[System Decay] Chapter 10: Actually, Maybe I Should Just Run (Patreon)

In Will’s admittedly limited experience, a level increase was a more effective form of healing than any of his potions could dream of being. He gasped as the pain in his leg sharpened for a brief moment, but then the tingle of magical healing replaced it and it vanished altogether.

Will put the two points into Speed. He needed it.

“You know, last I checked, you’re supposed to hit your opponent in a fight,” Caiyeri said.

“If you’re going to complain, could you at least help?”

Caiyeri jingled the chains binding her wrists. “Nope.”

Will bit back a curse and turned back towards the Carrion Lord. The goblin still hadn’t taken any damage, but thanks to the level, Will was back up to full health as well. The only difference now was that he was down two bullets and a pair of pants.

Thank god I got good boxers.

This wasn’t working. Even with two more points in Speed, he was still a full rank lower than the boss. His gear and the Corruption element had equalized the gap until now, but the Carrion Lord was a lot smarter and better at using his skills than the creatures he’d killed up to this point.

The goblin stepped forward.

“A moment, please?” Will tried.

To his surprise, the towering force of death did. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Never let it be said that chivalry is dead, Will thought. Out loud, he said, “Caiyeri, can you fight?”

The chains jingled again, as if to say duh, no.

“You seem to be a fan of having a fair fight,” Will said to the Carrion Lord. “Why chain up the elves?”

“They are unbound when we do battle,” he replied. “This one has not chosen to fight.”

“Wasn’t exactly my choice,” Caiyeri called.

Will sighed. “Can she be added?”

“The ritual has begun,” the goblin said easily, as if they were two chums meeting up for coffee after work. “The Hunger must be reached through the divinity of single combat.”

“That’s one messed-up god.”

“Is yours any less so?”

Will looked towards Caiyeri again, wondering if he could try to cut through the chains holding her. His hopes fell when he saw how thick they were.

Caiyeri’s bindings looked to be a repurposed chain whip, inch-think metal links wrapped tightly around her wrists and arms with blades on either end of it plunged deep into the ground. It shimmered with magic, and Will could guess that even with his temporarily boosted strength, he wasn’t going to be able to tear through it.

Wait. Chain whip?

“Are you ready?” the Carrion Lord asked, amused. “This moment has lasted quite a while.”

“Caiyeri,” Will hissed, hoping the goblin couldn’t hear him. “Your class. What can you do?”

“Me?” the elf asked, like a high schooler asking why she’d been picked to answer a question. “I’m good with odds.”

Good with odds. That was horrendously unspecific, but Will did have one weapon that relied on random choice.

He hated the idea of giving away one of his hard-earned items, but it was growing increasingly clear that he wasn’t going to be able to solo this boss. The disparity in power was simply too great.

“Get ready,” he said.

“For what?”

“Time’s up,” the Carrion Lord announced. His hammer started glowing again as he got into a fighting stance. The rune that ignited was different, this time. It shed angry red light on the cave.

That’s bad news.

The goblin bull-rushed forward.

Will activated Weapons Free.

Targeting the hammer would have been an idiotic idea. The skill could be resisted, and if anybody could resist it, it was going to be this guy.

Will nearly dropped the chains when they appeared in his hands. They were heavier than he expected.

With a mighty bout of exertion, he shoved the metal links forward.

Squad boss or not, the Carrion Lord still had reflexes, and when Will randomly threw a large, heavy object that had just materialized out of nowhere, he reacted. The goblin swung the hammer early, and Will leapt back just in time.

The flaming red hammer made contact with the chains instead of Will’s body. Metal shattered at the impact, pieces of chain whip flying everywhere. They shimmered cherry red with heat, and as Will watched, the scattered chunks of the weapon started to melt into the ground.

He congratulated himself on not getting hit, then turned to Caiyeri.

The elf woman was on her feet now, looking at her hands like she couldn’t believe they were there.

“Catch!” Will shouted. He tossed her the seven-shot six-shooter and ran, hoping she would get the memo.

Caiyeri plucked it out of the air and examined it. Her eyes went wide.

“Mother!” she yelped. It took Will a moment to realize that that was a curse of some kind, not a cry for her actual mom.

“You!” the Carrion Lord roared. “You have broken the divine ritual! Heretic!”

The goblins in the crowd chanted as one, repeating the boss’ words. They did not, however, charge.

The Carrion Lord still believed he would win.

His hammer glowed purple, and the tip of it morphed, fashioning a barrel of energy out of the tip.

“Get down!” Will shouted, taking his own advice.

A honest-to-god laser beam burst out of the hammer, slicing through the air where Will had just been. Caiyeri grunted in pain as she hit the ground too, then cried out a moment later.

