Chapter 44 - Void and Corruption (Patreon)

Echo felt a chill run down his spine as a sickly, purplish-black goop emanated from the Void Gate and snaked its way across the span until a doorway appeared.

It’s like a Stargate.

He glanced back at Rose, who had sunk to her rear, sitting against the elevator door, holding her head.

Echo ran over to her and slapped her – hard, “Pull yourself together! We can’t get out, so we have to fight it!”

Rose looked up with tears streaking down her face. She slowly nodded and using him as support, stood up. “I…The Void won’t corrupt me. But it will corrupt the both of you.”

Echo shook his head and returned to his spot next to Fumi, extending his Bulwark over his two companions. He glanced at his love and blew her a kiss, “Let’s kill this thing.”

He gestured to her and cast a spell, “Shadow Shroud.”

Fumi cracked a smile as the silver and crimson spell wove around her and she vanished from sight. If she didn’t do anything hostile or overt, she wouldn’t be noticed if others were present.

The two monsters activated Alacrity as time slowed to a crawl from their perspective.

Out of the pulsating gateway, a creature slithered forth. The size of a small building; a giant of a humanoid figure. Its torso was about the only thing human-like.

It had a serpentine mid-section that gave way to a tentacled mass that slowly sucked and slithered across the floor. Several arms sprouted from the torso, each wielding enormous weapons made of wicked, pitted, black metal.

The head was the most mishappen: the mouth of a crocodile extended mixed with that of a lamprey; the open circle sucking as a screech echoed outward.

Rose breathed deeply and began to channel her Quintessence, focusing on a massive spell. “Buy me time!”

Fumi dashed to the side of the cavern and along the roof, stealthily making her way to a place right above the creature – seemingly unnoticed.

Echo ran forward, “Hey! Ugly! Over here!"

The Void aberration looked at him with twisted eye stalks, shrieking and swinging an enormous blade down towards him with ludicrous speed.

He blocked the blow, feeling his knees buckle slightly, but remaining unmoved.

The aberration seemed to look puzzled that Echo did not go flying across the room.

Fumi used that opportunity as she dropped from the ceiling, slicing through its eyestalks in a swift motion before rolling with the fall, coming to her feet next to Echo as the spell faded from her form.

It shrieked and began to thrash wildly. The pair of monsters dodged with ease.

This is what she’s afraid of? This is eas-

He felt nausea overtaking him and vomited. Glancing at Fumi, he saw a sickly, purplish-black miasma begin to cover her. Looking down, he saw the same energy creeping over his skin – it felt slimy and repulsed him on a visceral level.

“Rose!” He tried to shout, but a black ooze crept from his mouth and began to choke him, stopping the word from leaving his mouth.

“Hold on!” The Quintessence swirled around her in an enormous, white, and blue flurry as she prepared for a massive spell. Raising the scepter, she gestured forward, “Feel the fury of ice, Glacial Blast!”

All her Quintessence gathered into an enormous icicle behind her and launched forward at a breakneck speed, impaling the creature through the torso as ice crawled up its form from the wound. Rose collapsed and passed out from the strain of using all her power in the single, colossal spell.

The creature seemingly laughed as it broke off the icicle in its torso, a gurgling sound that shook Echo to his core. The ice receded from its form as the hole closed. Even its eye stalks grew back.

Echo felt his mind clouding, and a strange voice echoed in his thoughts. Dark, alien, and he knew it was the creature in front of him.

eerf won, yawa dekcol ,karohsel rednammoc diov eht ma i lliw ym evres dna ,em erofeb wob lliw uoy

Tiberius held the Mimic Cube and began to channel his Quintessence.

I have no choice.

He stopped. There was a soft, golden glow that began in his two monsters’ chests and began to spread. Malvir chuckled and put the Mimic Cube away.

Of course, he blessed you.

Another, clearer voice came through and pierced the cloud, Echo’s mind becoming his own once more.

The familiar voice of the Arch God of Haven warmed Echo’s body and suffused him with strength.

Show The Void the power of my wrath. The wrath of dragons and light.

Both voices vanished.

The two monsters gasped as the miasmic force that was surrounding, imbuing, and crawling over his body disappeared.

But that was not the only change.

Both were covered in a spectral, golden shroud – armor manifested of divine will – that protected them from the corrupting influence of The Void. Even their blades were wreathed in the golden glow.

The armor was layered with draconic features – scales instead of metal plates, that seemed to articulate their movements perfectly. Their hands and feet were covered with golden claws, tipped with wicked, black spikes.

