On storm-lashed afternoons, I always think back to that day, when the "Butcher of Novigrad" took up a steel sword and carved his way from Glory Gate all the way to Lacehalls.
Bodies piled up like hills and blood ran in streams, but he just kept raising the blade and bringing it down, raising the blade and bringing it down, raising the blade and bringing it down, without blinking once.
Excerpt from On the Origins of "Bloodsoaked Avenue."
…
Even from far away, you could see the chaos around Glory Gate, the fleeing crowds, the wailing, the panic. And the closer Victor got, the less he wanted to get any closer at all.
Especially after several residents running straight toward him caught a close look at his face, collapsed on the spot in sheer terror, and promptly pissed and shat themselves.
$!%/#(@^[-&+)*.
No amount of profanity in the world could express the helpless misery in the witcher's heart at that moment. He even had the urge to turn around and run.
If he did not catch this doppler today and it escaped, he could forget ever setting foot in this city again. He would be branded with some lovely title like "Ripper" or "Beheader," then end up strapped to a stake and burned alive by the Temple Guard.
He reached into his herbal satchel, grabbed a scrap of cloth, and tied it over his face. In a Novigrad crawling with mobsters, that kind of getup was nothing unusual. More importantly, it would spare him from being greeted along the chase route by the screams of his freshly minted admirers.
His sprint finally stopped at Glory Gate. Drawing a deep breath, Victor felt a raw sting in his eyes, because the scene was too awful to look at.
That doppler had gone completely mad.
It was truly hacking down anyone it saw.
Thank the rain, which had sent many people home early. Even so, one glance was enough to see piles of corpses and streets running red. It was obvious that the moment anyone stepped within range of its blade, it simply struck.
A great many of the dead should not have died, and certainly not here.
Tracking it was not difficult at all.
All he had to do was follow the bodies and the blood.
This was Glory Lane, the King of Beggars' territory. The very place where Victor had lived these past two weeks, the streets he walked every day. And now the doppler had painted them in blood and filled them with weeping and screams.
He let out a long breath and kept moving.
As he ran, the fragments of emotion spilling from the roadside reached him clearly.
"That madman! Lord Babu already went after it. He'll chop the bastard to pieces for sure."
"Mommy…"
"Dad! Please… please don't leave me!"
"My child! My child!"
The masked boy ran past as if he had heard nothing at all.
…
Guided by the crying and the wails, Victor soon began to hear the clash of steel. From a distance, he caught sight of the doppler's Van Helsing outfit. It had been cut off just short of Lacehalls, where Babu Tabard and six of his men were blocking its way.
By the time Victor reached them, he discovered that besides the civilians, four bodies already lay around the battlefield, all of them dressed like the King of Beggars' men.
The doppler's Rinnegan spun in endless rotation. Its steel sword flashed high and low, and with nothing but that single blade, it had somehow turned the tables and was suppressing the larger group instead.
Victor watched only a few moments before realizing the truth.
The doppler's swordsmanship had improved dramatically.
Its strength and reaction speed had not changed. Those were still within the same range Victor himself could reach after drinking potions.
It was relying purely on terrifying swordsmanship to fight many against one.
Babu roared, "Victor, have you lost your mind? You've killed this many people? You're not getting away from this!"
Zerrikanians had a reputation for cruelty too, but that was cruelty toward rival gangs, cruelty toward those who crossed them. Running through the street and slaughtering random people was well beyond even Babu's line.
The doppler did not answer.
It simply kept that blissful smile on its face while its steel sword moved with smooth, effortless precision. Turning lightly to carve out a sliver of space, it cut another of the King of Beggars' men across the throat, opening it from ear to ear in a grotesque smile.
Victor did not remove his mask.
He simply drew his sword and joined the battle, intercepting the doppler before it could cut down the next man. Taking off the mask now would only create more confusion. Worse, he might get beaten to death by the hysterical crowd.
When the doppler had turned into Angoulême, it had received her memories and mimicked her thought patterns, but it had still retained a sense of self. It knew perfectly well who it was.
But now Victor could feel that whatever self had once belonged to the doppler was gone.
Nothing remained in its eyes except the craving for more slaughter and the ecstasy of carrying it out.
The masked newcomer had quick reactions and refined swordsmanship. With a sharp gesture, the saber-fighter ordered his remaining five men to fall back, then joined forces with the passing swordsman. Together, the two of them barely managed to hold the line.
But beneath the mask, Victor's expression grew darker and darker.
Compared with a short while ago, the doppler's swordsmanship had undergone a complete transformation.
Just earlier, it had nearly been overwhelmed by Victor and Angoulême attacking from front and back, leaving it almost no room to fight back. But now Victor and Babu together still could not do a thing to it.
And Babu was unquestionably a master among masters, a far greater fighter than Angoulême.
The alchemical potions had only allowed Victor and the doppler to push their physical bodies up to the level of a Zerrikanian. They did not improve technique.
Yet between the two times it had been mobbed, the only thing it had done was test its blade on people all along the way.
Which meant its swordsmanship could grow rapidly by killing?
If he let it go on like this, would it eventually butcher its way into becoming a true swordmaster?
Victor decided that question deserved to remain unanswered forever.
