[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 64: May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor (Patreon)

Will was growing familiar with the trial’s teleportation, enough to make out the microscopic differences in the magic of it. Though this transportation wasn’t as obviously wrong as the one that had taken them into the sentience check, it was clear that the heavy corruption in the area that Will was being teleported out of negatively affected the magical process sending him to Main Challenge 2.

It didn’t make him wait, at least, though he could sense something interfering with his aura as he traveled. The sensation was a bit discomforting, but to his great relief, it didn’t get any worse than that.

The same couldn’t be said about the others who entered the arena with him, though. Before Will fully processed the rocky, artificial terrain he’d been teleported into, he saw the people.

Not all of them were immediately visibile in his current position, but Sen had been teleported with him, and through the famililar’s Thousand Eyes, Will watched as twenty-three competitors ranging from Bronze 8 to Silver 3 emptied their stomachs before getting their bearings.

The handful of silvers recovered more quickly than the bronzes, but all of them were experienced Users by this point, and within moments, everyone was taking in the situation together.

Will had considered trying to get an early attack off but had held off because he hadn’t been sure he could land a shot without corrupting anyone, and he much rather preferred a non-lethal approach to dealing with Earth’s finest. Any kill here would result in a place like Survivor Hill or even proper civilization like the cities in Australia losing their best defense against the monsters of the apocalypse.

Not attacking had been the right play. A thin, hazy forcefield blocked him into a thin space, and Sen’s eyes showed him that the same was true for all the other participants.

A small timer appeared in front of each person, ticking down from 15.

Great, Will thought. It’s a fair fight.

That wasn’t where he operated best, but he could easily make this unfair. 

He activated Time in a Bottle, effectively multiplying the amount of time he had to prepare by ten.

The terrain was a mixture of natural, craggly rock and obviously artificial metallic-looking cubes, as if the entire arena was a training facility in an FPS game. Sen’s eyes told him that the arena was dome-shaped. Will was near the center of said dome, and it stretched out for almost a quarter mile in each direction. 

The border of the arena was hazy and indistinct just like the fields penning Will in place, though their aura was more intense than the close-range walls of force. If this was going to be a battle royale type challenge, he assumed that the extra magic was going to make the walls close in on them as time passed.

Not being able to physically reach out of the box didn’t obstruct him at all. While he wasn’t passing mana into his phantasm, it was immaterial, and the box didn’t stop them, nor did it prevent him from making use of Sen’s eyes. Neither of them could move nearly as quickly as he wanted them to in the slowed time, but the fact that he could move them at all was a testament to their speed.

During the accelerated time, Will spread his phantasm out of the forcefield starting box, wrapping it around Sen, then sent groups of the eyes out towards each person. It took ten of the familiar’s eyes to create a perception cluster with enough sight to see through the darkness of the phantasm. With just under a thousand eyes in play, there was more than enough to send at least twenty eyes to each of the twenty-three other Users in this battle.

Sen’s speed was so great that even in the slowed time, Will was able to deploy the phantasm-covered eyes to each of the other Users in the arena with him. Since he couldn’t fine-control them at that range, he was forced to make the phantasm physical, which lost him some time because he couldn’t push Sen’s eyes through the surfaces between them, but the raw speed and fine control that his familiar had made up for that.

Others were preparing for the battle, it seemed, and many of them didn’t appear to have the same qualms that Will did. The bulk of the people in this round were human, but there were a few obvious standouts—three elves with more of an alignment towards electricity than any of the ones he’d seen before, a single earth elemental that looked like she’d been sculpted from marble, and a couple of humanoids that had the same aura signature as everyone from Earth but weren’t of races he recognized. 

That last group must have been amongst those who had swapped races during class selection. Will had to admit that he was impressed that he wasn’t the only one that had managed to make it in here without regularly abusing cores, but the lack of experience showed. None of the non-human participants who’d started out on Earth were above the peak of bronze, leaving Will as the single highest ranked non-core user to his knowledge.

Not counting the gold-rank cultists and Nynn, of course, but they were special cases.

As the timer ticked down towards zero, Will let his skill slip. During his subjective minutes of preparation, everyone else had been readying their weapons and skills, doing the same thing he had but on a much smaller scale.

The clock hit 0, prompting the magic surrounding all of the Users in the field to fade.

Everyone else hit the ground running, looking for cover and scanning the area around them for others. Will could see everything, so he just walked calmly.

The ring of adaptive shielding would protect his front, and he’d geared his ritual skill to protect himself from the most common forms of magical attack.

