[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 58: Losers Weepers (Patreon)

“I am not going in there,” Will said.

“Nor am I,” Caiyeri agreed. 

Both of them had had enough experiences with underwater dungeons for a lifetime, and this wasn’t even a dungeon. Without the sigil of the Lady of the Lake, Will did not want to enter the native territory of monsters that were higher rank than him, especially if he was trying to take one alive.

“Well, the changelings are in there,” Varix said, having regained some of his confidence now that Lily no longer had interest in him. “I can highlight them.”

His skill was an incredibly useful one for a tracker, enabling him to spot out creatures for himself and his party.

“Why don’t you have anything this useful?” Will asked Lily. She chose to ignore him.

“Your team is dysfunctional,” Caiyeri told him.

“Like yours is any better? Vincent over there still looks like he’s going to wet his pants.”

“Hey!”

Caiyeri sighed. “No, but at least I don’t have an elemental looking at your teammate like he wants to tear his head from his body.”

Will hadn’t noticed that, but Fortress had tensed upon seeing Varix, and his gaze was still focused on the chimera like he was a fresh piece of meat.

Despite being the highest leveled here, Fortress’ presence wasn’t very threatening. Will wondered if that was because he was so used to the Hunger’s ascendant aura by now that a mere silver-rank, no matter the power, couldn’t faze him.

“Yo. Yo, Fortress,” Will said. “Snap out of it. How are you supposed to be a king if you can’t even focus on the challenge at hand?”

There were still sixty-five or so hours left on Main Challenge 1, but Will didn’t want to push this one to the wire. That reality break before the first challenge worried him, and he got the feeling that there was more to this situation than whnat he could see at first glance.

“His affinity is fire,” Caiyeri said. “I bet gold to silver that his sigil is fire-based as well. What is he going to do against a lake?”

Varix’s skill finished applying, red light shooting from his hands and dispersing into the air before shooting straight downwards, creating crimson beacons that shot from the lake into the sky.

“Oh, great,” Will said. “And now all of China knows we’re here.”

“China is one of your world’s nations.” Caiyeri frowned. “Why would they be here? We’re not on the surface of the planet.”

“I know this one!” Vincent exclaimed. He shriveled at Will’s casual glance, not saying another word.

“Glad to see someone has some taste here,” Will said. “There’s enough here for everyone in both parties to get one. Don’t we only need one?”

“That was the wording, yes,” Caiyeri said. “I count eight beacons. Varix. Depth?”

The edgelord chimera didn’t respond.

“Do I need to remind you who you’re dealing with?” Will asked gently.

That got him speaking. “Anywhere from fifty to three hundred feet. Most of them are staying closer to the surface. They’re disguised as different types of fish, but they’re all silver-rank.”

“Fantastic,” Will said drily. “Anyone know how to fish?”

“I would love to,” Lily said, a predatory grin splitting her face.

“You know, you and Caiyeri have a lot in common.”

“Take that back before I take your eyes,” the elf said, flipping the seven-shooter Will had gifted her in her hand. “You already know that I have nothing for water fighting.”

“Contrary to your expectations,” Fortress rumbled, stepping forward and noticeably increasing the temperature around them, “I do possess an ability for this scenario.”

Uncomfortable warmth quickly became boiling hot, the air shimmering around Fortress as he casually walked towards the lake.

He cried out an enchantment that even Will’s Omnilingual skill struggled to translate. It gave him a best guess of father of flame, hear my cry, but it came through with a garbled, unclear sound like the words themselves were burning.

“A gold-rank skill,” Caiyeri whispered in awe. “The power of a sigil.”

The temperature intensified further to the extent that all three members of Caiyeri’s team drew their weapons, but Fortress didn’t turn towards them. Instead, he made his way into the lake, every step charring the rock beneath him.

Water evaporated in instants as he entered, a huge cloud of steam rising up as the lake parted ways around him. Fortress disappeared into the lake, hidden by plumes of vapor shooting so high that Will could believe the volcano was erupting.

What didn’t instantly vaporize began to boil, the entire lake quickly heating as a result of Fortress entering it.

Water was supposed to be the natural counter to fire, but Will had long since learned that after the advent of the system, basic assumptions about the world had to be reexamined.

Within the first minute, the lake started dying. The unformed-rank fish perished nearly immediately, the bronzes following soon after. They bubbled up to the top, monster corpses floating around in the boiling water.

“We need them alive, don’t we?” Lily said. “I’m down for a good hunt, but this is a bit over the top. All that XP, wasted…”

“You just aren’t the sharpest crayon in the lunchbox, are you?” Will shot back. “The changelings are the only monster that should be able to easily escape. Even at silver, I doubt they have the resistance they want to deal with this. As soon as they get out, they’ll be isolated. Easier pickings.”

