[Corruption Wielder] Chapter 63: In For a Ton

Since the tutorial, Will had been fighting above his rank, but it was growing increasingly clear with every major advancement that the difference in power between each rank was greater than the last. Unformed to bronze had been seemingly insurmountable until Will had made use of the plentiful equipment in his tutorial. Bronze to silver had been more manageable, but that had still required the usage of corruption above his current rank and extremely arduous battles.

Silver to gold was more of the same, exemplified. Upon reaching silver, Will’s body had been purified, made into something more than human. Gold seemed to follow this progression to the extent that physical changes started to manifest on their bodies.

The cultists were still clearly human, but each of them sported some kind of mild mutation that made them seem more otherworldly—eyes that were solid orbs of color, bronze skin that shone like it was actually made of metal, and a third, ghostly arm that appeared and disappeared seemingly at will.

Nynn, on the other hand, looked like a human that had been carved out of obsidian. His aura overpowered the cultists’ and even Sen’s vision. By the time Sen’s eyes came back online, Will had closed half the distance.

He fired arrows as he went, guiding them to avoid hitting the tall, dark man that had inexplicably showed up.

It didn’t look like Nynn needed the help, to be honest. The other gold rankers each sported a unique set of powers, but despite their plethora of magic and weapons, they couldn’t keep him pinned down. He looked completely at ease as he simply walked through the web of attacks, dodging the supermajority of them and letting the remaining ones splash ineffectively against his body.

Trying to use Identify on the strange man only revealed that his aura control was so tight that all Will got was the name.

This wasn’t a Dread Executor, he was sure. When he’d spoken with Ayla about them, she’d insinuated that they were all high rankers in the grand scheme of the universe, and though gold rank was relatively powerful compared to Will, it was still in the first tier of power.

But the system had stated that he couldn’t turn down chat requests from Dread Executors past or present, which meant Will had a pretty good idea of what Nynn was.

Just like the cultists, he was clearly not of this world. Unlike them, none of his powers were readable. Will was too far to use Pages of the Past, which didn’t work through Sen as it wasn’t a sight-range ability, so he couldn’t tell exactly what Nynn was using, but whatever it was, it was letting him no-sell gold-rank magic like his attackers were using water guns.

After his initial burst of arrows had taken them off guard, Will’s attacks might as well have had the same effect. With their gold-rank attributes, the crit had been necessary to break through their skin. It had dealt some devastating damage, and the afflictions were still there, slowing them and passively harming the cultists as Nynn danced through their death-tinged magic, but they’d triggered active defenses now, which blocked his silver-rank arrows with ease.

Joining the battle was more to get intelligence on Nynn than it was to actually contest his skills against gold-rankers. His greatest strength wouldn’t be very effective against them, but Nynn was easily handling all three despite being on the same level. The possible Dread Executor had also messaged him, and Will wasn’t going to leave without following up on that.

Nynn systematically dismantled the offense against him with barely a single usage of a skill. As Will got closer, one of the cultists decided to make a brazen play, dropping back a bit before expending so much mana that Will could sense the expenditure through his own body’s senses as well as Sen’s. 

Ambient corruption pooled around the cultist, drawing from the environment around him, and he radiated power as mana bound raw chaos into a massive feline beast.

To Will’s surprise, it wasn’t a corruption-aligned skill that had summoned the corruption construct but a chaos one. Despite seemingly being immune to all the ambient corruption, none of the cultists were using skills of that type.

Was it because they knew that anyone standing within the cloud of instantly fatal corruption was capable of resisting it, or was it because none of them had it? Given the fact that Ataraxis, a head priest, had come to seek Will out specifically, he suspected it might be the latter.

That didn’t stop them from working with the corruption, though. Will slowed as he got closer, redirecting his arrows towards the sudden appearance. Whether that was a summon or a conjured familiar or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure, but it made the hair on the back of his neck raise.

