As it turned out, they discovered the answer to that before even a few more seconds had passed. Sylph's grin faded, and she let out a racking cough into her hand.
"Choke on your own saliva?" Damien asked, laughing. His mirth vanished as he realized that Sylph's hand was covered in green fluid. It dripped from her skin, sizzling against the grass beneath them and burning a brown patch into it. She doubled over as coughs racked her body.
Henry! What's happening to Sylph?
Henry's power surged forth, taking control of Damien's body. He grabbed Sylph by the shoulder and pulled her head back, staring at her intently.
The coughs stopped for a moment, but then came back with redoubled strength. Sylph looked away just in time to avoid spitting some of the acid onto Damien. She drew ragged breaths in between coughs as the liquid started to pool and sizzle in the dirt before her.
"When did you last eat?" Henry asked, his voice coming through Damien's mouth.
"Last night."
"You need food. Using the Corruption's healing and powers uses more energy than your body can provide, even with Ether," Henry said, relinquishing control back to Damien. Sylph's features flickered with pain for a moment before she got them back under control.
"The closest food is in the forest," Henry informed Damien.
The boy nodded his understanding. He grabbed Sylph, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and taking several brisk steps toward the lake. He slipped her into it slightly less than gently.
"Stay here," Damien said. "I'll get something."
Sylph nodded, then let out another racking cough. Large splotches of blood mixed in with the acid on the ground. Damien spun and dashed toward campus. He drew Ether into himself, cycling it through his core and spinning the motes together. Damien weaved Warp Step in with his running, crossing ground with incredible speed.
He shot through the campus streets, arriving at the general store and practically blowing the doors down. The clerk glanced up from a book and blinked.
"Damien?"
"I need food. Immediately," Damien said, ignoring the pounding headache in the back of his skull.
Something in the tone of his voice must have told the clerk that he was serious because the man quickly rose from his chair and walked into the back. He emerged a few moments later with a small brown bag.
Damien tossed several coins onto the counter, not waiting to hear the man's response before Warp Stepping out of the shop. He dimly wondered if there were any rules about using magic to move around campus grounds, since he hadn't seen anyone else doing it.
It was a moot point. He didn't care if there was. The headache grew stronger, tendrils of pain wrapping around his brain and squeezing to the point where the edges of his vision started to darken.
Damien staggered into the clearing, barely able to think straight. He'd covered what was normally nearly half an hour of travel in less than five minutes. Parts of Sylph's skin had turned dark gray and stony, similar to how the mantis had looked.
He fumbled with the bag, pulling it open and grabbing an apple. She tried to raise a graying hand, but a spasm ran down it as acid started to leak out from thin cracks within it. Damien smashed the fruit open on his knee, then shoved a small part of it into Sylph's mouth.
It was far from the most graceful way to feed someone, but she managed to swallow. He repeated the process with what remained of the apple, then moved on to a slice of bread and a large piece of cured meat.
Color slowly started to return to Sylph's skin. The gray areas faded, and the cracks sealed over with every bite. There was a good amount of food in the pack, easily enough for a small family's meal.
Sylph ate all of it with the gusto of a starving woman. Only once she'd polished off every last morsel did she let out a relieved sigh. She looked normal again, and the only trace that anything had gone wrong was the bubbling patches of acid on the ground before them.
"Are you okay?" Damien asked worriedly.
"Yeah," Sylph said, splashing some of the healing water onto her face.
"I think so."
Damien let out a sigh of relief. "I got worried. You looked like you were melting."
"Felt like it, too. Why did that happen? I didn't feel like I was running out of Ether. There should have been no reason for my body to need more energy."
Damien's shadow twitched as Henry commandeered it. "Your Ether doesn't work the same way it used to. Humans don't inherently have any Ether within them. Monsters do, and the Corruption are no exception. I don't think there's ever been a scenario where a human's body was rebuilt using monster parts, so this is all new ground. However, it appears that you inherited the magical properties of a monster."
"So whenever I cast magic, I'll use up my own energy in addition to normal Ether?" Sylph asked.