“Get your bow ready,” Caiyeri said. “The beacons are starting to move.”

#

Hua’s sigil belonged to the Thief of Stars. She and Haoyu hadn’t found sigils from the same god, and their fighting styles had wildly diverged in the wake of that, much to the enjoyment of their sponsors.

“I hope you’re watching,” she said. “I better earn something good for this.”

Star Cloak, the primary skill she got from the sigil, meant that she had decided to take the role of scout. If her group was going to insist on trying to find a changeling this way, she would fully commit to it for as long as she needed to in order to win.

Skill: [Star Cloak]

- Ward (sigil).

- Cost: none.

- Cooldown: varies.

Silver

The Thief of Stars wraps you in its protection and gives you its grace. Summons a cloak that gives everyone under it the following properties:

[Even the Brightest Star Casts a Shadow] - You are immune to passive perception. If you are not being searched for, you will not be seen.

[Celestial Glide] (silver) - You do not make sound if you do not wish to. Your aerial movement is greatly enhanced. At night time, your movement is drastically enhanced.

It wasn’t night right now, but it was the first aspect of that skill that had proved to be so invaluable. With it, she could sneak right up in front of someone and they wouldn’t be able to see her, not even with their magic senses. It made her a fantastic assassin, and, as the god’s name implied, thief.

She hoped it was only the latter she would have to do today. Will had been nice to them and provided valuable information about the monster that was now in the challenge. It had been refreshing to talk to someone who didn’t treat her and Haoyu like they were either celebrities or fresh meat. To be fair to the former group, they technically were, but… it was nice.

Will’s group had teamed up with another one, she saw. They looked to be on edge, the other group watching his as if either side could explode at any moment—except for one unfairly beautiful woman that Will was chatting with like they were getting coffee.

Elf, she noted. Hua tamped down on the instinctive burst of anger at that. While the elf infestation throughout much of the outback had caused a lot of death, she had learned enough to know that their race had a ton of different cultures within it, some of which were perfectly fine—though those were few and far between.

Hua wasn’t surprised to see that both of their teams had caught a changeling already, but she was a bit startled to see just how many they’d gotten.

Earlier, this volcano had proven itself to be active too, shooting up a huge eruption of steam. Hua hadn’t been able to convince either of her party members to back off because of it, so she’d reluctantly gone ahead with it.

Apparently, both parties here had managed to fish eight separate bodies out of an erupting volcano and restrain them using varying methods. Hua winced, noting that four or five of them had been captured by simply impaling them and sticking them to the ground. Even as she watched, Will bent down to feed one of their captures a healing potion.

She didn’t need to inflict violence here, no matter how much her sponsor wanted it. Hua just needed to grab one of the unsecured bodies, and she was home free—well, until other parties came knocking looking for hers, too. There were a few that looked to be birds of some kind, small enough for her to carry.

The Warrior strode forward boldly, pleased with her sigil skill. Eyes slid off her like she wasn’t even there. Hua was used enough to being ignored by now that she walked right between them, careful not to bump into any of their party members.

Will’s eyes flashed with mana, and he frowned, looking directly at Hua.

She froze.

“Hey, you,” Will said, tilting his head. “Mind taking that ward off?”

How? She was immune to magical detection if nobody was specifically looking for her. She’d confirmed that multiple times. How had he found her?

“I don’t mean you any harm if you don’t mean me any,” he continued, “but using a… sigil ward? Damn, that’s a neat skill. I wish I had that. Hunger, could you be a bit less of a useless shit and give me something this cool?”

“Who are you talking to?” the elf woman said, drawing what looked to be an antique revolver.

Hua finally put two and two together. This was the woman who’d arrived in the waiting room covered in blood.

Oh, no.

“Not sure yet. Anyway, as I was saying. If you don’t show yourself, I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you, and trust me, you really don’t want to die against me. Well, I assume you don’t want to die in general, but I’m told my particular form of death is extremely painful.”

“Someone told you that?” the elf asked.

“They were screaming loud enough for me to guess.”

Hua remained frozen, a deer in headlights. Before, when she’d felt the man’s aura, it had come off as evil to her, but she had assumed that just had something to do with the User Killer title, which she also had.

Now, though, the intensity of the aura rippling off his body, the surety that he was going to kill her contrasted with the casual way he spoke about committing horrifying acts of violence… Hua’s mind was flooded with nothing but despair and a single sentence.

He needs to die.

Her instincts had been wrong before, though, and they were wrong often, especially when it came to things like good and evil.

Hua didn’t have a choice. She dropped the cloak.

