Chapter 1046: The Man You Turned Me Into (Patreon)

In a sprawling lounge and bar, a plethora of magitech amenities offered luxury and entertainment. There were people playing holographic board games or floating in telekinetic massage chairs. The main lighting was kept low, but lines of bright neon wound their way around the walls, across the ceiling, over the booths and along the bar. Jason spotted warriors of more than a dozen species, including the orc towering over him. Jason chuckled at Baloc’s disapproving expression.

“Too extravagant,” the big man grumbled, barely audible over the thumping music. “A true warrior needs little.”

“I agree,” Jason told him, “but I think this place is more about ‘want’ than ‘need.’”

The magitech tower Lalia had gotten up and running had become a central base for the growing army of uncorrupted souls, but with the vampires defeated and the corruption withdrawing on all fronts, there wasn’t much need of an army. Many had found their way here, awaiting whatever battle came next.

Jason and Baloc made their way through the bar, Jason eyeing a glowing blue drink with avarice.

“Work, then play, Mr Asano,” Shade admonished. Even out in the open, the familiar was all but invisible in a room filled with mood lighting and shadowy nooks.

They entered a back room that was much better lit, the music cut off the moment the doors slid closed behind them. Compared to the lounge outside it was bright and pristine, with clean white walls and plain chairs set around a simple but elegant stone table.

It was set up as a meeting room with Lalia, Yujin, Aeora, Melissa and Thadwick already present. Jason and Baloc joined them and discussion quickly turned to the aftermath of Jason’s most recent encounter with the corrupted.

“From the moment Jason began fighting the giant,” Lalia said, “we saw an acceleration in the corruption’s withdrawal from existing strongholds. It’s a full-blown exodus, to the point that we’ve been standing down our forces in the field. All attacks on uncorrupted territories have ended.”

At a flicking gesture from Lalia, a holographic video appeared over the table.

“The corrupted are converging on a single location, deep in their territory. As you can see from the satellite footage, it’s happening so fast that it looks like a hurricane forming.”

“How was battling the giant?” Baloc asked Jason.

“Anti-climactic. Too slow and clumsy to put up any real fight. Tough, but nothing afflictions couldn’t overwhelm. The concerning part was how relatively ineffective my ghost fire was. That power is anathema to the undead, and has been responsible for the corruption’s annihilation to date. This time, most of the damage was done by my regular powers and the ghost fire simply added to that and prevented regeneration. It definitely had an impact, but not as much as it should. It felt like the flames were trying to overcome rank disparity, which is about the only way the giant should have been able to resist.”

“That is a concern,” Lalia agreed. “In this realm, the power levels are balanced out, so rank disparity shouldn’t be possible. If consolidation is a means to overcome that limit, the corruption may have just confirmed that by fighting Jason.”

“We still don’t know if the corruption truly has sapience,” Yujin pointed out. “And, if it does or is close to developing it, how its mind will work.”

“We should assume the worst,” Baloc said. “This thing is smart and will know how to use what it has to best effect.”

“It would explain the immediate move to consolidation,” Melissa said. “It must believe that collecting more of its power in one place than it did for the giant will offer even greater resistance to the ghost fire. Perhaps make it immune entirely.”

“That is a concern,” Yujin said. “We have not found a means to purge the corruption without the ghost fire. Killing the corrupted through other means just leads to them rising again in time.”

“I’d like to know what happened when the giant fell,” Melissa said. “What’s the condition of the souls that had been absorbed into it?”

“Gordon’s butterflies spread my afflictions to what was left of the corrupted in the city,” Jason said. “The fire worked like normal on them.”

“Once the city was clear, we moved in to help the purged,” Aeora said. “As the ghost fire burned away the giant’s remains, souls were released from it, but the process was slow. As Jason said, the ghost fire worked, but with far less alacrity than we are used to. As for the condition of the people, it’s what we expected. They have no memory of what they endured, but they’re all deeply disturbed by the experience.”

“I’m familiar with the condition,” Jason said. “The aftermath of trauma that your soul remembers but your mind doesn’t is unsettling. Those people will need care. If there are any mind healers amongst your people, I strongly recommend recruiting them.”