Will whipped his head around as he rolled to his feet to see that the hammer had swapped firing modes. Rather than one continuous beam, the evil purple glow fired in small bursts, emanating what looked like giant nails made entirely of that same energy. One of them had grazed Sierra, it seemed, judging by the scorch mark on her side.

The tip of the barrel turned towards him. Will scrambled to dodge, but the bolts traveled as fast as his best baseball pitch. He managed to avoid a couple, but one of them smacked straight into his shoulder.

He hissed out a curse through gritted teeth. This hammer mode wasn’t as immediately lethal as the others, but the impact hurt. The scent of burnt barbeque made its way to his nose—he really didn’t want to think about that. Will’s hand came away bloody when he put pressure on it.

“You gave me a corrupted gun?” Caiyeri shouted, indignant.

“Just shoot him!” Will shouted back, wincing as the effort sent a fresh surge of pain flickering through his nervous system.

If his assumptions were right, he would only get one shot at this.

Will used Chaos Transfer, moving his corruption to the axe of despair. He downed another unformed rank healing potion right after. It couldn’t patch up all the damage that had been done to him, but it dulled the pain enough for him to reaffirm his grip on the axe.

Caiyeri groaned, but she got to her feet too.

The Carrion Lord’s hammer started to change color again.

“Now, Caiyeri,” Will urged.

The elf fired.

Will could see the text from his gun appear even when he wasn’t the one using it.

[Instant Death selected.]

Good with odds, she’d said. Instant death was a 1 in 1,000 chance on the gun.

The bullet traced a dark path through the air, creating a deep black line from the tip of the revolver to the goblin boss.

Caiyeri’s aim wasn’t very good. Her shot connected with his lower thigh.

More accurately, the shot connected with the forcefield protecting his entire body.

The instant death shot, despite the name, was not necessarily a death sentence. It was a shot from a bronze-rank item and ignored resistances, but it did not instantly pierce magical armor.

It did, however, destroy it.

And it was always effective.

Critical hit!

Pale blue forcefield cracked, then crumbled away. The Carrion Lord stumbled, the sheer force of the blow knocking even one as mighty as him a few steps back. He dropped to one knee and stabilized himself with the war hammer, letting his guard down.

In his peripheral vision, Will saw Caiyeri drop the revolver like it was on fire.

Will wasn’t going to waste this chance.

He used Weapons Free again, spending a third of his remaining mana. The revolver returned to his open hand.

Caiyeri had told him that the underarm of the armor was the weakest, but the goblin’s head was exposed. Will ran towards him anyway, axe in hand, and he fired once.

[Piercing Shot selected.]

The goblin’s armor glowed faintly. Will saw a blur of movement—nothing to do with the forcefield, which was completely down—and a wound opened on the Carrion Lord’s cheek, dripping blood. It was nowhere near the spot he’d aimed.

He still has a defense mechanism.

That was fine. Will inventoried the revolver as he returned back to Plan A.

Plan A was unrefined but simple—it roughly amounted to “beat him up.”

He strode straight up to the goblin boss and swung the axe upwards with both hands like he was trying to hit a massive drive.

Will was tempted to go for nuts or nothing, but he stuck to the plan.

The armor glowed, and the Carrion Lord’s form blurred. This must be the defense system he used to mitigate the bullet with.

But it didn’t cover the entirety of his armor. The increasingly familiar feeling of flesh giving way under the sharp edge of his weapon filled him with a strange, unsettling glee. He put the entirety of his enhanced strength into his blow, but even then, the axe didn’t penetrate far. Whoever the Hunger was, he had granted the Carrion Lord with massive durability.

Will got one knee under the axe and used it as a lever, forcing it deeper into the goblin’s underarm.

[Chieftain’s Axe of Despair] inflicted a level of [Bleed]!

Condition: [Bleed]

- Lowers the [Power] attribute by 3 stages for each level of [Bleed]. This cannot lower it to another rank.

- Deals ongoing slashing damage. Increases vulnerability to slashing attacks.

- The effectiveness of magical healing is reduced for each level of [Bleed].

[Chieftain’s Axe of Despair] inflicted a level of [Corruption]!

Condition: [Corruption]

Brought on by extended exposure to chaos. May also be inflicted by those wielding the Chaos or Corruption elements.

- All incoming damage is drastically increased.

- Continually applies chaos damage, which increases proportionally to the time the target has been corrupted.

- All attributes are reduced.

- Target cannot be magically healed.

