The converted army looked almost human from a distance.
That was the worst part. Standing at the temple's third-floor window, watching them emerge from the grey water, I could see what they used to be. Survivors. Challengers. People who had fought and struggled and tried to escape this nightmare.
Now they were the Mother's children. Her true children. Not like me with my dubious title of First Child. These were complete conversions. One hundred percent assimilated.
They walked through the water in perfect synchronization. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands—my Essence Detection couldn't track them all. Their bodies were covered in the same flesh corruption that coated the walls, but shaped into armor. Functional. Purposeful. Their faces were still recognizably human, but wrong. Too serene. Too peaceful. Like masks of contentment worn over screaming souls.
"How many?" Kael asked beside me. His voice was steady. Years of military training showing through.
"I stopped counting at three hundred," I said. "And more are still coming."
Somi's new Transcendent ability activated. Her eyes glowed with layered light as Strategic Omniscience analyzed the approaching force. When she spoke, her voice had that strange multiplicity—like several versions of her speaking in perfect harmony.
"Enemy force estimated at four hundred seventy-three. Composition: all former survivors, corruption level one hundred percent. Combat capability: enhanced by Mother's coordination. They fight as one organism, not individuals. Defensive probability if we remain in temple: twelve percent. Offensive probability if we engage in open combat: three percent. Survival probability if we attempt escape: less than one percent."
"So we're fucked," Gery said flatly.
"Tactically, yes." Somi's glowing eyes didn't blink. "Unless we introduce variables the Mother hasn't accounted for."
"Like what?" Lucy asked. Her shoulder was bandaged, but blood was already seeping through. The Guardian's spear had done serious damage.
I looked at the approaching army. At the Mother's mountain in the distance. At the serene face watching us with newly opened eyes.
Then I looked at my hand. At the black-red and silver veins covering every inch of skin.
"Like me losing control," I said quietly.
Everyone turned to stare at me.
"Sidd, what are you—" Lucy started.
"The Mother wants us corrupted so we can be assimilated. She's been carefully managing our transformation. Pushing us toward corruption but keeping us functional. Useful. But what if I spike my corruption intentionally? Push past the warning threshold into critical territory. Become unstable. Unpredictable."
"You'd lose yourself," Kael said.
"Maybe. Probably. But I'd also become something she hasn't planned for. Something that doesn't fit her careful calculations." I turned to Somi. "What's the survival probability if I go to eighty percent corruption and go berserk?"
Her eyes flashed through probability branches faster than I could follow. "Twenty-three percent. But the probability you kill your own allies rises to forty-seven percent."
"Better than twelve percent," I said.
"Not if you kill us yourself!" Lucy grabbed my arm. "Sidd, you can't. We'll find another way."
"There is no other way. Look at them." I gestured at the army below. "Four hundred converted survivors who are just as strong as they were before assimilation. Probably stronger. Fighting as a perfect hive mind. We can't beat that with conventional tactics."
"Then we don't fight conventionally," Gery said. He walked to the window, studying the approaching force with a tactician's eye. "We've been thinking of this wrong. We can't win by killing them all. There are too many. But we don't need to kill them. We just need to survive long enough to reach the Mother. Kill her, and they all fall."
Somi's multiple voices hummed in thought. "Strategic assessment: correct. Primary objective should be breakthrough, not elimination. Calculate optimal strike team for assault on Mother's mountain while remainder creates diversion."
"How many for the strike team?" Kael asked.
"Four. Maximum efficiency without sacrificing defensive capability. Recommendation: Sidd, Lucy, Gery, and myself. Sidd's Essence Dominion to carve path. Lucy's lightning for crowd control. Gery's water-blade for precision strikes. My Strategic Omniscience for coordination and prediction."
"That leaves twenty-four survivors to defend the temple against four hundred enemies," someone said from the back. Maria, one of the Awakened. "That's a death sentence."
"Yes," Somi confirmed without emotion. "Estimated survival rate for defensive force: eight percent. But survival rate if entire group remains together: less than one percent. Tactically, sacrificing twenty-four to save four is optimal."
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
Nobody wanted to say what we were all thinking. That Somi was right. That some of us were going to die so others could live. That this was the only way.
Kael looked at me. "You're the First Child. The Mother's chosen. This is your call."
