[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 100: Nobody To Help You (Patreon)

As it turned out, it was significantly harder to track down the source of the Hunter’s Mark affliction when they were actively trying to avoid detection.

That wasn’t to say it was impossible—far from it. Since it was an active condition and not a fire-and-forget one like corruption or poison might be, it constantly pinged the Users who had inflicted it. Will couldn’t track it perfectly with his magic alone, but his demonic eye was a fantastic assist. It allowed him to see the weak points in skills, which meant he could see the lines of death traveling from him into a cluster of far-off points.

Will dashed towards them with what he considered to be a reasonable amount of skill usage. He was traveling at highway speeds give or take a bit, which was as much as he could do without throwing caution completely to the wind. Apart from the life elves that were still operating in the area, monsters abounded.

Caution was warranted even for him. Though Will had had good luck so far with the gold-rank threats he’d been dealing with, those had been perfectly suited for him. He couldn’t assume that he was going to be able to steamroll over the rest of them with the same ease, and he knew for a fact that there were gold-rank monsters in the wild.

Dungeons had spawned across the entire Earth with relatively even frequency. Though the more powerful ones had tended to spawn closer to major population centers, there were plenty of silver and even gold-rank dungeons that had manifested in the middle of nowhere. With nobody who was willing or able to clear them in the area, they had begun to break, leaking wandering monsters out.

Will didn’t engage any gold-rank monsters that he didn’t have to, though to be fair that just meant getting out of the way of two of them. While he was confident in his ability to avoid the attacks of a gargantuan creature and use his corruption to beat them in the long run, a gold-rank humanoid that was hard to spot with even Sen’s truesight was not something he wanted to deal with.

He did, however, go out of his way to clear every silver-rank monster he could, and he went for the dungeons of the same rank. To fully level Sen up to gold rank, he needed to re-cast the Thousand Eyes ritual with a hundred gold monster cores and a thousand silver ones alongside a credit cost that was ultimately negligible because of how much money he’d scammed his sponsors out of.

Every time the lines connecting him to the elves grew thicker, they soon thinned.

Will: If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were running from me.

It was a shame that Sanctuary only worked to move him back to the same places where he’d been already. If he’d been able to use it to teleport freely like Nynn had, he could have ended this game of cat and mouse already.

“Speaking of Nynn. I wonder how he’s doing.”

The silver-rank grizzly bear that he’d just finished decapitating was not in the best state to answer.

“I should probably send a message.”

Will finished looting up, making a face at the awakening shards the bear had to offer. He still had three skill slots to affix, but he could afford to be picky now that he had his core skillset locked in. “Awakening shard of hibernation” sounded like an oxymoron and did not look like it would be effective at giving him a Death-aligned skill that would work for him.

He started drafting a message to Nynn.

#

Will: Hey there. How’s evacuation going? Are you even still on the ship? I cleared out a few gold-ranks in America and I’m chasing down an old grudge (though in my opinion it stops counting as just a grudge when we’ve tried to kill each other at least three times each). They’re running from me, so it might be a few more days. Status?

Nynn sighed. Will was a frustrating ally to have on days like this, but his efficacy could not be denied. Even the corruption wielder himself didn’t understand the full extent of how much he had influenced the path that his world was going to take.

Yet even this irritation was a positive sign. Even if he could be rather extremely irritating and an overbearing force of will, he cared for people. It wasn’t to the extent that he would abandon sight of his objectives to help someone, but he did care. There was humanity in him yet.

If he survived the cycle, he would prove to be a perfect fit for the role of Dread Executor.

The other candidates from this cycle were… perhaps less equipped, though there were a handful that looked to be diamonds in the rough. One of those few was standing next to him aboard the Sentinel, her fingers rapidly flicking over thin air as she fired off messages to a dozen different sources.

