The cluster was closer than it had looked from camp. I stopped at the edge of where my Sense could read them clearly, twenty bodies moving in a slow orbit around a central presence that was bigger than everything else.
The ground where I was had changed, no more rust colored sand and dead stone, the wasteland giving way to dark compacted dirt, and from that dirt things grew.
Moss spread in softly glowing patches across the ground. I could also sense a dark lake near the cluster.
I opened my inventory.
The sterling armor and helt caught my attention again. I still had not asked Phinyx about cleansing it. I made a ntal note to deal with it when I got back, closed the thought, and focused on the Hibrem cube that was resting now in my hand.
The plan assembled itself in my mind.
I would follow an improved version of the strategy I’d used with the other liquid Corruptor, but improved by Sense. First to grow the barrier big enough to be able to enclose the target. Then, to pull a section of it through Switch while the barrier was already activated.
Finally, to shrink the barrier.
Simple. No running through twenty Corruptors. No improvising in the middle of a group that could end in one swing.
I set the barrier ntally, large enough to contain sothing the size of that thing. I let the size settle.
Then I held the cube loosely in my right hand and closed my eyes.
Sense reached forward through the space between and the cluster. The Acolyte registered as a dense mass at the center of the cluster, much bigger than the others. I focused on its center, a small section where I could place the cube and capture the whole thing.
Switch.
My palm turned wet.
The liquid moved before I fully registered it had arrived, not slow, not hesitant, it convulsed with chanical speed, reflexive and imdiate, slipping from my grip and hitting the dirt before my fingers could close.
I kept the ntal connection with the cube.
Through Sense I felt the Acolyte accelerate, not toward but toward the forming periter of the barrier around it. It struck the barrier four tis within a breath, not randomly but at specific points, testing angles with a precision the bunker Corruptor had never shown. That one had been sealed for generations, slowed by isolation. This one was not.
"Shrink." I ordered.
The barrier collapsed inward in a controlled reduction, pulling tight around the contained section. Through the cube I felt it fight the compression, moving fast enough to make the containnt shudder.
Then the shriek hit.
It was not like the silver serpents or the low rumble of a standard Corruptor. It was high, visceral, a single sustained frequency that cut across the wasteland and rattled my teeth. The kind of sound sothing makes when it discovers a limit it has never encountered.
A notification window blinked at the edge of my vision.
I ignored it.
Because the twenty Corruptors had started moving.
They scattered in every direction, not charging, not retreating, slamming into the ground, tearing through vegetation, colliding with each other without reacting. One drove itself into a boulder until the rock split, another looped the sa motion over and over, sothing broken in the pattern.
One of them started running and fell into the dark lake.
They were not retreating. They looked like they had been given an order, as if sothing had told them to attack everything, to destroy everything.
I watched the Corruptors dismantle the area in frantic, uncoordinated bursts.
Then I felt sothing else through Sense.
Sothing seed to be happening inside the dark lake.
I could feel many things rising from below the ground, they were moving fast toward the surface.
Silver snakes.
And not only normal silver snakes, I could feel a much bigger one, as if the body of seven of the normal serpents were connected together.
"What have I unleashed here." I muttered under my breath.
The Corruptors from the cluster seed to react to the slight trembling that was happening in that direction, and they started moving fast toward that place.
I had started a massive battle between serpents and Corruptors just by throwing the cube into their cluster.
I couldn’t let them kill each other and risk having a couple of new portals thrown around Argent tomorrow. So I had to act fast and finish the fight with the minimal amount of casualties.
"Minimal casualties." I repeated. "I’m now protecting Corruptors... this is my life now."
I reached for the cube with Sense, trying to Switch it back without moving, but everything overlapped, signals stacking, the cube moving because of the Corruptors walking by.
The connection slipped.
"Ah! I don’t have ti to waste, I’ll grab it myself." I said as I leaned forward.
I then focused on three spheres moving at different speeds inside my mind.
Quickstep.
I ran fast, while running and focusing on Quickstep I couldn’t use Sense to know what was happening at the place. But I imagined that they were already fighting because of the tremors.
"Everyone in the camp is going to be worried about what’s going on." I said to the air, reflecting on how this mission was getting harder by the minute.
After a couple of minutes I arrived at the place, there was a lot of movent and sound coming from where the lake was located.
Sense.
I couldn’t believe what was happening.
Corruptors were supposed to be really strong, after all they’d finished any other monster that road the wasteland. But of course, the other monster that was common here were the silver snakes.
The big silver snake was smart, it didn’t attack the Corruptors head on. Many snakes were moving underground, making tunnels below where most of the Corruptors gathered while the seven headed one attracted their attention.
Then it struck its tail against the ground with a massive force.
The entire surface collapsed in a single motion, dirt and stone dropping as everything above lost support. I felt it clearly through Sense, fifteen Corruptors falling at once as the earth swallowed them.
Dragged underground.
Into the tunnels.
Into the snakes chosen battlefield.
"Damn." I said.
From below, I heard sounds that suggested the snakes were not hosting a welcoming party.
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