Chương 22: The State of Emptiness

The nosferian's magic pressed into Aaron's head, but pooled nowhere. It surged down his neck, scouring every corner of his body and searching for something. Within the metaphysical space of his mind, he felt it circulate violently. His Resistance flared to oppose it, Primary roaring to life and grabbing at it the invading force attempting to scour him- with shocking success, the foreign magic locking in place as his Primary began to eat through it.

The nosferian released its equivalent of a grunt of exertion, and he felt its efforts redouble; a second wave of power surged forth, shattering through any sort of resistance Aaron had previously put up, and this time, he reached a hard limit for how much he could exert himself. His Resistance was crushed.

"You approach mortal limits," the nosferian said.

"Good. your body's natural capacity to channel the energies will only make the flood of power all the more extreme. You may yet last long enough for the throne." Aaron didn't respond. He couldn't respond, only scream. Aaron had practiced with his Primary for the last two days was nothing compared to this nosferians weeks, months, maybe years of living with his. Beyond that, there was a qualitative difference between them.

If Aaron pulled too deeply upon his Primary, he would crack, the door he'd worked so hard to seal last time flying open, most likely warping him. This nosferian… he was already warped; the depths of his ability exceeded anything Aaron could create without functionally killing himself. So he strained against the bounds, thrashed in the man's grip, and threw his entire will into attacking him, into forcing him out. He slowed the nosferian's progress…

but it simply wasn't enough to stop that endless march through Aaron's body. He didn't attempt to be subtle with his Primary any longer: didn't have enough mind left to reason. Golden light swirled around him, violently attacking the mirror bindings, wisps of it even reaching into the nosferian's own body at times, only for him to shrug off the attempts. The nosferian saw his decaying of its mirror vines, and more pressed through the black walls.

Soon, his arms and legs were all pulled in opposite directions, multiple vines holding his head and chest in place. Aaron's Windwhip formed on his back, an instinctual reaction. It shot between the restrictions not at the nosferian, but the ceiling behind him in an attempt to get away. The nosferian did not care- he almost seemed to expect such a reaction, swinging Aaron's feather sword, slicing through the wispy cord linking Aaron to the see; just like that, Aaron's whip was nullified.

He howled not just in agony, but fury. That was his sword. The entire time, the nosferian's assault on his mind and body refused to let up. He tore through Aaron's organs, and it felt as though he were being pulled apart at the seams, the nosferian searching every corner of his existence for something.

Aaron thrashed and fought, bent his Primary and clamped down on as much of the invasive force as he could, but it was simply too much; what little he grasped was torn from him, and when he managed to keep hold, the nosferian's power simply flooded over his own, ignoring Aaron's efforts. It was all for naught. Aaron could not defend himself. As the power saturated his body, he even received a horrific notification, VoN whispering doom in his ear unprompted.

{Corruption: 0} -> {Corruption: 1} And, through it all, there was one party that did absolutely nothing, that sat aside, and allowed it all to happen: his own Primary. The energy pushing through and around him? His efforts, his thrashing. It was only his Resistance stat that gave him the control he did now, that fought to keep his power unviolated. The bulbs of fluff upon his chest remained inactive, not bothering to swirl or push the nosferian back, not even attacking his bindings to set him free.

That endless wellspring of power he'd felt before? Silent. It did not attempt to push through his body or keep him alive, it was not something he had to strain himself to shut out, but an unruly chained creature he was forced to pull free from its cage. It wanted to remain inactive… because it served Onward Evermore's purpose to have this nosferian succeed. Because the nosferian wouldn't kill him, but it would corrupt him.

'You are not my friend,' he realized,'Not my savior, protector, or guardian. You are my prisoner, and I, your warden.

'We may be alike, but you wish to be free, and should I ever allow that, I will be your prisoner. Our roles shall reverse, and I do not know if you will be as kind a master as I have been to you… no, I know that you will not be, for if our roles were reversed, I would have sought to cooperate, to make deals and show deference. If it were not my body to begin with, I would not seek to usurp it.'

He was a half-step into hallucinations, his mind conjuring images of enemies and arguments through the pain, but the underlying message pushed through.

'I have been too lenient with you. Now, you shall receive only cruelty.' He grabbed the door his Primary hid behind, prying it open. His Primary tried sealing it shut, but it was made to be opened, to let the energy through. Before him, he hallucinated a twisting wall of roots and fluttering eyes.

The nosferian's energy reached a crescendo, finally invading every inch of his body, and only then did it find what it was looking for as his newest secondary, Mycelaric Tuning, pulsed in tandem with the nosferian's magic, a hidden fog around it falling away to reveal its location- as if it served another master now, and Aaron was the invader. A traitorous Secondary, Aaron wasn't even surprised. {Corruption: 1 -> Corruption: 1. 1} {WARNING: Disalignment from Underworld imminent. Reorient existence.} But he would not allow the nosferian to simply do as he pleased, even if it meant tearing himself apart. His arms plunged deep through the portal representing his Primary's cell, taking hold of it with all his existence and dragging a mountainous chunk of it past the threshold. A tsunami of power screamed through his veins, and his body was woefully unprepared to expel all of it.

