[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 157: Return II

Lily Teneli had been having an odd couple of weeks. She didn't have an affiliation, not exactly. While she’d tagged along with the corruption wielder's party for some time, she knew as well as they did that she wasn't really a part of their group. She had actively been trying to kill Will once upon a time, and unlike the others in their group, she hadn't had a good reason for it besides self-interest.

If she had to be honest with herself, she probably would have taken the chance to eliminate him if it would have meant getting a fraction of the powers he had. Morals were just about the last thing on her mind, and though she found him interesting, she didn't find anyone interesting enough to not think of the value they could provide to her.

Where this got awkward was when he up and vanished out of the city—out of the world, as far as anybody could tell. He left no notes behind, no indication of where he was going. Speculation had run rampant throughout the cities. Chat rooms and physical meeting spaces had exploded with theories about where William Li-Brown had gone.

While Lily wasn't part of the party proper, she had fought alongside some of the corruption wielder's friends. She didn't consider them her own friends, which she was fairly certain was reciprocated, but she still trained with them from time to time. In fact, since Will’s disappearance, she had been running a two-person challenge dungeon with Hua Fang, who had been on the verge of Gold, just like Lily, for quite a few weeks now.

Hua, unlike Lily, actually cared for the man. If she wanted to be uncharitable about it, Lily would have said that the Chinese girl was probably making up for the loss of her brother months ago during the Trial of the Champion. What was probably actually the case, however, was that Will was simply incredibly strong. He wasn't a good leader—not in the slightest, in her eyes at least—but he was good at letting a bunch of users go ham with their abilities.

In reflection, that might have been what had drawn her to him in the first place—after she tried to kill the guy for loot, of course.

The atmosphere in the city wasn't so different from what it was before, but amongst those with actual power—in other words, leaderboarders—the mood had grown significantly more somber. Lily was among those unlucky few who knew that there was a remarkably powerful Gold Ranker, as well as aliens from the other planet, who had been targeting Will. Nobody knew what those forces were going to do now that the corruption wielder had disappeared.

Lily personally thought he was dead. During her time gallivanting around Earth, she had encountered a number of people she could almost call friends. Some of them, just like Will, had abruptly become out of range one day, and not a single one of them had come back. She had eventually gotten death confirmations through the system, so it was possible Will wasn't dead yet, but she doubted he'd be alive for much longer.

That left her as uncertain as everybody else. There were some who believed that because the source of many of the upcoming problems was gone, so too would said problems. Lily didn't think it would be that easy.

Hua apparently didn't either. She had clocked his disappearance nearly immediately, which made Lily suspect she had had experience with others disappearing like that. In the wake of that, rather than grieve, she had immediately taken to training as hard and as fast as possible.

“Someone's going to have to fight that fucker when he wakes up, and if it's not Will, it's going to have to be us,” she’d said, referring to the Contractor.

Lily wasn't much one for saving the world, but she did live in it. She'd concurred with the girl, and in the nineteen days since he disappeared, both she and Hua had hit gold fighting against platinum-rank bosses inside the challenge dungeons. Hua had done it first, but Lily hadn’t been far behind.

Even now, they were clearing out bosses. The two of them struggled to actually kill a good deal of the bosses present within, but they could deal significant damage. Even with the massive power boost that had come with reaching gold, they found that the gap between their rank and platinum was just too insurmountable. 

It was both humbling and disquieting. Before, they’d had someone who was able to bridge that gap. They had had somebody who was both willing and able to fight for the world—not that he really had a choice.

Now, the mood was grim. Though Lily had grown aware of the fact that leaderboarders could sometimes hide their status, she also knew that there weren't so many who would both do that and fight for the side of humanity. She had dealt with the Contractor before, and she knew that without Will, even the gold-rank otherworlders they had on their side would be hard-pressed to eke out a victory.

That meant everyone was training. Despite their best efforts, there was a gray cloud over them, constantly reminding them that they might simply not be enough.

Nathan, the Gold Rank orbital engineer, was putting in double duty as the sole authority who could manage hostile spacecraft from certain malevolent engineers as well as the professional assistant for the ESNA’s low-orbit superweapon. He was one of their best bets, sitting at the high end of goldhimself, and even then, Lily was unsure he could take on what the Contractor had to offer.

She had never been this uncertain before. When she had been a solo operative, she had acted without fear of death or even retribution. All she had wanted was a fun fight. Then, she had known that she owed no one responsibility except herself.

Unfortunately, somehow, someway, she felt like what had been Will's responsibility once upon a time was now hers as well.

Being around good people is bad for me, she thought.

This just really fucking sucked.

“Ten minutes are up,” Hua said. “Next room's Room 15. You ready?”

“Never,” Lily said. “Let’s go.”

The message came to them at the same time.

Will: Got a little waylaid. Had another attempt on my life, but that's about par for the course. I'm back now, and that's what's important. I've got gear, I've got new power. Sorry for the delay, but we still have a Contractor to find.