His arrows sank into the corruption beast, then became overwhelmed with the concentrated corruption within, disintegrating in moments.

Well, that’s not good.

The good news was that he got the summon’s attention. The bad news was the exact same.

Will had been conserving his mana, not using any costly maneuvers like Wind Walker’s airdash to close the distance. He was thankful for that now. As he approached visual range—which was less space than he’d thought he had. The visual static of the corruption storm meant that he only got visual confirmation on the ongoing fight when he was a mere couple hundred feet away.

Well within range of the beast.

It leapt towards Will with astounding speed. The difference between bronze and silver speed wasn’t that harsh, but against something at gold, it was clear that Will was far outmatched. It cleared half of the distance in one bounding leap—and then it froze in place.

Through Sen’s eyes, Will saw Nynn pointing at the beast.

“You’re interfering,” he said. “Begone.”

At this distance, Pages of the Past could at least catch the overwhelming power presented in that one skill, though Will suspected that was because Nynn was allowing him to see it.

Skill: [Counterspell]

- Spell (meta).

- Cost: varies.

- Cooldown: varies.

Gold

This skill is currently sealed. Actual rank: King. This skill is bound to a [Death]-affixed [Soul].

“Cease.” - Dread Executor Nynn I, cycle [REMOVED].

Eradicate a magical effect by expending mana equivalent to the amount of resources that went into said effect. This can be used to interrupt a casting at reduced cost.

The corruption beast paused, the thin line of gold-rank magic encompassing it and overtaking it.

For just a moment, Will sensed a presence far, far greater than his brushing against the world, as far above him as he was an ant. Then, just as quickly as it came, the pressure subsided, taking the corruption construct with it.

Where there had been mana shaping the corruption before, now there was nothing. It almost seemed as if the area had been cleansed of all magic entirely, but the corruption had been too persistent to leave.

Nynn was brimming with magic now, his aura more oppressive than ever. Even though Will knew that the gold-rank aura wasn’t targeting him, it still a startling amount of effort to keep his aura going. The last being to suppress his aura on this level had been a god, not a gold.

Then again, this was no mere gold. That skill he’d just used had been sealed from King to its current rank, and if Will remembered right, that was the very top of mortal potential.

What the hell was this guy doing here?

Only as Nynn used Counterspell again did Will realize that he’d not used a skill up until this point.

The tide of the fight turned slowly, and Will did everything he could to speed it along. Nynn’s speed continued to increase as he casually walked through attacks so fast that Will’s senses could barely keep up. Somehow, Nynn was always in the right place at the right time, walking at a speed that even an unformed-rank human could manage to perceive yet avoiding all three of them just the same.

“Is this the power of a Dread Executor?”

Will didn’t bother asking loudly enough for Nynn to answer him, so he dove in as well, using the openings that the other man was creating to send strips of hunger phantasm towards them. With Nynn’s supposedly gold-rank aura making a mockery of the cultists’, their senses were too focused on protecting themselves that they didn’t notice the paltry silver-rank phantasm getting close to them.

With Weapons Free, Will could make melee attacks while staying out of range of immediate retribution. Though he couldn’t inflict lethal blows through the cultist’s active defenses, he could deal just enough damage through forcefields, adaptive defenses, and iron skin to give them some afflictions. He charged his sword with electricity as well, Thunder Wraith’s Grasp infusing his sword with lightning.

[Mark for Death] increased the power of your attack.

[Slayer Sword] inflicted a level of [Charged].

[Slayer Sword] has gained a level of [Unstoppable] and a charge.

Though the progress was slow, the slayer sword gained power with every successive strike against the same type of creature, which all of the cultists were. It gained even more by focusing on the same target, so Will focused on the bronze-skinned one since he was the easiest to differentiate from the others.

Nynn was making much more progress than him, though. He casually used Counterspell again, then again, depowering magic items and stopping skills in their tracks.