Was it? I wasn't sure anymore. The corruption had taken so much. My emotions. My empathy. My certainty about right and wrong. But it had left me with something else. Clarity. The ability to make terrible decisions without flinching.
"We split up," I said. "Four go for the Mother. The rest defend the temple and create as much chaos as possible. Draw the army's attention. Buy us time."
"They'll die," Lucy said.
"Some of them. Maybe most of them. But if we all stay together, we all die. This way, at least four of us have a chance."
"I hate this," Lucy whispered.
"So do I," I lied. Because the truth was, I didn't feel anything about it anymore. Just cold calculation. Twenty-four lives versus four. Twenty-four lives versus killing the Mother and freeing everyone who came after us. The math was simple.
The corruption had made the math very simple.
The converted army reached the temple's outer perimeter just after nightfall. Not that nightfall meant much in the Flesh Cradle's eternal twilight. But the red bioluminescence dimmed slightly, and that's when they attacked.
They didn't charge. Didn't scream or roar. Just walked forward in perfect unison. Silent. Inevitable. Like a tide of flesh-covered humanity.
The defensive force met them at the temple's base. Twenty-four survivors against four hundred converted. Impossible odds.
But they fought anyway.
Chen was first to draw blood. Her electric daggers flashed in the dim light, striking at the lead converted's throat. The blade cut deep. Black ichor sprayed. The converted didn't make a sound. Just grabbed her wrist with one hand while its throat regenerated with the other.
Victor's hammer came down on the converted's skull. Crushed it. Splattered brains across wet stone.
The converted kept fighting. Headless. Its body moving with perfect precision because it didn't need a head. Didn't need eyes or ears. The Mother saw for it. Heard for it. Controlled it directly.
"They don't die!" Chen screamed.
"Then make them stop moving!" Kael roared back. His shield materialized, blocking three converted at once. "Destroy the body completely! Don't leave pieces!"
The battle descended into chaos.
No. Not chaos. That was wrong. Chaos implied randomness. Disorder. This was the opposite. The converted fought with perfect coordination. When one attacked high, another attacked low. When one feinted left, another struck right. They fought like a single organism with four hundred bodies.
The defenders fought like humans. Individual. Desperate. Afraid.
It wasn't a fair fight.
A converted grabbed Maria by the hair. Pulled her head back. Another converted drove its corrupted bone-blade through her chest. She died without screaming. Died fast.
Victor tried to save her. Charged forward, hammer swinging. Killed three converted. Four. Five.
Then six of them swarmed him. Pulled him down. Tore him apart. Literally. Arms from sockets. Legs from hips. Head from neck. He died screaming.
"FALL BACK!" Kael commanded. "INTO THE TEMPLE! DEFENSIVE CHOKEPOINT!"
The survivors retreated. What was left of them. Twenty-four had started the defense. Eighteen made it back inside.
The converted followed. Poured through the entrance like water. Like they had all the time in the world.
Because they did. They couldn't die. Couldn't tire. Couldn't feel pain or fear or doubt.
They were perfect soldiers.
And we were losing.
While the defenders fought and died, the four of us moved.
Somi's Strategic Omniscience mapped the optimal path through the army. Not the shortest path—the path with the highest survival probability. It wound between groups of converted, exploiting gaps in their formation that shouldn't have existed but did because Somi could predict their movements three steps ahead.
"Left in two seconds," she commanded. Her voice had that layered quality. Multiple timelines speaking at once. "Gery, strike high. Lucy, suppress right flank. Sidd, clear center. Execute."
We executed.
Gery's katana flashed. Water-blade cutting through three converted in one strike. Their bodies fell, and we ran through the opening before they could regenerate.
Lucy's lightning arced out. Not killing blows—suppression fire. Electricity coursing through converted bodies, making muscles seize, giving us seconds to pass.
And I used Essence Dominion.
Reached out with my Transcendent ability and grabbed essence. Not consuming it. Not controlling it. Just pushing it aside. Creating a corridor of clear space through the army.
The converted couldn't enter my corridor. Their essence simply wouldn't let them. Like trying to walk through a wall that existed only for them.
We ran.
Behind us, the temple burned. Ahead, the Mother's mountain waited.
"How long until they realize we're not in the temple anymore?" Lucy gasped. Her shoulder was bleeding again. Running had torn open the wound.
