[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 73: Those With Power Prevail

Despite the imminent round two of challenge three coming towards him—and wasn’t that a mouthful—Will didn’t end his ritual. Knowing that he would be up against the gestalt was frustrating, but there was no better way to prepare than going into the Beyond.

Will had half a mind to try using his new Envoy of Mercy title to force-teleport the gestalt into the Beyond, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t strand it there. Once his link to the Beyond expired, it just sent his soul hurtling back into his body. He was sure it would be the same for the gestalt.

Still worth a shot, depending on what he could do here, but a lot of what he knew was possible had been thanks to Nynn and Ayla, who had decades of experience on him in dealing with the Beyond.

“Let’s see how this goes,” Will muttered. “Here we go.”

He knelt down, not bothering to close his eyes. By now, he knew what to expect when it came to this.

When his eyes were open, the transition into the colorless space that led his mind and spirit into the Beyond was significantly more sudden, knocking his perception out with vigor. It went more smoothly now that he knew what was happening, using his own burgeoning soul control to push himself through the process. By following the same principles he was growing better at utilizing to protect his soul and aura from the Hunger’s crushing, otherworldly presence, Will was able to mold himself closer to the stream that took hold of his soul, making the process smoother on him.

Once again, he appeared in the infinite void. This time, his aura and soul senses showed him the awe-inspiring threads of cosmic magic that thrummed through the Beyond. He was less overwhelmed by the sheer power that ran through the place this time, but it still shook him to his very core.

Focus, he thought. His Sanctuary was shrinking already. Unlike the first time he’d been in here, he knew how to manipulate his soul to force the platform into staying, asserting his existence in this spiritual plane.

That didn’t mean it didn’t take focus, though. Even the slightest slip-up would eliminate his link in. His foundation was much better now, honed through practice with the Hunger, but it was still tricky business.

To his surprise, Will found that he had much more energy to wield this time as well. The massive consumption of the boons he’d gained from Envoy of Mercy had restored him completely in a way that health potions just couldn’t. He was spiritually whole, his soul fully healed. Will hadn’t even realized that his soul had already been exhausted last time, but he could feel how much more refined his power was now.

Slowly but surely, he stabilized his realm.

Ayla did not appear, which made sense. Though she had a much stronger connection than him to the Beyond, she had been crippled by whatever force had captured her. Will wasn’t sure if that was the same as the one who’d put her into what Nynn had called a “dead zone,” but he had caught the implication that she was much weaker now than she had been at her peak. She would need more time than a few hours to a day to recover.

The same couldn’t be said for Nynn. He’d sealed himself down from Prince or King rank all the way to gold, and his connection to the Beyond had been exhausted before Ayla’s, but either he recovered much more quickly or he had some kind of resource to restore his soul, because he connected to Will’s domain not long after Will managed to establish a stable, though slowly shrinking, sanctuary.

Though Will had only trained his form with Ayla for a short period of time, his intense, brute-force methods to increase his soul control had paid off. By focusing on his soul in addition to his aura, he now at least had the understanding and hard-won strength to keep the Sanctuary intact. That also meant that when Nynn made contact with him, he better understood the magical process that was occurring.

Rather than desperately flailing and being saved by the former Dread Executor like he had the previous time, Will accepted the connection like a handshake.

Nynn’s appearance was less sudden this time, though he did begin expanding the chunk of the Beyond nearly immediately.

“You have grown quickly,” he said. 

Though he tried to hide it, Nynn was clearly surprised by Will’s rate of progression. This was Will’s domain, and though Nynn’s aura control was impeccable, he wasn’t able to eliminate all his emotions while in an area Will was supposed to have total control over.

“I’m a quick learner,” Will replied. “How are things going?”

“Poorly,” Nynn admitted. “The support of my goddess would make this much simpler.”

“Your goddess?” Will frowned. “I thought that the gods couldn’t enter this place.”

“That is not what the Void Dreamer told you. She said, and I quote, that it was ‘complicated.’ Indeed it is, and Dreamer herself is one who chose a divergent path from me. Many who walk the path of the Executor choose to shun the gods entirely. I did not turn my back on the one who enabled me.”