With every cast of Counterspell, the ambient magic around Nynn grew greater, his aura becoming even more oppressive. He didn’t even have a dedicated aura skill, Will realized—or, if he did, it was so well hidden that Pages of the Past couldn’t pick up on it. Despite that, he was easily crushing everyone else.

Instead of trying to shout over the din of the corruption and the magic, Will opened a chat window to the new arrival.

Will: It’s pretty obvious that you can kill them all. What are you waiting for?

Nynn: I am waiting. My magic is not perfectly aligned with my being. Assist if you can.

Will: Have been. I’ll try to continue.

As the levels of Unstoppable stacked on the slayer sword, Will repositioned himself into his hunger phantasm, cloaking himself and his aura from view. His caution was soon rewarded when one of his empowered slashes actually got through the bronze skin, drawing blood and causing lightning to chain from the metallic cultist to the other two, and his target roared, blindly firing a gold-rank laser into the darkness.

It was only a usage of Time in a Bottle that saved Will. Even with the darkness disguising him, the laser was almost dead on target. During the sped-up time, however, a heavy burst of mana let him dodge under the golden laser, allowing it to singe the air instead of his skin with such intensity that he was sure he would have died had it hit him.

That was their fatal mistake.

The entire time, all three of the gold-rank cultists had been focused on Nynn, and though the final otherworlder made dodging all of their attacks seem easy, the constant pressure had prevented him from making progress.

With that momentary slip-up, though, Nynn had the freedom to condense his aura, coalescing mana around him. Will’s eyes were drawn to the obsidian-black man. He became the center of attention as he bowed his head and knelt on one knee, tracing the corrupted ground with one hand.

A storm of swirling mana had gathered around him, and even the gold-rank spells being cast upon the shell of magic forming around Nynn barely affected him.

Nynn opened his eyes, and they blazed a bright red.

“Culmination,” he hissed, thrusting a hand out to the side.

The magic swelled, reaching a fever pitch—then dissipated all at once.

“They’ve taken even this from me?” Nynn said aloud, more disappointed than worried. “It has been far too long since I was consigned to these ranks.”

Will: You good there?

Nynn didn’t respond in chat, instead thrusting his hand out to the side once more.

Will took advantage of the momentary confusion that spread through the gold rankers to get in another massive hit through Weapons Free, chaining more lightning and preventing them from hitting Nynn.

That moment of distraction was enough for Nynn to conjure and grab his weapon, which looked to be a truly oversized scythe. The grim, curved blade was nearly as long as the handle, which was the same obsidian black as his skin.

Will: A guy named a “Dread Executor” using a scythe? C’mon. You’re not even trying to hide it.

Will: Also, aren’t those awfully impractical to use?

“Watch me,” Nynn said, loud enough that Will could hear him somehow.

Through Sen’s eyes, he saw Nynn leap forward with magical speed. One of the gold-ranks—the one with the phantom arm—blurred forward in response, but the afflictions that Will had laid upon them were effective enough debuffs that it tripped all three of them up in their defense.

Condition: [Bleed]

- Lowers the [Power] attribute by 3 stages for each level of [Bleed]. This cannot lower it to another rank.

- Deals ongoing slashing damage. Increases vulnerability to slashing attacks.

- The effectiveness of magical healing is reduced for each level of [Bleed].

Condition: [Wither]

- Deals slow necrotic damage over time.

- Weakens necrotic resistances. If the target does not have a resistance to necrotic damage, they gain a weakness to necrotic damage.

Condition: [Altrien’s Despair]

- Reduces the Soul attribute by 1 rank.

- Wounds drain health at a greatly increased rate. 

The defensive speed ability the cultist used must have been bound to Soul, because Nynn’s speed overwhelmed him. He dashed forward, clearing the space between the two of them in a blink of the eye.

A cloak dropped to the ground, its wearer missing.

A moment later, a helmet followed.

“What the fuck?” one of the cultists said.

Nynn moved, and the one who’d spoken collapsed, body disappearing the second the scythe hit it.

