Darius looked wrong.
Not corrupted-wrong. Not transformed-wrong. He looked too right. Too clean. Too unmarked. Like someone had taken a photograph of him from before the Flesh Cradle and made it three-dimensional.
His skin was clear—no veins, no corruption patterns. His eyes were normal brown, not the red-rimmed chaos they'd been before his death. His hair was its original black, not changed by transformation.
He looked more human than any of us.
That was how I knew he was completely gone.
"Darius," Lucy breathed. Her voice held desperate hope. "You're alive. You're—"
"Alive?" He smiled. The expression was gentle. Patient. Nothing like the aggressive snarl he'd worn in life. "No, Lucy. I'm better than alive. I'm perfect. The Mother made me perfect."
He took a step toward us. His movements were too smooth. Too graceful. Like he was gliding rather than walking.
"She can make you perfect too," he continued. "All of you. No more pain. No more fear. No more corruption eating away at your humanity. Just peace. Forever."
Gery's hand tightened on his katana hilt. "That's not Darius. That's something wearing his face."
"It's both," Somi stated. Her damaged tactical mask flickered as it analyzed him. "Essence signature matches Darius's original pattern. Memories intact. Personality matrix present. But restructured. Optimized. He is Darius, but Darius filtered through the Mother's will."
"A puppet," I said. My voice came out flat. The corruption at seventy-eight percent had stripped away any emotional response to seeing our dead companion walking. "She killed him and repurposed the meat."
Darius's smile didn't falter. "Such harsh words, Sidd. But then, you always were the realistic one. The one who saw truth even when it hurt." He gestured at the mountain behind him, at the gaping mouth-entrance. "The Mother wants to meet you. Especially you, First Child. She's been waiting so long."
"Has she."
"Yes. Ever since you bound to the first Anchor Point. Ever since you chose power over purity. She's been preparing you. Shaping you. Making you ready to join her."
I felt something shift in my chest. Not emotion—the corruption had taken most of that. Just cold understanding settling into place.
"The Anchor Points were never meant to help us survive," I said slowly. "They were meant to make us compatible. To break down our humanity and rebuild us in a form she could assimilate."
Darius nodded. "Every binding. Every increase in corruption. Every step toward transformation. It was all preparing you to become part of her. And you've done so well, Sidd. Seventy-eight percent. So close to complete. Just a little more, and you can come home."
"He's stalling," Somi said suddenly. Her layered voice sharp with realization. "Tactical analysis: he's keeping us engaged in conversation while something else moves into position."
I felt it the moment she said it. My Essence Detection flaring. Signatures converging on our location from multiple directions. Not the converted army—something else. Something bigger.
The mountain was moving.
Not just the surface. The entire structure. Thousands of arms flexing in unison. Hundreds of faces turning to look at us. The flesh pyramid rippling like muscle under skin.
"You should run," Darius said. His smile finally faded. "Or you should surrender. Those are your only options now."
"There's a third option," I said.
"Which is?"
I activated Essence Dominion and reached for him.
Darius moved fast. Faster than he'd been when alive. The Mother's optimization had enhanced his physical capabilities significantly. He dodged my initial grasp, rolled left, came up in a combat stance that was smoother than anything he'd managed before.
"I won't let you consume me again," he said. "The Mother showed me what you did. How you drained me. Used me. Discarded me. I won't be your food a second time."
"You misunderstand," I replied. My void eyes tracked his movement with perfect clarity. "I'm not trying to consume you."
I clenched my fist.
The Essence Dominion didn't grab his essence. It grabbed the Mother's essence inside him. The corruption that animated his body. The foreign power that wore his face.
And I pulled.
The Mother's essence tore out of Darius's body like I was ripping out his spine. It came as a stream of black-red corruption, flowing through the air toward me. Screaming. Actually screaming—the essence itself making sounds as it was forcibly separated from its host.
Darius collapsed. His body suddenly empty. Just meat without animation.
But he was still alive. Still breathing. Because I'd left his essence intact. Only removed the Mother's control.
"Sidd..." His voice was weak. Confused. "What... where am I?"
"Dying," I said honestly. "Your body took fatal damage in the Citadel. The Mother kept you animated. Now that her essence is gone, you're dying again."
"Oh." He coughed. Blood trickled from his mouth. "That's... unfortunate."
Lucy rushed to him. Knelt beside his body. "We can save you. We can—"
"No," Darius interrupted. Smiled weakly. "It's okay. I died once already. This is just... finishing the job." He looked at me. "Thank you. For pulling her out of me. I could feel her inside. Wearing me. Using my memories to speak. It was... horrible."
"You're welcome."
"And Sidd?" He coughed again. More blood. "When you face her. When you go inside that mountain. Remember—she can't fully control what she fully consumes. That's why she wanted us corrupted but functional. Once we hit one hundred percent, we're just... meat. No thoughts. No personality. Just bodies she moves around. So if you want to beat her..."
He didn't finish. The light left his eyes. His breathing stopped.
Lucy closed his eyelids gently. "Damn this world."
"Tactical update," Somi said. No time for mourning. "Darius's death has triggered response. The mountain is accelerating movement. Estimate thirty seconds until full deployment."
"Deployment of what?" Gery asked.
The mountain answered him.
Arms burst from the grey water around us. Not the normal writhing limbs we'd seen before. These were massive. Each one as thick as a tree trunk. Each one ending in a hand large enough to grab a person whole.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Rising from the water like a forest of flesh.
"That," Somi said. "Deployment of that."
The arms lashed out simultaneously. Grabbing. Crushing. Pulling.
