[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 85: Give Into Despair

Each time Will entered the Beyond, it felt more natural than the last. This time was no exception. His nightly ritual with the Hunger had continued even while they were on and around the Sentinel, and he was slowly but surely getting to the point where he could almost think through the unbearable pain.

Already, he was capable of establishing a Sanctuary that stayed intact for long enough to allow him to recover his mana to full through meditation, though of course it didn’t have the power or detail of the links that Nynn and Ayla could establish.

Only Ayla connected to him this time. She looked around his barren, largely empty domain with a critical eye, then nodded approvingly.

“Your control has only improved,” she said. “Extremely impressive, especially for one with this little training. A human, at that.”

“Thanks. I try.” Will raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem to be the biggest fan of humans.”

“Your planet is not the only one with your kind upon it,” Ayla said. “My home planet no longer exists, but when it did, humans were an inferior species.”

“Didn’t you say you were stuck in the form of one?” Will asked. “You’re a changeling, aren’t you?”

“I was born one, yes. By nature of who I am and what this world is, I have been many, many things. That is not what you have entered the Beyond to discuss, and is best left for another day.”

“That’s entirely fair. Where the hell is Nynn? I wanted to talk to him.”

“As much as he has more raw power than I do at the moment, that Dread Executor was never the best at handling the Beyond. He’s not used to operating without his maximum power, and his connection is flashy and overdraws on his soul.”

“You’re telling me he ran out of gas. I thought he had more than you.”

“Both of us have been reduced to shadows of ourselves,” Ayla acknowledged. “The difference is that I am used to living as one, and he is not.”

“We’ll get that fixed one day,” Will said. “Your importance to me aside, I’m deeply curious about what you can do at full power. Nynn seems to have some degree of, well, I’m not sure whether to call it grudging respect or something ruder. Whatever. You know what I mean. He considers you a threat, even as you are now.”

“I am,” Ayla said. “Again, though, this is not why you are here. You should be preserving your soul’s stamina.”

“I can recover it quickly. I want to investigate the tournament venue. Maybe contact Nynn if he’s there, since I haven’t been able to from my current location.”

“You’ve learned how to use the Beyond to transport yourself.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yep.”

“That took me six months to manage even the beginnings of.”

“What can I say? I’m just naturally talented,” Will said, grinning lopsidedly. “Turns out that a stupid amount of training works.”

“Your sigil,” Ayla surmised. “You’re using it somehow. The gods’ understanding of this place is flawed, you know.”

“I’m not using their knowledge,” Will said, “but yes. Why do you say that?”

“I can sense it in the way your soul domain exists,” she said. “You have a very powerful hammer, and now everything looks like a nail. You’re establishing your position despite the Beyond’s energy, not because of it.”

“It’s sloppy, then.”

“Not so much as it is misguided. In some ways, it’s brilliant. In others, you’re using brute force to slam a pin into place when a gentle push is all that’s needed. Your soul is impressively large for your rank, but you can’t solely rely on it. Also, are you in the middle of affixing a skill right now? That’s like taking a hammer to your kneecaps before running a hundred-meter race.”

“It helps me see my soul better,” Will explained. “Like, having it poking into me makes it more obvious what’s happening where.”

“Humans,” Ayla sighed, shaking what Will assumed was her head. It was hard to tell, sometimes. “You’re all insane.”

“Hey! I take offense to that. I’m pretty sure the average human isn’t going to the same lengths as me.”

“This isn’t a competition that you want to be winning.”

“But I am winning, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Ayla said, sighing deeper. “Of the Users I’ve observed during your cycle, you are perhaps the least sane of them all. Unfortunately for my sanity, it just so happens that a lack of common sense appears to be exactly what prevails in times like these.”

“Awesome! Glad we could come to an agreement on that. Now, about the soul domain. Can you show me a better way to handle it?”

“Of course,” Will’s former tutorial helper sniffed. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Great point. Let’s get this done.”