“We have already been looking into that,” Aeora said. “It’s a rare specialty in an afterlife dedicated to warriors and hunters, but we have found some. We will take care of them as best we are able.”

“I believe it’s time to set caution aside,” Jason said. “I need to go and purge as much of the corruption as I can. Give it less to work with, in whatever final form it ends up taking.”

“A relatively small portion of the corrupted merged to form the giant. A lot more of them are left. If it all combines, which it seems to be aiming for, it might create a titan large enough to use those mountain-sized weapons scattered around.”

“I have been wondering what was going on with those,” Jason said. “Are there really, really big souls I haven’t seen?”

“I have examined some of them more closely since their arrival,” Shade said. “I believe they are divine relics. Grave markers, essentially, for warrior and hunter gods who have died. They are not uncommon to see in afterlives, although they take many forms. In this one, it would appear to be weapons of titanic size.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“Gods die with their planets, Mr Asano, and what they leave behind offers no insight on means to kill them any other way. Perhaps if one of these weapons was from a god killed by unconventional means, there may be some insight to glean, but we will not be free to examine them further until this realm is free of corruption.”

The door slid open and the room’s occupants turned to see the newcomer. An elf stood in the doorway, a striking figure with her dark brown skin and light brown hair, flecked with green. Her clothes looked like well-fitted leather armour, something Sophie might wear. More than other times Jason had seen her, she looked ready for a fight. Behind her, the open door let in strobing neon and pulsing music, until she stepped inside and it closed.

“Raythe,” Jason said, “you keep showing up like the wacky neighbour in a sitcom. I could swear you just paused to let the studio audience cheer.”

Thadwick opened his mouth to ask what Jason was talking about, only for the rest of the table to shake their heads at him before he could get a word out. Raythe stepped into the room.

“We do not have time for your usual quirks,” Raythe told Jason. “Something is happening here to destabilise the afterlife.”

The people at the table shared a glance.

“Yes,” Raythe said. “The way the corruption is consolidating is destabilising the fundamental structure of this realm. That is how it is breaching the normal boundaries of power here. This poses an existential threat to the integrity of this realm.”

“So, we need to put this thing down fast,” Jason said.

“No,” Raythe said. “The corruption is reacting to you, Jason. If you are removed Velius believes that it will return to a state of equilibrium.”

Jason got up from his chair and moved to stand face to face with Raythe. He was slightly shorter than her, looking up to meet her eye.

“Equilibrium? Since when was the corruption inexorably overtaking this entire realm again equilibrium? How does letting it overtake everyone in this room, stripping their minds and their autonomy, constitute equilibrium, Raythe?”

“Better that than losing the realm altogether. There will be chances in the future.”

“Assuming that the corruption doesn’t enjoy intelligence and power and decide to stick with it, sure. Even putting that aside, what happened to you not being able to take me out of this place?”

“The disruption being caused by the corruption now presents an opportunity. The boundaries are weaker, the rules less rigid. Between that, my ability to traverse this realm and Velius granting permission as the prime vessel of the Reaper, it will be possible to extract you.”

“How convenient. Funny how often that happens to me. All the pieces coming together in just the right way that I can make a sacrifice for the greater good. Well, the greater good as I’m told it is. By the exact kind of people that could manoeuvre all the right pieces into place to make it all happen the way they want. To a degree that the right choice seems not just obvious but inescapable. No choice at all. Like letting Umber bring me here. He got what he wanted. Knowledge got what she wanted. The Reaper got what it wanted, and I got to sacrifice. Again. To leave my friends behind and my world to its fate.”

“Now you get to escape that.”

“There is no escape. Not for the man you turned me into. All you people manipulating me went and created an adventurer, because that was what you needed, but now it’s what you’ve got. You all made me responsible for the people of this realm. To face the threat that no one else could, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“You are absolved of that responsibility.”

“If that was possible, I’d have stopped making sacrifices a long time ago. The man you made of me doesn’t do that. Not ever. You don’t get to decide what I do now. Neither does Knowledge, Umber, Velius or the Reaper himself. I don’t care who teamed up to get me here; the decision is mine now.”

