The thing kept screaming.
Not words—no, words had already failed it—but the shape of words, dragged out of a throat that no longer understood what a voice was for. Its teeth were locked around the metal pipe, jaw spasming, gums split and bleeding, saliva and blood mixing and hissing as the heat burned flesh that refused to register pain.
"H—H—HELP—!"
The sound vibrated through the pipe and into my hands.
I could feel it.
The trembling wasn't fear.
It was wrongness.
My arms shook—not from strain alone, but from the realization crashing down on me all at once.
This is a man.
Not a beast. Not a monster born from the Blight.
A soldier.
Someone who once stood in formation. Someone who once laughed in a mess hall, complained about boots, wrote letters home. Someone who had followed orders into the southern frontlines and never come back the same.
"W—what the fuck…?" I whispered.
My breath came shallow, erratic. My stomach twisted.
"So this is the Blight," I said, voice cracking. "So this is what it does."
I had read about it.
Lectures. Diagrams. Case studies.
Back when I was still a noble—back when danger was something explained with chalk and diagrams—I had listened to professors describe Blight corruption as progressive axiomatic collapse. I had seen illustrations of bodies marked post-contact. I had even seen corpses, back in Silia Town—blight-touched dead laid out under white sheets.
But this—
This was movement.
This was intention.
This was a person still trying to live while being hollowed out from the inside.
My mind screamed at me to act.
My heart refused.
The thing lunged.
I moved on instinct.
A magic circle flared into existence around my right foot, runes snapping into alignment with violent clarity.
ᚠᚱᚲ Force Amplificationᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ Kinetic Charge
The kick landed with a thunderous crack.
The soldier was launched backward like a ragdoll, his body slamming into the side of a derailed train wagon hard enough to dent reinforced steel. The metal shrieked. Rust and paint flaked away in a violent burst.
I staggered back, gasping.
"H—holy—"
My hands shook.
The thing should have died.
It didn't.
It twitched once.
Then twice.
And stood back up.
My blood went cold.
Its neck bent at an angle that should have snapped a spine. One leg dragged uselessly, bone protruding through torn flesh—yet it advanced anyway, mouth opening and closing, trying to remember how words worked.
"H—e—l—p…"
"No," I whispered. "No—stay down—"
I raised the pipe again, bile burning my throat.
"I don't want to do this," I said hoarsely. "I don't—"
It charged.
I had no time to hesitate.
I slammed my palm against the pipe and flooded it with controlled Axiom, tightening its structure, reinforcing its integrity, tuning it to carry force without shattering.
ᛋᚱ ᛚᚨ(Serra Latus – Gentle Descent)(Axiom-assisted reduction of gravitational pull.)
The pipe became lighter—responsive.
I swung.
Everything I had went into that strike.
The impact drove the soldier's head into the train wagon wall with a sound like a bell being rung underwater. Metal folded inward. The body went limp and collapsed to the ground.
I stood there, panting, staring.
"…So this," I thought numbly."So this is what we're training for."
I turned away.
"I need to find more people," I muttered. "I can't—"
Something wet sounded behind me.
I froze.
The body was moving.
No—melting.
Flesh sloughed off in thick, glistening strands, organs collapsing into a slurry that spread unnaturally fast. Bones sank into it like stones into mud.
Then the ground answered.
A wave of stinking, rotting, living flesh seeped out from beneath the train wagons, creeping along the rails, pulsing like a heartbeat gone mad. Faces formed and dissolved across its surface—mouths opening, eyes rolling, expressions frozen in terror.
"Mom—!"
"Help me—!"
"Oh gods—oh gods—!"
I gagged.
The wave swallowed what remained of the soldier, absorbing him like he had never been separate at all.
The Blight wasn't chasing me.
It was eating the world.
I ran.
—
The district had become hell.
Not metaphorical hell—no distant fire-and-brimstone abstraction—but a place where rules had broken and reality was screaming about it.
I burst out of the narrow alley and nearly slammed into her.
A woman.
Pinned to the ground by a corrupted soldier whose weight crushed the breath from her lungs. His armor was split open at the seams, metal warped outward as if something inside his body had grown too large for it. His teeth were buried deep in her neck—not tearing, not ripping—chewing.
Mechanically.
Like he was following an instruction he didn't understand.
Her eyes were open.
Not wide with terror.
Just… open.
Blood poured down her chest in dark, rhythmic pulses, each one weaker than the last, soaking into the stone beneath her. Her fingers twitched uselessly, scraping at the ground, nails torn and bloody.
"M—" she tried.
Nothing came out.
I raised my hand.
A magic circle began to form—
And stopped.
My Axiom stalled like it had hit a wall inside my chest.
I couldn't.
They still looked human.
Still shaped right. Still wrong in a way my instincts hadn't caught up to yet.
Her body jerked.
Then twisted.
Bones cracked loudly enough to carry over the roar of fire. Her spine arched unnaturally, skin stretching and splitting as if something underneath was rearranging her from the inside out. Her mouth opened—
And the sound that came out wasn't a scream.
It was the absence of one.