#

When Will reappeared, his soul was worn down. Ayla had made sure to tell him to keep enough energy to make the return trip when he was done, but he’d still taken himself nearly to failure. The new techniques she had taught him didn’t rebuild his understanding his soul so much as enhance it, but they were complex and difficult to put into proper use. He could see why it had taken months, years, and even decades for her to master her control over the Beyond.

As he reappeared, his new skill finally finished affixing. One benefit of having an increased understanding of his soul came into play now. While the skill had been binding itself to his soul, making itself part of him, Will had realized that his soul was malleable enough that he could guide the slot that the skill bound to. Though he wasn’t yet skilled enough to do anything more than push the broad strokes of the tablet one way or another, he could at least get a better idea of what he was getting.

Will had wanted something to supplement Thunder Wraith’s Grasp, giving him more opportunities to devastate a larger group of targets, and though it wasn’t a perfect match, he’d been able to nudge the tablet into delivering.

You have affixed a [Power] skill. You have now affixed all available [Power] skill slots.

Skill: [Abyssal Tempest]

- Spell (augmentation, evocation).

- Cost: moderate mana per second.

- Cooldown: 1 minute.

Silver

When a storm arrives at sea, it leaves behind only wrecks and struggling survivors. In their darkest hour, when all hope is lost, the abyss begins to take its toll, laying claim to the lives of those who have weathered one disaster.

Then, sometimes, a storm strikes once more.

This is a channeled skill. The cooldown for this skill will begin when you stop using it.

Increases your [Power] attribute sharply. This effect increases the longer you use the skill, which also increases the mana cost. This effect is also dramatically increased when attacking an enemy that has been afflicted with [Charged].

[Abyssal Fury] (bronze) - While this skill is being channeled, you gain a resistance to elemental damage. You also deal increased damage to enemies afflicted with [Charged], even if you are using another skill.

[Thundershock] (silver) - When you hit a target that is afflicted with [Charged], lightning strikes that target and deals damage in a small radius. This bolt spreads to any nearby enemy that is also afflicted with [Charged]. Any enemy caught in the radius of each attack is inflicted with a stacking level of [Charged].

Once again, it was an untested skill. Will had learned by now that a lot of potential was hidden in every skill, but many of them didn’t work out quite the way he’d initially pictured them. Unlike the unreserved excitement he’d had before for every skill, he was cautiously appreciative of this.

“Works well with Thunder Wraith’s Grasp,” he muttered to himself. “Good AOE. Does this work with all the skills, or just straight up attacks? It should combo with the new part of Weapons Free pretty well.”

He could test skill interactions later. For now, he had a job to do.

Will hadn’t taken all of Sen’s eyes with him in his rush to get moving, which was admittedly a bit of a mistake, but he’d left enough in the tournament venue to make use of.

The area he teleported into had once been the triage area after the first cultist attack, but it was nearly unrecognizable now. The building had been demolished, though whether that had been done by the cultists or because the ambient corruption had simply eroded away the supports was anyone’s guess.

Will teleported out from under a fallen section of the building, enveloping the area in his hunger phantasm as he did. He did a quick scan with Pages of the Past, searching for potential traps.

“Should have triggered Time in a Bottle the second I arrived,” he chided himself. “What if there was a landmine or something waiting for me? I need to be more careful.”

There was nothing in the immediate area, though it was clear that the corruption here had seen a sharp uptick in intensity since he’d healed people here. Every few seconds, a new notification appeared, telling him that he’d been afflicted with yet another level of corruption before it was negated by his gold-rank resistance.

Will called Sen’s eyes to him, spreading his aura senses out as he did. There was something wrong, he was sure of it. The corruption shouldn’t have continued to increase without an outside influence causing it to do so.

He was a hundred percent sure that there was an opposing player on the board now. The question was who, where, and how.

Will: Nynn, are you in the area?

Nynn: You’re not supposed to be here.

Will: Yeah, and I am. What are you going to do about it?

Nynn: I could kill you.