"Essentially," Henry said. "That's the price for power. You're going to have to greatly increase the amount of food you eat if you want to use any of your new abilities."
"Why didn't this happen the first time I healed, then?" Sylph asked, frowning. "When you put the Corruption into my body to save me."
"I padded it with my own energy," Henry said. "It had enough fuel to run without killing you. Also, I'm not entirely sure what the distribution is between the energy usage of tasks. Healing might take less energy than whatever augments you gave yourself while fighting Damien."
Sylph nodded slowly. "That would make sense. I'll have to experiment a little more. I'm glad I didn't try using all of my abilities against Mark when we sparred. It would have been bad if this happened in front of other people."
"I'm just glad you're okay," Damien said, shaking his head. "You're really going to have to keep an eye on this, though. Toward the end there, your skin kind of looked like the mantis."
"What do you think would have happened if I didn't get food?" Sylph asked.
"Interesting question," Henry said. "It depends on how much energy your body had consumed. If it was too much, you might have just…burned away, I suppose. Otherwise, well, it's hard to say. Brain damage would be almost certain, though."
Damien massaged his forehead. Now that the adrenaline was leaving his veins, his headache was getting more and more unbearable. He tossed his mage armor off and slipped into the water beside Sylph, dunking his head underwater.
He held his breath for as long as possible before rising back up. The pain had lessened slightly, but it was still there. Damien repeated the process a few times, but the headache stubbornly refused to drop below the level of 'more than mildly annoying.' "Are you okay?" Sylph asked, mirroring his words from earlier.
"Just used too much Ether," Damien said. He massaged his forehead and sighed. "Well, at least we've both figured out our limits. Better now than when we're trying to fight something that's trying to kill us."
Henry shook his head and let out a chuckle. He slipped into the water, returning Damien's shadow to him and allowing his power to fade. Damien and Sylph remained in the water for several more minutes before they finally gathered the energy to get out of it.
Sylph was the first to leave, and she extended a hand to pull Damien out and to his feet. They laid out in the sun for a few minutes, allowing it to dry their clothes off.
"I suppose this isn't the best way to start our vacation of hunting reality threatening monsters," Damien said with a small laugh.
"You said it yourself," Sylph replied. "Better now than later. At least you don't leak green goo when you mess up."
"There is that," Damien agreed. He sat up, pulling his mage armor back on. Sylph rose as well, and the two of them headed back to campus. They made a beeline toward their room, where they both flopped into bed.
It didn't matter that it was barely the middle of the day. They were both asleep within minutes.
The next few days passed without any further excitement. None of the professors seemed interested in them now that the year was over, and the number of students on campus decreased with every passing day.
Mark was the first of their group to head off. He didn't mention where he was going, and nobody asked. Damien suspected they wouldn't have even known he was leaving had they not been bringing back the corpse of a large elk they'd killed for dinner.
The sword-wielding boy had bid them a brief farewell as he headed down the mountain. From the sound of it, he planned to return to Blackmist the following year.
As for the Grays, there were still no signs of anything. The curtain in front of their cave remained closed, and while Damien saw light from his rune faintly glowing from beneath the curtain on occasion, he didn't run into the siblings.
He and Sylph continued to train, although they kept things at a much more reasonable speed, focusing mostly on physical exercise. Sylph also took to carrying around a large amount of cured meat in a pack at her side.
The students on campus thinned further and further until it was little more than a ghost town. There were a good number of people that had opted to remain over the summer but, compared to the normal bustle of the college, it was almost empty.
After about a week after the incident, Damien could practically feel Herald's ire building. It was clearly reaching the end of its patience.
"It might be about time to get moving," Damien said once he and Sylph finished their breakfast that morning. "Assuming you still want to come with me, of course."
"I do, and I was wondering when you'd decide to go," Sylph said. "I've been packed for a while. Where are we going first?"
"Oh," Damien said, flushing. "And actually, I'm not entirely sure. Let me check."
Henry?