Skill: [Favored Element]

- Ritual (resistance).

- Cost: moderate mana.

- Casting Time: 10 minutes.

- Cooldown: 1 day.

Silver.

Allows you to pick one favored element and one hostile element. Until this ritual is no longer on cooldown, you gain extreme resistance to attacks using your favored element if they are of your rank or lower. If this resistance completely nullifies the damage you would have taken, you are instead healed proportionally to the power of the attack.

You take increased damage from the hostile element, but if an attack is made upon you using that element, your next attack against that enemy will be greatly increased in power.

[Augmented Resistance] (silver) - Your resistance ignores rank boundaries.

[Elemental Intuition] (silver) - If you do not pick a favored element, it will automatically select the most prevalent element in your area upon casting. This is currently aligned to Electricity.

Will had cast the ritual during the waiting period in the first room, hoping that he would get something useful. It looked like the most common element shared among the top 100 Users in the competition had been electricity for some reason. He wouldn’t complain, not when he could basically fully negate a few Users’ primary elements right now.

Sure enough, as he began to make his way through the arena, people started firing skills at him from afar. He ignored all semblance of cover while moving through the arena. Fortunately, it was the electricity-aligned elves that were closest to him, and their lightning bolts did nothing more than tickle him. Anything more fierce than that was heavily telegraphed and easy to dodge, especially since he could use the hunger phantasm to block line of sight.

With Sen’s eyes, Will marked all twenty-three of his fellow Users for death.

He had never experienced Mark for Death for himself, but he knew that it caused some kind of premonition in them, because he sensed the entire arena flinch back as the skill took effect on them.

As he approached the nearest User, he was bombarded by opportunistic attacks as people struck out at the only person unaffected by the mark. Hidden within a cloud of hunger phantasm with Wraith Cloak making him invisible, however, made any ranged attack much less likely to kill him.

His control over the phantasm wasn’t nearly as perfect at range as it was when he was controlling the shadows nearest to his body, but it was still solid and continued training had only refined that. After only a few moments, Will was now within range of six separate Users.

Elsewhere, a brief, brutal brawl broke out, resulting in a middle-aged man’s body splitting into six separate slices before crumpling into a gory mess, though not before he landed a virulent spell that ate away at his target’s arm spell even after he died.

Will clicked his tongue. Such a waste of talent.

He still needed to win this, but if at all possible, he preferred doing that without murdering good people.

So instead, as he entered phantasm range, he had the shadows he’d wrapped around Sen’s eyes come to life, slithering right in front of their targets.

“I wish I had a power to speak through these,” Will muttered. “That would be peak Big Brother. Now I just have to settle for ominous oracle. Which isn’t bad, I guess.”

The phantasm shifted in front of each of them, forming words.

If you fight me, you will die painfully. Surrender, and you will have another chance.

Of course, nobody believed that. Anyone who’d gotten to this point was strong enough to either get a sigil or a ticket into the tournament, and they’d also cleared their way through a silver-rank capture mission. They weren’t going to believe text that wasn’t straight from the system.

Instead, Will formed arrows with the phantasm, pointing towards the center of the arena. None of them pursued it just yet, but that was fine. They’d figure it out.

He teleported around the arena, using weapons formed of hunger phantasm to discreetly blink across the battlefield. In under a minute, he got the message in front of everyone.

During that short period of time, three more people died. The woman who’d gotten the first kill got third-partied by a young-looking boy who’d been hiding in a small crack between rocks, and two others mortally wounded each other in an exchange of fire and lightning.

Engagements weren’t happening very often despite the number of people, though. This wasn’t the kind of drawn-out fight Will had gotten used to. Everyone was staying as well-hidden as they could, as if they were unsure on whether or not they wanted to battle each other—yet when they did come into conflict, the battles were over in moments.

“You’re scared,” Will said aloud, knowing at least some of the people with perception powers would be able to hear him. "Not without reason.”

Bit by bit, provocation by provocation, he nudged the remaining twenty Users out of their hiding holes and into new points of cover, gradually gathering them closer and closer to the empty center of the arena. There was nowhere to hide there, so Will made his own space with the phantasm. The increased volume that the skill had gained upon reaching silver rank was enough to give him sufficient cover to Wraith Cloak within, and it was also noticeable enough in the well-lit arena to draw the attention of everyone he’d provoked.

At this point, he was no longer dealing with people who had no sense of aura. Even if their senses and control were sloppy, they could all at least tell that he was present, and more importantly, that the other participants were near. That was crucial. If they all knew they were together, they would be too worried of opening themselves up to attack to make the first move.