Will: You’re not going to waste a Dread Executor candidate, are you? Besides, I’m pretty sure you have much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Nynn: Why would I be frying fish? I am searching for trails that link back to the corruption cultists, not trying to find dinner.

Will: Do you not have idioms where you come from?

Nynn: We have idioms. They just make sense.

Will: If you say so, chief. Look, I’ve got a skillset that is very suited to this, and even if you’ve got more, I’m sure you could use some help that knows what they’re doing.

Nynn: There is at least one high-level corruption cultist remaining. Stealth focus. Mid gold, so a full rank above you. I haven’t been able to find them, and whoever it is, they have made multiple attempts to turn portions of the corrupted tournament asteroids into weapons of mass destruction. Can you handle that?

Will: Of course I can. Let’s team up, yeah? Two hands are better than one here, I’m pretty sure, and I can survive in space just fine.

Nynn: Don’t get in my way.

Will: Don’t get in mine.

#

Ingrid was an expert of diversion. On Selrethnir, she had been an advisor to a Demon Lord—who wasn’t a demon at all, really, he had been a paltry, petty lord of a small fief compared to the real thing. There, she’d worked her way up the ranks until she had been able to turn his kingdom against itself from the inside out, cleaning the Demon Lord’s coffers before leaving him and his kingdom to be torn apart in the coming years.

Ataraxis, the leader of her sect, had made use of her to topple kingdoms, distract heroes, and even interface with the gods that had given portions of their power to support their cause.

In short, she was extremely good at running away, lying by omission, and generally being a nuisance of a thief. In some kingdoms, she had earned the moniker of “the roach” thanks to how many people had been dedicated to her case.

The past few weeks had been no different. After successfully opening the gate from Selrethnir into a world with an ongoing apocalypse cycle and an active corruption wielder, she had begun running offense against the forces arrayed against her group. There was the gold-rank otherworlder with incredible crafting prowess who had followed the cult, the kingdom officials who had followed him, and of course the gold-rank who had given up far greater power to involve himself in their matters.

It was the latter that she was most concerned with at the moment. Thanks to the ongoing effects that the pillars they’d acquired provided to all active members of the cult, Ingrid’s senses were sharp enough to detect the disappearance of the majority of the gold-ranks at play within the tournament.

She’d been left behind when Ataraxis had taken the rest of the sect to the outer reaches of the solar system. Someone had to defend the activated rituals while the rest of them prepared for the final phases of their grand scheme, after all.

It was a critical job, so of course it had been left up to Ingrid. At Gold 5, she was a force to be reckoned with in her own right, but what she excelled at was at exactly what needed to be done.

The gold-rank that they had the most trouble with had once been a Dread Executor, according to Ataraxis. Even if he was at their rank, he would be more formidable than anyone else in this solar system by a long shot.

In a direct fight, at least.

Over the last week, however, ever since the tournament’s parameters had abruptly shifted, interfering with their plans, she had drawn the former Dread Executor’s attention this way and that, leading him on… what would the locals say? A wild goose chase? Her social skills hadn’t quite adapted to the local planet yet, but that sounded right.

She flitted through the asteroid belts, using her gold-rank Anchored Teleportation skill to vary her locations quickly. Ingrid left random marks of magic behind, driving the gold-ranker to devastate this asteroid or another. She rarely took part in direct engagements, instead just occasionally firing off a planted trap. At gold rank, those could be devastating, though none of them actually stopped the one chasing her.

That was fine. The most important part of this was that she knew where he was, and that she never let him get within a hundred miles of her actual location.

Then, a second presence appeared near one of her anchors. It was lesser than the great power of the gold-rank former Executor, but she couldn’t afford to take anything lightly, especially when the new presence came out of nowhere. His teleportation was nearly undetectable, leaving little to no mana trace.

Just as quickly, he disappeared from her perception, aura masked so far that even her detection traps couldn’t ping him.

