[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 88: We're So Back (Patreon)

The teleportation this time was as smooth as it had ever been. Facilitated by Nynn, it avoided the bulk of the traps and knock-on effects that the cultists had laid for them. Will was glad for it.

Things were coming to a head, he knew. There were still going to be four more rounds of tournament, each of which would continue restoring the power that had been gathering in the tournament, but then everything would fall into place.

By letting the trial cool off for two weeks, Nynn had functionally vented out a large chunk of the pressure that the corruption cultists were planning on using. That had, in theory, reduced the ceiling of the potential power their two-part ritual would accomplish.

Will wasn’t sure if “killing everyone you know and love, but hey, the apocalyptic system that overtook your world and the gods that profit from it will be totally fine” counted as a better final result, but he supposed that when you were someone like Nynn and dealing with threats on a universal scale, that was acceptable.

Ingrid hadn’t had all the details of what her cult was planning, of course. Ataraxis had been smart enough to keep the entire plot from falling into the hands of his subordinates for exactly this reason. Even when Nynn and Will had been sure that there was no more information to be obtained from the cultist, they still hadn’t had a full picture of what was going to occur.

What they did have were a bunch of best guesses. The how remained murky, but Nynn had gotten pretty confident on the what.

The engraved ritual that Sen’s eyes had constantly been spotting at the tournament venue had been activated when the cultists had invaded the arenas and planted their pillars. Upon being triggered, it would bring the cultists to the venue as well as all of the contestants who had been ejected from the tournament so far.

Nynn and Will had used Ingrid to confirm that their pillars were going to accompany them, initiating the second part of the ritual, but she had lacked enough information that Nynn was currently trying to investigate the details himself.

During the course of the earlier invasion, Will, Nynn, and Nathan had forced the activation of one of the pillars. Ataraxis, the gold-rank leader of the cultists, had utilized it to inflict platinum-rank corruption upon Nynn and Nathan, which meant one fewer pillar to trigger both rituals with.

That was small comfort, especially when they didn’t know how many of the pillars had been redundant, but Will would take any comfort he could find. It was good to know that their efforts against the cultists so far had not been in vain.

The top 16 round will begin in [1 minute].

The ultimate goal, Ingrid had stated after a great deal of what Nynn lovingly called “enhanced interrogation”, was a demon summoning.

Will hadn’t learned much about them from the system, but he’d been offered their magic multiple times through tablets. One of his potential sponsors, the Lady of Overwhelming Violence, had also offered him that power. Every single time, he’d refused it. The Lady’s gift had ended up being something different. A consumable item for a rainy day, though still aligned with the same element.

He looked at it now.

Item: [Demonic Beacon]

Rare, platinum

Though this item is simple to create, there are few who would dare to possess one, let alone use it. The vast majority of Demonic Beacons are destroyed before they can be activated for the first time, let alone used to their full potential.

This item can only be activated by a user with the [Corruption], [Chaos], or [Demon] attributes. Requires a significant amount of mana buildup to be activated.

At full activation, this beacon can be used to summon a low-tier demon.

The Lady had been the only one of the sponsors he’d trapped who’d seemed genuinely excited to give him his item. That worried Will, because it meant that either she wanted to part with it or, much likelier, she wanted to see what he’d do with it.

So far, the answer was nothing. The item offered vanishingly few details upon what a demon actually was, and remembering the details of demon magic scarcely offered any more.

All Will knew about demons was that they were bad news. They existed within the “deep chaos,” according to the system’s flavor text for their magic, which Nynn had confirmed was part of the Beyond, at least conceptually.

“How does that make any sense?” Will had asked. “Isn’t the Beyond supposed to be this big positive-energy place?”

“You will find that many opposites are more similar than you would think,” Nynn had replied. “The deep chaos is present in many ways, in many forms, but you can find demons in the worst, most corrupted places and the most twisted, overgrown parts of the Beyond.”

“You say that like you’ve encountered them.”

“Twice. One time was from afar. The second was six hundred years ago. A mid-tier, unleashed by a confluence of sovereign tiers that were left unchecked for far too long.”

“The item I have can summon a low-tier, and it’s only a platinum rank.”

