[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 155: New Toys

Will burned.

It was not fire that enveloped him. Pale Fire's culmination had long since dissipated, vanishing when the dozens of thousands of instances of Lord-rank corruption had swept in and obliterated that skill by directing it straight towards the sovereign-tier woman.

No, what was surging through his body was a new kind of power. 

Will had felt the presence of plausibility before. Fighting others who had reached the 10,000 kill mark—in other words, those that he had needed to kill in order to finish his gold-rank Reaper challenges—had gotten him informed of the sensation. Thanks to that, he knew that there were other humans on Earth who had been able to or were currently able to use plausibility. For him, however, this was a first.

And in terms of firsts, it was a damn good one. One of the many, many reasons that he was such a juicy target at the moment was because of the sheer amount of plausibility he had been lugging around. It had been because of this that the Hunger had been able to reach through to him. Will had left fragments of his hunger phantasm elsewhere in the building, outside of the room that had prevented him from using his magic. 

With a quick dip into the soul-space where the hunger operated, he had been able to cut a deal to utilize a small chunk of the raw amount of plausibility he had attached to him, enabling Will to extend his power. He had made it faster, stronger, more capable of penetrating the small gaps in the barriers that the Order of the Striker hadn't even bothered patching—because why would they care if a gold-rank skill could slip through the cracks of defenses meant to stop Lord-rank ones?

Now, he spent that plausibility to serve a different purpose. Even with his enhanced corruption resistance granted by the system itself, Will did not have anywhere near the amount of power needed to withstand Lord-rank corruption for even a moment. 

He felt a force separate from his soul, separate from his life force, draining away from him. The drain didn't feel painful in the same way that soul damage or spending life force on Ghostflame did. For lack of a better expression, Ghostflame used his soul to fuel a fire. This felt like he was the fire.

He tried not to think about it too hard. Will had never been the best with fancy analogies, and trying to identify the exact sensation was significantly less important than getting out of this alive.

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

As the power continued to surge through him, notifications scrolled past his eyes almost faster than he could keep track of.

Evidently, the system had decided that the new power he had unlocked was sufficient to catapult him to the top of gold rank. Will wasn't on Earth right now, so he couldn't check the leaderboard, but he was pretty sure that once he went back, things would change. He'd been a top 10 force already. Now, he was almost certainly the single most powerful user in the entire world.

Probably. Cinder Solace had achieved an incredible amount on another world. She had experienced struggle to the extent that Will had, but it had been out of sight and largely out of Will’s mind. 

Not that he planned on testing which one of them was the stronger one. All he needed was for both of them to be powerful. When the Contractor came knocking, he was going to need everything and everyone he could get to obliterate that smug fuck off the face of the planet.

"What did you just do?" the Lady of Pale Fire asked, her voice and aura in complete disarray.

Lady-rank users like Pale Fire had fine control over their auras. Finer than Will's, even, thanks to decades if not centuries of training related to their auras. That Will could even graze their souls in a direct contest was a measure of how ridiculously overtuned he was, but even he could not do much more than a touch.

For her to be this lax with her control, she must have truly believed that she was going to die.

"Well, saved your life, apparently," Will said. "Don't know if you were expecting that one out of me, and to be honest, I don't know if I was expecting that out of me, but it's what I did."

He had encountered some problems with it, of course. When he pulled up his status screen, Chaos Transfer was now greyed out. Not only did it seem inaccessible for the time being, but it felt broken somehow. 

Will would have to ask Ayla about that one. He had never heard of a skill simply failing to work after it had accomplished something. Granted, it had gifted him a weapon to surpass Metal Gear, but still.

That's a stupid fucking joke to be making right now, he told himself. Will still grinned at it anyway.

Beyond that, a section of his inventory had also just up and disappeared. Over the course of his levels, Will had grown less and less concerned with managing what was in his inventory. Because he could buy extra-dimensional bags that could carry more items in them than a single inventory slot could, albeit for a fairly major cost, he hadn't exactly paid attention to how many slots he had in his inventory.

Now, though, it was clear that in excess of twenty of those slots had suffered the same treatment as Chaos Transfer. What he strongly suspected to be the reason for that was sitting right at the top of those slots.

Item: [Corrupted Sigil]

???, ascendant

This item's description has been destroyed.

"Well, if that's not fucking ominous," he muttered.

Pale Fire was still in shock. She looked at him like he'd grown a second head, which, to be fair, was probably likelier than what he had just done. Will understood now that what he had in his inventory was potentially the single most dangerous weapon he could possibly unleash.

Pros: It was almost certain that he could just drop this on the Contractor and eliminate him in a single instant.

Cons: Even if he spent plausibility on it, there was no way in hell he wouldn't immediately eat a direct smite from either a Dread Executor for corrupting the entire goddamn planet or from Peace herself, who would be well within her rights to use Lord-rank or higher magic against somebody trying to unleash cycle-destroying corruption.