Will: What the hell is that?

Nynn: A weapon that I cannot use with any frequency. You are running out of time, candidate, and you still have a goal to accomplish, do you not?

Sure enough, the clock until Main Challenge 2 started had steadily been ticking down the entire time.

Time remaining: 1 minute, 39 seconds.

Nynn put the scythe away, though not before Will got a glance at it.

Item: [Dreadscythe Nynn]

Mythic, Prince (growth).

???

“Who the hell are you?” Will asked, closing the distance.

The remaining cultist, who Will had done the most damage to, struck out at him as he approached. Even as Will teleported away, though, Nynn cast a Counterspell, nullifying the attack.

“Halt,” Nynn said to the cultist. He eliminated a layer of armor with another usage of the skill. “Stop interfering.”

Layer by layer, the gold-rank’s defenses fell apart.

How much mana does this guy have? Enough to Counterspell a massive summon, a dozen or so skills, and conjure an insane scythe after failing a ritual that had gathered all the ambient mana together, apparently.

He clearly knew more than he was letting on, too, given that he knew Will’s situation with the Executor Token, but he wasn’t wrong that Will was running out of time.

“You’ll explain this to me afterwards,” Will said.

“Perhaps.”

The gold-rank bared his teeth, his skin growing brighter. “You would do well to not ignore me, filth.”

In moments, the glow grew from ba glow to blinding radiance, a gold-rank offensive skill warping his aura.

Nynn looked at Will expectantly.

“Seriously? Not going to end that for me or anything?”

“This is not my execution to take.”

With a deep, long-suffering sigh, Will charged. He felt the last cultist’s aura threaten his, suppressing it. Compared to the Hunger, it was nothing.

You have been afflicted with one level of [Corruption].

[Corruption Resistance] negates [Corruption].

The primary attacking method of this skill was an explosion that would make use of the surrounding corruption to cause a chain reaction. Will wasn’t going to let that happen.

Over the course of the fight, he’d fully charged the slayer sword, and he made full use of it now, dodging the gold-rank’s sloppy attempts to parry him with superior swordfighting form and slashing down hard.

[Mark for Death] increased the power of your attack.

Critical hit!

[Radiant Burst] has expended [18] charges.

Will followed it up with the strongest, priciest skill he had.

[Ghostflame] cleansed one level of [Wither], two levels of [Bleed], one level of [Altrien’s Despair], and six levels of [Corruption].

The amount of corruption that both of them had passively been carrying was higher than expected. Will was pleasantly surprised to find that despite both of them being immune to the affliction, it translated into increased power for the flame that engulfed his fists, sending his vision into bitterly cold monochrome.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Will told the cultist, “but I’m pretty sure I don’t want a part in it.”

As the light began to shine even brighter, he used the true, barrier-ignoring damage of Ghostflame to punch a hole straight through the final cultist’s chest.

You have defeated [Wicken Ralts, Cultist of Corruption].

Level up!

Then, once again, the harsh text scrolled across the center of his vision.

THE FIRST OF MANY.

ELIMINATE. ERADICATE. EXECUTE.

You have gained 1 [Awakening Shard of the Beyond].

“Time’s up,” Nynn said emotionlessly. “If you survive, this will not be the last time you see me.”

“I have way too many goddamn questions to die now,” Will said. “You better make good on that promise to tell me about yourself.”

“I made no such promise.”

“Thanks for agreeing.”

”You truly—“

Time remaining: 0 seconds.

Will was already gone.

#

Main Challenge #2: Free for All

Arena selected: Remembrance of a Nonexistent Past.

Participants selected: 24.

To win, you must be the last conscious User who has not admitted defeat.

Users who have already failed a challenge can and will be placed with Users who have not.

Difficulty: Varies

- Be the last one standing. [0/1]

Reward: 1,000 bronze credits. Full refresh of health, mana, and stamina.

Penalty for Failure: ???