“The lowest of the low, perhaps. Demons, just like us Users, vary heavily in their strength. I lost four comrades. Dread Executors, all of them.”

Your opponent is: [Osiris Adebayo]. The top 16 round begins in [10] seconds.

The sudden system notification knocked Will back out of his memory.

Shit. As much as the demon rituals were an ever-prescient threat, the trial of the champion had been enforced by the system, and the system always got its due.

Will: Nynn. Status?

Nynn: Will. Making progress on finding the magical imprints, but I am no ritual expert. Given the current pace of the tournament, I should be able to locate the ingress points by the time the ritual takes effect. Are you in a round?

Will: About to be.

A second passed.

Initiating teleportation.

[Limiter] has been removed for the top 16 round.

The arenas were no longer operating like they had been before. With the limited administrative powers Nynn had forcibly gained by giving up literal centuries of progression, he’d stripped the tournament down to its skeleton. At its core, the system-mandated trial just needed the most powerful Users of the cycle to fight each other. All of the unnecessary set dressing was exactly that—unnecessary.

It ultimately boiled down to a simple contest of strength. The arena he now stood in was a blank white hundred-meter circle with only forcefields for walls. Outside, the asteroid they stood upon was exposed. Will had taken most of Sen’s eyes back to the Sentinel, but he’d left enough scattered around the asteroid system that the tournament was taking place in to get a general idea of where he was.

The temporary User purge that Nynn had performed combined with the general corruption had lowered the viably usable portion of the venue, but they were still within a couple thousand miles of the rest of it. According to Nynn, there was a maximum range that the tournament could occupy, and he also wanted to maximize their ability to respond to the cultist threat when it arrived.

Will had tried to pass as much information to his allies along the way, but his soul had only fully recovered from the Crown’s assault after days of rest and abusing Envoy of Mercy. As it turned out, by bringing someone to the edge of death and clearing their afflictions with Ghostflame, he could stack more levels of Blessed and Purified, though there was a limit to which that worked.

Not important right now, he reminded himself.

Osiris was a surprisingly ordinary looking man. He could’ve come straight from the floor of a tech company, impeccably dressed as he was in a suit and tie. Will could tell that his clothes were magical, at least, radiating bronze and silver-rank auras like the man himself did.

“William,” Osiris said warmly. His voice was higher pitched than Will had expected. “Hua has told me about you, as has my sigil. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you.”

The Egyptian silver-ranker had been the second-ranked globally at the start of the tournament, though the leaderboard had been inaccessible and murky during the tournament itself so it was much murkier now. This was also the first time Will had met Osiris, and unlike the other man, he had seen no footage and heard nothing about him other than what he had seen on the leaderboard and what Hua had said about him being reasonable.

Osiris was a Nuclear Specialist, Silver 6, with the Lady of Pale Fire sponsoring him. Will winced at that memory.

“Your sponsor say anything?” he asked.

“Oh, she hates you,” Osiris said cheerfully. He winked. “Anyone who can anger people that much stronger than them and live? That’s an interesting person in my book.”

“So you’re fine with the whole ‘evil sorcerer of darkness’ thing,” Will said. The forcefields that penned them in had long since gone down, but since Osiris hadn’t activated even the slightest hint of magic, Will hadn’t engaged any of his either. It was always pleasant to meet someone who didn’t immediately want to murder him.

“My friend, my powers come from a method of power that was reviled for decades before the world ended,” Osiris said. “I have six nuclear bombs in my inventory. Who would I be to judge?”

“Surprisingly reasonable,” Will said, nodding. “Hua told me you were Egyptian. Are you still operating there?”

“Somewhat,” Osiris said. “There has been some continental restructuring. I deal frequently with Europe as well. Australia once, but mostly I stay in my region. I fly back and forth.”

“You have a flight power?”

“No. The British retained their air force. Some pilots even got classes that rely on them.”

“Oh, seriously? I figured that when all the cell towers went down, the rest of technology went bad with it too.” Will had been sorely disappointed to learn that his cell phone, which he’d preserved through his entire tutorial with his inventory, couldn’t be used at all afterwards.

“The larger cities and countries all had backups, redundancies, and just good luck,” Osiris explained. “My home country wasn’t so lucky, but that was partially my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“Cairo sort of isn’t there anymore.”

