[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 72: Overtax (Patreon)

Ataraxis igniting the hidden power in the artifact seemed to prompt the rest of the cultists to leave. Sen had been reduced to just over half of its power, but there were still enough eyes to blanket a chunk of the asteroid, revealing that they had vanished alongside the pillars. Corruption lingered where they’d placed the pyramids, obscuring Sen’s sight and proving that whatever plan they had, Will hadn’t fully interrupted it.

That wasn’t their priority, though. Nynn opened a portal to the Beyond large enough for him and him alone.

“You will not be able to track me,” he told Nynn. “I will create a beacon when I arrive. You will know how to follow.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Nathan said confidently.

“I would,” Will said.

Nynn vanished.

“Activate skill: Spatial Analysis.” The self-assuredness disappeared in moments. “Wait, what the fuck?”

“You know that you don’t have to show off in front of me, right?” Will said. “Though if you’re practicing picking up girls, I’d say you want to prove your equipment actually works, first.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Nathan said, grinning. “Man, do you know how long it’s been?”

“Five years. You’ve repeated yourself on this. At length.”

There was a mania behind Nathan’s eyes when he nodded. “I’ve been dealing with humans that are just… off. I don’t know what home is even supposed to look like anymore. Is it weird that I’m glad all this happened? I thought I would want normal, but when I was in that portal, I was thinking…”

“Dude,” Will said. “First of all: I’d love to sit down and listen to your problems, but I’m sure there’s a licensed therapist or two that survived the apocalypse that can help you better. Second: time is still ticking on the people we need to save, and you’re still carrying me.”

“Shit. Right. Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

Notably, Nathan did not decide to announce the name of the spatial skill he used to open a portal to follow the surge of gold-rank mana Nynn raised on the other side of the asteroid. There was a disturbed expression on his face that Will would have pried into if the situation was different.

They reappeared in what looked like a field hospital.

“Well, I assume it’s a field hospital,” Will muttered. “It’s not like I’ve seen those outside the movies.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Nathan asked, his earlier sobriety discarded already—or, more likely, covered with the same mask of shallow humor Will liked to use. “That’s weird. I get it, though. Makes all the fucked-up-ness a bit lighter if you can pretend you’re in a B movie or a bad shonen.”

Dozens of people had been affected by the corruption to varying extents. Some of them were clearly already dead, high-rank corruption overwhelming their defenses, twisting, warping, and ultimately annihilating their existences on a molecular level. Most, however, were struggling to hold on to fragments of life, stabilized by their own skills, items, and one of Nynn’s skills that Will didn’t have enough eyes to inspect.

You have left the high-corruption zone. Pending awards have been granted.

Progress to [Eternal Throne]: [31/1000].

[Transcendent Radiance]’s reward has been selected.

Your [Peacemaker] title has evolved into [Envoy of Mercy]. You have earned 3 Awakening Shards of the Beyond.

“Oh, what the hell?” Nathan said. “I just got some chaos essence. I really needed that.”

Will wasn’t sure why the system had waited for the corruption to clear up before granting him his awards, but he suspected that just like how Sen had been less able to see through corruption, the system didn’t want to calculate rewards for a being that it couldn’t properly sense.

Not that he was complaining, of course.

Title: [Peacemaker]

Rare

Peace smiles upon you.

When an enemy acknowledges surrender, you gain stacking levels of [Blessed] that expire upon inflicting damage another User.

Condition: [Blessed]

- All damage taken while this boon is active is nullified. This protection decreases with time and damage taken until this boon ends.

The original title had been fine. Blessed was a very powerful boon—a silver-rank elf using it had nearly ended Will back when he was bronze even through the corruption and afflictions he’d stacked on him.

With Peacemaker, however, the problem was that he had to actually stay peaceful in order for the buff to apply. Will knew the system had access to Earth’s pop culture through magical means, including but not limited to using his memories. He gave it minus two points for not recognizing that the name “Peacemaker” did not necessarily imply “non-violence.”

Envoy of Mercy, on the other hand, turned the healing endeavor from nearly impossible to simplicity itself.

Title: [Envoy of Mercy]

Legendary

Peace’s younger sister, Mercy, is sometimes said to be a kinder deity than Peace itself. You are an exemplar of both.