A hollow, breathless release, like the moment after lungs collapse.
I staggered back.
"No—"
I turned and ran.
I didn't look back.
Something small slammed into my legs.
I nearly tripped.
A child.
Maybe six. Maybe younger.
He was sobbing so hard his whole body shook, clutching a dirt-stained teddy bear with one ear torn off. His face was red, eyes swollen, breath hitching violently as he screamed the same word over and over.
"Mama—! Mama—!"
My chest tightened painfully.
I scooped him up without thinking.
"I will get you to safety, okay?" I said, forcing my voice to stay steady even as everything inside me screamed. "I promise."
He clutched my coat with both hands, fingers digging in like hooks.
"My mom!" he cried, voice cracking, eyes searching wildly behind me. "Mama!"
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
"Close your eyes," I whispered, pressing his face into my chest. "Please. Just close them."
I felt him hesitate.
Then he did.
I moved.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ(Crucis Flux – Vector Step)(Force Conversion – Directional Burst.)
The world snapped.
The spell detonated beneath my feet and hurled us forward. The ground blurred into streaks of light and shadow as my boots barely skimmed stone. Wind tore at my coat, ripped breath from my lungs. The child buried his face deeper into me, screaming muffled against my chest.
I landed hard, boots skidding across blood-slick stone, sparks flying.
Didn't stop.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ(Crucis Flux – Vector Step)
Ahead—
A heard units of reinforcements. But, as I turn their way—
The unit was being dismantled.
Not defeated.
Being like snacks.
Corrupted soldiers moved among them with brutal, unnatural coordination. Jaws snapped. Hands crushed throats. A man tried to raise a shield spell and had his arm bitten clean through at the elbow. Another screamed as something crawled inside his open mouth.
"No—no—NO—!"
I swerved—
Dead end.
A narrow street.
Collapsed buildings leaning inward like broken teeth. Fire everywhere. Smoke so thick it burned.
Cornered.
The child sobbed.
I looked up.
"The roofs," I breathed.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ(Crucis Flux – Vector Step)
We shot upward.
The force slammed us skyward, my stomach lurching as gravity lost its grip. I caught the edge of a roof with one hand, hauled us up, and didn't slow.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ
I became motion.
Each spell chained into the next, momentum stacking, timing perfect. I kicked off chimneys, vaulted broken parapets, shoulder-checked a corrupted soldier that leapt up at us—sending it tumbling back into the fire below with a wet, crunching sound.
Buildings blurred beneath us.
Flames licked upward, missing us by inches. Below, the Blight surged through streets like a living tide—red, wet, screaming—flowing around obstacles, swallowing people whole.
"Mister…" the child whimpered. "I'm scared."
"I know," I said, breath tearing from my lungs, legs burning. "I know. Hold on tight. I promise—I won't let go."
I still saw them.
Hands reaching up from below.
Faces twisted in terror.
Voices breaking, calling for help I couldn't answer.
"I'm coming back," I whispered. "I swear. I will."
Then—
A golden flare pierced the smoke.
A beacon.
A spell I knew by heart.
"That's—Captain Renia's spell!" I gasped. "Why are they still here?!"
I twisted midair, forcing the vector shift like slamming gears in a machine.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ(Crucis Flux – Vector Step)
We rocketed sideways.
Time stretched.
The world slowed.
Below me—figures surged through smoke and fire, moving against the tide.
My squad.
"Elrin!" a squadmate shouted.
"We've got this!" Tairi Enon yelled, hauling a wounded man over his shoulder. "Go!"
I met his eyes for half a heartbeat and nodded.
"Thank you!"
—
Below, Cadet Squad 28 and Cadet Squad 12 hit the ground like a storm.
Captain Renia was already in motion, blade blazing with controlled Axiom as she carved through corrupted soldiers with brutal efficiency—each strike precise, final. She didn't hesitate. Didn't flinch.
"Shield left!" she barked.
A cadet snapped a barrier into place just as a wave of Blight-spawn slammed into it, flesh splattering uselessly against glowing runes.
"Purification—NOW!"
A mage dropped to one knee, slamming both palms to the ground as a cleansing circle erupted outward. Corrupted flesh recoiled, screaming as truth reasserted itself in burning light.
"Move the civilians—three at a time! Don't bunch up!"
Tairi dragged a wounded officer behind cover while another cadet layered buffs over him—strength, pain suppression, stabilization.
Yna's squad arrived from the north like a second blade.
Spell matrices snapped into formation, weaving corridors of light through smoke and fire. Shields overlapped seamlessly. Purification spells pulsed in controlled bursts.
Yna locked eyes with Captain Renia across the chaos.
Nod.
Acknowledged.
No words wasted.
They fought.
They covered.
They saved.
—
I landed hard beside them, boots cracking stone as I skidded to a stop.
The child clung to me, shaking violently.
"I've got him," I said, voice hoarse. "He's clear."
Renia turned.
Her eyes burned—fierce, relieved, furious all at once.
"Good," she said. "Because this isn't over."
Behind us—
The Blight roared.
And for the first time that night—
It found resistance.