“That’s—wow, I feel like someone should have informed me about that.”

“It wasn’t only my fault.”

“That doesn’t make it much better.”

Osiris laughed. “It was evacuated beforehand. I was the first User to kill a gold-rank monster, but it cost the city.”

“Ohhh,” Will said. “That explains why I didn’t get a title for it. I thought it’d go to me.”

“Indeed. That is why I have progressed through silver with such speed. But enough about me. The past only matters when we are sure that there will be a future. Explain to me the rest of what you were attempting earlier.”

“Right,” Will said. “At its core, it’s just all about being in position when the cultists come back. We’re identifying the points where the cultists are going to come in and trapping them. Your abilities should be particularly conducive to that.”

“You haven’t found the locations yet though, yes?”

“Yeah. We’re… working on it.”

“I learned some ritual magic. Perhaps I could assist.”

“I’m not sure how much silver-rank ritualism will help,” Will said. “You have a mentor?”

“We have peaceful relations with the local chimera clans,” Osiris said. “A sect of them taught me.”

“Hm. I mean, I guess it can’t hurt.”

Will and Osiris continued discussing rituals for some time, which quickly revealed that Will knew roughly shit all about rituals compared to his peer.

“Oh, dear,” Osiris said. “My sponsor’s getting mad. Should we get on with it?”

“Sure,” Will said. “We can talk afterwards. I’ll link you up with Nynn and Nathan. How do you want to do this?”

“She seems pretty intent on wanting you dead. Personally, I’m not a fan of that plan.”

“I like staying alive too.”

“I don’t want to fight to the death. If we do, I somehow doubt I’ll win.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Brother, you literally have nuclear bombs. Do you really think I’ll beat you?”

“My sigil, the god Fire, has taken an interest in you,” Osiris replied. “I know about you. Your soul bears the mark of divine attacks, not just sigils. You entered a room with five sovereign-tier sponsors and came out with every single one of them sponsoring you. You defeated the leviathan yourself. Everyone sensed that. No, I do not think you would ‘beat; me. I think that I would have lost before the fight even began.”

“That’s awfully kind of you.”

“So! As we do not wish to kill each other, I propose a basic contest. I have trained my aura repeatedly, as it is crucial to have a strong one to protect myself as a ritualist. What say we attempt to suppress each other? You do know how to do that, yes?”

Sure enough, even Osiris’ suppressed aura was fairly strong. It bore less markings of monster core abuse than the supermajority of the rest of the Users Will had seen, though just like every other top-ranker, his aura wasn’t entirely clean.

“Yeah, I have some experience with auras,” Will allowed. “On three?”

Hey, he wasn’t going to give up a free win, especially when there were pretty great rewards waiting for him.

Osiris counted them up, and his aura expanded.

Will didn’t un-suppress his at all, letting his opponent’s wash over him. Humid heat blasted him, making his clothes stick to his skin, but it didn’t hurt too badly, so Will didn’t immediately shut it down. He did use Pages of the Past to identify what it did, at least.

Skill: [Burning Shroud]

- Aura (power).

- Cost: none.

- Cooldown: none.

Silver

Your aura has been shaped by fire.

[Aflame] - Enemies within the area gradually gain stacking levels of [Burning].

Condition: [Burning]

- Deals ongoing fire damage.

- Reduces the [Power] and [Speed] attribute by 1 level.

[Nuclear] (bronze) - The effects of this aura cannot be resisted by rank differential. The amount of damage this aura does increases exponentially with exposure.

[Deoxygenate] (silver) - By expending extreme mana, you can burn away breathable air in the radius of your aura.

It was a solid aura power, and it was much more offensive than Will’s was. Unfortunately for Osiris, not only was it scrabbling ineffectually at Will’s soul, which was far too solidly constructed for a simple silver-rank aura to break, no matter how well Osiris had trained, its effects also just weren’t ones that affected Will that much. Over time, Aflame and Nuclear would kill him, but Deoxygenate did nothing when Equilibrium Mantle continually nullified all adverse environmental effects for him.

Will made noises of effort as he started slowly unbinding his aura, grunting as if it took all of his power to push back. Not only had Osiris been friendly, he’d been willing to try to set up an offensive ritual to blow back the cultists when they arrived. Will didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his sponsor and sigil. He could at least do Osiris the favor of looking like they were evenly matched.