"What would you do without me?" Henry asked, laughing. "This is your decision to make, Damien. Are you trying to find the Corruption? Or are you trying to find the Void? Because I know where all the Void creatures are, but I still don't think you're going to have any luck convincing them to help you."
But there's a chance?
"A small one," Henry said reluctantly. "How would you convince them that they shouldn't restart the Cycle when the Corruption is clearly present?
In fact, they'll be able to detect the fact that Sylph's body is built out of a Seed's corpse."
So what should we do? Just seek out the Corruption and try to destroy it ourselves?
"It would be risky," Henry said. "But that seems to be what Herald wants you to do. It doesn't gain anything from you dying, so it's probably not a terrible idea. Frankly, I suspect its plan is to get you to realize how dangerous the Corruption is so that you agree to restart the Cycle."
Wonderful. We'll start with destroying some Corruption, then, I suppose.
I say that like it's a walk in the park rather than a fight for our life, but I don't think there's much of a choice. I feel like Herald is going to start taking some seriously drastic measures if I don't do this.
"Almost certainly," Henry admitted. "It won't speak with me anymore. I don't know what its plans are, but I'll be keeping an eye or ten out."
Keep a few peeled for the Void as well. I know you said they were all still bound, but I want to make sure. We also have to eventually figure out why and how they got bound in the first place. I don't think that dark tendril that messed up my rune circle was the Corruption, was it?
"No," Henry said, his tone darkening. "It wasn't. As for finding the Corruption, Herald might actually have a better idea about that. As much benefit as your human spark has brought my soul, it's also made it harder to spot certain things. Herald knew the mantis was coming a good bit before I did."
That's not good. Do you know why? Is it something to be concerned about?
"It's hard to describe, but no. I don't think so, at least," Henry said, picking his words carefully. "Before I got the spark, everything was dark. I didn't mind that, as that's what I'd always known. It was easy to see things because there was nothing interfering. Now, with the spark, everything is brighter. I can still see, but it's harder."
I see what you're getting at. So Herald is the Corruption-spotter. I guess that means I'm going to actually have to deal with him.
"Yup."
Damien let out a heavy sigh. Sylph cocked an eyebrow.
"What's wrong? You look like you just swallowed a fly."
"I've got to talk to the murderous chump that keeps ruining my sheets," he said. "He's the only one who knows where the Corruption is with any high degree of accuracy."
"Have fun," Sylph said, her face completely straight. "I'll get the shower running for you, just in case."
"That might not actually be a bad idea," Damien muttered, sitting down on his bed and lying back. He took his coat off for good measure before closing his eyes. A small grin flickered across his face as he heard Sylph turn the shower on behind him.
He closed his eyes and reached within himself. Damien had never actually tried to call on Herald itself, but he imagined it wasn't all that different from reaching out to Henry. His mental energy turned inwards as he mentally brushed across his core.
An icy sea met him. A powerful suction force enveloped Damien, and he had to force himself to relax and not fight back. Liquid filled his lungs and the world spiraled around him. His eyes snapped open, and he drew a ragged gasp.
Faint, twinkling stars surrounded the pitch black sky around him. He knelt on what could only be described as darkness without any true shape or form, and his body was outlined in a faint orange glow that he was starting to get used to. The air before him warped as stars blinked to life, forming Herald's impassive form.
"Hello," Damien said, standing up and brushing imaginary dirt off his knees. "I need your help, and you need mine."
"You are hunting the Corruption," Herald stated. The multitude of voices somehow managed to come out completely flat, which was rather impressive.
"And I need a way to find it. Henry said he couldn't detect it as well as you can."
"That is logical," Herald said. "Your human spark has blinded him, both from the Corruption and his true purpose."
"I'm not here to discuss that," Damien said, crossing his arms. "Look, if you want me to hunt the Corruption, you're going to have to point me in the right direction. I don't want to do this, and I don't want to work with you, but I'm worried enough to actually give it a shot. If that was your goal, congratulations. You achieved it."
"No congratulations are necessary. I always achieve my goals," Herald said. "And you would not have to hunt them if you broke that seal on your chest. I would take care of the problem for us all."
