Corruption At It Core

  “What’s going on?”

  ?Yuki asked, her voice strained by the pace. They were running up the stairs, neither stopping nor looking back. When the doorframe could be seen, Blade turned around, unsheathing his sword and cutting down the roof, causing it to collapse and block their path back down.

  ?Finally arriving back outside, they rested at their former camp, wanting to be close in case any new development happened.

  ?“Can you tell me what's happening now?”

  ?Catching her breath as she asked. Yuki had trusted Blade earlier, but she did not want to remain in the dark. She now wanted to be told what was going on.

  ?Blade looked around, scanning the area before settling down, gesturing for Yuki to do the same. As Yuki does, she repeats.

  ?“So tell me. What happened down there?”

  ?“Yesterday, Aru came to me, telling me he believed there was a traitor among us.”

  ?“What? What proof did he have?”

  ?“That’s the thing. He had none. No proof beyond his own speculations.”

  ?“And what? Did he believe it was me?”

  ?“No, he believed it was Rio.”

  ?“What?”

  ?Yuki had prepared to be told she had been the subject of Aru’s suspicions, so hearing it wasn't surprising. Hearing it was Rio, though, was the biggest surprise.

  ?“Why would he be suspicious of Rio? No, actually, why would you help him in this endeavor?"

  ?“Because I shared his suspicions.”

  ?“You did?”

  ?“You see, Aru told me that the only ones who would follow corruption are demons and corrupted people.”

  ?“What about it?”

  ?“Well, we saw that Rio was undeniably dead.”

  ?“But we didn't know that before now,”

  ?Yuki argues. Any sign of corruption, or for that matter death, wasn't apparent until he revealed himself.

  ?“Do you remember the code word Aru shouted through the communication device?”

  ?“Code word? Oh yeah, ‘Code. Nice’?”

  ?Blade nodded, thinking back to the conversation. Though he had verbally rejected it, his nod had been the true reply, with him only saying no in case anyone was listening. It was the reason Rio had continued trusting him and let him get off the strike at his neck.

  ?“Yes. I’m guessing Aru and Rio’s tunnels must have connected at some point. Aru must then have found something which proved his theory, and as we saw, they began fighting.”

  ?“I see… but do tell me, what started this suspicion?"

  ?“He was too nice.”

  ?“Seriously?”

  ?Yuki chuckled a bit at the simple reply. The fact that kindness had been the trigger for this all.

  ?“How intriguing, but for now, it's time we find out what to do next.”

  ?They had to make a plan. For now, it was unsure what was happening down there. If anything, the fact they knew so little about this corruption was the most mysterious part.

  ?“Well, the corruption and Rio, what do you think of it?”

  ?“Don’t know, what is there even to know? All we know of it is that there is this weird corruption.”

  ?“But what about the statues of the different gods, and the plates describing each god?”

  ?“What did the plates even say?”

  ?Yuki thought back to it, before shaking her head.

  ?“Well, they were too ruined to be able to get any specific information, but they weren't proper plates. More like… notes.”

  ?“Notes?”

  ?“Yes, notes you would use to remember information.”

  ?That made things even more scrambled. Corruption trying to take over the world, gods worshipped by the people being corrupted, and statues of each of them holding notes.

  ?He let his thoughts wander until the moving of rubble could be heard.

  ?At the sound, both Yuki and Blade stood up immediately, readying for whatever this was.

  ?From the small hole, Aru could be seen, though badly damaged.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  ?Yuki froze the rubble as Blade split it into pieces, helping him out, though keeping a small distance.

  ?“Don’t worry. I managed to take him down without having to take myself down with him,”

  ?Aru said, wincing a bit from the pain, but managing mostly fine, except for the blood leaking from him. The ever-skeptic Yuki still had to ask.

  ?“How did you do so? He was strong enough to stop a clash from us three before revealing himself, and he seemed invincible as neither Blade’s strike at his neck nor you could finish him.”

  ?“Well, fox, I realized that though he seemed unkillable, he wasn't. He was getting weaker for each time death would have caught him.”

  ?Aru responded as he was bandaging himself, as they all sat back down. He was managing to still the worst of it.

  ?“Well, that explains some of it at least. Did you get anything valuable from him?”

  ?“The most notable thing he said throughout our fight was how he was all the divinities.”

  ?“Well, that's cryptic.”

  ?Yuki sighed, though Blade questioned it.

  ?“How so? Could he not be telling the truth?”

  ?“So you mean the corruption might actually be all the gods? It might be worth checking out.”

  ?Yuki muses, taking an interest in Blade's idea.

  ?“We should deal with the corruption first. Rio was nothing more than a vessel, remember?”

  A reminder of the efficiency Aru wished to use to finish off this damned mission.

  ?“Well, how do you suggest we deal with it?”

  To finish this off quickly and rid herself of Aru’s presence was ?Yuki's current wish. Paying no mind to it, Aru answered back.

  ?“What do you expect from a fox? We take advantage of its weakness, of course.”

  ?Blade and Yuki gave each other a brief, but confused look, not understanding what he meant.

  ?“The corruption feeds on regrets, but it's not a physical being. We need to sacrifice a core, so we can truly kill it.”

  ?“We do?”

  ?Yuki asked warily, while Blade looked wary.