"They already know," Somi said. "The Mother sees everything in her domain. But she's torn between stopping us and finishing the temple defenders. Strategic prediction: she'll commit seventy percent of her force to us within ninety seconds. We have ninety seconds to cover maximum distance."
"That's not enough time to reach the mountain," Gery said.
"No. But it's enough time to reach the first bridge. The collapsed one. We jump the gap using Lucy's lightning as a zipline."
"That's insane," Lucy said.
"That's why it has a thirty-one percent success rate instead of zero percent."
We ran faster.
The bone bridge appeared ahead. Collapsed, just like Somi said. A twenty-foot gap of open water. Deep water. Water full of arms that writhed and grabbed.
"Jump on my mark," Somi commanded. "Lucy, lightning across the gap. Horizontal line. We swing across. Gery first, Lucy second, Sidd third, me last."
"What's the mark?" Gery asked.
"Now."
Gery jumped. Lucy's lightning shot out, creating a brilliant blue-white line across the gap. Gery grabbed it mid-air. The water-blade wielder swinging across like it was a rope. Landed on the other side. Safe.
Lucy went next. Her own lightning conducting through her body, making the crossing easier. She made it.
My turn.
I jumped. Grabbed the lightning. Felt electricity course through me. My corruption-enhanced body absorbed it, used it, converted it to essence. The sensation was almost pleasant.
I swung across. Landed.
Somi jumped last. Calculated the arc perfectly. Should have made it easily.
Then a converted leaped from the water. Grabbed her ankle mid-swing. Pulled her down.
"SOMI!" Lucy screamed.
The converted and Somi hit the water together. Arms erupted around them. Dozens of hands grabbing, pulling, dragging down into grey depths.
I activated Essence Dominion. Reached into the water. Found Somi's signature. Pulled.
She burst from the surface. Gasping. Soaked. But alive.
The converted didn't surface. The arms had claimed it instead. Dragged it down to wherever they dragged things.
Somi climbed onto the bridge. Water streamed from her clothes. Her tactical mask flickered, damaged by the immersion.
"Status?" I asked.
"Functional. But Strategic Omniscience is compromised. Prediction accuracy reduced to single timeline. No more probability branches."
"Can you still guide us?"
"Yes. But margin of error is higher. Survival probability decreasing."
"Doesn't matter. We're committed now. How far to the mountain?"
She pointed. "One kilometer. Through the ruins. Mother's army will intercept in approximately three minutes."
"Then we move fast."
We ran.
The ruins were a maze. Collapsed buildings. Flooded streets. Bridges that led nowhere. Under normal circumstances, we'd have gotten lost immediately.
But Somi's Omniscience—even compromised—guided us. Optimal path. Fastest route. We ran through the grey twilight like ghosts.
Then the army caught up.
They came from every direction. Converted pouring out of buildings, emerging from water, dropping from ruined floors above. Hundreds of them. Surrounding us.
We stopped in a circular plaza. Trapped. Four of us back-to-back. An army closing in from all sides.
"Well," Gery said, raising his katana. "This is bad."
"Probability of survival: four percent," Somi stated. "Primary objective failure: ninety-six percent. Recommendation: none. We are tactically compromised."
Lucy's lightning crackled around her. "Then we go down fighting."
I looked at the approaching army. At the Mother's mountain just visible beyond the ruins. So close. Less than a kilometer. But it might as well have been on another world.
We couldn't win this. Four against hundreds. Even with all our power. Even with Transcendent abilities. The numbers were too bad.
Unless.
Unless I did what I'd suggested back at the temple. What everyone had talked me out of.
I reached into my essence. Found the corruption sitting at sixty-five percent. And I pushed.
Not consuming essence. Not binding to an Anchor Point. Just letting go. Releasing the control that kept the corruption contained. Letting it spread freely through my body without resistance.
[WARNING: VOLUNTARY CORRUPTION INCREASE DETECTED]
[RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE CESSATION]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL RISING: 66%... 67%... 68%...]
"Sidd, what are you doing?" Lucy asked. Then her eyes widened. "No. Sidd, don't—"
[69%... 70%... 71%...]
The warning threshold passed. My mind changed. Personality shifts began. The last pieces of who I used to be started burning away.
And the Hunger woke up.