"You would blow up the Mortal Plane."
"And nothing of value would be lost. The rebirth would bring it all back, eventually," Herald said. "Perhaps this Cycle would last even longer than the last."
"That hardly matters if I, and everyone else I know, is dead," Damien said.
"You would not be dead. The Cycle would be restarted."
Damien frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? Restarting the Cycle means you destroy the Mortal Plane, right?"
"Correct."
"Then how would anyone I know be alive after it restarts?"
"The same way you're alive this time," Herald replied. "This is not the first iteration of the Cycle."
"I figured that much," Damien said, his frown deepening. "But— Wait, are you implying I was alive in the previous cycle?"
"And the one before that," Herald said. "And the one before that as well. And the one—" "Right," Damien said, holding a hand up to stop the Void creature.
"Hold on. Is every Cycle exactly the same?"
"No," Herald replied. "But some parts of them often line up. People whose lives directly affect the Cycle are born every iteration."
Damien massaged his head, trying to process exactly what Herald was telling him. "What if someone doesn't affect the Cycle until the tenth one or whatever? Does that mean they're retroactively born in cycles one through nine so they can affect it in the tenth one?"
"Yes."
"So we have to do the same thing each Cycle? Was I the same last Cycle as I am this one?"
"No," Herald said. "The only constant is your birth. I was unaware of your previous iterations, but it is incredibly unlikely that you've acted identical to them each time. It is statistically possible, but with such a low chance that even I would be surprised if it had happened."
"Well, that's a relief," Damien said, letting out a sigh.
"Why? Even if you had no free will, it wouldn't matter," Herald said.
"You would make your decisions regardless. Nothing would change."
"That's not— Bah. You don't understand," Damien said. "Do you have free will?"
"I have a duty," Herald replied. "And that is all that matters."
"To whom?"
Herald didn't respond immediately. "I presume you are uninterested in accepting my offer to restart the cycle. In such case, I shall bide my time until you change your mind, one way or another. Until then, I will assist in the location of the Corruption."
The sudden change of topic threw Damien for a loop. By the time he realized what Herald had said, he was sinking into the shadows beneath him.
"Wait, how will I know—" Icy water flooded through his mouth and his sentence ended in a gargling curse. He jerked awake just as a prickle formed at his left palm.
Damien's confusion vanished, and he scrambled out of bed, dashing toward the shower as pain erupted in his hand.
Blood poured down his palm as he threw the bathroom curtain open.
Sylph stepped to the side with a smile that was both amused and concerned as Damien shoved his hand under the healing water.
He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as Herald carved runes into him. The blood running down his hand turned a murky pink on the shower floor, mixing with the healing water before vanishing down the drain.
Damien jumped as he felt Sylph put her hands on his shoulders. Despite his initial shock, her presence was more comforting than he'd expected. It didn't do much to lessen the pain, but it helped make it a bit easier to bear.
It only took a few minutes for the runes to finish appearing on his palm, but it felt like an hour. The burning agony finally faded into a painful pulse, and then that turned to a dull throb. Damien let out a weary sigh, shaking the water and last bits of blood off his hand as he examined Herald's work.
"What did he do this time?" Sylph asked.
"Something useful, hopefully. I asked it to help me find the Corruption, and I suppose this is the way it'll do that."
The rune was, thankfully, almost invisible. The cuts were thin and only a shade darker than the rest of Damien's flesh. It looked more like an old scar than the jagged black rune circle on his chest.
Damien flexed his hand and was relieved to find that it hadn't affected his range of motion at all.
"How does it work?"
"No clue. I guess we'll find out soon enough," Damien said with a grim chuckle.
Sylph rolled her eyes and helped Damien to his feet, before tossing him a towel.
"Thanks for the help, Sylph," Damien said, drying his arm off and putting the towel back.
"You're welcome," she replied and walked back into their main room. A small smile crossed Damien's face. Whatever the Corruption—or Void— had waiting for them, so long as Sylph and Henry were at his side, he was confident they could handle it.