  ?“Do you not remember it, fox? Or are you too dumb to realize something this obvious—”

  ?He did not get to finish, though, before Blade lunged at him, aiming to decapitate him, but falling short as Aru jumped back, letting only half his neck be slashed. Yet Blade followed it up by kicking him into the rubble.

  ?Looking at his sword, Blade's judgment was proven right, as all that was there was black. Liquid, pure black, the same of which had run from all of Rio's wounds.

  ?“What was that for?”

  ?Aru said, though the voice wasn't the same. As his vocal cords had been shredded, a new voice erupted amidst the silence. The same voice that crept up each cell in your body, like ants crawling under your skin.

  ?At the reveal, Yuki quickly froze his limbs, making him stuck to the ground.

  ?“So what gave it away?”

  ?The voice asked, paying little mind to being frozen, or the fact icicles were piercing holes all through his body.

  ?“We have never talked about your weakness.”

  ?At this, Aru made a face that was equal parts surprise and astonishment. He could not believe it.

  ?“But the book? The plates?”

  ?“What book?”

  ?Yuki asks, confused, only for Blade to answer.

  ?“Aru found this book that he thought would give us answers, but ended up just having a bunch of text that neither of us could read. Now I know you could read them, so it would have been helpful back then. But what about them?”

  ?Blade answers before turning back to Aru, who has a more and more incredulous look on his face.

  ?“So you are telling me, you didn’t realize the tablet? In the main hall.”

  ?Blade thought back to the giant half-broken stone slab they had first found. Half of it littered with words and the other littered with symbols they didn’t understand.

  ?“Tablet? What about it?”

  ?“So you all are this stupid! Leave it to me to unleash my own secret, you incompetent fools. The ancestors of this land used their lives to protect this place, to seal me here, yet you can't even figure out the meaning behind it?"

  ?He laughs, a daunting laugh as darkness spills from his wounds, as it begins to cover and stain the area.

  ?“Just tell us about it already!"

  ?Yuki shouts, as the pressure begins rising.

  ?“Well whatever, the damage is already done. That tablet was a translator, built in case their language would ever dissipate. Every word in this book could be seen on that tablet and translated.”

  ?“And the book held the secret to your undoing?”

  The word rang loudly as Blade asked, only for the confirmation to come equally as quickly.

  ?“Exactly.”

  ?As the words dawned on them, a lot of dots finally began connecting. Everything here had been purpose-built to seal this corruption, everything here made to teach the next ones how to do so. And they had spared none of it. Wasted all of it. And now they were paying the price for their incompetence. Yet one last question plagued Blade, and so he asked.

  ?“Answer me this one last question.”

  ?“And why should I do so?”

  ?“Well, you will kill us either way, won’t you? Why not answer it? Or are you unsure if you truly can decimate us?”

  ?Yuki wanted to stop him from provoking this entity further, but her trust in Blade made her shut up, having resigned herself to standing by his side.

  ?“This excuse of entertainment won’t fool me. I'm not gullible enough to be agitated by such pointless words.”

  ?Aru said, already breaking free from the ice, intending to crush them, before Blade countered with.

  ?“Or maybe you just don’t believe you are able to. I mean, only a god would be able to answer truthfully.”

  ?“What did you say?”

  The cracks were showing now, both physically and mentally as Blade pressed on.

  “From what I have heard, the gods are supposed to be these all-knowing all-powerful beings, you seem like everything but that.”

  “You know nothing about any of this, child.”

  “You’re right, but I at least know that the [Sword Saint] was more of a God than you would ever be.”

  A silence flooded the forest, as nothing dared move or even squeak. Only Blade dared break the ?quiet.

  “Am I wrong?”

  With straining veins the being had cracked, wishing to torture Blade into insanity, yet doing so would be losing even more of his pride against this mortal. Something he refused even more.

  ?“Tell me then. Are you all the gods?”

  ?“Is that it? Such a foolish question.”

  ?He said condescendingly, but Blade didn’t let up.

  ?“Answer it then.”

  ?Aru obviously thought about it for a bit before smirking as he finally graced them with the truth.

  ?“The word god is so misleading. There was no such thing until I was found.”

  ?“Huh?”

  ?Was the sound that came from both Yuki and Blade, while Aru paid them no mind, only continuing.

  ?“Humanity… no, people all around. So easily manipulatable, so unsure, so filled with… regret. I found this place first, as an entity adrift, allured by the smell of the people here. I lurked, watched, and observed as they grew, until I realized the smell I enjoyed came from the regrets from the people here. So hard to satisfy, unable to reach perfection. You all have regrets, and oh so delicious is it to devour those regrets.”

  ?Yuki couldn’t believe what she was hearing, it sounded foreign, as if listening to a tale of another planet. Yet the feeling that the tale invoked made her sure it was true.

  ?“Humans, animals, the planet itself reeked of it. And using it, I came up with an idea. I split myself, and made what they sought as perfection. Their ideals given form, their regrets given salvation. Their God. But why stop there? I continued on, spreading my influence. And soon, every race and group had a fraction of me to worship. Yet some figured it out. I can only affect those with regrets, so to meet someone who had no regrets, it truly frightened me. And when they sealed, I was for the very first time, bathed in my own regrets…

  ?“So what’s your goal?”

  ?Blade asked warily, not trusting a word that came out of his mouth, but neither his own as he prepared for combat.

  ?Aru didn't mind, though, walking towards them with his arms open, as his presence began distorting the background.

  ?“I am all the gods, and now? I am the one who reclaims this land.”