In the absence of actual leadership aboard the research ship and its associated mass of Users, Wisteria Blake, a bronze-rank Void Knight had taken it as her responsibility to keep the logistics of the place running. Nobody, not even those with sharp grudges against other Users in the same area, wanted to upset the tenuous balance that she had established. Not that Nynn would have let them pass, of course. He hadn’t taken much of an active role here, but he didn’t need to.

Wisteria was talented in ways that Will wasn’t and lacking in areas where the corruption wielder excelled, but she was proving to be a competent candidate in her own right. In the three days since the mass of Users had landed back on Sol-3, she had overseen over a thousand people, many of whom had drawn blood on each other and all of whom were objectively stronger than her. There was a hint of Will in that defiance, Nynn mused.

“Are you going to do anything other than sit there and brood?” Wisteria asked, flicking away notifications to look at Nynn. “Everyone else is evacuating or locking themselves in a dungeon.”

A dozen or so military transport ships had arrived during the course of the day, each of them capable of sitting around a hundred people. Not everyone had been open to riding an ESNA plane, especially those who were aware of the conflict between the American factions—which was basically everyone still living in a highly populated area.

“I can make my own way,” Nynn said. “I notice that you’re also doing neither.”

“Someone has to figure out who’s going where,” Wisteria said. “Plus, do you know how annoying it is trying to make sure that none of these planes are going to blow up? It’s inspection after inspection after inspection, and after all that, I can’t have anyone from warring factions on the same plane… so annoying.”

“That’s not all, is it?” Nynn had been watching the bronze-ranker with interest for some time. She was the only one of the crew who had passable aura control, and she had not poisoned herself with cores. Of all he’d seen, Wisteria also appeared to be the only one with further ambitions, which she couldn’t hide from him even now.

“No,” she replied. There was a glint in her eyes that not even an unformed-ranker could have missed. “You’ve been watching us for a while, haven’t you?”

“I have not been making any secret of that.”

“I see you looking over us. At me, specifically.”

“If you are trying to court me, I would recommend placing your attentions elsewhere.”

Wisteria snorted. “Not at all. You look at me the way you do Will. Like we’re a chunk of marble and you have a chisel.”

"Do I?” That genuinely surprised Nynn. At his level, he had paid so much attention to aura control that his more mortal reactions were almost an afterthought.

“Yes. You know, when you watch a man portal himself to another planet, then back to this ship, then hear about him falling from the sky on an asteroid after saving the damn world, you start to think that anything you might have in common with him is a good thing to pursue.”

“A fair assessment,” Nynn said neutrally.

“I’m asking if you’ll teach me, numbskull,” Wisteria said. “I don’t know exactly what you do, but I see you teleporting around like he does.”

“Dread Executors are not permitted to interfere with candidates, of which you are one,” Nynn said. “This is the last of the planes, is it not? Your crew is gone. Are you planning on staying?”

“I could ask you the same,” Wisteria challenged. “Don’t try to change the topic. You’re not a Dread Executor anymore, are you?”

Nynn’s sigh was deeper this time. “That man’s lips are too loose.”

“So I’m right.” She stared him down.

It should have been comical. A bronze-ranker trying to extract services from a gold-ranker who could slaughter her with a thought, when said gold had recently held the King rank with all the power that entailed.

He recognized that spark of defiance.

Will did not need Nynn’s mentorship. He was on a different path, and was treading ground that Nynn could not follow. This bronze-ranker, however, was fresh and inexperienced.

Off in the distance, the last group was filing into a set of planes that hadn’t come from the ESNA. Australia also had a pretty solid set of their own transport jets, and there were a disproportionate amount of politically important Users on the Sentinel, so they’d sent their own delegation rather than rely on the Americans.

Nynn was relatively unconcerned with the politics of the situation. All that mattered was that this was the last opportunity for the bronze-rank woman before him to leave.

She glared at him without even looking at the plane as it took off, leaving both of them alone aboard an abandoned ship riddled with damage from Users battling it out and monsters that had made their way aboard.