By all rights, the witcher world had no mystical path to mastery through slaughter. Killing more people did not make one's swordsmanship stronger. This was not necromancy.
And yet his copy seemed to be heading in exactly that direction.
Worse, it was never satisfied.
Realizing it could not kill Victor and Babu, it opened a gap and ran.
Victor was certain it was not trying to escape.
It just wanted to kill more.
It was running toward Hierarch Square.
…
The rain kept coming.
Waterlogged leather hindered their pace. To reach Hierarch Square from the north end of Glory Lane, they first had to pass through the Fish Market. Thankfully, with rain like this, the area should not be too crowded.
Then Victor spotted him in the distance.
Standing alone in the rain with an umbrella, blocking the road ahead, was Happen the Eunuch.
Most of the people in the Fish Market had already been cleared away. Evidently, Sigi Reuven had gotten the news and made preparations in advance.
To the west of the Fish Market lay Silverton, the Butcher Cleaver's territory, and so Umutai stood there in the northwest. To the east was some distance from Whoreson Junior's district in the Bits, but Boslaer was already waiting in the northeast.
What the doppler had done had enraged everyone.
The Novigrad "Big Four" had, without any consultation, all sent out their finest killers to put it down here and now. If the main force of the Temple Guard had not been stationed on Temple Isle, they likely would have arrived already as well.
The doppler charged straight north, aiming for the eunuch, who looked easiest to deal with.
Smiling, Happen brought his hands together with a clap. As he pulled them apart, a fireball the size of a cooking pot formed between them, and he hurled it at the doppler from point-blank range.
Victor knew that, in a certain sense, the doppler now was himself.
What the creature could do, he ought in theory to be capable of as well.
So he watched with absolute focus.
Either the doppler would die to that fireball, or it would show him how to use a sword against a mage.
At the instant the fireball struck, it twisted sideways almost ninety degrees, spinning twice in quick succession and forcing its way around the blast by a hair's breadth. Then its sword flashed out in a rising arc and split Happen cleanly in half from the middle upward.
The sight sent a chill through Victor's bones.
Speaking honestly, he knew he could not do that.
Not yet.
Then, like breaking glass, Happen shattered into glittering fragments. It had only been a mirrored image.
The eunuch reappeared at the doppler's flank and cast a second Binding Spell, but it dodged that too.
Umutai and Boslaer closed in at once, attacking from left and right together. Their swords sealed off every path forward and stopped it just outside the Fish Market.
That single instant of delay was enough.
Victor snatched a bomb from his satchel and roared, "Hold your breath!"
Then Shuddering Moon Dust came flying through the air and exploded above the murderer's head, releasing a great shower of silver powder.
While waiting in position, the three men to the north had seen the masked boy and Babu pursuing side by side. So when they heard the warning, these seasoned operators did far more than merely hold their breath.
They made sure to keep the enemy inside the danger zone.
Umutai threw a hand axe. Boslaer flicked out a throwing knife. Both were meant to limit the doppler's movement. Happen cast another spell into empty air, then shattered into a mirror image again to avoid the silver cloud.
The blast burst open with a sharp crack, and the silver powder rained down everywhere.
Wherever it touched the doppler, the surface began to bubble and hiss, losing color and melting away.
The others still did not fully understand what was happening.
Victor did.
Its mimicry was collapsing.
As it reverted toward its true form, it lost the physical qualities it had copied from Victor, along with the superior swordsmanship and the effects of the alchemy.
The silver powder did not harm dopplers in itself, because they were humanoids rather than monsters. But every part touched by silver would lose its disguise. It was a weakness their kind could never escape. Without it, humans would have had no way to identify them at all.
Still wearing the mask, bathed in silver dust, Victor walked up to the doppler.
Without its disguise, its true body looked like a crude dummy made of flour kneaded together with rotting mud.
Its irises should have been yellow, but now they were blood-red with madness and murderous intent.
It was insane.
Past saving.
There was only one mercy left to offer it.
Victor stepped through and delivered a turning side-cut.
The blade took the doppler's head clean off.
The headless body swayed once, then dropped to its knees and pitched forward.
With nothing said aloud, Umutai, Boslaer, Happen the Eunuch, and Babu Tabard moved as one, taking up positions at the four corners and surrounding Victor in the center. They had all heard the boy's voice. They had all seen that unmistakably familiar build. They could guess who stood before them now.
Victor let out a long sigh and pulled down the mask, revealing the face that all of them had wanted dead just moments ago.
He pointed at the muddy thing on the ground and explained quietly, "A doppler. A mad doppler. Rare, but not impossible."
The expressions of the four men shifted, but none of them said a word.
Then the synchronized tramp of boots closed in around them.
The Temple Guard had arrived.
Their leader was Captain Chappelle. A step behind him came Caleb Menge.
As he approached, the four men who had been watching Victor all bowed to Chappelle in perfect unison, then slowly withdrew without another word.
The captain lowered his head and stared at the doppler's corpse in silence. Beneath the sickly pallor of his face, a faint flush had begun to show.
After a while, he shook his head and simply turned away.
Caleb Menge stepped up beside the witcher.
"Mr. Victor, correct? Please come with me. There's a comfortable place nearby, with black tea and fresh rolls, well suited for sitting down and having a proper talk. We have a great many questions we'd like to ask you."
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