[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 110: Pity the Fool

Elsewhere, a certain elf was quietly bemoaning the cold when she became aware of two presences approaching her.

“This is not where I would have expected to find you,” Nynn said, amused.

“You can blame Australia for that,” Caiyeri said, her jacket glowing lightly with the mana it was burning to keep her warm. “It was their idea to send scouts here.”

“You’re not Australian,” Wisteria replied.

“You’re not silver,” Caiyeri said in kind. “Weren’t you on the boat?”

“Yes,” the bronze-rank Void Knight said. “I thought about going back to England, then decided against it. Whatever’s waiting for me back home, it’s not my England.”

“I can sympathize,” Caiyeri said. “Though I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing here. To be honest, I thought another nation would get here first.”

The elf was addressing them both from a small tent that was already half-buried by snow. Her Resistance skills largely applied to fighting in corrupted conditions, which helped with her need for oxygen up here, but not the cold. It had taken a number of items to help her survive temperatures more than sixty degrees below freezing.

She hadn’t noticed any problems with this during the trial of the champion, but that had largely been because of Will’s Equilibrium Mantle ability, which stabilized extreme weather conditions. When she hadn’t been protected by that, there had been some strange effect triggered by the corrupted pillars the cultists had used that normalized atmosphere and temperature, preventing their sacrifice materials from perishing from exposure.

All that was to say that right now, she was perhaps not the most equipped person for the top of Mount Everest. Even Wisteria had skills that helped her manage better, and she was a rank lower than Caiyeri was.

“Most other nations are either unaware of the presence of what lies here or are unwilling to risk their best on it,” Nynn said. “This one in particular is infested and is a much more difficult location to access than similar instances elsewhere. I am surprised you chose to make the journey yourself. There are gold-rank monsters on this mountain.”

“Plenty of them won’t bother me if I don’t bother them,” Caiyeri said. “It’s also much easier to kill a monster above your rank when it can’t fly and you have a conveniently massive cliff to push them off of.”

“Point taken,” Nynn said.

“Still, doing this by yourself is brave,” Wisteria gushed. “Caiyeri, right? Your group is full of insanity.”

“I leave most of that to Will,” Caiyeri said. “You’ll notice I haven’t actually gone into the dungeon yet.”

The top of the tallest mountain in the world had been filled with the refuse of avid climbers who had dropped equipment, trash, and bodies and been unable to afford the cost of taking them down, but the system integration had changed that to some extent. There was still trash, but much of it had simply been devoured for material.

Now, at the top, there was a dungeon that didn’t quite fit into the classification that the other ones they’d encountered had. It wasn’t just a portal, nor was it fully manifested in reality.

Caiyeri had heard stories of this through the grapevine before, but she was unfamiliar enough with it to not want to risk poking the belly of the beast. Of the three of them standing near the peak, it was only Nynn who knew and understood what this was.

“This is what we’ve been looking for,” he told Wisteria. “It will be more challenging than anything you have ever faced. A gold ranking is insufficient to explain the extent of the danger within.”

“Why are you taking a bronze rank into this, then?” Caiyeri asked. “And why is she with you?”

Even as she asked the question, she could get a sense of the answer. The Elven Mother had given her powerful blessings despite the goddess’ best efforts otherwise, and that had included an expansion to her already powerful aura senses. There was something familiar about the bent of Wisteria’s. It was weaker than the one she knew, and it was different enough that she could tell it was going down a different path, but…

“That much should be obvious,” Nynn said. “You have that much skill, no?”

“Of course,” Caiyeri sniffed. “The same reason you have an interest in Will, I presume. You think she can fight two ranks up?”

“Obviously not. I know you can fight a rank higher, and you have the potential to do more if you are forced to. Wisteria does not. Not yet. That is the purpose of my mission here.”

“You do remember that you’re just a gold-ranker, right?” Caiyeri asked.

“Bold words from a silver,” Nynn said mildly. “Yes. I am aware of my limitations. I am also aware of the potential that an unmined instance of this contains. Do you know how often these come into existence so early into the cycle?”

“I’m guessing it’s rare.”

“I have been alive for many, many cycles, and this is only the second time I have even heard of this occurring.”

“What happened the first time?” Wisteria asked.

“The planet was consumed by corruption and the appearance of several thousand low-tier demons, and it was cleansed shortly thereafter,” Nynn said with all the gravitas of someone talking about what they would be eating for dinner. “Shall we? Every minute spent outside is a waste of valuable mana.”

“Am I going to have to keep her safe?” Caiyeri asked, nodding towards the Void Knight.

“No,” Wisteria said. “Don’t bother. We’ll just get in each other’s way.”

