"Welcome home, Mourning Crow," a tall hooded figure holding an ornate purple claymore upright by the hilt stood in the center of the black swamp. The decomposing ruins of Thorngate loomed behind him.

The portal that carried me to the opposite side of the planet had vanished as quickly as it had opened and judging by the maelstrom manifested by the crackling ring of lightning spinning in the sky, Groon's Joyful Tyrant and his fleet of interceptors had no chance of approaching to offer aid or cover fire.

I was alone with dead comms in the exact location Bold Step wanted me, but I refused to let another member of Jahaa die today.

"Behold!" The lonesome shrouded sentinel speaking with Bold Step's voice sang out. "The Blessed Garden flourishes. All thanks to your thousand years of blessed contributions."

Well, Groon's science division will be pleased to confirm their theory about this planet. Now, if only I could get through to them on the comms.

A vast glowing red sigil stretched out across the swamp, running in long jagged grooves beneath the murky water and over the broken building chunks, half sunken in the black mud.

It was the same one that appeared after I killed the Graven in their final gathering at the end of the ritual.

"Yeah, yeah," I had a harsh landing through the portal but managed to find my footing on outcropping toadstools and made sure, first thing to confirm the necklace gifted by my mates was still in place and that my anti-Graven hand blaster was primed and locked on target. "It's just one big happy pathetic reunion."

The foggy swamp was identical to how it was on the day I defeated Red Spider, which wasn't how I left it. I had to rely on my senses. The figure and this place resonated differently than how my eyes perceived it.

I'll need to conserve my power cells... every shot must string.

"Dissent all you like, vessel," the figure intoned. "Glory does not hinge on your gratitude. You may have delayed your obligation, but the Graven have never released you. Today you will fulfill -"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I flailed my hands in the air, unable to listen to this shithead anymore. "Yeah, I get it. You rehearsed a long-ass speech and set this whole shindig in motion."

"Spread the word, everyone!" I shouted. "This guy's a hot-shit extreme party planner! I'm sure the Graven are soo fucking proud!"

Then I charged and let my chain sickle fly.

The hood figure melted the second my hooked blade made contact and was replaced by a dozen giant black tentacles emerging from the water.

I pounced away, only to spot more thin tendrils snaking across the water's surface.

Bold Step wasn't as injured as he let on when he retreated down the mountain.

"Run all you like," Bold Step's voice bubbled from the fetid mud. "There's no avoiding destiny."

"I'm not going anywhere!" I landed on a mushy red vine and then zigzagged to stay beyond Bold Step's grasp.

"Ow!"

Something nipped my toes.

Tiny fanged mouths were snapping from the tops of the red toadstools.

Was there a Graven nearby?

If there was, I couldn't feel the telltale crawly sensation on my neck.

Bold Step's tentacles converged and tried to funnel me toward a large waterlogged sinkhole.

I circumvented the successive lashes only to land on a dead tree and discovered it was also composed of the Slayer's appendages.

Shit!

I leaped backward and took refuge on a slanted collapsed rooftop.

How is he everywhere?

Is he getting help?

Or is there something about that sigil granting him dominion over the swamp?

The tentacle tree lunged at me and prickled out a line of hard black teeth.

I knew this planet, the monastery, and that my return to Thorngate was all an elaborate trap, but that didn't make me a pushover. Every snare has a lever or a focal point and Bold Step was notoriously arrogant on the battlefield.

Sure, with most opponents, he could back up the claim, but not with me wielding a fully charged blaster humming to burn him away.

"It's sweet, you cling to the belief that you still have free will," Bold Step mocked from his hidden hidey-hole. "You and I were meant to be."

I flipped through a cyclone of tapered tendrils.

What exactly were the rules of conduct when fighting an entire swamp?

The Corrupted Slayer had been classified as Vo'zuiel, which marked him as 'kill on sight' by any means necessary.

My ass, this is a balanced duel!

For all I knew, Graven were lurking nearby feeding Bold Step extra tentacles and manifesting those nippy little mushrooms to prevent me from standing still.

"What happened to all those starry-eyed fantasies?" Bold Step mused. "You and me, Tomo and Feahh, seeking out our Aixx to defy Thorngate's natural order.

No matter where I ran, the tentacles magnated for me, no matter where I hopped.

"I don't know —" I scowled. "Why do you come out and help me figure it out?"

What do I even aim at?

Eventually, I found a brief respite atop the crest of a metal roof where the red mushrooms couldn't grow.

I need to locate the source!

But there's nothi–

My ear perked up.

Something was squirming inside the groves of the sigil.

No, it's pulsing!

But it wasn't consistent like a heartbeat but rather the sound sighed like a sickly wheezing.

I locked on the only target that was present.

Then the water exploded before my blaster got the chance to fire.

Black water swelled and crashed into me like a tsunami, pulling me under and ripping off my faceplate. Somewhere in the deluge, I lost contact with my chain sickle.

I was being pulled under with Bold Step's hands sealed around my mouth before I could squeak out one more gasp.

"Together, we will ascend," his voice rang out beneath the depths.