To be fair, Osiris’ aura was quite powerful for his rank. Against almost anyone else at silver-rank—at least, any other humans—it was very likely that he’d be unmatched. Will had to respect the amount of careful training that must have gone into an aura as cleanly controlled as the Nuclear Specialist’s.

Before Shattersoul, Will might have even had to expend some actual effort into suppressing it. The Burning Shroud was clearly at the peak of silver, amped so much that it had almost as much raw power as Nymlera Brooksoul’s soul had possessed.

Unfortunately for Osiris, Will’s soul had died and come back and was far stronger for it. It was child’s play to push back. The main effort came from two sources. First, Will had to modulate the aura so that he didn’t actually start full on attacking his opponent, since the Hunger Aura had a lot of adverse effects on those he considered to be hostile and he didn’t want to start sucking away Osiris’ life force.

Second, it would have been too easy to just crush the Burning Shroud. Unrolling it out bit by bit took more restraint than Will usually did.

Osiris: I see the writing on the wall. Thank you.

Will: For what?

Osiris: You know what you’re doing. I appreciate it.

Will’s aura finished overpowering the Burning Shroud without much fanfare, snuffing the flame out entirely.

[Osiris Adebayo] has forfeited.

You have won your top 16 match. You have

Unlike before, there was no teleportation. Instead, Will’s minimap came into focus, highlighting an area of the asteroid with a greenhe hadn’t seen for a while now.

“We’re being redirected into a safe zone,” Will realized. “You see that too?”

“I do,” Osiris said. “This is a bit awkward. I don’t have a way to survive on the surface of a planet without an atmosphere.”

“Just stay here for a bit,” Will said, sensing a familiar tug on his soul. “I’ll be right back.”

#

“She tells me that they are preparing for our arrival,” Ataraxis said, opening his eyes.

It had been simplicity itself to continue monitoring what the corruption wielder had been doing. Ataraxis’ gift to him, a sigil of corruption, had been one to a nameless god.

It just so happened that said god sometimes preferred the name of Peace.

Even without her sigil connected to William’s soul, she had enough agents to make use of, monitoring everything that had been occurring.

“The corruption wielder is closed to us,” he continued, his correspondence convened to his entire sect. “He will not accept us except by force. This is acceptable. He will serve as a ritual component rather than an enabler of it. His attributes are perfect for it.”

“Aren’t they preparing to ambush and kill us all?” one of his priests asked nervously. He was a newer convert, still freshly gold-rank.

“Yes,” Ataraxis acknowledged. “Follow my lead, however, and not a single one of us will have to lose our lives. This I promise.”

He looked towards Earth, even though his eyes could not penetrate the vastness of space between them.

Victory was close at hand.

#

“You’re entering dangerous territory,” the Hunger said.

“I’ve always been in dangerous territory,” Will replied. “Have you only now noticed?”

“Dangerous for me as well,” the god amended. “Tread carefully, mortal.”

“Oh, man,” Will said, grinning. “You shouldn’t have mentioned that. Do you know how hard I’m going to leverage that?”

“Of course,” Kadael said impassively. “I would not have mentioned it if I did not. There is a reason I have bent rules that should be nigh-absolute for your benefit. Take your rewards. Use them well.”

Will mock-saluted. “You got it, boss. I have a feeling that it won’t be long ‘till everything comes crashing down.”

“Do us proud, William.”

The connection closed.

“He made it through an entire conversation without threatening my life once,” Will muttered to himself. “Why does that make me more concerned about what’s going on?”

“Pardon?” Osiris asked politely.

“Oh, sorry. Just talking to myself. I’m not crazy. Trust me. Actually, you have to trust me, because I’m about to use a skill to keep us both alive in near-vacuum. You know, maybe I should stop digging my hole deeper. Let me grab these rewards and get us on our way.”

Congratulations, User [William Li-Brown]. You have placed in the top 8 of the Trial of the Champion.

Top 8 reward selected!

You have earned 5,000 silver credits.

Gold Maximum Attribute Potion has been added to your inventory.

Silver-rank [Sigil Skill] unlocked: [Ravenous Feast].