Saving or sparing a life grants you stacking levels of [Blessed] and [Purified]. You can consume one level of [Blessed] to negate a cooldown to any skill you possess. You can consume one level of [Purified] to negate the cast time of a skill. You can consume one level of both boons to increase your soul, aura, and mana control.

Instances of [Blessed] and [Purified] obtained this way will automatically be consumed to restore you to full health.

Condition: [Purified]

- Consumes itself to negate an affliction.

The title had been tailor-made for him, it seemed—or, at least, it had been selected with his current predicament in mind. For every person he saved here, he’d get a massive boon. Also, he could already think of all the ways this would be rife for abuse, especially with Favored Element, but that would come later.

“I’ll bring them to you,” Nathan suggested, armor splitting off his body and expanding.

“No need,” Will said.

The hunger phantasm exploded out of him, covering the area in thick, hanging shadow. If the insensate Users had been awake and in their own mind, they might have freaked, but all Will got was a suspicious glance from Nathan.

“Are you sure you’re not the bad guy?”

“Not my fault I got these,” Will said, every word exhausting him more than the last. Despite that, he found himself wasting effort on it anyway. “You get flashy lasers, I get shadow. Luck of the draw.”

He manifested the phantasm physically, using the shadows as long, smoky tentacles to pull the dozens of Users in towards him. With its In the Flesh attribute, he could use touch-range skills like Chaos Transfer and Decaying Touch at range, but unfortunately, the former could only transfer afflictions between Will and himself at the moment.

That meant dragging everyone close to use the only skill he had that could cleanse others at range.

Nathan watched long, thin strands of shadow that radiated pure evil wrap around (presumably) innocent, hurting humans and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you sure—“

“Shut up.”

Nathan shut up.

Will arranged everyone as close to him as he could manage, but ten feet of radius was not as much as it seemed when there were so many people. Nathan and Nynn ended up moving to help him, the former using pieces of his armor to support the growing mass of people and the latter just moving quickly to put them in place.

Once everyone was within range, Will gulped down a silver-rank mana potion and activated Ghostflame.

Even the at-rank mana potion wasn’t enough to restore him all the way, and his vision frayed at the edges, everything beginning to go dark as flame wreathed his hands. With this much corruption entering his system, the mana and lifeforce draw was enormous.

29 levels of [Corruption] cleansed. 12 levels of [Bleed] cleansed. 8 levels of [Wither] cleansed. 6 levels of [Poisoned] cleansed.

[Envoy of Mercy] has activated. You have gained one level of [Blessed] and [Purified] for each life you saved. 23 instances of each have been gained.

Will had never received either of those conditions before, and as he lost control over his skill, giving into the urge to black out, he felt positive energy swirling through him. The sensation was akin to the sensation of waking up in a soft feather bed after ten hours of perfect sleep, the refreshment of taking the first sip of crisp cold water at the end of a run, and the rush of a slightly over-caffeinated lemonade all rolled into one.

Since he’d selected “yes” on that fateful first system notification, Will’s life had been one pain after another. He’d been hurt in ways that he hadn’t even known were possible in the time before, been assigned an evil element and taken a class that left him permanently marked for death.

After all that, the moment of bliss that overtook him was more than welcome. It was heavenly.

For all of about two seconds until the people he’d been supporting with the hunger phantasm woke up and tumbled onto him, that is.

He teleported out to Nathan’s laser-summoning armor the moment he felt the impact of a too-heavy man in armor drop right where no man wanted anything to drop, but even that wasn’t enough to eliminate the energy now coursing in his veins.

“You goddamn liar,” Nathan said. “You can walk just fine.”

20 levels of [Blessed] and [Purified] have been consumed to restore your life force.

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s new.”

He’d come closer to the edge than he’d realized. A lot closer, if the healing he’d received just now was any indication. With cold clarity, Will understood that the  darkness pulling at him when he’d used his skill hadn’t been a peaceful unconsciousness but death. Using Ghostflame after already overtaxing himself so hard that he’d eliminated his ability to walk had been an insanely risky maneuver, mana potion or no.

That said, he didn’t regret it. The people he’d cleansed the corruption from were starting to get up now, groaning as they extracted themselves from the pile of Users. Most of them had a movement skill of some kind, which made it simultaneously easier and harder.