That wasn’t too beyond expectations. Nynn, the former Executor, had also managed to dodge her perception from time to time. Her traps would take care of the new individual, and even if they couldn’t, she would wait for him to make a single slip-up and destroy him herself. He was a silver-rank, which meant his attributes were far inferior to hers.

It was another variable in her game of crocodile and sparrow. One that she could chase, instead of being the one who was followed. 

Fortunately, it was an easier variable to handle than the ones she was already dealing with. The active rituals inscribed by the pillars assisted her, keeping her topped up at all times.

Then, a day in, the impossible happened.

One of her anchors, which had so far completely avoided detection thanks to the gold-rank illusion and nondetection spells she’d placed around them, disappeared. She spotted Nynn’s aura signature in the area shortly after, and for an instant, she thought she might have also seen the silver-ranks.

Then, a day later, as she was rigging a mile-wide asteroid to redirect itself into a densely populated area of the planet she was orbiting, a second one went as well.

One was a coincidence. Two was enemy action.

Except Nynn hadn’t displayed any more perception skills. He’d missed the anchors for weeks, and he’d fallen for traps laid by Ingrid’s illusory clones, nearly losing his life to a couple well-placed explosions. There was no reason for him to know where her anchors were.

Then it had to be the silver-rank.

She needed to get more active. If they were trying to cut off her options, it was working. They were finding anchors faster than she could reestablish them.

Ingrid decided her staging ground—a simple asteroid that had held a single arena, where she’d hidden a teleportation anchor. It was corrupted to the eyeballs, which would make Nynn warier of attacking it, though not by much. In truth, the purpose of this was to make it less likely that the silver-ranker could surprise her. If he was necessary to direct Nynn, he would die here.

Nynn had been tracking her this entire time. Seeing her teleportation anchor and her in the same place, he was sure to take the bait. All she had to do was kill the silver-ranker, trigger her traps, and teleport away while Nynn suffered through the gold-rank traps.

She only realized what a mistake that was when they finally arrived and she was able to look at them both with her aura senses instead of her traps.

How had she been so quick to ignore the facts? The silver-ranker who’d teleported to her was no standard silver. He descended to the surface of the asteroid without worrying about the vacuum around them or the ongoing corruption that plagued the area.

“Corruption wielder,” she whispered to herself. “William Li-Brown.”

Ingrid’s inability to determine who he was had been a mistake, but she could improvise quickly. Her initial plan had been to kill him thoroughly, but it was easier to tone back overkill than it was to add more force.

Ataraxis wanted this one alive—at least until the ritual completed. Someone with this strong a link to corruption was going to be extremely valuable, after all.

That was fine. If she cut his limbs off and sealed his magic, he would still be useful as a ritual component, though that would prevent him from ever being used as an ally.

“Ingrid Wachter,” William declared. “Are you alone?”

She didn’t respond, of course. Instead, Ingrid created an illusory clone halfway across the asteroid, sending it forward to do the talking for her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” her clone asked while she prepared the traps.

The corruption wielder cocked his head. “Not going to meet me in person? You’re a gold-ranker, aren’t you? Are you that scared of little old me?”

He let some of his aura suppression fade, revealing a startlingly strong aura. One of her perception skills triggered, finally able to gather insight into him.

Skill activated: Pages of the Past. Skill activated: Thousand Eyes. Skill activated: Time in a Bottle. Passive activated: Equilibrium Mantle. Ongoing skill applied: Favored Element.

How much mana did this silver have? Even Ingrid had to constantly monitor how many ongoing passive and active skills she had going at any given moment, yet here was a human a full rank below her using this many as if they cost him nothing.

A chill ran down her spine.

Skill activated: Mark for Death.

“I see you,” William said. “Nynn?”

“On it,” the gold-ranker said. He clasped the corruption wielder’s hand, then both vanished.

They reappeared less than a hundred meters in front of Ingrid’s true body. Her eyes widened. This was the exact situation she had sought to avoid. She couldn’t afford a straight-on fight.

Ingrid activated Hundred Selves, one of her signature Soul attribute skills, and instantaneously produced a full one hundred clones, each of them carrying her exact aura. To even the most trained of aura senses, they would register as the exact same.

