World Filter

The building shuddered when the creature below them came to a halt, as though it knew something was wrong.

Mark stared at Grace, unable to hide the grin spreading over his face.

But Grace did not look nearly so happy to see him. Instead, she looked pissed.

“You’re dumber than I thought, I own everything in here. I am the Monarch”

A wave of invisible power stretched out of Grace and brushed past Mark, coiling in the air like a cloud.

Mark could feel her orders through the Corruption.

‘Kneel’

For the barest of moments, Mark felt himself beginning to comply, but he shoved the invasive thought aside. Grace’s face twitched and she doubled her efforts, but now that he knew what he was looking for, Mark dismantled her influence before it could reach him.

Grace's scream of frustration was the ringing of the bell.

Black lightning arced around her including ice that looked like it was made from frozen sewage. All the attacks launched themselves at once and Mark took his time watching them approach.

The construct around him still had a feint violet hue, so Mark flooded it with Corruption, darkening it to a blackened screen. The thing shrunk to protect just him, twisting rapidly to help deflect incoming projectiles.

Streams of plasma and ice whizzed by him, crashing into the barrier as it continued to pick up speed.

Mark heard someone grunt behind him but he took no notice, his prey was right there in front of him, and he couldn’t lose sight of her.

The construct exploded in all directions, growing at incredible rates, with misshapen edges. Corruption fed into the spell and it reached out toward Grace who refused to move. Her own wave of power once more enveloped her. When the two forces met this time, they continued to grow like two oceans filling the space. All other fighting had to stop as the chamber began to fill with their spells.

Mark had a better handle of his magic while Grace had ample power she could pull from the creature they now rode on. So as the two fought for dominance, collateral damage was bound to happen. Floors chipped and crumbled, while cracks began to spiderweb up the nearest walls.

Mark took a step towards her and Grace took to the air at breakneck speed.

Lifting himself to follow, Grace suddenly turned one-eighty degrees and launched herself back at Mark.

Her talons cleaved through the construct and chased his throat. Lifting an arm to block, Mark let the Corruption do as it saw fit. The energy happily complied, warping and reinforcing his arm to be able to defend himself. Dopamine buzzed in his brain as the Corruption edged him on.

When the hit came it sunk into his flesh but couldn’t get more than a couple of millimeters deep. The lines closed as Mark battered her away. Once more Grace dove out of reach by using her wings.

Mark wanted that mobility, and his energy responded in kind. Tremendous pain blossomed, as his skin peeled away from his body, leaving his muscles exposed to the air and the weight of his armor. New muscle ran up the length of the flayed skin as it expanded out from his back.

Thin bones pushed up from his spine giving the wings structure. All of this took less than two seconds and Mark smiled as he took to the air, chasing after Grace.

The two spiraled upward, circling one another.

Grace spread what looked like strands of spider silk and Mark created lesser constructs in the shape of spears to force a gap through her web.

The two were reaching the top of the structure, when the fighting below broke up again.

Mark was only interested in Grace, and he showed as much when two pincer-like attacks came from below him, in an attempt to crush her between two plates of force.

Grace countered by building a cage of lightning and Corruption. When the spells met, they made the sound of a hammer cracking against an anvil. The reverberation shook the whole space, and Grace countered by launching a conceive blast of air.

When the magic hit, it sent Mark hurtling to the ground as thin cords of magic tore through his flesh like heated wire. Mark managed to right himself but not before being cut in half several times. The damage was healed almost quickly as it was made. Before the cord was even halfway through his body, the cut was already merging back together.

Some wires caught on his bones, suspending Mark amongst a net of magic cords as they bit into his flesh.

Ripping himself free, tore through his muscles and caused fire to spread across his skin, but the Corruption drove him forward.

Half the chamber was Marks and when he regained control over his construct it responded by rapidly condensing into a column, thin blades of force tearing into the room. It accelerated with such speed that the wind picked up all at once. snapping Grace's cords and cutting into her shield and then her flesh.

Seeing her black blood fall caused Mark to laugh as a deep growl reverberated in his chest sending his satisfaction leaking out into the world.

Pov - Sam

Sam clutched Jonathan's arm over her shoulder as they stared up at Mark in horror. The moment he’d pulled the Corruption from them, Sam knew something was wrong. This wasn’t his normal method, instead, it was more like he’d directly eaten their Corruption, leaving both of them feeling weak. Jonathan could barely stand and her Mana was only just recovering.

If it weren't for Mark’s last-minute barrier the Corruption would have pounced on them again. Now at least they had a chance to get everyone out of here.

Nathan and Jeffery had been locked in battle when the room had gone to shit. In this instance, Jeffrey had the strength advantage, but his reasoning had all but left him. The man was now just a screaming mess of emotions and rage. Donny was much the same, though this was more along the lines of a puppet being told what to do.

Then against Sam’s expectations, Grace began to lose ground.

Mark’s familiar gentle construct twisted into a sadistic version of his normal magic.

Personality greatly shaped the way spells came out. Mark had always used his constructs as defensive weapons because that was how he saw them. They were not things to be used for harm, though Sam was convinced the idea had not eluded him. It just wasn't how Mark wanted to use his magic, but what she saw now was a spell weaved to cause as much pain as possible, there was barely any part of Mark in it as it bristled into that of a sea urchin. Churning and stabbing with a mind of its own, as though feeding off Grace’s manifestation of power.