“Perfect. If I determine that it’s impossible to be going on, I will be leaving.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Nynn said. “Now hurry on. Even if this location has been left unmolested, it is only a matter of time until one faction or another decides to send someone at it.”

#

Peace. Will kept turning that word over in his head.

Fortunately, Time in a Bottle had been a strong enough temporary buff for him to yank the remaining parts of his Thousand Eyes out of range of the Peace sigil-holders, though quite a few of them had still managed to catch Sen as Will’s familiar had fled.

The immediate response from those sigil-holders had brought on a chain reaction of other Users realizing they were being observed. The vast majority of them were unable to identify where the Thousand Eyes were, and many of those who did prudently decided against lashing out, not wanting to waste their mana when it was nearly impossible to regenerate it in this area.

Still, enough people attacked and connected with Sen that by the time Will had all of his familiar safely time-locked and in a safe location again, there were only around seven hundred of the eyes left.

He was still reeling from the realization of what god had noticed his interference. There was no wave of disapproval or even concern coming from the Hunger, so Will presumed that his god and the Elven Mother had figured out a way to wash their hands of his skill. If Peace’s eye was on him now, that eye was on him alone.

Will wondered if that would interfere with his Envoy of Mercy title. Mercy was supposed to be Peace’s sister, after all. Would his title stop functioning if he was at odds with the goddess?

Then again, maybe Peace itself hadn’t actually noticed him. It was possible that it gave the same sigil skills to everyone who took up its cause, one of which could detect Sen—at least when the familiar was range-boosting Desecrated Bond.

Since the heavens had not yet seen fit to smite him, he decided that this question was, to him, academic. Whether his enemies were the Peace sigil-holders or Peace itself was immaterial while he was a metal tier and gods could not interfere directly.

There were far more of them than he’d thought there would be. He remembered Xie-Ren Jie, Alan Truman, and Neriym Rain from the trial of the champion, and he’d figured there’d be a handful more here.

At least a hundred of the representatives of the nations here were Peace sigil-holders. They were dispersed through the city, but there were a lot of them. As far as Will had been able to tell, Peace had the most sigil-holders by raw quantity here, though a few other gods came close.

Will wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, but he did believe that it gave more credence to the theory that Peace had a hand in whatever conspiracy was under way.

He needed more data. Nothing he’d learned had been conclusive enough to say one way or another who he should go after.

“You’ve gotten yourself involved in quite a lot of trouble for a silver-ranker,” Aza said.

Will jumped. “Jesus! How did you even do that?”

Sure, he’d had Sen less extended than usual, but his aura senses and Perception attribute had become proficient enough over the course of his training that he should have been able to detect a presence coming towards him.

“Azathoth would be a poor Dread Executor if a fragment of him could not hide itself from its User,” Aza said in lieu of an explanation. “You’re taking on some major enemies, corruption wielder.”

“Yeah?” Will said. “It’s not my fault that there are apparently gods that want to do I don’t even know what to the world. Especially when my sigils are being rather tight-lipped on that front.”

“I—my true self, I should say—have been a Dread Executor for longer than Kadael and Sadareth have been gods,” Aza said. “Though I respect them immensely, they are not the first to use mortals as a shield against the major deities that they are too unstable to openly oppose.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Will said drily. “I don’t suppose you have any insight into what the Peace people want, then? They all seem pretty damn coordinated, which leads me to believe that they’ve got a common cause of some sort.”

“This, I can only speculate on,” Aza said. “I suspect that you will have to wait until the day of the summit itself before you can gain more information.”

Will sighed. “Maybe.”

“Also, I would advise being more careful with the Thousand Eyes. Though they are a powerful species, they are fragile. I am told that the process of reassembly is quite painful.”

“Shit, is it really? Sorry, Sen.”

The few eyes Will had gathered near him came out of time-lock and rippled with color, spinning in an excited pattern.

“It does not mind,” Aza said, a note of surprise in his voice. “It appears that your Sen is appreciative of the magic you put through it.”

“Glad to hear that,” Will said. “You can communicate with it? All I can get are vague vibes.”

“There are more words spoken in an instant than you could ever hope to understand. You have simply not yet learned to hear.”

“Lovely. Give me a century or two and I’ll be right on that.”

“It may take longer.”

“That was hyperbole, Aza. For now, all I’m looking at is the next 24 hours. Sen, let’s get you patched up and send you back out there. Hopefully I won’t encounter another assassination attempt while I sleep.”

#

Despite the relatively short amount of time she’d had to work with, Lily Teneli had managed to establish herself firmly as a force to be reckoned with. Her closest affiliation was technically to the Pacific Alliance, but she’d done contract work for the ESNA, the French faction in Canada, and an independent group. As it turned out, very quick results and loose lips could lead to a mercenary’s reputation skyrocketing in a matter of weeks, if not days.