“Not gonna work, Ingrid,” William said darkly. “You’ve been marked for death. That doesn’t go away easily. Ask me how I know.”

She didn’t need the distraction to last long. Just long enough for her to activate the extent of her traps, which she’d laid for days at this point. The asteroid practically turned itself inside out, grasping gold-rank vines shooting out of the ground. It applied gold-rank paralysis to everything it touched, followed by a devastating neurotoxin that would further inhibit their ability to run.

Skill activated: Time in a Bottle.

Suddenly, William’s figure flashed with power, dark shadow spreading out across the asteroid, and he teleported upwards.

“That,” Ingrid’s clones growled in a chorus, “was a mistake.”

Her Conditional Trap ability activated. Its condition: someone was trying to leave the planet. The effect: a brutal psychic blow crashed down upon its target’s soul, stunning him. It would have torn him apart earlier, but she’d had to tone it down to just debilitating instead of lethal.

The vines grasped higher and higher. Nynn could handle them with his own abilities, but the silver-ranker couldn’t, especially not when he was stunned.

To Ingrid’s surprise, the former Dread Executor didn’t even try to help his ally. Was he struggling that hard to deal with the vines, or was he just that confident that the silver-ranker would survive?

William appeared stunned, and the vines applied further afflictions to him, rendering him incapable of moving. Still, Nynn made no move to assist his ally.

This was quickly turning from a disaster into an opportunity. She had the corruption wielder. Now all she had to do was escape.

She began the process of disappearing to one of her teleportation anchors on the opposite side of the planet’s orbit—and that was when Nynn finally broke through the vines attacking him, turning a skill on Ingrid herself.

Skill activated: Counterspell.

A massive burst of mana shot forth from the gold-rank, disrupting Ingrid’s skill. She muttered a curse in her native tongue, then sent her clones to cover her while she escaped with non-teleportation movement skills. In one minute, she would be able to use her skill again, this time from beyond Nynn’s range.

Realization struck her as she ran. Nynn had struggled to tell the difference between Ingrid and one of her clones earlier. It was the corruption wielder who had been able to do so without difficulty. If Nynn had found the right skill to Counterspell, then…

Her attention snapped to the vines that were holding the silver-rank just in time to see ghostly fire erupt from his, consuming his entire body as well as the vines binding him.

Skill activated: Ghostflame.

“Did you seriously think that would be enough to keep me down?” William Li-Brown asked. The flame vanished, and he unveiled his aura in full.

The sheer strength he presented should not have been possible from a silver-ranker, and the raw power of the hunger that rolled over Ingrid froze her in place for a moment before she was able to use her training and magic to overcome it, pushing the influence of his aura out of her soul. She was well trained against soul attacks. His aura would not be able to crush her now.

“You’re not getting away from here,” he said mildly. “You know that, right?”

Nynn had broken free as well, as if to verify his point. Dark shadow surged towards Ingrid as the silver-ranker did as well.

Skill activated: Wind Walker. Passive activated: Escape Artist.

“Are you insane?” she gaped. “I’m a rank higher than you.”

Ingrid readied her own skills, preparing for a battle. Her weapons were not a warrior’s, but an assassin’s. They would serve her well against a silver-ranker though, no matter his aura strength.

Skill activated: Weapons Free. Skill activated: Chaos Transfer.

From the dagger she held in her right hand, a glint of metal emerged, slashing at her armored chest. It didn’t break through, but it scraped her arm.

You have been afflicted with a silver-rank level of [Charged] and [Corruption] as well as a gold-rank level of [Poisoned] and [Paralyzed].

[Affliction Resistance] (Gold) negates [Corruption] and [Paralyzed].

An odd ringing met her ears, and her body froze once more, necrotic pain surging through it.

Skill activated: The Bell Tolls.

You have been afflicted with a silver-rank level of [Wither].

She fired back with her dagger, using a gold-rank ranged skill—

Skill activated: Counterspell.

