I used Switch for the first ti with almost no backlash. Not even a whisper of the usual strain. The boon I’d received after killing the Corruptor king had done this for , Switch no longer drained the way it once had. No headache. No nosebleeds. Just the impossible reality of holding a monster’s severed head while standing in the middle of the wasteland.
The head was heavy. And disgusting. And I was absolutely, completely terrified by how easy that had been.
I dropped it.
The head hit the ground with a wet thud and rolled to a stop against a small rock, coming to rest facing , its maw sohow accusatory.
The remaining two Corruptors had stopped dead in their tracks.
For a long, terrible mont, we all froze, trying to feel no emotions, them standing motionless, but close. Then, at the sa ti, their heads turned toward .
They’d felt it. The emotions I exuded after killing my second Corruptor.
And now they knew exactly where I was.
One of them opened its maw and scread, a sound like tearing tal, like breaking stone, like nothing that should exist in the natural world. The other began moving, not charging wildly like the first, but circling, intelligent, coordinated.
My yo-yo lay on the ground. Too far to reach without exposing myself. My head pulsated with the combined backlash of two Quickstep activations, the boon didn’t cover learned magic, but Switch itself had cost nothing. My legs trembled beneath , days of bed rest leaving them weak and unreliable, but my mind was clear. Focused.
Two Corruptors. One exhausted boy. A yo-yo lying in the dirt between them.
And a severed head that was about to beco useful again.
I looked at the head on the ground. Looked at the advancing Corruptors. Switch required contact with the object I was swapping from. The head wasn’t my yo-yo, but it was sothing. And right now, it was closer than the yo-yo anyway.
I lunged for the head, my fingers closing around its cold, dark flesh, just as one of the Corruptors completed its flank. The thing felt wrong in my hand, alien and dead, but I forced myself to grip it tighter, to focus through the revulsion.
The advancing Corruptor was almost on , its maw opening wide, that sa energy gathering in its throat. Its partner circled behind, cutting off escape.
I didn’t need to escape.
I focused on the head in my hand. Focused on the living Corruptor charging toward . Ford the connection between them, the dead head and the living one, two points in space waiting to trade places.
Switch.
A mont ago, the charging Corruptor was closing in on , maw open, death rushing toward . The next, the severed head was there, tumbling through the air where the living Corruptor’s head had been, spinning before landing in the dirt with a wet thud.
And the living Corruptor’s head was now in my hand... well, the one that was living a mont ago.
[You Slayed: Aspirant Somi - Level ???]
[Corruption Fades]
Its body, suddenly headless, stumbled forward on montum, collapsing at my feet beside the first body. Dark ichor sprayed across the rocks, across my legs, across the head I still held in my hand.
There were two heads now. One in my hand, another one in the ground. Both severed. Both leaking. Both utterly, impossibly dead because of .
The third Corruptor had frozen mid circle, its flanking maneuver abandoned. It stood further away than the other Corruptors had been, its head swaying between and the two headless bodies, between the impossible reality it was witnessing and whatever passed for understanding in its alien mind.
I threw the second head. They landed beside each other, the first and the second, resting together like grotesque matching trophies.
My yo-yo still lay in the dirt, untouched.
The remaining Corruptor made a decision. It turned and... ran?
I watched it go, my chest heaving, my mind still struggling to process what had just happened. Three Corruptors. Two dead in the span of seconds, their heads swapped for... what? A yo-yo and a dead head. The third fled into the wasteland.
And I felt... fine. Tired from the Quicksteps, yes. Shaken from the experience, absolutely. But Switch had cost nothing. The power that had once nearly killed to use was now as natural as breathing, as effortless as thought.
The boon. The ’Unwritten Rank’ had given this. Had made into sothing that could kill Corruptors by swapping their heads for anything back to back to back.
I looked down at the two heads, at the two bodies, at the dark blood coating my hands. A laugh escaped . Hysterical, unhinged, completely inappropriate for the situation.
"I did it." I whispered to the empty wasteland. "I actually did it."
The fleeing Corruptor was a dot on the horizon now, disappearing into the rocks. Let it go. Let it tell whatever it had seen. Let them know that there was sothing in the wasteland now that could kill them just as easily as they killed us.
I walked to my yo-yo, picked it up, wiped the dirt from its surface. My trusty weapon. My faithful tool. Useful in this particular fight, and comforting in my hand.
Argent glittered in the distance, its green barrier a beacon of hope and safety. I had a long walk ahead of . And probably a very difficult explanation when I arrived covered in Corruptor blood.
But first, I looked at the heads, at the bodies, at the evidence of what I’d beco. A line from Phinyx echoed in my mory. "A weapon with a vibe of its own. One that might decide for itself what it wants to cut."
I knew what I wanted to cut now.
I started walking toward Argent, leaving the heads behind, but carrying their mory with . Two kills. Two more than I had this morning. That made feel like I might actually survive this nightmare after all.
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