“My work here is done for the time being,” Nynn said, somehow knowing Will would be able to hear him through Sen. “I have a cult to search for. Good luck with the rest of the tournament, candidate.”

With that, the mysterious gold-ranker opened a portal into the Beyond and disappeared.

“Motherfucker didn’t even tell me more about himself,” Will realized. “I made him promise.”

“Did you make him promise, or did you delude yourself into thinking he promised?” Nathan asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Go sit in a corner or something. I have people to talk to.”

And by people, he meant specifically Haoyu, who was one of the first to extricate himself from the mess of Users. They were all talking now, though Will didn’t care enough to eavesdrop on many of them. A lot of the Users were talking at or to each other, with a bunch of less-than-discreet looks being tossed at him and a couple others at Nathan.

Then, to his surprise, a person who’d come out alone vanished into thin air, leaving a trace of teleportation magic behind. Nobody but him and Nathan seemed surprised at that.

Instead of trying to amble his way over, Will just teleported to Haoyu’s side, picking a dagger strapped to the Warrior’s waist so he would appear in shadow.

“Boo.”

Haoyu jumped, pushing Will back and holding his hand out. A giant hammer warped into existence, emanating silver-rank energy, and then he saw who’d just teleported in.

The Aussie sighed, inventorying his hammer again. “Scared the shit out of me, man. Good to see you.”

“Good to see you too,” Will said. “How’d you end up here?”

He could guess, but he hadn’t had enough of Sen’s eyes to focus on everything and everyone.

“I assume you were the one to get that corruption off of me?” Haoyu asked. At Will’s node, he continued, “Figured. I can’t believe you actually use that shit. Worst feeling of my life.”

“You were corrupted then. Lost a fight to some cultists, then?”

“You’d think so, but no. System said I needed to go when one of them knocked down the door to my arena, then bam, I’m in one that’s already completely shot to shit, weirdass pyramid thing. I almost took one out, but then something happened, I blacked out, and then I woke up here.”

“Oh, fantastic. So you don’t have anything new to tell me?”

“Come on, mate. Did you want me to take notes? I almost died.”

Will grinned, extending a fist. “Didn’t, though, did you? Glad you’re still with us.”

Haoyu looked at him, a bit confused, then chuckled and bumped it. “Me too, mate. Me too.”

“Do you know what happened to that guy?” Will asked, gesturing towards the area where the the man had teleported away.

“Went back to Earth, probably,” Haoyu said. “I’m out.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, turns out that losing a fight because a bunch of gold-rank wankers got in and pissed all over the party still counts as a loss. Shame.”

Will winced. He didn’t know what kind of rewards the trial offered, but he knew from time spent with the Hunger that they were well worth his time. Gold-rank loot, at a minimum. World-changing loot, potentially. Losing out on that because of this?

“That doesn’t seem… fair.” Even as the words left his mouth, they sounded empty. “Then again, I guess none of this has been, has it?”

Haoyu shook his head. “Nope. System’s just waiting for me to accept the transport back. All my skills and chats and shit are off until I say yes, which is kind of worrying.”

That explained why he hadn’t perceived Will teleporting in behind him.

“So you’re going back to Australia.”

“It was about time, anyway. Have you heard about what’s going on back on planet?”

Will nodded. “Natalie told me. Worldwide disasters. She didn’t say what it was.”

“It’s a lot of things, according to my contacts. Organizations trying to take power, hidden monsters coming out from the woodwork, and… okay, this might sound insane. Have you ever watched one of those shitty anime, you know, the ones where people get transported to another world?”

“Way ahead of you.” Will crossed his arms. “Plenty of those aren’t shit, by the way. That’s an offense to the genre.”

“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

“Oh, not you too,” Will groaned. “Can I make it twenty seconds without someone dropping a dated pop culture reference on me?”

“No. Reminders of our shared past help keep us human. Anyway, I assume from your lack of surprise that you already know.”

Will pointed at Nathan. The otherworlder waved.

“Ah,” Haoyu said. “I’m sure that means something very significant, but I’ll remind you I can’t sense anything about him right now.”

“Otherworlder,” Will said succinctly. “Wanted to kill me. Now he’s on our side.”

“Hold on, I feel like you’re missing a step or three in between there.”