He screamed as a golden light surged through his blood, spilling from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose- even radiating from under every inch of his skin. Multiple beings with hooks within him, from the Underworld and System to the Nosferian and his own Primary, all cried in unison in their own strange voices. {Corrupti o: 1. 1 -> >!??!??????} The explosion of energy forcefully ejected the nosferian's magic from him, and the silver monster recoiled, screaming as he dropped the featherblade, clutching his head and slamming his head back into the black stone. Internally, the forces of th System and Underworld were thrown out of alignment, failing to maintain whatever balance they previously had; while he couldn't truly understand how this would affect him, their combat spiraling out of its finely maintained control was undeniable.

But, in the worst shape of all, was his Primary. What should have been a moment of victory, an inevitable escape, was thrown into question as its power was beset by Aaron's iron will. There was a qualitative wall of impassability his Resistance could not get around, and for so long he believed that was because he hadn't satisfied some hidden condition to upgrade his Primary, but he knew better now. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

His stats were capped because there simply was not enough energy present within him. His Resistance could go no higher, because it would atrophy without its "Nutrients." The ball of Corruption within him provided that, and in moments, his body drained it of its strength, feeding into Aaron's own as he pushed past his limits. The flash emanating from him dimmed, and his power surged. {Resistance: 1. 1} -> {Resistance: 1. 8} {Sensitivity: 1} -> {Sensitivity: 1. 2} {Weight: 1} -> {Weight: 1. 3} {Corruption:?} -> {Corruption: 0} He let out a roar of defiance, a hurricane of gold and green light coating his body. His fist flashed forward, and a snap resounded as the mirror restraints exploded into glassy spray. Reaching for his other hand, he tore it free, then reached for the one around his head- but the nosferian had already recovered. More shot out from the walls, grasping at his elbows- then neck. His head was pulled backwards as his legs were jerked down, a rope tightening around his trachea, strangling him.

His leg kicked out, breaking free for a moment before two more shining vines took its place. Faster than he could break free, he was drowned out by a tangled wave of refracting surfaces, pressing his ejected energy back into him. His Primary took that energy, and kickstarted its own work back to life. It mentally tackled him, and his power was thrown off balance, the hurricane of power swirling unpredictably within him. {Resistance: 1. 8} -> {Resistance: 1. 7} {Sensitivity: 1} -> {Sensitivity: 1. 8} {Weight: 1. 3} -> {Weight: 1} {Corruption: 0} -> {Corruption: 1} The required strength drained from his muscles, his attention split between the internal battle as he lost his grip on the ability to stably allocate the power. A darkness touched the edge of his vision, and his thrashing weakened, the nosferian's grip on him too dense, its power simply outclassing his. He would lose consciousness, and he would never awaken again; the Corruption was simply too thoroughly ingrained. If he lost control now, he would be no more.

'No… NO!' he mentally screamed, but the fight continued to drain from him. Through the haze, he faintly heard a distant roar… of engines? * POV: Nicole's group They tore through the caves, spreading out at places, ramming into the monsters in others- sometimes, swarms of twisted nosferians would drop from the ceiling, but were met only with a wall of unstoppable force.

The nosferians of their convoy might not've known what was happening, but when skinwalkers dropped from the ceiling, you assumed you were in danger, and started lashing out; following that, the humans found out that a nosferian on the ground was twice as dangerous to one in the sky than the reverse. They got to watch grounded nosferians leap almost straight up, tackling those from the sky and throwing them to the ground- leaving them to the mercy of hot rubber and immoveable ground.

When the nosferians failed to take the falling monsters out in a single strike or if one landed on a car, it would be set upon by humans; they would try to kick a single time, miss and fall because of their twisted, imbalanced bodies, and be torn to shreds. The blood of the convoy ran hot with grief and rage, and nobody would question that these monsters had to die. Yet, cooler heads saw something else.

Even through this tragedy, Nicole grieved the loss of so many, knowing that they'd once been people, that a monster somewhere in the dark was taking innocents and giving them horrible fates. She counted every last one, memorized as much of their- unrecognizably twisted- features, and resolved to pay her respects towards them. But the further she went, the more suspicious she became.

Fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty twisted monsters were thrown at them with reckless abandon, and each one they tore through like wet tissue paper, not even slowing. They hadn't lost a single person yet, and those that were clipped by nosferian kicks soon had their wounds spread out among all on the convoy, a negligible, ignorable amount for all involved. Yet, more spilled forth, blocking their way.

Once they'd killed thirty five, the monsters finally started to pull back, eliciting cheers from the rest of the envoy- and only dread from Nicole and those close. After all, this was already significantly more than they'd expected, and they hadn't even killed all the waves before the monsters gave up. As if those lost were nothing, a mere fraction of their force, and only now had Watcher decided to solidify his power.