“Sounds like a really disparate organization, if you ask me.” Will had told Nynn to tell him more about his life and the greater universe earlier, and though Nynn had repeatedly flaked on that, Will wanted to squeeze whatever he could get out of the other man.

“You cannot think of it as an organization,” Nynn said. “Beyond planetary and occasional solar governments, there are few organizations other than the sole one that manages the duties of the absent Administrator.”

“That’s a lot of lore to pack into two sentences,” Will said. “Can you back this up for me?”

Nynn’s dark representation of his soul didn’t possess a proper face to emote with, but Will got the impression that he was frowning. “Lore? Do you take this as a game?”

“Yeah,” Will challenged. “I’ve been at this for a month, dude. I’ve been thrown in over my head again and again, and I’ve come close to death more times than can count. Do you know what I was doing before this? I was a goddamn student for twenty-one years. The most violent I ever got was a tussle with a middle-school bully. Excuse me for not taking this the most seriously. How am I supposed to?”

“You say that, and yet you are one of the most mentally well-adapted to the apocalypse. You have not given to your basest impulses, yet you do not risk yourself with idiotic nobility. You are thriving where others are failing.”

“So what if I am?” Will had to admit that Nynn’s words were right. As much as every day came with fresh dangers, he had never felt so alive as he had the past month. The old world hadn’t been his place. This one was.

“All I am telling you is that you would be served well by taking this seriously.”

“Dead serious. Ask anyone who’s crossed me or my people.” Will gave Nynn a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh wait. You can’t.”

“There are certain Dread Executors and many gods who might be able to,” Nynn said, dipping his head. “Though I currently do not number amongst those.”

“Wait, for real? So you guys aren’t a gang, except you kinda are?”

“All Dread Executors follow the same golden path. Our methods, ideologies, and allegiances vary, but we all swear the same pact.”

“Certainty through death,” Will quoted. “Order through chaos.”

“Peace through dread,” Nynn finished. “You will learn our ways, in time.”

“You seem awfully confident about me,” Will said. “I feel like interfering with candidates isn’t allowed.”

“The only eternal rule is that those with power prevail. Besides, I am no Dread Executor as of late. Would that I could, I would invoke my full powers. Were I not limited, Peace herself would long since have incarnated and brought stability to this cycle.”

“You say that like the gods can’t interfere,” Will said. “Does that have something to do with what that cultist guy Ataraxis was saying earlier? Something about plausibility?”

“Indeed it does. Direct interference is heavily punished. Not even one as great as Peace will directly intervene in a planet this minor, even if the cycle teeters dangerously.”

“Which it has been.”

“Which it has been,” Nynn agreed. “I sense that you have an additional question. To answer it: the gods that have interfered with you have not done so directly. They have sent agents, or they have brought your soul into their spirit-spaces.”

“Not the Beyond, I’ve noticed. They have something else going on there.”

“They do indeed.” Nynn looked up, vision drawn to the long, powerful threads of beings far greater than either of them currently were. They seemed to be staring back at him, somehow. “I may have overstepped already. The organization will not interfere with a planet like this either, but I am not exempted.”

“Mysterious,” Will said. “Mom and Dad always told me not to trust the shady big bads who said that they knew better than them. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure they just wished they could dodge taxes, but I think it’s pretty solid advice when it comes to a group that won’t even name themselves.”

Nynn shrugged. “Power speaks. Absolute power speaks absolutely.”

It must have been coincidence, but in the instant after Nynn spoke, one of the cosmic threads diverged just enough to brush against the edge of Will’s perception, and his control over his soul went haywire.

The constant training he’d put himself through against the sheer force of the Hunger paid off. Despite the sheer presence of the being that drifted by, he was able to hold on against the tidal wave of the being, anchoring his soul to his Sanctuary and letting it be blown adrift, adapting to the force and riding it.

When it subsided, Nynn’s being was flickering dangerously, though it stabilized quickly enough.

“That was unfortunate. I will have to see about him when he…” Nynn trailed off. “You’re still here.”