He gave a wordless prayer to this sudden divine intervention.

The two monsters stood once more, shining golden, not unlike how Echo first appeared on Heimfold in his armor years ago.

He glanced over at his partner, “Ready?”

Fumi nodded and grinned, raising her blade, “Let’s kill it.”

She activated Overcharge and vanished from sight.

Echo activated the Ability as well, able to track her once more as Fumi ran around the creature, flickers of golden light exploding outwards from where she carved into the beast.

The creature roared and attempted to swing a hail of blades down on the Gori warrior…but Fumi was fighting differently.

No longer recklessly, but with her old caution from her past style of fighting developed over millennia of fighting warring Clans. The blades hammered down around her, but she parried or dodged them, taking care not to be hit and have the damage transferred to Echo.

Echo ran forward at the same time, staying on the opposite side of the creature, “Flame Blade!” The silver, crimson spark of his Quintessence mixed with the gold limning his sword as the power of light became imbued with his flames. The sword exploded with divine light as he swung at the creature’s tentacle legs – lopping several off as he sliced through it. The flames raced up its body and began to burn into it – the golden, silver inferno tracing lines of wrath along its corrupt flesh.

The creature roared and sat backward on Echo.

“I don’t think so!” Echo activated his bracelet and teleported – thrice in a row, exhausting the item’s charges for the day – until he was at the creature’s head. He swung the blade in a large arc, cleaving through the monstrous maw.

The creature screamed and unleashed a torrent of miasmic black energy at Echo from the gaping hole where its mouth used to be – a breath weapon not unlike a dragon’s flaming spray which could instantly corrupt living flesh.

However, instead of harming the monster in human form, or even pushing him away, the aberration was caught off guard.

Echo had not been blown backward; his Immovable Object Ability kept him fixed in space.

He focused on repressing the Ability, falling as a result, and plunged his blade into the creature’s chest – ripping down its front as guts and organs spilled out in a foul, black pool. The golden trail of carnage left behind by the wound began to smoke and curl as golden flickers continued to devour it. The silvery-gold flames erupted and dove into the creature as it roared with pain.

The creature dropped its weapons and attempted to grab Echo.

It was the opportunity Fumi was waiting for. No longer pinned down by the creature’s attacks, she dashed around to a side, ensuring Echo was out of the way. She raised her blade aloft, gathering her green and crimson sparking Quintessence into her blade.

The golden light of the Dragon God’s Blessing suffused itself into the torrent of energy that extended into the sky. With a roar that rang out and shook the cavern with the fury of that mythical beast, Fumi brought the blade down.

“Rift Strike!”

The enormous blade of golden and green light sliced cleanly through the creature – bisecting it neatly into two halves. The green light faded, but the golden sparks continued to eat through the creature’s flesh and wither it away.

Echo landed and glanced up as the creature tried to grab him with its forward half. He smirked, “Too slow,” and dashed away to Fumi as the horrific form collapsed, wriggling desperately, and flailing about.

“Think it’ll live through that damage?” he asked.

Fumi shook her head, “Not taking chances.” She began carving into the creature as its death screams radiated through the cavern.

Echo joined in, and the two began hacking and slashing apart the creature of The Void, piece by piece. In each spot their blades connected, the divine light of their Blessing would continue to sizzle and burn away the corrupted flesh.

Within seconds thanks to their Overcharge, the aberration was gone – and the only thing left amongst the ashes was an Aether Shard.

As Echo reached down to grab it, the golden light suffusing the two monsters faded. The shard was warm to the touch.

“This was in it?”

He looked back at Fumi, who shrugged and ran over to Rose before deactivating her Alacrity. Echo did the same but kept an eye on the still-active portal off in the distance.

“Echo, the panacea.”

“I used that. She’s undead. She needs the other one.” He retrieved a vial of the Deathroot-based elixir, handing that to Fumi instead. At the same time, he tossed the Aether Shard into his pocket dimension to join the other one.

Fumi shoved the bottle into Rose’s mouth and upended the contents.

Rose gasped and sat up, blinking at the two. “Where is it?”

“We killed it,” Fumi said matter-of-factly, looking back at the portal.

“How?” Rose asked.

Echo waved her off, “I’ll fill you in later. What do we do about that?” he asked, pointing at the Void Gate, still active off at the end of the cavern.

Rose shook her head, “I don’t know.”

“I’ll handle it,” a voice responded.