A thrill of excitement ran through Lily's chest, and she stopped in her tracks. Beside her, Hua’s grip on her weapon tightened, her knuckles whitening.

“Could have given us a little bit of warning, asshole,” Hua muttered. Lily wasn't sure if the Warrior knew she was talking out loud. “Thought you were dead.”

If Lily had been a regular person, she was sure the overwhelming emotion within her would be relief at this time. After all, the person she had been relying on to take care of the big-picture stuff while she had her own nice little life had returned. That meant a lot more political leverage for her, who had been relegated to regular quarters and not offered any particular protection by the reign of the ESNA due to her acknowledged lack of deep connection to the corruption wielder. Now that he was back, her life was sure to improve.

There was a bit of that relief mixed into the shock in her heart, but that wasn't what dominated. No, that primal surge was a more familiar one.

That was bloodlust.

When the corruption wielder was here, they could all hunt.

It’s a good thing I’m not the only bad person here, Lily thought, suppressing a smile.

Hua took a second to center herself, breathing deeply and activating a skill Lily had seen her use many times in the past couple of weeks for mental clarity.

“All right,” she said. “I want to kill something. Let’s find Will.”

#

Druudrazil had been biding its time.

While wyrms were not unintelligent creatures—not by a long shot—they were vindictive ones. Druudrazil had known that its partner, the now-dead Ashton from another world, had been a foolhardy man who had relied on Druudrazil’s strength to keep him from suffering the consequences of his own actions.

Ashton had met those very consequences at the hands of a certain corruption wielder. Druudrazil had turned and fled, recognizing the sheer power that said User had held.

It was not a stupid being. It knew that it had been outclassed at that moment. The corruption wielder had just acquired a power-up that made him stronger the more he killed, and he had killed many unsuspecting individuals—just like Druudrazil’s Ashton.

Now, however, the corruption wielder was gone. Druudrazil’s skills were not limited to the base necrotic energy that its tamer had used it for. Beings of its kind had the ability to see through corpses that they infused their magic into. Druudrazil had made good use of this to understand the corruption wielder as well as those close to him.

As such, it had noticed when the corruption wielder had abruptly vanished from the planet. It had identified those closest to him and had learned their patterns. It did not hate the corruption wielder, but William Li-Brown had more than slighted it. He had laid the greatest insult possible upon Druudrazil, and even if he was no longer in the world of his origin, no necrotic wyrm let an insult go unanswered.

It had bided its time. It knew that it was one of the most powerful gold-rank beasts this world had, more powerful than most anything that could come out of a dungeon. It knew its limits, but with the corruption wielder gone, it knew it was well within its boundaries.

Its sights were set on Boston. That was what the people of this world called it. Though the corruption wielder's allies were not all usually present there, Druudrazil had sensed that they were gathering now. Its underlings—each gold-ranked summons in their own right—would cause enough death and destruction for the wyrm itself to make its way through the defenses and eliminate the ones closest to the one who killed its partner.

To a wyrm, it did not matter whether or not its enemy was still alive. What mattered was the principle.

It waded through waves of magical defenses. Primitive, it thought. It was simplicity itself to set death energy upon these defneses, decaying it and rotting a hole through the center that it was able to funnel its army through.

The sky started to darken. The time of judgment was near.

And then it continued darkening. Far past the point that the death magic should have brought it to.

A sense of suspicious unease spread through the wyrm’s body. That darkness was not natural. It was darkness created by a skill—it had to be. The only other explanation was that it was an aftereffect of magic that had occurred far, far away.

The artificial night descended. Druudrazil reached out to its subordinates, probing through their senses and hijacking their bodies.

…It no longer had anywhere near the number of bodies it had just minutes ago. It had entered with over a thousand puppets—humans, elves, other monsters, and just about anything it had been able to force necrotic energy into.

Now, it counted 400.

It looked from body to body, searching desperately to understand the situation. Its primary body turned to run.

Yet the senses faded faster than it could hijack them. Its puppets were dying too quickly for useful information. And the darkness was only growing thicker.

A terrible premonition overtook the wyrm’s body.

There was only one being it had seen that could eliminate enemies in such a quiet yet efficient manner.

Dread set into its undead heart as it understood that the impossible had just happened.

50 bodies remained.

It sent pulses through the darkness with is aura. Druudrazil was still a powerful gold-rank beast, after all. It had its own aura and its own energy to infuse the area with.

It picked up signals—the same auras that it had been chasing all this time. There were more of them now. Some had clearly returned from wherever else they had gone. They had come back, perfectly in time for the wyrm to take advantage and slaughter them all.

Except, Druudrazil realized, they had come back for a reason.

Its aura was stronger than theirs—mostly. Some of them could fight back, but none of them, not one, could attempt a similar attack against it.

