She barely managed to grab onto him before she collapsed. Her nails attempted to dig into him as she held him tight. Leo saw her face distorted in confusion and anger.
“hOw?” demanded Marem.
Her distorted voice was akin to a verbal headache, yet it sounded like music to Leo’s ears. The calamity's anger seeped out with each word, as he could feel her pathetic attempts to scratch his skin. He looked Marem in the face but saw that her eyes didn’t react.
“There were a lot of small signs, yet it was your taunting that gave it away. Philips could barely string together a sentence, but you yapped relentlessly. I figured that there had to be something helping you talk,” answered Leo.
The calamity groaned, “Can’t. Lose.”
“You went against me and lost. There is nothing left of your body, and I’m guessing that you can’t control people without it,” taunted Leo.
“NoT BoDy.”
“What?”
Marem pulled herself as close to Leo as possible, as her arms trembled. Her gaze couldn’t find Leo, but he could still see her face contort. It stretched into a smile so wide that her skin seemed liable to tear. He had talked with the calamity through the civilians, but the woman in his arms no longer seemed to be Marem. It felt as if the calamity herself had appeared.
“That wasn’t my body. I don’t die as easily as David. I’m gaining new hosts as we speak. My actions are unseen by you, but rest assured, Leo, I plan to keep many eyes on you,” answered Marem.
Leo took a second, “How the hell are you still talking?”
“I am Cordylia, the sporemother, a calamity sent to conquer all that there is. If I desire to send a message then a message will be sent. You failed to kill me tonight, and I will make sure you know the consequences of your weakness.”
Marem went limp once the last syllable left her lips. Leo managed to barely grab hold of her before she hit the ground. Her face had returned to normal. He held onto her as he tried to collect his thoughts.
David was not an easy fight. The act of killing him was simple, but the aftermath wasn’t. Leo had never seen a man die before, and he could feel that it changed him. He remembered his first day with his strength, and his idea that he could rule this world as a dictator. He could barely relate to those dreams now.
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There were calamities out there that planned to rule this world. He refused. His dream was no longer one of power, but rather one of selflessness. His dream was to keep everybody safe no matter the cost. Leo felt his heart burn with a passion he had never known before.
Leo declared to himself, “I swear that I will kill every last calamity and keep everybody safe.”
His voice echoed throughout the forest as if nature itself demanded to hear his declaration. What resonated louder than his words was the silence afterwards. He could declare every dream he wanted, but there is nothing without action.
He gently placed Marem on the ground. Leo looked at the crowd of collapsed people strewn around the forest. They seemed unconscious, but they were alive. He didn’t know how long they would be out. He kept an eye on the forest in case any monsters happened to grow an appetite for sleeping humans.
What drew his attention the most, though, was the chasm where the Hivelord emerged from. He looked in to see it bursting with mushrooms. There were roots as thick as tree trunks, and mushroom caps the size of cars.
Philips had mentioned that the cause may be a fungus, but this was beyond what anyone would’ve guessed. Leo wasn’t much of a funguy, or whatever mushroom scientists were called, but he could tell this was bad. He contemplated destroying everything within the chasm, as a safety measure to stop the infection from spreading further.
The idea was tempting. Tempting enough that Leo nearly began demolition. He had his fists at the ready, but he stopped right before he struck. While it would be nice to remove any risk, there was a chance that these mushrooms could help him figure out how to beat the calamity.
Leo searched through his bag, which had thankfully survived the fight, for an empty jar. It would be elevated from a container for lemonade to a prison cell for a dangerous hivemind. Leo filled it with whatever mushrooms and roots he could easily fit inside. He figured that this would help him learn more and could be used to convince the king to send scientists to investigate.
Leo had secured a sample and defeated a monster, but now he didn’t know what else to do. The civilians of Faelde city were alive, but he didn’t know how to safely wake them. It was bad to wake up a sleepwalker, so he figured that it would be worse to wake up a mind control victim.
He sat down on a raised pile of dirt next to Marem. He rummaged through his bag until he found a small scrap of paper. It was torn, crumpled, and in overall poor condition. Thankfully, it could still be understood.
He looked over his recreation of the strange symbols found on the Eversunk mountains. He had wondered what it meant when he first saw it, but only now was he certain about its meaning. The animal skull adorned with wings represented David, the dracolich. The mushroom had to be a symbol for Cordylia, the sporemother.
It was clear that these symbols were the calamities, but Leo was unsure as to what the other two were. The obscured man could be anybody or represent anything, yet the last symbol was the most perplexing to him.
The others were lined in a row, but the man in a throne was placed far above them. Could this be another calamity, or possibly something related to them? He doubted that Cordylia would give him any answers the next time they met, yet he couldn’t help but consider asking. His curiosity about these strange calamities and stranger symbols seemed to grow with each encounter.