He barely managed to stick his axe back in his inventory before the Carrion Lord’s fist blurred the same way his axe and armor had and Will’s vision went white. His jaw slammed into something so hard that he bit his tongue bloody. Will hit the ground once, twice, three times.

When he had his senses mostly in order again, he was a solid twenty feet from the goblin. A trail of blood marked the line between them. Distantly, Will wondered if that was his. His head was fuzzy.

He took another unformed-rank health potion. It didn’t clear him up much, but it got him lucid enough to get back to his feet.

“Ow,” he groaned. “Definitely something broken in my ribs. And probably face.”

Caiyeri looked at him in awe. “Mother’s grace, how are you still alive?”

“I won’t be if we spend any more time here.” For a heart-stopping moment, Will thought that the Carrion Lord had somehow split into two with another impossible skill, but no. That was just a concussion.

He popped the teleport dagger out of his inventory. Still seeing double.

“You know what this does?” he asked.

“Do you?” Caiyeri snatched the knife from him and extended a hand. “Let me do this.”

The ground shook as the Carrion Lord stormed towards them. Will looked up towards the vents. In his current state, he wasn’t sure if he could tell up from down, let alone accurately jump up and use a skill.

Will took Caiyeri’s hand.

“Mother protect us,” she prayed.

Will barely noticed the eerie light forming from the ground. All his attention was focused on the darkening air above him as the Carrion Lord descended upon the two of them, war hammer glowing a lethal red.

His vision flashed green. Then it flashed again. And again. And again.

After the fourth flash, they were out in an area Will hadn’t explored yet.

“I’m out of mana and out of luck,” Caiyeri said. “Any help?”

Will downed another healing potion. Were they getting less effective? It definitely felt like they were.

[Resistance] advanced to Unformed 7!

“Christ,” he muttered, trying to shake his head clear. It didn’t help. Will had to stabilize himself on a wall as a sudden wave of nausea overtook him. “There’s a safe zone nearby. You don’t see it?”

“Huh? No, there’s no—shit. I’ll explain later,” Caiyeri said, apparently deciding that Will wasn’t in a state to be exposited to at the moment.

The safe zone was a ways away, but the path there was mostly clear. Despite bleeding all over the ground and practically presenting themselves as targets on a silver platter, very few mobs came to attack them. Will assumed that the warmongering goblin clan that’d set up camp here had something to do with that.

Will opened the door to the safe zone—this time, it was an old circular wooden door with a metal handle set into a wall—and walked in.

Caiyeri stood just beyond the door, looking chagrined.

“What’s wrong?” Will asked woozily.

“Fuck,” Caiyeri said. “I thought it might be, but—this confirms it. They turned this place into a tutorial?”

“Looks like it.”

“This isn’t my tutorial,” she said. “I need permission to enter.”

[Caiyeri Seven] would like to join your party. Accept? [YES / NO]

“Please,” she said. “I helped you, right? I need to recover. I can help you—“

“Don’t bother justifying yourself,” Will said, finding a moment of clarity through the pained fog. “You deserve a chance.”

He selected [YES].

Caiyeri stepped in, beaming in relief.

Helper: You’ve really stepped in it now, haven’t you?

#

Axl, better known by his moniker as the Carrion Lord, was dying.

Cave goblins were naturally resistant to corruption. That was what had enabled them to stay in this part of the world even as chaos had slipped through the boundaries of the protective system.

But resistant didn’t mean immune, and the condition afflicted him all the same. He felt as if his skin was made of paper. Though he still wielded great power, every movement threatened to tear him apart.

The corruption was not strong, but it did not need to be to fell even the mightiest warriors. The boy had been unformed, but the corruption struck with the force of a bronze.

A normal goblin might survive another week; with great willpower, a month. Axl, grand cleric of the Hunger, had at least a year before he succumbed.

One way or another, though, his clock was ticking. It was not impossible to recover, but with his body shut down, the prospect of survival was vanishingly small.

It was the fault of the heretic. The human. Axl had chosen to grant him honor in death—he had even simplified his attacks to give him more of a chance. The human had taken this opportunity and committed the most foul of crimes. He had dishonored the sacred rites. By all rights, Axl should have crushed him like a bug. Yet he had used tricks. Foul magics—profane ones, ones that neither light nor dark deigned to use.

A rule-breaker. The human had wronged Him.

The Carrion Lord knew the Hunger better than most. He did not forgive. He did not forget.

And neither would Axl.

“Gather every one of our subordinate tribes,” he ordered his clan, commanding even in his weakness. “Until the human known as Will has been sacrificed to the Hunger, they are to know no rest.”

The Hunger was many things, but most importantly—it was relentless.

If Axl’s fate was death, then he would ensure that he was not alone.