Will would, of coursekeep it in mind for later.

"If there are no other enemies in the area," he said, "you should get back to the building alongside all of us so we can finish our negotiations. I think you'll find that my demands have increased a little."

#

From a distance, in an area of deep space a couple dozen light-years away, two Dread Executors watched.

“I told you he'd do it,” one of them said.

“You tell me a lot of things, Ramiel,” the other replied. “You have been off the mark as often as you've been correct.”

“I've been early more often than I've been immediately correct, Azathoth,” Dread Executor Ramiel said. “There's a small but important distinction between the two.”

“My fragment is still with the boy,” Dread Executor Azathoth said. “I have never left a fragment of myself with somebody who can wield plausibility to the extent that this boy will be able to.”

“You worry too much,” Ramiel said. “You will be fine. Your fragment may morph into something more than yourself. There is a chance that you never regain that part of yourself, but there's just as good of a chance that the parts of it that represent you return to your greater whole while the rest of it becomes something different, something in the service of the multiverse's latest corruption wielder.”

“Reassuring.” Azathoth’s aura flared, a dry disagreement searing through it.

“You're not usually one for jokes,” Ramiel replied.

“There’s a first time for everything, old friend,” Azathoth said. “Like, for instance, Peace herself turning on the cycle.”

“I wouldn't say she's turning on it,” Ramiel said. “At the very least, she doesn't think she is.”

“What the goddess thinks is immaterial to reality.”

“She's a goddess, Azathoth. Reality is what she thinks.”

Azathoth shook his head, peering into the Beyond. “It looks like you're preparing something.”

“That I am.” Ramiel’s aura flashed, indicating a desire to take this elsewhere.

A moment later, they were both in the Beyond, strolling through a palace of his design.

“It's been a long time since you involved yourself with any cycle affairs,” Azathoth opened, ignoring the typical pleasantries that would go with wandering through someone's upgraded sanctuary. “I see that you're preparing yourself to involve yourself with the affairs of mortals again.”

“We are Dread Executors. Affairs of mortals are our affairs.”

“We are not mortal in the ways that matter most,” Azathoth argued. “Enter any one of those cycles with those primitive bags of flesh and tell me if one of them can even compare to one of us.”

“We were those bags of flesh once upon a time,” Ramiel replied. “Besides, this affair does not only involve mortals. Though I may not know what Peace is doing exactly, I can tell she wants to act. This next phase of this planet's cycle may be the single most impactful one in the last five centuries.”

“The 18th Great Cosmic War occurred in the last five centuries.”

“I said what I said.”

“You'll be bound by plausibility if you go to the planet,” Azathoth said. “Nynn made that same mistake, and now he is no more than one of them. The last I saw, he is but a Gold Rank. It will take him centuries to make it back to where we are now, especially given the fact that he appears to have lost access to the Beyond entirely. That could be you.”

“Since when has a Dread Executor shied away from taking a risk?” Ramiel asked playfully. “Besides, it won't be my plausibility that will need to be spent. You need to do nothing but watch.”

#

Will was not able to extract many permanent items of value from the Lords and Ladies around him. While they had great loot intended for gold-rankers and even some for gem-tiers, that loot was mostly non-growth, and it was meant specifically for people they were sponsoring. That meantthere were limits on how powerful an item they could give him, and he apparently hadn’t managed to roll the sponsors with the highest budgtets.

Unfortunately, as much as he would have loved to use one of their own Lord-rank weapons, he would probably have to burn through a good chunk of the plausibility he now knew he had access to just to use it once. He was also fairly certain that it would open him up to further moves by Peace, which he didn’t want.

His plausibility hung around him like a cloud, infusing him in a deeper way than his aura. If this was what gods and other monsters had been sensing from him all this time, Will could see why he was so feared. 

Other than the torturous darkness, the obviously evil aura, and the many, many encounters with other powerful humans that had left them dying painfully, that was. That part could be explained away relatively easily. It was normal!

Okay, maybe it was a little abnormal. But it was still definitely within reason. Every two-bit leaderboarder worth their salt had engaged in at least a little exceptional violence, right?

Will decided to stop losing an argument against himself in his head.

What was more important was his dealings with the lord-rankers. He’d managed to secure continued support out of them as well as a couple more good items, but nothing that would really tip the scales against an angel.

He did, however, get a few promises out of them. Most important was about the nature of their relationship.

“You want to order us around?” Love snarled. “You?”

“As far as I'm concerned, I was more effective in saving the life of a Lady than any of you were, including the Lady herself.” Will shrugged. “And I never said I want to order you around. I just don't want our relationship to be that of sponsor and sponsored.”

“You are bold, boy,” said the Lord of Loss. “That boldness will get you killed one day.”

“Not today it won’t.” And hopefully not tomorrow, he added silently.