“Was that the organization?” Will demanded. “I thought you said we couldn’t be observed in here without our consent.”

“Possibly,” Nynn replied. “They have their agents. More likely it was pure chance. The Beyond is a place of pure magic, candidate, and magic likes to follow grooves. What seems like impossible coincidence on the outside is mundane within.”

“Christ,” Will said. “Alright. If you don’t mind, I’m going to work on my soul control a bit more. Do you know if there’s anything I can do other than establish a training room here?”

“Of course there is. Introducing them to you now would be like giving a toddler a galloping bull to ride after it has learned to crawl. Establish your fundamentals first. Good luck.”

Nynn disconnected from Will’s chunk of the Beyond before he could get a word in edgewise.

“That motherfucker’s learning,” Will said to himself, shaking his head.

There was a lot to think about. He’d heard vague references to an organization of some kind before, but not to this level. The mere presence of a disconnected Dread Executor network out there was disconcerting. When a universe’s high-powered systems broke down to a disparate group of uber-powerful vigilantes, gods that were every bit as selfish and asshole-y as any mortal, and a mysterious 1984-style organization, Will had to wonder what the universe out there was like.

“Only one way to get through this alive and under control of my own facilities,” Will said. “What was that Lily said?

“Right. Level the fuck up.”

He closed his eyes, though his second sight never ceased to work, and he concentrated.

Today, he had weathered a storm by being a willow. That was enough for the time being, but it felt insufficient. It bothered him.

If Will didn’t die trying, he knew, he would one day be the storm.

#

Nynn returned to reality and immediately started casting a ritual with his sigil that would allow him to connect with Peace.

He needn’t have bothered. As soon as he expressed his desire to connect, the goddess pulled him into her dream-space.

“The corruption wielder,” he said without preamble. “Ramiel’s trick.”

“You have a better measure of the boy now, do you?” Peace was eons old, and yet she still managed to sound like the same youthful woman she always had.

“He withstood the force of a cosmic being,” Nynn said. “Untrained. It took everything I had to hold on, and I am less restricted in the Beyond than he is.”

Peace made a face, which Nynn knew was cosmetic. “Let us not speak of that horrid place.”

“Let’s skip the pretenses, Peace.”

“Of course.” Peace’s expression dropped away entirely. “You know as well as I do that I cannot recruit him.”

“He is worth keeping an eye on. He possesses unnatural power. I fear Ramiel may be training a replacement.”

“Dread Executor Ramiel has not been involved in his training,” Peace pointed out. “As a matter of fact, nobody has seen him since his last appearance at a holding facility near the current cycle’s planet. Continue your oversight. Continue assisting with his training. A weapon you know is always better than one you do not.”

“Indeed. He has incredible potential.”

“Why, Nynn,” Peace said, a small smile playing over her lips, “Why do you think I asked you to this planet in the first place?”

#

Time passed differently in the Beyond. It was a space for souls where an eternity could go by while no time at all passed in reality.

Thus, Will did not know how long he spent refining his soul and his aura. He just knew that at some point, he could hold on no longer, his soul exhausted.

This time, rather than just being presented with a message that informed him that he would be returning to his body, he sensed a fork in pathways presented to his soul. One path presented him with almost no resistance, but the other had a fair amount.

Will realized what it was immediately. Opening two links allowed him to travel to either of them from the Beyond. He could teleport back to where he’d opened the first if he so desired, using the Beyond as a pathway rather than traditional spatial magic.

He’d taken the path of least resistance his entire life back when he was just a non-magical burnout. Now, all that was gone.

Will blinked awake in the temple-like waiting room where he’d been sent into the first round with. He hadn’t even felt the transportation. No spatial magic at all had been involved, and his body showed no signs of going through any harsh portal transit.

“Hell. Yeah.” He pumped a fist.

Long distance teleportation. It wasn’t as practical here, but the transportation mechanic of the skill would come in play like crazy when he was back on Earth and could use it to potentially cross continents.

“Ten minutes until the round starts,” he told himself, checking the timer in the corner of his vision. “Gotta prep.”