With everyone gathered, Will came back into view, dropping the mana-hungry Wraith Cloak and directing the phantasm to point everyone at him.

Unfortunately, he had neither a skill to project his voice nor any practice in enhancing his natural voice with mana, so he just had to hope that everyone could hear him clearly. At peak bronze and silver rank, he was sure their perception should be able to pick him up from this range.

“There are twenty of us remaining,” he said. “In the next five minutes, that number will be one.”

That statement caused a ripple of unrest through the competitors, but of course he wasn’t done.

This is going to be such a cliché second-act villain monologue, he thought. Will grinned at that. It was an awful situation all around, but being able to enact the bit-part evil overlord he’d always loved as a kid? Almost worth it.

Almost.

“I possess a skill that allows me to inflict a crippling affliction at range,” Will said. “None of you have the correct elements to protect yourself from it. If you are affected by it, you will die. Not even if your rank is higher than mine, and that’s a very scant few of you.”

He stopped suppressing his aura. Though it wasn’t yet at the level where he could suppress the entire arena with it, he had better fine control than anyone else did here—and more importantly, nobody could resist the effects of it, even the one or two with a higher level than him.

Many of the others had aura effects of their own, and some even had aura resistance skills, but Will had refined his under the wrathful eye of a pissed-off god without ever diluting his sovereign power with monster cores.

Skill: [Hunger Aura]

- Aura (sigil).

- Cost: none.

- Cooldown: none.

Silver

Your aura changes, gaining elements of Kadael, the Hunger.

[Insatiable] - Enemies within the aura passively lose stamina and mana. You and your allies restore stamina and mana proportional to the amount drained. This amount can be increased with application of mana. Excess stamina and mana is discarded.

[Devouring Embrace] (silver) - Enemies within the aura also passively lose health. You and your allies within the aura gain health proportional to the amount drained. Excess health is discarded.

All nineteen flinched back. Will didn’t push his aura as hard as he could, but he did so enough to get the point across.

“None of you are invincible. This is literally the weakest power I have to affect you. Every other option I have is lethal. Brutally so. You all have your own people. Dying here will change nothing for your sigil, and you’ll leave the ones who need you the most to fend for yourselves. Do you really want that?”

Nobody made a move. Will sighed. Not villainous enough for them?

“I need to work on my monologues,” he said to himself. “Maybe I should learn from some of the greats. Less is more, maybe.”

He activated Weapons Free, teleporting himself to the nearest User, who had a knife clipped to his belt. Will materialized right behind him, a hand on the unsuspecting User’s shoulder.

“Tag,” he said, opening up a window to Identify the man in front of him. “Tyler Frank, is it? Where are you from?”

The man’s body didn’t react strongly, but his magic betrayed him. Will could see Tyler’s monster core tainted aura fluctuate with fear.

“You’re the one my sigil told me to watch out for,” Tyler said, aura fluctuating further. “Aren’t you? I saw you take down a gold-rank alone.”

“I amputated its head off,” Will said. “It’s not quite a takedown, but yes. I don’t imagine you’d survive the same. Also, your god knows about me? That’s nice in a real 1984 way. Maybe not that. I’m pretty sure religion is banned in 1984. Hyper-fundamentalist Mormon, maybe?”

“Do you always try to undermine your threats by going on pointless tangents?”

“Sometimes. Thanks for reminding me,” Will said. “Anyway. You should probably give up. I can cast a skill before you can escape, and then you’re dead, and whoever you’re providing for is fucked too.”

About forty feet away, one of the elves noticed that Will had left the center. Seeing an opportunity to take out a dangerous competitor while he chatted, the elf attacked.

Will, who had been watching everyone the entire time, shoved Tyler to the ground long before the lightning bolt even came close to hitting the other User. The elf who’d fired it was a low silver, and the skill was slightly more advanced. It hurt a bit when it struck him head-on, but it was nowhere near debilitating.

He didn’t even bother teleporting, instead just striking out with his slayer sword into empty air. Weapons Free made the weapon disappear from sight, reappearing at the shadows right behind the elf’s neck.

Reflexive defenses from the elf turned a decapitating blow into one that merely sank deep into his back, but it was too little too late.

[Mark for Death] increased the power of your attack.

[Slayer Sword] inflicted a level of [Charged] and a level of [Corruption].

A bell tolled.

You have increased the [Corruption] affliction. You have inflicted a level of [Wither].

The elf died screaming.

[Soul]-bound [Death] restored your mana and health.