“Very well,” Nynn relented.

He sent a message back to Will.

Nynn: Not bad.

#

“Oh, come on,” Will muttered. “Seriously? Not bad? That’s all he has to say?”

He touched base with a few others to confirm that evacuation had gone smoothly.

Hua: It went fine. RTBing. Will update if we need you. Good luck.

Her responses were more terse than they’d been before, which was understandable. She’d lost her brother when the demon had simply eaten one of the asteroids that the trial of the champion had taken place on. If Will remembered Haoyu’s story right, they’d lost their parents early on, so she was alone now.

Will: Take care. I’ll swing around after I deal with the messes here.

Another motivation to get moving quicker, he supposed.

“Alright,” he said aloud. “It’s been, what, two days of this? I should stop messing around.”

He closed his eyes and spread Sen’s eyes out further. So far, he’d been keeping the familiar within about half a mile of him such that he would have near-perfect coverage of the area around him, but he needed to scout his enemies.

Will found them pretty easily, then looked even further.

It looked like Nymlera’s group had been a detached expedition that she’d rejoined. Will had no idea how she’d gotten back to the US after the cultists at the trial of the champion had summoned everyone back—wait, had she even been there?

Whatever. That wasn’t important. What actually mattered was that Nymlera and about two dozen silver-rank life elves alongside one other gold-ranker and the devouring gestalt were spread out over about a square mile, slowly retreating west towards what Will assumed was their city.

Dealing with this group alone was already going to be trouble, especially since they had Hunter’s Mark tracking his location and didn’t want to fight him. If he took them out one by one, it was probably doable, but he didn’t want to deal with an elven settlement that would almost certainly have more gold-rankers amongst them.

“Wait,” Will realized aloud. “They’re following the Hunter’s Mark. Duh.”

He slapped a palm to his face, realizing how dumb he’d been, and conjured up the shitty claws he’d gotten as part of the loot from the grizzly he’d killed.

Then, he activated Chaos Transfer.

#

Char Stoneriver was on the brink of gold rank. He had filled out all of his skill slots, reached the peak of silver, and meditated until his soul was in perfect alignment. All that he needed now was to consume the requisite treasures and kill enough other living beings to finally rank up.

This expedition had been the perfect opportunity to prove himself and reach gold. Chase a few overconfident humans from the current cycle, kill them, and finally advance himself. He had jumped at the chance.

And now Nymlera was demanding that they run. He followed her orders, of course, because he was still a life elf and Nymlera was one of the few survivors from before the system had come, but this was questionable at best.

It was one silver-ranker. One. How was he even supposed to affect them?

Char shook his head in disgust as he sensed his Hunter’s Mark, originally targeted at a group of bronze-rankers and now attached to that one silver, move northwards towards them.

As expected, the order to move southwest came in from Nymlera under a minute later.

He was the southernmost scout of this group. The chances that he would be at risk now were little to none. This was, to put it quite frankly, boring.

The temptation to separate from the main group and locate William Li-Brown himself was strong, but he wasn’t going to abandon any of his comrades. Char followed orders. That was what made him a good soldier.

Though he might hate the cowardice that Nymlera had suddenly developed, he went south all the same, trudging through thick underbrush and low hills. It was overcast, and though the terrain was relatively flat, the vegetation made visibility awful. Some of it was Arcadian, some Earth.

That meant that Char didn’t notice the shadows gathering in a dark corner beneath a cave until he got a premonition of fear.

A foul beast, he thought, unsuppressing his aura to gain a better sense of what was around him. If this was a somewhat powerful monster or even just an evil User, it was very possible it could be the last push he needed to rank up.

Of course, he couldn’t waste the expedition’s time, so he would have to do it quickly.

Char’s face was painted with a predator’s grin. “Easy pickings.”

His Lifeweaver class was a versatile one. Skills that were at the very peak of silver rank assisted him in shifting his own body, giving him long claws and legs with incredible power.