Will was running a bit low on credits. If it hadn’t been for the fact that  there was already a Sanctuary link here, making the second ritual cost much less, he would’ve nearly completely wiped out his savings, only compensating for his lack of silver with his gold and platinum credits.”

“Still,” he mused aloud, “I should monitor my resource spending. This could get dicey if I don’t pay attention.”

That went double for Sen. Will had gathered enough monster cores over the course of his grinding to restore the familiar to its thousand-eyed greatness, but he was almost on empty now.

“Glad to have you back though, bud.”

Sen’s eyes rippled happily—at least, Will was pretty sure the murderous red and purplish, corruption-reminiscent coloration were happy ones for the familiar.

After that was said and done, Will had very little time left to prepare for the battle.

At least, that was what any reasonable individual would’ve thought from the outside.

Unfortunately for reasonable individuals—and also his opponent—Will had just spent an indeterminate amount of time in the Beyond. Though his disconnected soul could not affect the physical world, his mind had still been functional, and he’d carved out a plan.

“Sen,” he said. “Mind giving me a hand?”

The eyes pulsed green. A few of them collected around Will, collapsing into a formation that looked sort of like a check mark.

“Awesome.”

[Envoy of Mercy] has consumed instances of [Blessed] and [Purified] to negate your soul exhaustion.

Since there was still an open link to the Beyond from his first usage of Sanctuary, Will didn’t need to recast the ritual. He stepped in for only a moment, taking a dozen of Sen’s eyes with him, then immediately stepped out—into the triage area he’d left.

The eyes he’d taken with him were teleported as well, spending little enough time in the Beyond that Will didn’t even get to see their soul representation in his space.

He grinned.

“Oh, man. This opens up so many possibilities.”

Round 2 starts in [3].

[2].

[1].

Initiating teleportation.

[Limiter] has been attuned to your body.

Your opponent is: [Devouring Gestalt].

#

The abominant mind had long since been given free reign over itself. The Lady of the Lake had taken over the body of the gestalt for moments and found it so distasteful that she had withdrawn herself from it as far as possible beyond her curse.

That left the gestalt with a rapidly developing brain and soul. With every sapient it consumed, pieces of information flashed to the forefront of its mind, flashes of memory that added together to create a whole that was far less than the sum of its parts.

Still, the difference between then and now was night and day. It was like the gestalt had been in a haze for its short life, and now it was finally waking up for the first time.

Round 2 starts in [3].

[2].

[1].

Initiating teleportation.

[Limiter] has been attuned to your body.

Your opponent is: [William Li-Brown].

The abominant mind did not recognize the name, but as an arena slid into place and corrupted darkness exploded out from the silver-ranker that stood across from it, the gestalt realized that it had faced this man before.

Silver-rankers had become nothing more than a snack to the gestalt, but this man was different.

For the second time this trial, the gestalt knew fear.

#

Devouring Gestalt. Level: Gold 5.

This is a clan boss. Since you failed to kill it, it has consumed an additional sixteen silver-rank and four bronze-rank humans. It continues to suffer from a curse, but in the process, its mind has grown sharper.

It remembers you.

That is very, very bad news.

May your death be spectacular.

Will dismissed the message. He didn’t care what the system thought about his chances, especially after all he’d learned from Nynn in the Beyond.

The hunger phantasm exploded from him as he slowed down time and assessed his opponent.

Although the gestalt’s body hadn’t gotten much larger, it was moving faster now. Even in the accelerated time, Will could see it dashing around within the confines of the forcefield that bound each of them. It would try to get through his corruption through vastly superior speed and force, he knew.

“Alright,” he said, nodding to himself letting time speed back up. “Hey, big man. Or woman. Or other. I don’t judge. English?”

The gestalt affixed him with a dozen eyes, dark orbs boring down into him. It cocked its giant, regrown head quizzically.

In return, Will opened a hundred of Sen’s eyes, staring right back.

The gestalt, the terrifying abomination with a triple-digit kill count and over an entire rank on Will, fucking flinched.

“Yeah,” Will decided. “I’ll win.”

The forcefield dropped.