“Yeah, I’m just that guy. Try being like me, I guess?”

“Oh, fuck off, mate.” Haoyu smiled, though it wavered. “We’re all going to be going back into hell. It’s not looking good down there. I’m going to do what I can, but… Will. You’re good people. Can I count on you when I get back?”

“Depends on what’s down there. If you can get to me in Indiana and guarantee that I’m not going to be some tool for your government to deploy, then sure.”

“I have a few strings I can pull. I’ll chat you when you get down. You better get second place, mate.”

“Can’t let me have a victory, huh?”

“That’s Hua’s, of course.” Haoyu chuckled. “Hey, Will. One more thing.”

“Of course.” Around them, people were starting to take their exits. A couple of them railed at the sky for the trial’s unfairness, realized that they were doing nothing but embarrassing themselves, and vanished shortly after with nary a “thank you.”

“Look out for Hua if you can,” Haoyu said. “She’s more powerful than she thinks—stronger than me, probably—but she needs good people. We lost our parents early on, and she’s been drifting since. Don’t let her get hurt, okay?”

“No promises,” Will said. “But I’ll do what I can.”

“Good. I would’ve trusted you less if you’d said you said otherwise. See you on the other side, mate.”

“See you—“

Haoyu was already gone.

None of the others here particularly interested him. They were all silver ranks now, the events of the tournament sufficient to kick them up past the threshold, but none of them were in the top five, nor had Will made any connections with them beforehand.

As the last of them took their leave, Nathan approached Will.

“So,” the otherworlder started.

“So.”

“The trial isn’t over.”

“It isn’t.” Will frowned. “Wait, did you even enter this? I feel like I would’ve heard of you if you came to Earth anytime earlier.”

“I did, though a bit late,” Nathan admitted. “To be frank, I was pursuing you.”

“Yes, the whole raaaahhhh, I’m here to kill you part convinced me of that quite thoroughly.”

Nathan scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I mean, you can see why I would get that impression.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was wrong.”

“True. Anyway, there’s no way this is the end. The cultists are going to come back, I’m sure of it.”

“Somehow, the cultists returned,” Will quoted. At the lack of response from Nathan, he said, “Really? Were you already gone then?”

“No, I had just hoped to wipe that from my memory,” the otherworlder said, massaging his temples. “Jesus. I can’t believe it made a billion dollars.”

“Right?”

“As I was saying, though, I’m going to be around until the cultists are well and truly gone. Or until I win, but it looks like Earth is having a spot of trouble. Selrethnir was fucked, too, but I can actually affect change here.”

“Glad to have you,” Will said. “I hope for both of our sakes that we don’t face each other in the upcoming fights.”

“Same. I’d love to stay and chat a bit about the worst franchised movie I’ve ever watched, but I think I’m going to take a look at what those cultists were doing.”

“By all means.”

“Activate skill: Teleport.”

“You know you don’t have to announce your skills, right?”

“You know you don’t have to be a total fun-hating dick, ri—“ Nathan’s last word was cut off by his gold-rank movement skill taking effect, sending him away.

That left Will alone.

With nothing better to do, he searched his inventory and retrieved the components for the Sanctuary skill. His soul had been recharged by the Blessed and Purified instances being consumed by his title, and he had enough components to burn.

Will knew that whatever was coming next, he wasn’t equipped to take it on alone. Not at this level, not at this rank.

The Beyond might not be an answer, but he was going to squeeze out every resource he could make use of. If he comboed his new title to eliminate the casting time of the Sanctuary skill with an instance of Purified, Will would be able to have a free recovery space in the middle of a fight. The feature that allowed him to improve his soul control would also come in handy, allowing him to expand the tiny strip of the Beyond he’d claimed for himself.

As he prepared the ritual, however, a new system message appeared.

High-corruption zones have been handled. Users have been eliminated. The bracket has been adjusted accordingly.

If you are reading this message, you are now in the top 64. Congratulations.

Round 2 begins in 10 minutes. Use this time to access complimentary recovery facilities and accept your compensation for system downtime.

You have received 100 gold credits.

Your opponents have been selected.

User [William Li-Brown], your opponent is: [Devouring Gestalt].

Will paused, halfway done with the ritual.

“Oh, come on.”