How can I still hear him underwater?

His pale claws sliced into my cheeks and breasts as more and more tendrils coiled tighter to spread my arms and legs.

"I've always known you would feel fantastic on the inside," Bold Step's lips grazed my ears as he continued carving his fingers into my skin.

The last few bubbles of my reserve air slipped loose, and I thrashed to break free.

CHOMP

His flat crystalline teeth sank into my shoulder.

I yelped against my will and blindly fired my anti-Graven hand blaster.

"Shh... be patient," Bold Step moved his head to avoid the quick burst of white light, then yanked the weapon from my hand. "I'll make it quick. This is how we were always meant to be."

Bold Step swished in close to let me see his face.

"I can make it stop," he licked my neck. "No more fear of drowning or radiation and, more importantly, no more capitulating to that useless code governing the Nexus."

Over my dead body, you ugly piece of muri't!

I managed to free my arm and fired a prototype anti-Graven mini-pistol built into my gauntlet. The white beam struck Bold Step dead-center in the diaphragm.

"You fucking bitch!" Bold Step screamed and recoiled with a gaping scorched hole in his chest.

I scrambled for the surface and grabbed onto a broken streetlight.

"The sigil!" I scanned the swamp while sloshing from the slick black water and refilling my lungs. "I need to destroy it!"

I scampered toward higher ground, hoping to get a wider shot until a white droplet splattered on my hand.

I froze and chewed back the urge to hurl.

Not again...

Savage white lightning bolts circled in the sky, like vultures shadowing a lost traveler in the middle of bleeding out. It was that same ominous undercurrent that nearly swallowed me whole on that final day in Thorngate.

Quickly, before he regenerates!

I fired the pulse from the mini-pistol in an attempt to melt a section of the sigil, but I barely made a dent.

"I should have known better," Bold Step's head emerged from the black water swirling with the stream of pale razkur blood raining down from the eye of the storm above. "You are nothing but a whore who breeds with snake-headed lizards!"

"Better than a cheap Graven knockoff!" I locked on with my pistol and fired a pulse-wave at the Slayer's head.

Bold Step hissed when the white light burned in his neck and then he came at me riding a wave of black water.

"I am nothing like them!" The Corrupted Slayer rose high above on a turbulent tide of sludge. A red light burned inside his chest as flickers of crimson light drifted down from the hole in the sky.

His limbs stretched and distorted into long bony talons.

"They may have liberated me from Thorngate, but after today, they will be irrelevant!"

CRIKKSSH

Red lightning from the hole in the sky crashed at my feet, forcing me to run and hold my fire.

Shit! This is what you get for poking the homicidal psycho!

Bold Step grew larger and came after me with more waves of mud and red lightning.

It was like the last day, when I had no choice but to slay one Graven after another, all while out running their congealed black blood to remain conscious until the fight was over.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

There were still tentacles, and little mouth mushrooms sprouting all over.

Those waves are blocking my shots and I've got nowhere else to run!

Still.. I remained resolute in my decision to leave the others behind.

They were skilled and more than prepared to take on the Graven and even this asshole. The truth was, this wasn't their fight.

I turned my back on Bold Step. He hurt me but...

Maybe he wouldn't have become a monster if I hadn't left him alone...?

I'd spent the last five cycles confronting my actions in Thorngate, and my flashbacks were waning.

However, even if he never loved me the way I wanted, Bold Step was my friend, and I owed a proper death worthy of the razkur he was in Thorngate.

"AHH!" A spark from a nearby lightning bolt snagged my foot.

I was sluggish in the muck, and the constant waves had my aim and equilibrium off balance.

As a former razkur, Bold Step was well aware of our species' shortcomings when it came to navigating water.

Sure, I landed the occasional shot on the Slayer's torso, but the tiny gun was running out of charge.

"I know those bursts devour far more power than standard powered weapons," Bold Step's tongue was glowing red. "Of course, all it takes is a single sustained hit to kill me, but what if that could change?"

Don't listen to him, Mourning Crow. He's cuckoo and trying to make you doubt your weapons.

The adobe spires of Thorngate towered in the distance like dingy ink stains fading into the fog.Get higher!

Draw him away from the sigil!

But that fucker kept knocking me back from the swamp's edge with barricades of black waves.

"Did you ever wonder what your purpose was in the ritual?" The red light in Bold Step's neck and chest moved up and down with his tongue. "Traditionally, the vessel is chosen to give life to a new, more powerful Graven, but fortunately for me, you terminated the process prematurely."

"Good riddance," I shuddered and shook my head. "I am the last person to be trusted with a Graven baby!"

"HAHAHA!!!" Bold Step's red tongue dangled out further as the red light in his chest shrank and moved up into his throat. "No, you idiot! The Blessed Garden is a nursery, feeding the newborn Graven within, as a wasp larva suckles on a paralyzed tarantula. The vessel is the final fragment forged to provide eternal life."

I glanced down at the emaciated ground and felt sick.