One wrapped around Gery's waist. Lifted him off the ground. Squeezed. I heard his ribs crack even from twenty feet away.
Gery's Azure Fang flashed. The water-blade cut through the arm in one strike. He fell, gasping. The severed arm dissolved into black ichor.
But two more arms replaced it immediately.
Lucy's lightning exploded outward. Chain lightning jumping between arms, burning flesh, creating that sharp ozone smell. She was using her enhanced Tier 4 Lightning attribute—the one boosted by the Citadel's reward. The power was immense. Every bolt should have been fatal.
The arms regenerated faster than she could burn them.
"We can't fight all of them!" Lucy shouted.
"We don't fight them," I said. "We fight their source."
I activated Essence Dominion at maximum range. Reached out with my Transcendent ability and touched every arm within five hundred meters. Felt their essence. Felt how they connected back to the mountain. Back to the Mother.
And I did something I'd never tried before.
I reversed the flow.
Instead of pulling essence toward me, I pushed my essence toward the Mother. Forced my corruption into her corruption. My seventy-eight percent transformed power flooding into her structure.
The arms froze. All of them. Locked in place like someone had hit pause.
[ESSENCE DOMINION: INVERSE FUNCTION ACTIVATED]
[WARNING: CORRUPTION TRANSFER UNSTABLE]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 79%... 80%...]
My corruption was increasing. Not from consuming. From contact. From touching the Mother's essence directly and having it touch me back.
But it was working. The arms weren't moving. The mountain had stopped shifting. I'd essentially poisoned her system with my own corrupted essence, and she was busy trying to purge it before it spread.
"Go," I said through gritted teeth. "Into the mountain. Now. While she's distracted."
"Sidd, what about you?" Lucy asked.
"I'll hold the arms. You kill the Mother. That was always the plan."
"But—"
"GO!"
They ran. Gery. Lucy. Somi. Sprinting toward the mountain's opening. Toward the womb-chamber where the Mother waited.
I stayed. Held the connection. Felt my corruption climbing.
[81%... 82%... 83%...]
The arms started moving again. Slowly. Fighting against my control. The Mother was adapting. Learning how to counteract my inverse technique.
I pushed harder. Forced more of my essence into her structure.
[84%... 85%...]
The pain started. Not physical pain. Spiritual pain. The agony of having your soul stretched beyond its limits. Of forcing your essence into places it wasn't meant to go.
I screamed. Couldn't help it. The sound tore from my throat, raw and inhuman.
[86%... 87%...]
Something changed. A threshold crossed. The corruption hit a critical level where quantitative became qualitative.
My body began to transform. Not slowly like before. Rapidly.
The silver veins spreading from essence touch merged with the black-red corruption veins. Created new patterns. New structures. My skin took on a metallic sheen—not quite silver, not quite black, something in between.
The Mask of Hunger fused completely with my skull. I felt it happening. Felt bone and artifact becoming one inseparable thing. The devil horns grew six inches longer. Sharp. Real.
And my consciousness split.
Part of me was still Sidd. Still human. Still fighting.
Part of me was something else. The Lost One. The hungry thing that lived beneath.
Part of me was the corruption itself. Pure transformation given awareness.
Three minds sharing one body. One goal.
Survive.
Through the pain and the transformation, I heard the Mother's voice. Not spoken aloud. Spoken directly into my essence.
"MY FIRST CHILD. YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT. LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME. LOOK AT THE POWER YOU WIELD."
"Fuck off," I replied with three voices simultaneously.
"YOU FIGHT ME. YOU RESIST. BUT YOU ARE ALREADY MINE. EIGHTY-SEVEN PERCENT CORRUPTED. ONLY THIRTEEN PERCENT HUMAN. YOU ARE MORE ME THAN YOU. WHY DO YOU STRUGGLE?"
"Because that thirteen percent matters."
"DOES IT? WHAT IS THIRTEEN PERCENT OF A SOUL? WHAT DOES THAT SMALL FRAGMENT GIVE YOU THAT THE EIGHTY-SEVEN PERCENT DOES NOT?"
I thought about it. What did that remaining thirteen percent contain? What was I holding onto?
Memories of my parents. Fading. Distant. Almost gone.
Feelings for my friends. Muted. Abstract. Barely recognizable.
Fear of death. Gone completely. The corruption had taken that.
Hope for escape. Dying. Flickering.
What remained was...
Stubbornness.
Just pure, stupid stubbornness. The refusal to give up even when giving up made logical sense. The human irrationality that said "no" to inevitable doom simply because it could.
"That thirteen percent," I said, "contains the only thing that makes humans dangerous. The ability to be irrational. To fight unwinnable battles. To spit in the face of gods and refuse to kneel."
"SUCH ARROGANCE."
"Such humanity."
Inside the mountain, I felt Lucy, Gery, and Somi reaching the chamber's center. Felt them encountering something. Something that made even Somi's emotionless analysis spike with alarm.
Whatever they'd found inside, it was worse than expected.
I held the arms for five more seconds. Ten. Twenty.
Then at eighty-seven percent corruption, I finally hit my limit. The arms broke through my control. Surged forward. One wrapped around my throat. Lifted me off the ground.
I activated Devourer one last time. Consumed the arm holding me. Fell. Landed hard on wet stone.
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 88%]
Two percent from the ninety percent critical threshold. Three percent from what Darius had warned about—the point where the Mother could fully control me.
I stood. Staggered toward the mountain's entrance.
Inside, I could hear fighting. Lightning. Water. Screaming.
They were fighting something. Losing, maybe.
I had to reach them. Had to help.
Had to finish this before I stopped being human entirely.
I walked into the Mother's womb.