The suicide brigade had been the only attack the opposing forces had made. It seemed like even Will spending plausibility to temporarily tank lord-rank corruption hadn't been enough to fully remove him from the cycle—at least, not in a way that would open him up to full-on sovereign-teir attacks.

That was the explanation the others gave, at least, and when Will had messaged Ayla about it, she had largely agreed. She had also called him a moron, but that was basically the same as her congratulating him.

He also suspected that whoever the Contractor had been making deals with had expected that push to work. This probably wasn’t the lsat he was going to see of them, but they had played their initial hand now without a follow-up.

Once again, Will had survived a brush against forces much more powerful than himself and lived to shit-talk other people about it.

“I'm not asking for much,” Will repeated. “I just want to be on even footing. I don't give a fuck how expensive it is to beam me up here. You need me. One of you wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for me. There's a good chance that the rest of you would have had to get the hell out of dodge had that corruption moved a little further, and I’m sure it would have been more expensive to lose this facility than it would be to move one gold-ranker there every now and then.”

“I accept,” Pale Fire said. She seemed subdued, almost afraid—not of the Lords and Ladies dissenting around her, not of the enemies they were facing, but of Will.

Will could imagine the feeling. She was supposed to be so far above him that he was like an ant to her. The effective assumed difference in power would have been like if he was fighting the Contractor at this very moment, dueling with whatever powers that angel he was planning on summoning had to offer, and some random bum who hadn’t even leveled up past unformed 1 went up to throw a pebble at the angel and killed it.

To be honest, he would’ve been pretty offput by that too.

“Thank you,” he huffed. “One person with sense.”

“One person whose life you saved,” the Lord of Loss objected. “A life that would not have required saving if not for her own foolish mistakes.”

“I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to make your excuses for yourselves,” Will said. “I’ve gotten most of what I need out of this. I’m sure Pale Fire will be able to keep me informed on the state of things. If the rest of you want to let your little alliance of dipshits crumble because you can’t be bothered to invest in the one important User you snagged from this cycle, I’d tell you that you should give her a hand, but what do I know? I’m just a gold-ranker, after all.”

The implication was left unsaid. Just a gold-ranker, but he was the only one who’d been able to help Pale Fire at considerable risk to himself.

He also knew that he wasn’t going to be able to replicate the feat for the while, not with Chaos Transfer no longer functioning, but that part didn’t need to be said.

“Tell you what,” Will said. “Why don’t I make this easy for you? Save you some time and money while I’m at it, too.”

He had no idea if what he was about to try was going to work. If it didn’t, this would be very awkward and a little embarrassing, but he’d done worse in front of stronger people.

Will cast Sanctuary, using the fresh level of Purified he’d gotten from his Envoy of Mercy feature.

You have consumed one level of [Purified] to negate the cast time of [Sanctuary].

[Order of the Striker Facility] restricts access into extradimensional spaces from within without permission.

Just like before, the block here was meant primarily for major threats. If Will approached this with the brute-force technique that he assumed the opposing army had used to shut down the allied Lords and Ladies, he definitely wasn’t going to get anywhere close to breaking through.

To a Lord, however, a gold-rank skill wasn’t much of a threat. As such, the barrier against transportation skills had holes in it. He hoped the one against the Beyond was the same.

Manipulating the details of his skill now versus trying to do so before was like night and day. Though Will had managed to change the details of what his skills could do to some extent before, that had been with a great deal of effort, and it had always felt like he was operating within a predefined set of lines. Trying to color outside of those lines hadn't just been impossible; it had been something that even he’d barely considered.

Now, though, he felt like he was the one drawing the lines. There were still limits to what he could do with it, but he found he could manipulate the intensity, the extent to which his skill affected the world around it, and minor details about it that he wouldn't have dreamed of having access to before.

Will was very tempted to make a shitty joke about Minecraft and unlocking creative mode, but he restrained himself. He did, after all, have a security measure to break.

You have spent plausibility.

This casting of [Sanctuary] has been modified.

This time, when he activated his skill, he could sense the way it brushed up against the defenses. While the details of the defenses weren't known to him in their entirety, he found that he had a much better sense of them than he had come close to having before.

And there it was—the gap he was looking for.

Will stepped into the Beyond, leaving a handful of very surprised Lords and Ladies behind.

#

Pale Fire was already speechless, but her aura fluctuated even more. At this rate, it was going to look like she had never had a day of aura training in her life.

The others had more varying reactions. Ash had a nasty habit of laughing when it came to low-rankers doing things they definitely shouldn't have been able to, and it didn't look like she was going to break that habit anytime soon. Love was taken aback, even the demonic influence of her magic insufficient to prepare her for someone like this.

The Lord of Loss had no mouth with which to smile, but even his usually perfect control over his aura slipped a little, betraying his true emotions. Even he had to admit he was impressed.

Steve was the only one whose aura didn't outwardly react.

Instead, he sighed. “I need to talk to my boss.”