“You cannot fight this entity that is forming from the corruption. It is breaching the limits of power in this realm. By the time you confront it, it will be on the level of a demigod, something you couldn’t stand against at full strength, let alone right now.”

Jason stared at Raythe for a long time without speaking before turning his back on her, leaning heavily on the table with both hands and taking several long, slow breaths.

“All this time,” he said softly, “and people still don’t understand. It feels like I just gave this speech to Thadwick, and I know you were watching, Raythe. You and your little cabal, with whatever agenda you have.”

He looked around the people sitting at the table.

“This place is a realm of warriors, champions and heroes. I’ve been called some of those things myself, but they’re not what I am. Not really. ‘Adventurer’ is a word that means a lot of things in a lot of places, but where I became one, it means one thing above all others.”

His gaze fell on the former vampire in the room.

“Melissa, you came from that place. What is an adventurer, at their core? Once you strip away everything else.”

Melissa visibly gulped, her eyes darting between the prime vessel of the great astral being that governed time itself, and the lunatic dressing her down as she, for some reason, stood there and took it. She knew the answer Jason wanted. Everyone in Pallimustus knew it from childhood. Adventurers were the subject of every legend, the hero of every myth.

“Adventurers face the threats that no one else can,” she said finally.

“Adventurers face the threats that no one else can,” Jason echoed, turning to face Raythe once more. “How many times do I have to do it before you understand? I’ve fought gods, Raythe. Great astral beings. Their prime vessels, like you. I keep being told that I can’t, that some things are too big. But I did it, over and over. Even when it killed me. These vast cosmic powers run around breaking the rules and not caring who gets hurt in the process. I doubt I’ll ever understand the true scope of damage caused by the sundering of the cosmic throne, and why did it happen? The great astral beings didn’t like being held to account.”

Jason took the few steps to once again be standing right in front of Raythe, looking up at her.

“I am not going to leave this place until the job is done, demigod or not. I don’t care what your boss wants or any of the people outside this place, watching me dance at the end of their strings. Go back alone, and tell the cosmos that it’s time to step lightly. If anyone decides to be a threat that they think cannot be stopped, I will stop them. It doesn’t matter if they’re a living universe or govern the laws of life and death, time or magic. Whatever power is at their command, however untouchable they might feel, they will be held to account.”

Jason hadn’t noticed the glow building up inside his body, but with his final words it erupted in an explosion of blinding gold light, pulsing like a heartbeat and hammering the room with aura. Sound came in an onslaught, the thunderous crack of a shattering glacier echoing down a fjord. The room shook, chairs breaking and the stone table cracking in half. The pounding thumps of the aura were like a hammer on hot steel. Searing to the touch, throwing off heat and sparks, yet a forged thing, artificial and empty of life.

The occupants of the room collapsed, screaming as they shielded their heads from the sensory bombardment. Even Raythe was not impervious, overwhelmed as she fell to her knees, eyes clamped shut and hands clasped over her ears.

 Gold light turned to silver, filled with diamond starlight. The pulsing stopped, the sound fading as the room became tranquil, but the damage to those in it had been done. All but Raythe were unconscious, while even she has blood running from her eyes and ears. The aura shifted from violent but lifeless to vibrant and alive, no longer harmful yet far more overbearing. It was an absolute power, an authority beyond defiance. It was not the aura of a ruler but of the rules themselves, immutable, inexorable and eternal.

The light faded and the rumbling sound fell silent. The glow stones in the ceiling had mostly stopped working, one still sputtering on and off. Raythe recovered first, her eyes drawn to Jason as she knelt in front of him. Diamond-rank power leaked out of him, like a pot on the verge of boiling over. His avatar could barely contain it, and would clearly break down after a few days at most.

The others in the room were still prone where they had fallen to the floor as their chairs gave out from under them. They were bleeding, like Raythe, with the broken remains of the furniture scattered over and around them.

Raythe’s head was pounding unlike anything she’d felt since her mortal life, itself a barely held memory. She watched as Jason walked over to Thadwick, flipped a broken table half off of him and slung him over one shoulder. Raythe got to her feet as he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her delicate head wincing at even the sound of her own voice.

“To do my job.”

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