Just in time for Nynn to catch up to them both and cancel it. His Dreadscythe, which was named after himself—the ego on this man—was in his hand now, and he was rapidly increasing in speed.

Ingrid was losing control of this battle. The corruption wielder had proved to be worthy of Ataraxis’ interest, and she could definitely not handle taking him on alongside the gold-rank Nynn, especially not when William was telling him where she was at all times.

She needed to run, but Nynn’s Counterspells were placed just at the right intervals to stop her from getting away.

There was one possible path that was always open to her, but she didn’t want to use it. Her life was the last chip she had to play, and she would be damned if she didn’t exhaust everything else beforehand.

Before she could formulate a plan, though, William simply screamed.

Skill activated: Wail of the Forgotten.

For an instant, her mind blanked, filled with the screams of billions of forgotten souls, demanding for her to join them, to remember them, to stop fighting, it hurt, it hurt it hurt—

No. She could fight this. Ingrid was better than this.

Yet just as she began to resist it, the corruption wielder’s aura slammed into her, full force. Her earlier resistance had worked because she had been unmolested and been able to put her entire gold-rank soul into it, but this time?

This time, he crushed her with the force of a god.

You have been afflicted with a gold-rank level of [Wither] and [Weakness].

Less than a second after that, through the haze of her broken vision, she saw him draw a scepter, which glowed with power she remembered from Selrethnir.

She was not able to resist. The explosion sent her flying, and it was only a last-minute gold-rank shielding item that prevented her from being torn apart by the burst of energy.

You have been afflicted with a silver-rank level of [Despair].

And despair she did.

In her desperation, her mind found a moment of clarity.

Ataraxis and the others only needed days more until their plan was fully completed. Ingrid’s job wasn’t entirely done, but she had done enough. Her leader would be able to manage without her… probably.

More importantly, these two were going to be lynchpins in fighting against the sect. If she could take them out now, no matter the cost, she would benefit them all.

Six years ago, Ingrid had augmented her heart with a platinum-rank nuclear device. By stabbing herself with one of her daggers, which served as a key, she would break the rules of plausibility, irreversibly corrupting herself before she blew up this asteroid and everything surrounding it.

Her leader had wanted her alive, but the objective was more imperative than her life was.

Ingrid closed her eyes, running through a million possibilities. Her resolve hardened as her despair did the same.

There was no other choice.

I’m sorry, my love, she thought. This is how it must end for me. Demons willing, you will complete my life’s work for me.

She raised her dagger high, preparing to plunge it into her chest and trigger an explosive death that would secure the sect’s position. Not even a Counterspell could stop this. It was not an activation of a skill, and Nynn would not be able to prevent it—nor his death, shortly after.

With a mental command, her chestplate vanished into her inventory, baring her skin to cold vacuum and giving her a path to her own heart.

This would be her defeat, but it would be theirs too. In it, the sect would find victory.

But William Li-Brown was here, and he was in front of her, and there was death in his eyes.

Skill activated: Hunger Phantasm. Skill activated: Hunger Aura.

Shadow surrounded her and solidified, gripping her arms, and though she was easily able to break free, it cost her valuable time.

As she brought her dagger down, spatial magic surrounded it, folding over the knife.

Skill activated: Weapons Free.

Ingrid grasped for the weapon, resisting the skill, but she had been laden by affliction after affliction.

Condition: [Stunned]

- Inflicted upon you by [Wail of the Forgotten].

- Your ability to move is drastically decreased.

- Lowers your [Perception] by 1 rank to Silver 6.

- Your ability to resist other skills is drastically decreased.

When her clasped hand struck at her heart, there was only air clenched in her fist.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the corruption wielder said. In the darkness, only his silhouette was visible, radiating an aura of pure evil that not even Ataraxis could rival. “We still have use for you, Ingrid. You can die after you talk.”

Ingrid Wachter, a matron of deception, master of traps, and a corruption cultist for nearly three decades, gave into despair.