Shadow exploded from the spot he’d noticed it coming from, and he leapt towards it with a snarl.

Then his aura met his target’s, and he froze.

From the billowing darkness emerged two spots of color—one a sinister red, the other an unnatural azure.

“Well,” William Li-Brown said, stepping through his shadow. “Seems like you’ve made a mistake.”

You have been marked for death.

Char recovered from his brief stunned moment and kicked off the ground towards the corruption wielder at speeds defying those of any silver-ranker. Amongst the life elves and even the Abyss, whom they frequently clashed with, the only ones who’d been capable of keeping up with him had been gold-rankers.

That was across long distances, though. As it turned out, in close combat, there were movement skills that could break his.

Will’s fists flared with electric power and he blurred, his sword flashing out in a red arc that came towards Char with incredible speed. A second later, he stopped behind Char, panting—and then the elf’s side split open.

He stumbled, his body flashing with pain.

You have been afflicted with a level of [Corruption].

You have been afflicted with a level of [Charged].

“What is this?” he growled.

Life Reinforcement, one of his self-modification skills, made his flesh nearly impenetrable to silver-rank implements and anything weaker, and yet Will had blown through it like it was nothing.

“You’re covered in lines,” Will said, examining the blood on the sword. “You’re too easy to take apart.”

Lightning sparked from his wound across his body. The pain was so much worse than anything he’d experienced since bronze rank. How was he managing this with simple electricity? Char had defeated a fellow life elf lightning mage in single combat only months ago, and that had barely been a tingle.

Char turned, knowing he would have to end this quickly.

A bell tolled, and that became impossible. His limbs seized up, and the pain that had gripped him burned through him even more, shocking his entire body.

“Your arrogance astounds me,” Will said. “Easy pickings? You couldn’t even read the rank of my aura.”

Get up, Char told himself. GET UP.

This was it. This was the push he needed. The challenge that separated predator from prey.

The life elf forced himself to his feet, pushing through the pain.

“No second chances,” Will said. “And for you, no first chance. Now, then…”

Char charged, knowing that his body was tearing itself apart with every step he took.

Will dashed backwards and up into the air, dark wings expanding from his shadow, every bit as natural in the air as he was on the ground. The life elf leapt, knowing the threat of a flying enemy that could get away from him.

Soaring through the air, Char realized his mistake. He had only noticed the sheer power of the opposing aura when they had clashed, not its intent.

Now, though, he could sense the sheer anger in it.

Char had misjudged him. He’d thought he was just another arrogant human who thought too much of himself.

Will was arrogant, maybe, but it was for good reason.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY.”

The last coherent sensation Char experienced was a thousand voices screaming in his skull.

Then there was pain, and at the end of that, nothing at all.

#

Warning: contact [Char Stoneriver] has died. Messaging has been frozen.

The gestalt’s body was no longer fully under its control. After it had been rendered berserk by Elys, the Lady of the Lake, Nymlera Brooksoul had leveraged the new connection into its body to trap the abominant mind once more.

Warning: contact [Ellara Gladesong] has died. Messaging has been frozen.

Its mind, however, had only been growing. It understood what was happening. It knew what was causing this.

Warning: contact [Sylvari Mosswhisper] has died. Messaging has been frozen.

This was the work of the corruption wielder. The abominant mind understood this.

Warning: contact [Singed Stoneriver] has died. Messaging has been frozen.

But there was nothing it could do about it. It was trapped in a body that was no longer its own.

Warning: contact [Diana Leafdrin] has died. Messaging has been frozen.

And now, it knew nothing but fear.

Will: Thought you could run, did you?

It had been placed on its own, relatively far away from the life elves who still remembered the phase in which the gestalt’s body had been its own and it had torn through them like jaws through soft sinew.

That meant that when the hunger phantasm surrounded it and a familiar human stepped out in front of its eight eyes, there was nobody to help it.