The independent faction had contacted her again shortly after she’d completed her first task, asking her to be one of a group of people attending the first human summit. She had wondered why, but they’d as well as outright stated that she’d have an opportunity to get some experience in at the summit. They also paid quite handsomely, so she didn’t mind participating in it, especially since she didn’t actually have to do that much politically.

Part of that payment did include buying her services, so she was completely unsurprised when she got a notification.

???: I have a name for you. Incap or kill, though taking him in alive is preferred. Please respond to this message in the next hour.

That was about the same as the first offer this guy had made. Lily didn’t know or particularly care what had happened to the leader of the independent User group she’d captured, but she did remember that it had been a fun fight.

She’d pushed herself all the way to Silver 7 now, but through experience, she knew she was more than capable of dealing with even gold-ranks under the right conditions—and she was very good at creating those conditions for herself.

While she was walking through Geneva, drinking a fruity cocktail and wondering what target he could be asking for, Lily’s silver-rank danger sense alerted her to the fact that she was being watched. Again. It had been constantly triggering since she’d gotten to the city, though it was a low-level alert, so she mostly ignored it.

Being under surveillance at an event like this was to be expected. The only thing that annoyed her was that she didn’t know who was using the skill to watch her. Normally, she would be able to trace it back to its source.

Then, suddenly, her danger sense went haywire, telling her that an attack was imminent. Lily dropped her drink, letting it shatter as she took a combat stance.

Pressure washed over her and everyone milling about the streets around her, and everyone froze.

She remembered gaining her sigil. Remembered the sheer force she’d felt from the Maiden Huntress when she’d come face to face with an incarnation of a god. That had just been an exposure to one.

This felt like being judged. There was no malice in it, but Lily could feel the promise of it. It was like a thousand eyes were crawling over her, looking beyond her armor, her clothes, her flesh, straight to the core of her being. They were doing nothing more than looking at her for the time being, but somehow, she could tell that they were being peaceful because they simply hadn’t chosen to try to rip her apart.

It wasn’t only Lily’s danger sense that was flashing bright with warning. Her goddess startled, her link strengthening as the Maiden Huntress stirred into action.

There was a familiarity to the arrogant divinity of the pressure that poured over her. She’d felt this aura before.

Lily shuddered. She was glad she hadn’t pissed this guy off too bad when their power levels had been more evenly matched. This was not an enemy she wanted to make. Not anymore.

Her senses caught the sound and aura of magic attacks being fired. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pressure disappeared.

???: Any updates?

She hissed in irritation. Not the time.

Lily: Give me the name. Who do you want me to hit?

The Hunter had a bad feeling about this.

???: William Li-Brown.

Lily: Hell no.

???: He’s a silver-ranker.

Lily: No means no. Find someone else.

???: I will be withholding the second half of the payment. I know you need this for your gold-rank advancement, Teneli.

Lily: How many times do I need to tell you this? Name anyone else on the planet, I’ll give it an honest go. Well, maybe not the otherworlders unless you paid me a lot. And gave me good intel.

???: I always do both.

Lily: Yeah, and I’m telling you that’s not enough for me. No deal.

???: No deal, then. I look forward to a continued working relationship with you, Teneli.

Despite the fact that the presence had already been and gone, Lily breathed out a sigh of relief. Her goddess, too, seemed to calm down, the sigil link’s stress lowering in intensity.

After taking a moment to destress and a longer one to grab another drink, she opened a new message.

Lily: We need to talk.

Will: Funny to see you here. What’re we talking about?

#

The Contractor leaned back in his seat. That made three people now who’d turned down his offer, which had been extraordinarily generous. Far more than that had accepted, of course, but some of the Users who were best equipped to eliminate the corruption wielder had turned it down.

An impatient graze against his soul brought him out of his Scry, and he pushed aura out soothingly.

“Rest easy, Fate,” he said. “If we cannot eliminate him with shock and awe, we can continue putting more pieces on the board and wear him down. Besides, Peace seems to want him off too. We can use that.”

That calmed the god down, which got him chuckling. Fate wasn’t the highest tier of the gods, but it was up there, and yet sometimes it acted like an excitable child.

“That said,” the Contractor continued, “I pity the fool who tries to eliminate him next.”

#

Will only needed to foil two more assassination attempts before the summit started.

“Huh,” he said, looking at the body of the silver-ranker who’d dragged him into a dark alley and promptly died of corruption. “I thought you’d be tougher.”

“Amongst even the exceptional, there are those who are rank and file,” Aza commented. “To you, they will become like ants.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can drop the melodrama,” Will said. “We have a summit to attend.”