I reached my door without encountering anyone else, my fingers leaving a sticky feel on the silver plaque as I pressed my palm against it. The door slid open with its usual quiet hiss, and I stumbled inside, leaving a trail of footprints across the floor.
Safety. Finally. I leaned against the wall, leaving another smudge of dark blood, and let out a breath I’d been holding since waking up in the wasteland. My legs trembled, threatening to give out entirely, but I’d made it. Back inside Argent, back to my room, miraculously alive.
The door sealed behind with a soft click, and I stood there for a mont, just breathing. The familiar shapes of my quarters, the bed still rumpled from when I’d been unconscious, my pair of boots sitting comfortably against the floor, all of it looked eerily normal after what I’d just experienced.
"Shower." I mumbled to myself. "Food. Sleep. In that order."
I peeled off my ruined clothes as I walked towards the washroom, leaving them in a filthy pile on the floor. The fabric had stiffened with dried blood, cracking as I pulled it away from my skin. Dark flakes scattered across the floor like bizarre confetti. Another ss I’d have to clean up, but that could wait.
The water ca on with the movent of my hand, instantly hot. I stepped under the spray and watched as the black substance went down the drain in thick streams. The Corruptor blood clung to my skin with strange persistence, requiring vigorous scrubbing before it began to co off.
As I worked, mories of the wasteland played through my mind on repeat.
The sensation of holding a Corruptor’s head in my hand. The wet sound as it appeared where my yo-yo had been a mont before. The notification announcing my kill. The absolute, almost terrifying ease of it all.
I’d killed two of them. , alone, half recovered from a nearly fatal backlash. I’d killed them without breaking a sweat, without a nosebleed, without any of the strain that had once left collapsed on the ground. And I could have killed the third just as easily if it hadn’t fled.
Steam filled the washroom as I scrubbed every inch of my body, determined to remove all traces of the wasteland.
The water ran clear eventually, but I stayed under the spray, letting it pound against my shoulders, washing away not just the physical evidence but sothing deeper, the last traces of the person I’d been before exile. Before becoming a One. Before discovering what I was truly capable of.
I’d beco a weapon, just like Damian wanted. But weapons don’t typically have opinions about what they’re used against. I did. And right now, the idea of turning my ability against Corruptors felt less like being used and more like having purpose.
When I finally erged from the shower, my skin was pink from the heat and the scrubbing, I wrapped a towel around my waist and returned to the main room.
The pile of filthy clothes on the floor reminded that I needed to dispose of the evidence. I gathered them up, stuffed them into the waste disposal unit in the corner, and watched as they disappeared with a soft whoosh. No one would find them now, not even the maintenance workers who serviced the spire.
My stomach growled with such ferocity that I half expected it to manifest physically like so bizarre ability. I opened the refrigerator that had been stocked during my unconsciousness, revealing shelves of at, real at, not the nutritional paste I’d grown up on. The sight of it made my mouth water instantly.
I didn’t bother even putting it on a plate. I just grabbed chunks with my bare hands and devoured them standing there, the refrigerator door still open, the cold air washing over my damp skin. It should have been disgusting, , eating at with my hands like so wasteland animal, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. My body demanded fuel, and I provided it without reservation.
As I ate, my thoughts returned to the barrier cube. The small silver object that had saved my life, shielding from Corruptor detection during my long walk back to Argent. How much potential did it have? The System had ntioned sothing about "the only thing he managed to save from the corruption was his ability." Referring to King Emi. How did he save his ability?.
I finished eating, wiped my hands on a towel, and collapsed onto my bed. The mattress embraced like an old friend, and I realized how completely exhausted I was. Not just physically, my muscles ached from the long walk and the fight, but ntally as well. Too much had happened too quickly, the training, the Quickstep backlash, waking up in the wasteland, killing Corruptors, discovering the barrier’s power.
I closed my eyes, letting my mind wander through the events of the day. Switch had changed. That was perhaps the most significant realization. The ability that had once caused agonizing backlash now operated with effortless precision. I could kill Corruptors without suffering for it. The implications of that simple fact were staggering.
"A weapon with a vibe of its own." I murmured, recalling Phinyx’s words. "One that might decide for itself what it wants to cut."
As sleep grabbed , I wondered what else I might beco, what other thresholds waited to be crossed, what other powers might manifest as my stats continued to grow. The thought should have frightened , but instead, it filled with a strange, quiet anticipation. For the first ti since surviving exile, I felt like I might actually have so control over my fate.
I slept deeply, without dreams, my body finally surrendering to the exhaustion it had been fighting since I awoke outside the barrier.
When consciousness returned, the first thing I noticed was how good I felt. Not just rested, but genuinely rejuvenated, as if every cell in my body had been refreshed while I slept. The soreness in my muscles had vanished. The lingering headache from the Quickstep backlash had disappeared entirely. Even the small cuts and bruises I’d collected during my adventure seed to have faded.
I sat up, rolling my shoulders experintally. No pain. No stiffness. Nothing to suggest I’d been unconscious for days and then fought for my life in the wasteland.
"You’re finally awake." A high pitched voice said from sowhere in my room.
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