Chapter 148: Chapter 148

Damien started past Delph, but a gentle prod of mental energy from Henry stopped him.

“Don’t bother,” Henry said. “It Who Stills the Seas is long gone. I can’t detect it anymore either. We won’t be able to find it by blindly chasing.”

It’ll restart the cycle if we don’t do anything! Everything will get destroyed!

“Restarting the cycle takes time,” Henry said. “Not to us, but in mortal time, we aren’t out of luck. It will need to recover from imprisonment as well. It took me several of your years to regain my strength within your body. We’ll have to deal with it, but a few minutes won’t change anything.”

Damien clenched his hands and let a breath out through clenched teeth. Dredd watched him with suspicious eyes as Sylph walked up to stand beside him.

“Don’t we need to chase the Void creature?” Sylph asked. “It’s going to escape.”

“Henry said it’s already long gone.”

“Hold on,” Delph said, frowning. “I though you had control of the Void creature.”

“I control my Void creature,” Damien said, crossing his arms. “But Dredd’s attack freed the one that was bound in this cave. The one that I was in the process of sealing so it couldn’t escape.”

“I think you might have to start from the beginning,” Delph said.

Damien massaged his forehead. “I suppose I should.”

And that was what he did. Starting from the botched summons when he was a kid, Damien recounted just about everything that had led up to where they currently stood. In a way, it was freeing to know share the story with someone that wasn’t Sylph.

By the time Damien was finished, Delph and Dredd both looked like they’d swallowed a lemon.

“Well, we fucked up,” Delph said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s been a while since I screwed a mission this badly.”

“No it hasn’t,” Dredd said. “You blew up a town a year ago. It’s just that we’ve gone and screwed up something a bit more important than a few houses.”

“So you aren’t going to try and kill me?” Damien double checked.

“No,” Dredd said. “We made a mistake. If I were in your shoes, it’s likely that I would have followed the same path. There was just no way for us to know that you were in control of the Void creature other than you telling us, but your suspicions were correct. Had we discovered it, it is very likely that you would have been killed for the sake of protecting the rest of the world.”

“And now we’ve got a bigger problem,” Delph said, rubbing his chin. “This Corruption – you said your companion told you that it was here, didn’t you? So where is it?”

“Not here,” Damien said, his brow lowering. “Herald and Henry are different creatures. Henry is my friend – Herald serves its own goals. Herald’s ability to detect magic is much higher than Henry’s, so it’s possible it knew that you were following us and sent us here so that you would have a chance of inadvertently freeing It Who Stills the Seas.”

“Wily bastard,” Delph said.

“Hardly,” Dredd put in. “It doesn’t take much knowing you to figure out that you’ll show up and start smashing things.”

“You’re the one that blasted the grandpa, not me.”

“You brought me along.”

“Really, professors?” Sylph asked. “This is hardly the time.”

Delph cleared his throat. “Right, back on topic. Do we know how much time we’ve got to deal with this Seas creature before the world implodes?”

“Henry implied that we basically have to wait for it to make the first move,” Damien said, pacing back and forth. “We don’t have a good way to track it until it does, but we’ll probably have a few weeks to get things moving once it does. The good news is that it’ll have to recover before it can do anything, and that should take a year or two at the least.”

“So the Corruption is the more immediate threat,” Dredd said, turning the staff over in his hand. “It’s shocking that two Year One students have been able to challenge forces of this caliber on their own. I assume that… Henry is unable to do all the fighting for you to avoid drawing attention.”

“He’s had to be very careful,” Damien nodded. “But does this mean I can reveal my companion now?”

“Absolutely not,” Delph said. “Whisp would kill you in a heartbeat. She doesn’t take risks with things like this. Continue doing exactly what you have been. You must not allow anyone else to discover this.”

“Or you,” Dredd said, nodding to Sylph. “If I understood correctly, you’ve got the butchered corpse of the Corruption within you. That’s only a step better than Damien.”

“It didn’t do me much good against you,” Sylph said.

Dredd pushed his cloak back, revealing a thin cut along his chest. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been injured by a student to any degree. I can see why Delph is so obsessed with the two of you.”

Sylph grabbed her pack and pulled a strip of jerky out of it. She threw it into her mouth without taking her eyes off the professors for a second.

“So, aside from the escaped Void creature, we’re back to square one,” Damien said, letting out a sigh. “Wonderful.”