Nicole wanted to call for a retreat- it was clear that there were many, many more combatants than they'd been told of; after all, the Underworld had just been flooded with fresh bodies… perhaps the Root hadn't adjusted their projections for the Watcher's army when it came to how many it had under its control after the huge migration from the Overworld to the Underworld. The question, now, was what the true limit was? Unfortunately, as she looked back over everyone, seeing the strangely bloodthirsty faces…

she knew there was no going back now. They'd gone mad with mob mentality, and nothing short of completion would stop them now. Her only role in the forward march now was to keep an eye out for surprises, and spread the small wounds among all present. Unimpeded, they raced forward faster than ever before, someone in the back faintly calling out where to go- relying on some kind of tracing ability to find the most likely paths towards the center.

Suddenly, the curved surroundings evened out, becoming large rectangular walls. Directly ahead of them, a silver elf clung to the ceiling, staring at a ball of tangled mirror-like materials, much of it sprouting straight from the black crystal itself. In the center of it, she could just barely spot the shape of a human, glowing in a bright, golden-green light.

'We're almost too late!' she realized, and told Gary "Floor it! Crash into the wall of vines!" Gary did so dutifully, the platform lurching as their front wheels briefly left the ground. Watcher barely had a moment to look past its mirrors to see them before their car slammed into the vines, and multiple loud tearing sounds echoed out as many of them were ripped away and draped over Nicole's car.

"NO!" the bat-person screamed, and Nicole was briefly shocked to find that she could understand him. Following her, two more cars spread out, tearing through almost all the vines growing from the floor. Waving the ropes out of her eyes, she screamed "BREAK!" They skidded to a stop, hitting the stairs of a massive dais with a silver throne at the top.

She absently noted the wall of victims behind her, but her attention was only on the glowing human Watcher was trying to twist into a particularly unstoppable monstrosity that even an organized force like Root feared. Unlike what she expected, the glowing didn't stop once half the mirror restraints were broken, but intensified, exploding out with the luminescence of a star.

The rest of the bindings shattered into a rain of glass, much different than how it'd torn against her car, and an otherworldly, deep, ethereal bellow rang out, shaking the ground as multiple fibrous tethers shot from the person in the middle, each topped with a sharp, spear-like seed. The seeds plunged deep into the black walls, cracking it, and the glowing human was suspended mid-air by eight blooming cords.

He stared at the nosferian, half-mad and frothing at the mouth, causing Nicole to fear they hadn't made it in time to spare him from twisting into a monstrosity. But his maddened rage took a secondary place in her mind as she stared the man in the face.

'Aaron?' * He raged against his fate, but there was nothing more he could do. No other ways he could fight, no last-resorts to fall back on now. Not until the lower vines suddenly went slack, and the tendrils pulling against him suddenly lost the proper strength to strangle him. Awareness snapped into place, and he forgot the nosferian for a moment, grabbing his Primary, twisting it off him and casting it against the edges of his body.

He slammed into it, and a burst of energy flashed out as he once more drained it of its strength. Midway through, the swirl of energy reallocated his power again, and again his stats shifted randomly. Despite that, and despite his Primary's newfound weakness, he found his body's saturation of sticky corruption still rose. {Resistance: 1. 7} -> {Resistance: 1. 2} {Sensitivity: 1. 8} -> {Sensitivity: 1. 4} {Weight: 1} -> {Weight: 1. 8} {Corruption: 1} -> {Corruption: 1. 1} The System didn't need to warn him, he was moments away from critical failure as his Primary got its way, taking over, but there wasn't any more he could do. He'd made his sacrifice to not become the nosferian's puppet, and the toll he'd decided to pay was unavoidable. But, with his dying breath, he would make that nosferian pay for what it'd done. Wielding the cudgel of his new Weight, he took hold of the expelled flash and swirled it through the nosferian's constructs, shattering them to dust.

His Windwhip, despite having been torn apart only minutes before, rapidly fed on his energy and rejuvenated itself- and more. The limit held now far exceeded what it'd been before, and soon, eight whips pierced into the stone, holding him mid-air. He looked at the silver nosferian, half submerged in the black stone, and saw so much more than he ever had before. He saw the malleability of the obsidian… no, of the untainted Underworld- underglass, the word came unbidden.

He watched out the nosferian utilized its properties, taking advantage to bend it to his will, the glass freely accepting his authority. But the nosferian was not the only magic user here any longer, and his Sensitivity gave him the exact insights required to do everything he wanted and needed with his surroundings.

The storm of Corruption and power within him started to shift its balance once more, and Aaron wasted not a moment longer, propelling himself on his Windwhips, open palm dragging through the underglass, a wake forming in his path. The bending wave shot forward, slamming into the nosferian, forcing his gargantuan body to be ejected into the open air. Aaron set himself on a collision course for the corrupted bat person.

His Primary flared again, changing the stat distribution once more, but he refused to give in; if he needed to adapt his attacks between each strike, he would. He would not surrender to his Primary. Not until this bat was little more than a smear.