Not the manageable Hunger I'd been feeding every twelve hours. The real Hunger. The deep, infinite emptiness that lived at the core of my Aspect.
I smiled. Felt my mask shift with the expression. Felt the devil horns grow longer.
And I activated Devourer at maximum power.
[ESSENCE DOMINION + DEVOURER: SYNCHRONIZED]
[AREA EFFECT ACTIVATED]
[RADIUS: 500 METERS]
Every converted in the plaza stopped moving. Their essence began flowing out of their bodies. Not toward me directly. Just... out. Dispersing into the air. Bleeding away.
I was consuming them all at once. Not eating them. Not absorbing their power. Just erasing their essence. Making them into empty shells.
The first converted collapsed. Then ten more. Then fifty. Then all of them within my radius.
Four hundred bodies falling like puppets with cut strings.
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 78%]
Eight percent spike. From sixty-five to seventy-eight in seconds.
"The plaza's clear," I said. My voice was wrong. Deeper. Rougher. Something else speaking with my throat. "We should move. Before more come."
"Sidd..." Lucy's voice was small. Scared. "Your eyes."
"What about them?"
"They're not black anymore. They're... empty. Like there's nothing behind them at all."
I reached up. Touched my face. Felt the mask. Felt how much it had fused. How little separation remained between artifact and flesh.
"I'm fine," I said. Lied. "I'm in control."
But I wasn't. Not really. The corruption at seventy-eight percent had rewritten core parts of my personality. The Sidd who had started this conversation was mostly gone. Someone—something—else was using his memories. His knowledge. His body.
But that was fine. Because this new version was what we needed to survive.
"The mountain," I said. Pointed. "We're going. Now."
They hesitated. Looking at me. At what I was becoming.
Then Somi spoke. Her layered voice calm. Analytical. "Probability assessment: Sidd is no longer optimal ally. But he is still tactically useful. Recommend maintaining current party composition until objective complete."
"That's cold," Gery said.
"That's tactical," Somi corrected.
Lucy looked like she wanted to argue. To protest. To say something about friendship or humanity or not giving up on me.
But she didn't. Because she knew. Knew that the Sidd she'd been friends with was mostly gone. That what remained was useful. Necessary. But not him anymore.
"Let's finish this," she said quietly.
We walked toward the Mother's mountain. The army didn't follow. Couldn't follow. I'd consumed too many of them. Depleted their essence. The Mother would need time to regenerate her forces.
Time we didn't plan to give her.
The Mother's mountain rose from the center of the Flesh Cradle like a grotesque monument. A pyramid of flesh and limbs and faces. Thousands of arms reaching upward. Hundreds of serene faces staring outward. And at the peak, the Mother herself. The first face. The original.
Her eyes watched us approach. Calm. Patient. Loving.
"MY CHILDREN," her voice echoed across the water. "MY PRECIOUS FIRST CHILD. YOU HAVE COME HOME."
"We've come to kill you," I replied.
"YES. THAT IS WHAT CHILDREN DO. THEY GROW STRONG. THEY REBEL. THEY TRY TO KILL THEIR PARENTS. IT IS NATURAL. IT IS RIGHT. IT IS PROOF THAT I RAISED YOU WELL."
The mountain began to move. Arms flexing. Faces turning. The entire structure shifting like a living thing.
Because it was a living thing. Every piece of it. Every arm, every face, every inch of corrupted flesh. All of it was the Mother. All of it was alive.
"BUT YOU CANNOT KILL ME, MY CHILD. BECAUSE I AM ALREADY PART OF YOU. THE CORRUPTION IN YOUR VEINS. THE MARKS ON YOUR SKIN. THE TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR FLESH. THAT IS ME. I AM INSIDE YOU. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INSIDE YOU."
The mountain opened. Literally opened. The flesh pyramid split down the center like a mouth. Revealing an interior. A chamber. A womb.
"COME INSIDE, MY CHILDREN. COME HOME. LET ME HOLD YOU. LET ME KEEP YOU. LET ME MAKE YOU PERFECT. FOREVER."
And from the opening emerged something I hadn't expected.
Not the Mother herself. Not some final guardian or trial.
Darius.
He walked out of the mountain's interior. Looking exactly as he had before he died in the Citadel. Unmarked. Uncorrupted. Alive.
"Hello, friends," he said. Smiled. "The Mother says it's time to come home."