“Not exactly square one,” Delph said.

“What do you mean? We can’t get help from the school, you said it yourself. If Whisp or the Dean find something out, we’re dead,” Damien said.

“I believe I’ve got some vacation time,” Delph said, shooting a glance at Dredd. The staff bearing professor let out a heavy sigh.

“As do I. It’s been a while since I’ve actually exerted myself. I suppose this would be a good break.”

“You’re going to join us?” Sylph asked. She raised her eyebrows, momentarily pausing her inhalation of jerky.

“I wouldn’t be a very good teacher if I sent you off against extraplanar entities on your own,” Delph said. He curled his lip in distaste. “Especially after the little mix-up we just had. You were having Herald lead you around to the Corruption, right?”

Damien nodded. “I’ve got a rune circle on my hand that points me towards where Herald wants me to go. Fifty fifty chance he sends us to another Void creature or actually finds the Corruption.”

“Girl, you’ve got Corruption energy in you. Let me see it,” Dredd said, gesturing at Sylph with the butt of his staff.

Her eyebrows scrunched and her lips pressed thin. She followed his request a moment later, bringing a small orb of sickly green light to her hand. Dredd extended his staff, touching it against the energy.

The top of the wooden weapon shimmered and the orb in Sylph’s hands vanished. She yanked her hand back as if stung while an identical orb formed at the top of the man’s staff.

“This will do,” Dredd said. “I can track this energy signature with this sample. It will only take minor modification to ensure that the girl doesn’t throw off my calculations.”

“You can teleport us straight to the Corruption?” Damien asked.

“I can,” Dredd confirmed. “I believe this will be better than allowing Herald to dictate our motion. Under control or not, I suspect that he doesn’t have any good intentions for us.”

“It,” Damien corrected. “Henry is a he. Herald is an it.”

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Dredd cocked an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He just shrugged and spun the staff in his hand, drawing a glimmering green circle in the air.

“Is there a strategy to defeating these Corrupted creatures beyond smashing them until they are dead?”

“Separate the Ether from them,” Damien replied. “As long as they aren’t connected to it, their regeneration is severely weakened.”

“Noted,” Dredd said. “I would normally say this is where we leave the two of you, but I believe you are both more than capable enough of handling yourselves, and you’d end up fighting the Corruption whether or not Delph and I accompany you. Thus, we shall travel together to terminate these vermin.”

“I don’t think we’re in a position to turn down help,” Damien said, a small spark of hope blooming within him. He hadn’t seen Delph or Dredd ever go all out, but any professor at Blackmist was sure to be a serious threat. Fighting the Corruption would be a lot easier with two powerhouses on their team.

“Then we’re settled,” Delph said. “Are you ready to go, Dredd?”

“I have already located an energy signature,” the other professor replied. “Are the two of you still in fighting shape?”

“I used a bit of energy, but I think I should be okay,” Damien said.

“As should I,” Sylph said. Her tone was still several degrees colder than normal.

“Then we shall go. Steady yourselves,” Dredd said. “I will drop us down directly upon the Corruption. Once we have identified it, the two of you will stay back. You understand these creatures better than Delph and I, but we are more capable of taking on a frontal assault if our opponents are prepared for us.”

“Just don’t accidentally free any more world destroying monsters,” Sylph said.

“I shall do my utmost,” Dredd said, his tone so dry that it was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He drummed the staff against the ground and the green circle he’d drawn turned a deep red.

It thrummed, forming into a portal. The portal turned horizontal and expanded, swallowing all four of them before blinking out of existence, taking them along with it.

Dredd’s magic dropped them off at the top of a mountain. The first thing Damien noticed was that it was cold. A harsh wind through the air, whipping his clothes and biting at his eyes and lips. He wrapped his hands around himself as his feet suddenly grew wet from the thick snow that nearly reached his knees.

They stood on a large plateau with the peak towering above them. A cave within the rock face before them led into the heart of the mountain. There were large claw marks along the walls and the faint smell of carrion was just barely noticeable through the chill.

“It is likely that our opponents are within the cave,” Dredd said. “Are you aware of their sensing capabilities? Would usage of magic alert them to our arrival?”

Damien passed the message along to Henry.