“Shit, it’s you?” Will frowned. “I thought better of you.”

“My team outvoted me,” she said defiantly. “I’m not the highest ranked, and I can’t do this challenge alone.”

“Your team,” Will said. “Who’s on that?”

Hua deliberated for a moment on whether she should give that up, then decided that flunking out of one challenge while still having the opportunity to continue this trial was worth not dying a terrible, painful death.

“Rowan Zero. Silver 9 Arcane Archer. I don’t know his sigil. Alan Baker. Silver 0 Bonded Summoner. I think he got in through the pass.”

“Rowan,” Caiyeri hissed. “There are altogether too many people from our region here.”

“Random chance can be random,” Will said. “That’s not important right now. How far behind you are they?”

“Uh, last I checked, like half a mile,” Hua said.

“Shit,” Will muttered. “Take a changeling and stay out of our way.”

“What?” Hua couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I didn’t think you would—“

“All part of the master plan,” he said. “Besides, we have too many of these things. They’re real vulnerable when they’re fresh out of a transformation, but I’m assuming they get stronger once they’ve had some time to adapt. If you’ve got a way to keep it sedate, you should use it. They’re weak to iron. Not steel, iron.”

Hua blinked. “Yeah, I got that, but why the hell are you helping me? Also, how did you see me?”

“Because I need you to do me a favor,” Will said. “As for the latter part… let’s just say that a true master of the art doesn’t share his secrets.”

“Favor? What favor?”

Will grinned. “I was hoping you would ask.”

#

“Radio silence from the girlie,” Alan sighed. “It’s been twenty minutes now. Let’s go in.”

“She must have betrayed us,” Rowan said. “Humans. You are all so weak.”

“Dunno if I’d say that,” Alan said. “‘Sides, I’m more worried she’s dead. Would be a waste. She would’ve been a lovely pet.”

“I care not for your delusions of the flesh,” Rowan sneered. “Only your power. Can you fight?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I can. I’m a silver. My little lovelies here are—“

“Then fight,” Rowan said. “The boy was a high bronze the last time we saw him. He will fall easily.”

They crested the mountain, crossing over into the crater.

Alan stayed back, spawning all four of his bonded familiars. He’d given each of them obnoxiously sweet pet names, but they were deadly despite that, all of them silver-rank conjurations that applied various debuffs upon their opponents.

Will stood with his back to the ridge, talking with the fire elemental and the human that Rowan recognized as his party.

“Good,” the elf said, drawing his bow. “He is a low silver yet.”

Rowan chanted quickly, applying several layers of power increase to his arrow. Even if the boy was silver-rank now, Rowan’s peak-silver Soul attribute would easily overpower his resistances, overwhelming him with enough afflictions and sudden damage to put down a gold-rank.

He loosed the arrow as Alan’s familiars snuck closer to the party, spiraling closer to the other two.

The numbers didn’t favor them, but Rowan knew of the elemental. Fortress. Despite his potential power, he was a pathetic leader and awful at adapting to his circumstances. He would not be an issue.

Rowan’s enchanted arrow flew straight and true on a course straight for the boy’s neck—and then, suddenly, a forcefield blocked it, shattering in the process.

Both Rowan and Alan immediately scanned the battlefield, searching for their target—and they realized simultaneously that there had been an elf and a human protecting their quarry at the same time.

Alan sicced his familiars on them only for darkness to explode from Will, enshrouding his group within it. The shadows expanded outwards, and the two would-be hunters felt their willpower abruptly drop, their bodies exhausting themselves far faster than they should have.

“You know,” a voice said through the darkness, “I totally could have let that arrow hit me. I made myself immune to the fire damage it would have inflicted anyway.”

“Not the time, Will,” a voice that Rowan recognized as Caiyeri’s said.

He flinched before his mind caught up. That wasn’t his Caiyeri. The intonation was subtly off—this was a clone.

“Insolence,” he growled, activating his Sight Beyond Sight skill to see through the darkness.

Just in time to see the elemental he’d disparaged sending a spire of flame straight at him. Rowan ducked under it, but he did not know to dodge the darkness, thinking it only to be a cosmetic effect meant for controlling the battlefield.

He could not have been more wrong.

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

Rowan’s heartrate spiked before he forced it to calm down, a benefit of his silver-rank body. His artifact would protect him, just as it always had—

A bullet sang into his shield-enchanted robes, penetrating with a strange piercing effect in just the right spot, and his amulet of corruption protection shattered.

The panic returning, he fired arrows at the people who were attacking him, but then suddenly, Will was in front of him, hands stopping Rowan from pulling back on the string.

Alan took that chance to finally make his move, sending his familiars towards Will and Hua.