“That was disappointing,” Will said. “Shouldn’t silver-ranks be better than this? Especially non-core users.”

Next to him, where he’d knocked Tyler to the ground, Will noticed that the other man hadn’t moved. Instead, he was staring at Will like he’d just seen a ghost—or a god.

“Look, man,” Will said, lending a hand to the other User. “I don’t want to hurt any of you. There are threats that want me dead a lot more than any one of you do, and you’ve got people to protect.”

Tyler bowed his head, dismissing the hand. “I thought I could be special…”

Will sighed. “You are. Reality’s a bitch, though. It’s just shitty luck that you ran into someone more special.”

He didn’t even manage to finish his train of thought before space distorted and Tyler vanished.

[Tyler Frank] has forfeited. Remaining Users: [19].

Will teleported back to the center and looked around the arena.

“Any other takers?”

He watched through Sen’s eyes as each of the remaining Users ran through the calculus of the battle. Some of them had likely already failed a challenge. Forfeiting here would mean giving up on the trial.

The choice was between that or taking their odds with him.

[Ashley Saunders] has forfeited. Remaining Users: [18].

[Wylen Roxerus] has forfeited. Remaining Users: [17].

[Kassim Ameir] has forfeited. Remaining Users: [16].

[Wen-Wen Lu] has forfeited. Remaining Users: [15].

…

Remaining Users: [2].

The last man standing was an unfamiliar face, but he didn’t move to attack Will. He was American, and he hadn’t moved from his cover. From the slightly glazed look in his eyes, Will assumed that he was reading the system screens. Watching footage of him, presumably.

Will frowned, reading the Identify as he teleported closer.

“Didn’t you get in through a Champion’s Pass, Kenneth?” Will asked. “When did you pick up a sigil?”

“Killed for it,” the man in front of him said, defeat clear in his voice. “Someone came after me during the first challenge. Got him, got his sigil, but I still couldn’t capture shit.”

“So you’re out if you give up here,” Will said. “You’d be going back to Indiana. Midwestern American Region 3 is what they call it now, I guess.”

“I would,” the Silver 4 who’d consistently been at the top of the local leaderboard since Will had come out of tutorial said.

“Any affiliation with the Iron Boys?” Will’s voice was carefully modulated to be neutral, but he couldn’t keep the danger from coming through.

“No,” Kenneth said, shaking his head. “Heard they took some territory. I was never in the area, but I had friends who got taken by them. I was going to go get them, but there were too many Iron Boys. Didn’t they fall apart? Some militia came through and tore their leadership apart.”

Kenneth’s aura stayed consistently the same throughout his entire statement. Will wasn’t sure if he could use his aura sense as a lie detector, but the other guy seemed genuine enough.

Will snorted. “A militia? That’s what you heard?”

“It’s the only way it makes sense,” Kenneth said. “They were all bronzes, and nobody was going to be able to take them all alone.”

“You sure about that?”

Will’s inventory had grown a lot with his levels, and he’d stayed in the habit of loading up with all the loot he could. It took him a moment to find the items he wanted.

“Hold on,” he said, sifting through his inventory. “This sounded cooler in my head. I was going to—ah, there we go.”

Three bloodied assault rifles dropped from his open hands, each of them engraved with the emblem the Iron Boys had taken for themselves.

Kenneth looked at them, then put his head in his hands. “Who the hell are you?”

“William Li-Brown,” Will said. “Occasional evil overlord for the sake of good. I think.”

The rank 1 sighed deeply. “Tell me. Did I ever stand a chance?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Will said. “Maybe you could, maybe you couldn’t. What matters is that you’re going to be alive, and you’re still going to be strong. Do good.”

The silent or I’ll come for you didn’t need to be said.

“You’re one scary motherfucker,” Kenneth said, drawing a familiar disc from his inventory. “Here. Take this. At least I’ll be able to sleep well knowing I helped.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Will said.

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck this up.”

[Kenneth McCarthy] has forfeited.

#

Achievement earned: Hegemon of Peace

You made 18 Users that could have killed you surrender. You’re either a very smooth shit-talker, very lucky, or judicious with your power.

This will not be the last Earth sees of them. Whether you have done good or ill, your actions will ripple on to change the world.

Reward: You have earned the [Peacemaker] title.

Main Challenge 2 (Free for All) has been completed.

You have gained 1,000 bronze credits. You have advanced to the next Main Challenge.

You have received the Sigil of the Crown.

Become a champion of [Vyx, the Crown]? [YES / YES]

“Huh. This is going to get interesting, isn’t it?”