“It’s likely,” Henry said. “They probably wouldn’t notice anything if it was somewhere crowded or with a few other mages, but in a location as isolated from the rest of the world as this mountain, the Corrupted monsters almost certainly would have noticed the Ether usage.”

Dredd frowned as Damien relayed his companion’s words back to the professor. He adjusted his grip on the staff and pointed it at the cave entrance.

“Then this Corruption likely expects us to push in to the cave, so it can ambush us,” Dredd said. “Delph, if you would.”

Delph nodded. He strode through the heavy snow, his cloak rippling and snapping around him, and put his hands against the mountain face.

“Are you trying to lure them out somehow?” Damien asked. “From what we’ve seen, the Corruption is clever before it turns into its rocky form. If this is the smart version of the Corruption, you’re not going to be able to trick it into fighting out here when we have the advantage.”

“Delph isn’t trying to trick it,” Dredd said. He raised his staff and bubbles of energy formed around all three of them. “Brace yourselves. Delph is not subtle.”

The snow around Delph started to ripple. An invisible force emanating from him pushed it back, forming a growing circle of dry land around the professor. His cloak rippled harder in the wind, lifting up around him as his hands lit up with gray energy.

Lines traced through the air around Delph’s hands as he closed them into fists. The air itself seemed to bend and warp as he tightened his grasp on it. With a roar, the professor yanked his hands apart.

A thundering crash split the still sky. The top of the mountain exploded like it had been struck with a hammer the size of the city. House sized boulders hurtled through the sky, disappearing into the clouds below them.

Damien and Sylph gaped as the cave disintegrated before them, leaving a large plateau with a hole that led into the ground. Delph peered down into it.

“Not on this level,” he announced. “I’ll try the next one.”

Delph reared back and drove his fist into the ground. It rumbled, sending tremors throughout the entire mountain. The professor vanished in a cloud of dust and snow.

“What sort of strategy is that?” Sylph asked. “He’s just destroying the mountain!”

“Nowhere to hide if there’s no cave,” Dredd replied with a shrug. “If the Corruption is as intelligent as you say, then it will emerge and attempt to stop us before all of its protection is gone. I expect a surprise attack shortly.”

It was as if Dredd’s words were prophecy. A stone blade punched out from the ground below them, driving up towards the professor. It struck the red bubble, sending shimmers through the spell but failing to penetrate it.

All three of them jumped back as a tall man clad in white armor pulled himself free from the ground. The bottom half of the man’s face was tattered and rocky, and a large fang jutted out from the side of his mouth. He bore a large broadsword in each hand.

Damien started to form a gravity sphere, but Dredd’s attack was faster. A bolt of red light screamed through the air and struck the man in the shoulder, spinning him in a circle. Before he could recover, a portal formed beneath him.

The man fell into it and it snapped shut halfway through, carving him clean in two. Two more portals removed his arms. Acid bubbled into the snow as the man reformed, a savage snarl ripping free from his mouth.

“Give in,” the man snarled, his words warped by the fang. “The cycle will end, and you cannot stop it.”

Dredd flicked his staff. A portal swallowed the man whole and vanished. Damien blinked, staring at where the Corruption had stood.

“What did you do to him?”

“Teleported it into an active volcano,” Dredd replied. He waved his staff again. A charred corpse appeared on the ground before them, acid seeping out across it and already forming back into flesh and armor. Dredd curled his lip and the body vanished into another portal.

“That isn’t going to kill it,” Damien said. “It’s still connected to the Ether.”

To their side, Delph pulled himself out of the hole, brushing dust off his shoulders. The professor glanced around the clearing. “Did it show up?”

“Dredd sent it into a volcano,” Damien said.

“Ah. Is it dead?”

“No. It’ll just keep healing, but this is a good way to weaken it,” Damien said. “This almost feels too easy.”

“Don’t get too comfy,” Henry said from within him. “Keep in mind that this isn’t a Corruption Seed. It’s just a bit of Corruption, left over from a Seed’s passing. The Seed that I used to heal Sylph was significantly more powerful than this creature, and there are likely hundreds of these across the continent already.”

That was enough to sober Damien up. When Dredd brought the charred corpse back, he quickly cast his mental energy forth and stuck at the weakened Corruption, serving its connection to the Ether.

Sylph stepped up to it, a blade forming in her hand, and split the monster in two. With a final gargle, the two charred, rocky pieces of its body crumbled to the ground.

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