"So what," I shook off the nauseating image of an evil veiny baby squelching around somewhere at the center of this planet then decided to test out if my back-up throwing hatchet could sever that long red thing hanging from Bold Step's mouth. "You brought me back to finish the job? Look around! That shit didn't work out the first time, and I can guarantee you're going to fail again!"

"You still don't understand," Bold Step's cackle dissipated into an unhinged growl. "The fetus died with Thorngate and cannot be replaced without a fresh mass sacrifice, but you are still the vessel. You are immortal Mourning Crow, and it's time to hand over what you stole!"

Bold Step charged and cornered me within a crescent wall of water and tendrils.

That'll do!

I sprang up through his tentacles and swung at his head.

"Hold'up!" I leveraged my legs on his shoulders with my hatched cleaved halfway into his neck. "Is that why I keep coming back after I slay a Graven?"

But others did it in Thorngate? Was that just a ritual thing? Crap, what about Shar'koth?!

"It's almost endearing, how stupid you are," Bold Step's long red tongue whipped at my face and forced me to flip back and let go of my hatchet. "That's just a residual effect of the tether. No, Mourning Crow. Being released from Thorngate may have allowed you to continue aging, but I could pop off your head and you'd eventually heal and continue living."

A blaze of red light shined down from the center of the black circle in the sky

"Don't pretend this isn't everything you always dreamed of," Bold Step chased after me full steam, summoning his tentacles, black waves, and began excreting caustic red fog wafting from his lips.

The red lightning increased tempo and each strike and started spawning strange pulsing lumps bulging from the mud.

"You made this possible," Bold Step red smog billowed in closer, burning my skin like a volatile chemical reaction. "Each sacrifice in Thorngate was offered willingly."

The black bulges in the mud rose up and took the form of hundreds of razkurs.

"You had a choice, Mourning Crow," Bold Step let his mass of tentacles and black water ebb to make space for the muddy forms. "You alone stood over the fallen."

The strange golems opened their sticky mouths to scream but no sound came out. There was one in front of me with the same hair and stature as Two Clouds. Next to her, another globulous razkur crawled toward me on the ground. The grizzled creature's limbs flopped as though all his bones had been removed and consumed.

The blob in the shape of Two Cloud swung at me with a giant spiked stick, while the boneless mass resembling Red Spider tried to scratch my ankles.

"Damn straight, I did!" I roared and raised my hatchet, then I darted at Bold Step in a frenzy. "Who's the dumb-dumb now?!"

I hopped over his sad slimy illusions and pushed through his scaling red fog.

"I'm not scared of you!" I slashed into Bold Step's spindly limbs with my hatchet. "Or anything that happened in Thorngate!"

The red cloud burned, like all of my nerve endings were being smeared against a hot frying pan, but I didn't care.

"I'm going to shred you into wet confetti!" My little hatchet hit the long glowing red thing that had taken refuge inside Bold Step's chest. "You're not Graven or razkur! Or even a stupid nothing! Just a whiney coward!"

Bold Step buckled as my fists struck harder and deeper.

"You wanna know why I came alone?!" My arms felt light and my belly felt like it was surging with raw fizzing fire. "Cause I don't need them. I killed every living thing in my path in Thorngate and you're just one more corpse to close out my score!"

Bold Step's black blood coated my arms. He was back peddling and flailing to push me off.

"I do hope your younglings can fight with even a fraction of this hate," Bold Step snarled. "Tell me, should I test them now or wait a few years till they're grown?"

My boys' sweet smiling faces flared in my mind.

I closed my eyes briefly and let the pacing of their overlapping heartbeats reverberate through my bones.

For them, for my mates, I would endure a thousand Thorngates and swim to the bottom of a million white lakes just to know they were safe.

"Oh wow, what a shitty question," I jabbed a solid uppercut into Bold Step's solar plexus. "Too bad you'll be busy choking on your own colon to ever find out!"

The Slayer groaned and fumbled backward.

Like hell, I was going to let this dickhead go on living in the universe where my sons laughed and played.

I lunged to cleave my hatchet blade into his eye sockets, only to have his skull sink in and give way.

What that–?

In an instant, Bold Step dissolved and re-solidified behind me.

He had me bent over with my limbs tangled and spread.

Rather than fight him on reflex, I let my body go limp.

All I need is a fraction of a second for him to believe that I'm pinned.

"Protest all you want," Bold Steps tentacles wriggle under my armor and unlatched my harness and belt holding all my weapons.

"We are bonded, Mourning Crow," he heckled. "Now and into eternity."

His tendrils slacked momentarily as he eased in to press his clammy chest against my exposed back.

Never!

I spun to plunge my hatchet into the Slayer's skull, but his face was gone.

A small hoop of lightning floated in front of me, reflecting an image of my thirteen-year-old self. Bold Step's original face stood behind me, whispering, "You and I are one..."

.

.

.

TRANSLATIONS:

Vo'zuiel = abomination

muri't = shit

Next... Ch 27: Corruption

...

Thank you for reading.

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And as always, comments are most appreciated.

~A. E. Shelly (a.k.a. Oloo