When the two of them ascended—Mark on fresh grisly wings—Sam pulled Jonathan towards Lisa. By the looks of things, Donny and Jeffrey retreated to avoid Mark’s Corruption as though unwilling to leave Grace’s domain.

When they got there Sam shouted, hoping she would hear over the chaos.

“Lisa, get to Nathan and get out of here!”

The woman didn’t so much as hesitate, nodding as she made a break for the floating man.

They had barely escaped through a crack in the wall when Mark’s construct suddenly condensed into a pillar. Thin spikes expanded out of it and tore through the room. Sam dropped to her knees and covered herself and Jonathan in a thick pocket of air. Something slammed over their heads, only barely deflected by her spell, causing Sam to scream out involuntarily.

Both Jeffery and Donny went down with pieces missing from their bodies.

Sam looked up and saw Mark laughing, the two were evenly matched, and yet this guy had time to let his hysteria show. The connection was still open between them, something Mark had completely forgotten about, but through it, Sam could feel what an absolute mess he was inside. Burning fury, desperate regret, and equal parts distress and triumph.

As she looked down at the object tightly clenched in her fist, she momentarily loosened her white-knuckled grip to reveal a ring. She didn’t quite know how, but Mark needed her to save him.

POV - Jonathan

The whole world was too loud and Jonathan’s gums burned, as though his teeth were trying to crawl out of his mouth. Sam was helping him along and he followed as best he could, with closed eyes, but his muscles shook a little less with each step.

The pain from whatever Grace had done was rapidly leaving him but its effects were not. Something dark had lodged itself in his brain and refused to move. Invasive urges clawed at the back of his throat, bringing with it a mix of smells.

The desire to consume and rend meat, bubbled up from his stomach. Demanding to be filled, it didn’t care where the flesh and blood came from, but the desire was powerful. A more rational part of his brain managed to override these new instincts, but they weren't shutting up.

Sam shouted to Lisa right beside his ear and Jonathan almost snarled from the volume. Opening his eyes for another peak, he was once more slammed with a cacophony of sharp colors, and tones. Many of which he could scarcely describe, and though watering Jonathan managed to keep them open. He had to adjust as quickly as he could, to make sure the others survived.

Mark had done something ridiculous again, but this time he’d completely lost himself in the process.

A pillar of Mark's magic condensed in the center of the chamber and one of the offshoots spun directly at them. Jonathan managed to position himself in front of Sam, but she blocked it. Her panicked shout caused uneasiness to twist in Jonathan's chest, and if he didn’t recognize Mark was not in control of himself, he would have gutted the guy.

Deciding they needed to be the next to leave, Jonathan tried to pull Sam with him, his legs finally stable enough to move on their own. But when he went to pull her towards an exit she resisted, sending him a look that told him she wasn’t leaving. Normally Jonathan would have argued or even picked her up and run, but he hesitated.

Objectively speaking, Mark was lost to the Corruption and Jonathan didn’t know whether there was coming back from that. He could see it by the way the guy’s body warped and twisted with blackened blood. If it were anyone else in that state Jonathan would have cut his losses and left them to die, but Mark had saved him more times than Jonathan could count. If he was going to lose one of the few people he trusted, then he should at least give him a fighting chance.

Jonathan's next words were quiet but Sam was so close she would have to struggle not to hear them.

“Pick your time well, we’ll only get a single shot at this”

POV - Mark/ ???

The construct shivered like TV static, its countless pyramids vibrating like atomic bonds. Waves of pain and pleasure shot up Mark's spine as he moved more of the spell’s mass toward the ceiling, causing them to drip down like stalactites.

Grace destroyed spears with bolts of corruption, but Mark reformed them faster than she could remove them.

When they fell, she attempted to build a cage of power once more but even with that, the force hurled her toward the ground, cracking the tiles and causing ichor to seep up like blood.

She had taken no real damage, but the anger that burned in her large frame was evident. This only stoked Mark's rage further, causing him to bring the construct inward. Reshaping it from a pillar to a sphere that hung in the center of the space, set fast by chains of force which Mark fixed into the surrounding walls.

Grace growled and extended her hand, palm facing down towards the creature. There was a shaking in the walls and then an object pushed its way out of the crater she had just landed in. The disk came to her hand and she brought it to rest against her chest.

Mark could already feel his energy demanded that he steal the disk from Grace, but Mark ignored it.

There were not many things he liked less than Grace, but being controlled was one of them.

So he battered the energy aside and it hissed for him to comply, sending pain shooting through his body and causing his construct to waver.

Unfortunately for it, he had his ways of forcing it to listen, taking the staff off his back. Mark shoved his Corruption into the staff and it screamed as the staff acted as a conduit. What came out was much tamer and far more potent.

The Corruptions voice dulled to a whisper and Mark’s energy fell back in line.

At the same time, Grace had merged with the disk. The room shook one last time and then exploded into action as the floor segmented into hundreds of columns and shot toward Mark like winding snakes.