That was what it had gathered through months of intensive, careful study.

But amongst the darkness, there was one uncannily familiar aura.

It seemed to split the sky itself. The sheer strength of it sliced through Druudrazil’s like fangs through flesh. It put up its own defenses—almost too late—but they proved to be useless. It had held its aura against platinum-rank monsters in its home world, turning predator into prey.

Yet against this one, it was as helpless as a hatchling. Pain gripped its mind, followed shortly by fear.

He’s back.

It had to go now. Druudrazil activated its movement skills, burrowing into the ground—except it didn’t.

It froze. The weight of the raw power bearing down upon it devoured its skill. Its magic was stripped from its body. As it switched from artificial claws to the ones it had been born with, the darkness descended upon it, and the wyrm felt the bite of corruption.

“Look, dude,” said a terrifyingly familiar voice. “I didn’t have any beef with you. As long as you weren’t blowing up towns, I was perfectly happy for you to just walk away. You even did, earlier on. I thought you were reasonable.”

Druudrazil snapped itself out of its haze, putting every bit of mana it had into running away, tunneling downwards into the bedrock that was its home.

An eye appeared in front of it. Then another. Then another. They exuded the same force that had stopped Druudrazil earlier, and then, with a flash—there weren’t only eyes anymore.

“You know, for some reason, my friends don’t seem to be happy with me functionally faking my death. Seeing dickfucks like you around makes me realize part of the reason why.” William Li-Brown couldn’t even deign to be here in person. The man’s voice was coming through his thousand eyes.

In front of it, in a cavern of its own creation, the wyrm saw another beast, smaller than itself but with an aura that shone with the force of hundreds. It was made of bones and recycled flesh, a being after Druudrazil’s own heart. Riding atop that beast were two much smaller life forms, both human.

“I don’t know why Will never tried riding this thing,” one of them said. Lily Teneli.

“He has less of a death wish than you,” the other replied. Hua Fang. “Can we get to this already?”

Druudrazil may have been suffering from a level of corruption, but it still had strength in its body. If the corruption wielder wasn’t going to participate himself, then maybe—

A bell tolled, and its hopes were crushed as quickly as its body was.

From the darkness emerged more figures. Gold rankers. Two emerged from a dimension beyond the wyrm’s understanding. Others simply manifested through the eyes.

And the wyrm could not even move.

“Let me tell you,” Will said, “you picked a really bad time for this. Anytime later, and I might have been willing to talk. Anytime sooner, and you might have had a chance to win. Now?”

Though the wyrm could not see the man, it could sense a cruel smile through his aura.

“Let’s just say your ancestors are going to feel this one.”

A being with a presence that rivaled a god’s appeared shortly before the wyrm’s eyes.

Will glowed with silver flame.

“You fucked up.”

Druudrazil’s death was not easy.

#

“You definitely went overkill on that,” Caiyeri said. “Surely you used too many cooldowns there.”

“I’ve been back for like two hours and you’re already micromanaging me,” Will complained lightly. “I’ll be fine. I saved a couple of people from drowning in a lake using my hunger phantasm while we were fighting. They didn’t realize how far they’d gotten when they ran out of mana. I can reset my cooldowns.”

“That felt good,” Hua said cheerily. “Don’t you ever do that again, you piece of shit.”

“I hear you, I hear you,” Will said, putting his hands up. “I didn’t get much warning. By precedent, it should have only taken a couple of hours at most.”

And to be fair, on his end, it had.

Getting everyone back together hadn’t taken too long. It seemed like everybody had gathered movement items while he’d been gone, and his network of Beyond portals was more than effective enough to get everyone together. Even Nynn had recovered enough to participate in… well, calling it a fight was generous.

Sen’s eyes were still spreading out, but Will could tell that a lot had happened while he was gone. He’d gotten an abridged version of some of the events, but there was a lot of work to be done.

Much of that work would have to wait, though.

Regina: You got the threat?

Will: If you can call it a threat. Humans are advancing way faster than anything brought over from the other worlds. I’m pretty sure your squad would have handled that just fine.

Will: I also lowkey forgot it existed until it tried to gank your guards.

He had tried using a little bit of plausibility in combat this time since he didn’t want to have to experiment for the first time fighting the Contractor. It had gone splendidly, enabling him to empower his aura as well as more effectively annihilate the wyrm’s skills.

Regina: Appreciated. In that case, we’re ready to go.

Regina: I’ve told you a few times that I owe you. This is me paying you back. Initiating operation.

Elsewhere, Will watched through Sen’s eyes as row after row of reconnaissance jets took to the skies. For each one of those came half a dozen fighters and bombers, not to mention the users equipped to all of them.

And high in the sky, just like the aliens had brought, Regina had constructed an orbital cannon of her own.

Will: Pleasure working with you.

Regina: As always.

One way or another, they were finding the Contractor before he could summon that angel.