“You bitch!” he screamed, spit flecking his mouth. “You fucking traitorous whore!”

Fortress proved his true power with area control, melting the rock around him with the remnants of his sigil skill. The familiars coming towards him never stood a chance as Hua dipped back.

The ones going for Will had more leeway, though. They tackled him, surprisingly brutish. One inflicted cold damage, the other fire. Rowan took the opportunity to press his advantage. At Silver 9, his stats were simply better than Will’s, and he could overwhelm the other User and get a clean shot on him.

Or, at least, he thought he did.

Instead, Will seemed to barely be affected by half his ribcage being crushed and turned to ice, rolling aside before simply vanishing. Rowan detected the insolent human with his skill, but the distraction was enough for Will to disappear again, teleporting away.

Sensing a barrage of attacks coming his way, Rowan dodged once, then twice—but corruption sapped his stats, sending a pain unlike any other coursing through his veins, and he slipped. A dodge that would have completely nullified the damage of a Manaburst instead turned it into a glancing blow. An arrow grazed him rather than missing entirely.

And grazes were enough.

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

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

A bell tolled, and Rowan knew that this would be the end.

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

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

Except Will didn’t know that the elf had one more card to play.

“Mother!” Rowan cried, drawing on his sigil. “Grant me strength!”

Skill: [Mother’s Grace]

- Spell (sigil).

- Cost: none.

- Cooldown: 1 month.

Silver

“Life, death, abyss, heavens, sea, sky, fire, and more. So many differences, yet we all bleed the same. We are all elves, are we not?” - Sadareth (now the Elven Mother), cycle 1068.

This skill only works if your race is elven.

You are instantly restored to full health, stamina, and mana. All afflictions affecting you are temporarily negated and will be cured after you rest. For each affliction negated by this effect, you gain an instance of [Blessed].

[Blessed] - Negates a small amount of damage. Stacking instances increase the amount of damage negated.

Sensation surged into Rowan as his body returned to his control, vibrant mana coursing through him.

“This fight ends now,” he said. He hadn’t wanted to be forced into using this, but he’d been surprised by a cowardly ambush and the betrayal of his third party member.

“Yeah,” Will said, appearing before him once again with death in his eyes. “It does.”

The insolent human boy’s fists became wreathed in ghostly flame.

Skill: [Ghostflame]

- Spell (enchantment).

- Cost: extreme mana.

- Cooldown: none.

Silver.

“Death comes for you all. Your pitiful defenses cannot even conceive of stalling it.” - Dread Executor Cyna V, cycle 377.

Draws from your blood, afflictions, and lifeforce alongside your mana. Cleanses all afflictions from you and all creatures living or dead in a 10 foot radius. Wreathe your fists in ghostflame. Inflict true damage upon any enemies you strike.

[Phantom Pyre] - Increases the base damage of this skill for every affliction cleansed.

[To Strike the Soul] (silver) - The damage inflicted by this skill ignores barriers of silver-rank or lower. Damage cannot be lessened or negated by skills of silver-rank or below.

“How many afflictions do you think I just cleansed?” Will’s voice was frigid. Despite being a low silver, his presence froze Rowan in place, the raw killing intent far too great for a mortal to possess. “Let me give you a hint. I carry my own. How many is that? Well, I’ll suppose you’re about to find out.”

Rowan fled, teleporting dozens of feet away in a panic.

Will followed, using his own teleport.

“Who was supposed to be a coward, again?”

Rowan Zero, progenitor of a line of leaders, died begging for his life.

Alan, on the other hand, was way in over his head. His familiars gave him sensory data, but he couldn’t see at all through the darkness. Neither could Will, which evened things out given that Alan didn’t have a weapon out that he could teleport to, but he found him quickly enough and inflicted him with corruption too.

After dealing with Rowan, Alan was a cakewalk in comparison. With his hunger phantasm dissipating back into his shadow, all seven members of the temporary alliance he’d formed converged on a single silver—and a monster core abuser, at that.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Alan cried out. “This—Hua, you can’t let them do this! You’ll be disqualified!”

“I got my changeling,” Hua said tonelessly. “I’m still in the fight. Guess who’s not going to be, you fucking pedo.”

Alan backed up as Will and his alliance approached him, the low silver’s precious familiars dead or dying. “No, no, no. This isn’t fair!”

“Rich, coming from the one who tried to assassinate us and steal our prizes,” Caiyeri said.

Will smiled in a particular way that he’d learned from that elf. It was a shark’s grin at smelling the blood in the water.

“I left fair behind in the tutorial.”

And one final time, a bell tolled.

__

Author's note: finally changed the title tag. We're not in b1 anymore, after all.