Tiberius felt warm flush against his skin.

A rip in space opened next to him and a voice came through.

“My thanks for the warning.”

Tiberius turned and bowed. “Of course, Guildmaster.”

The rift vanished, and he turned back to his bench. Beads of sweat were rolling down his back.

It didn’t make sense. He had hurt Isaac’s adventurers.

Shouldn’t he hate me?

And yet, he was not subjected to divine retribution.

What is that Guildmaster up to?

The trio turned and to their surprise saw Isaac standing there, the small rip in space closing behind the Guildmaster the only hint of how he arrived. Isaac shook his head, “Killing a Void Commander – not an easy feat.” Isaac walked past the trio towards the portal.

The Guildmaster raised his hands to the portal and waves of his Heat flowed in torrents towards the adventurers. Space cracked open and The Void Gate vanished in an instant. “And now it’s with the rest.”

The Guildmaster walked back to the group. “Shall I return us to the Adventurer’s Guild Hall?”

“Why did you appear now? Why not earlier, when we were fighting it?” Echo asked.

Isaac chuckled, “I just got the notice."

Fumi frowned, “I thought The Void was gone? How did this thing survive?”

Isaac sighed, “I assume that this particular Void Commander used the Void Gate to sit in a pocket dimension that could contain its mass, biding its time.”

Echo pulled out the Aether Shard he had pulled from the ashes, “This was inside it.”

Isaac picked up the shard and glanced at it, nodding. “Probably a New God judging by the size. Consumed by a servant of The Void Mind, allowing the aberration to become sentient of its own accord, but still subservient to a great will.”

He handed it back to Echo “You can use that as you would the same shard that Slate gave you.”

Isaac waved his hand, another blast of Heat emanated out, and a rip in space opened. “Come on, I’ll get you lot home.”

The trio stepped through the rip and entered their adventurer apartment with Isaac close behind. The gap in space closed, and Isaac went to the front door. “I hope that you trio don’t find any more of those gates…but, well, at least you now know that you can fight whatever is lurking within them.”

“But how would we destroy the gate?” Echo asked as the Guildmaster opened the door.

He turned back to the trio, “They can’t be destroyed. Just use the Aether Shard, and Fumi’s space Affinity. Send it to ‘Isaac’s Storage.’ I’m promoting you all to SS rank. Congratulations.”

He left the apartment.

All three adventurers collapsed onto the couches in the living room. Echo and Fumi nestled into each other’s embrace as Rose wordlessly stared into the distance at some unknown memory.

Breed...

“After we turn in these quests, what do you want to do?” Echo asked the other two.

Fumi cupped his chin and turned him towards her gaze. “We rest a little. Then, we go to my homeland.”

Echo nodded, “And then we find your old Clan.”

Evolve...

Fumi stood up and dragged Echo behind her, “Come on, let’s get washed up.”

Narya popped in from a day of shopping. “Hmph!” She dropped the bags off in the kitchen and returned to the living room where Rose was sitting, sipping tea, and reading a book. “You’re back!” Narya said, excitedly.

Rose put the tea down and shut the book, “Yes, we came back a few hours ago.”

“Where’s the other two?”

As if answering her question, Narya heard a very loud noise of carnal pleasure from the restroom, along with what sounded like ripping and tearing meat and the occasional yell of either pain or pleasure.

She rolled her eyes, “Of course. Anyways. Did you have fun on your two-day trip?”

Rose frowned, “Sort of. I learned something new. And that is always a joy to me.” She picked up her tea again and took a sip, “How about yourself?”

Narya flitted next to Rose’s shoulder – sitting on the back of the couch – and smirked, “I had a date!”

Rose smiled gently, “Oh, that is nice. With whom?”

“Another pixie. She’s amazing! Her name is Sylphie. She’s into everything I’m into.”

Rose picked up her book and resumed reading, “That’s wonderful. I wish you two the best. If you’ll excuse me…”

Narya nodded, and flitted to the kitchen, humming to herself as she zipped around, making a meal.

Knowing those two they’ll clean out all the food I just bought.

Tiberius was ready.

He went to the front gates of Soju and opened them.

“My children!” He turned around to face the army of monsters he had amassed. The whole of the Great Clan.

“You will go and rip this land asunder! Bring me more of your kind and let them join us in glorious evolution!”

As he stepped aside, the horde spilled out of the gates, racing off across the hinterlands and down towards the valleys below.

And you will be prime hunting for my wayward creations.

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