the abomination's mind. You see, when he uses 'Retribution' to make a being relive its sins from the victims' side, he also receives a brief glimpse of what some of those sins are. Not all of them, but enough to get an idea of how terrible the being is.

The sheer amount of carnage, bloodshed, and murder of innocents he saw while activating his power on this monstrosity had set him off. Sure, it was an amalgamation of unwilling warriors forced to take up this position, but that didn't cool the fire within his heart. If he left it to suffer as it was, there was a high likelihood that it would just go back to its previous task, having learned nothing like the feral animal it was.

With his mind set, Nem walked around to the other side of the collapsed monster. He then reared back his right foot, before lashing it out and kicking the abomination off the ledge he'd previously been as risk of falling over and into the bottomless expanse below. It wasn't conscious to make a scream of terror as it fell to its doom, but the sight of it plummeting was enough to soothe his rage.

Letting out a sigh, he turned around to see that the Dividing Mists had disappeared from the archways. "Are you serious?" he thought out loud, looking at the sky as if asking the Universal Will itself. "Is this going to be a regular thing?"

Of course, he received no answer.

Huffing in annoyance, he grumpily made his way to the archway on the other side of the courtyard, grumbling under his breath about how stupid this world was turning out to be already. He didn't even stop to notice the many tombstones piled high on either side of the stairway and grass landing, continuing past them and even over another rope bridge. It wasn't until he reached a dead end in the form of the path ending in a sudden drop off that he was brough out of his grumbling.

"What the hell?" he mumbled, looking around to see if there was another way to go. "It this it? It just ends here?" He took a few more steps toward the edge, looking over it into the abyss. "Is there supposed to be some kind of teleportation spell to take me away? A Bird? Maybe –"

CRACK!

The sudden sound caused him to look down, now noticing the spiderweb of cracks that were appearing in the stone beneath his feet. In fact, they were spreading too fast for him be able to safely jump back to solid ground in time.

"I fucking hate this world," he stated with utter disdain as the ground below him crumbled, sending him spiraling down into the empty abyss.

***

[Author's Note:

Sooooooo...how did you like it? This is my first time writing a fight scene like this one. For MGQE, it's usually just Kevin beating the everloving shit out of whatever monster girl tries to fuck him, so it's almost always one-sided. I hope the scene was to your liking!

Leave a comment to say whether you laughed, smiled, sympathized, or whatever]