She just looked back at me in confusion and kept going, leaving me alone with the rat's corpse and my thoughts. Minutes stretched by. The wound on my neck throbbed in time with my heartbeat. Where was she? It shouldn't take this long to-

A voice drifted up from somewhere below, muffled but clear enough to make out words: "...fresh ones tonight. Queen's paying double for anyone unmarked."

I froze. The voice had come from the hole the rat had been gnawing at. Crawling forward, I peered into the darkness. The passage widened just beyond the entrance, sloping down into what looked like a stone garage.

More voices echoed up: "This is risky! Doesn't he work for the queen?" "Dungeon don't care. He don't have to know does he?"

"Whatever, hurry up, the guard patrol's almost here."

My blood ran cold.

I crept forward, following the voices. The tunnel opened into a dimly lit chamber below. Through a gap in the stone, I could see figures moving in the shadows. My heart stopped.

Lyn lay crumpled on the ground, her dark hair fanned across the dirty floor like spilled ink. Her chest rose and fell slightly – unconscious, not dead. Relief warred with horror in my chest.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the chamber. A guard in militia colours strode in, her armour gleaming dully in the low light. Unlike the others I'd seen patrolling above, her uniform was finer, marked with symbols of rank.

"Bloody hell boys what have you brought me?" she asked, tossing over a jingling pouch to the figures in the shadows. "Just keep this one on the quiet yeah? Like usual, but maybe abit more than usual, cause you're fishing in high class territory here. Risky risky." She clicked her tongue. "Stick to the people who won't be remembered, or you might end up on the cart yourself."

The criminals – I could see them better now, a man in dark rags criss-crossed with purple growths – nodded before melting back into the darkness. As they moved away, I saw it in the guard's face – that same corrupted purple light crawling through her veins like living lightning, pulsing beneath her skin. Her eyes glowed with an unnatural sheen, while the varicose veins in her rabbit ears were black as night

Rage boiled up inside me – rage at the corruption, at the betrayal, at this whole twisted world. But underneath it lurked something darker: recognition. The purple, it was just everywhere. In Hellas eyes it had been an abyss in tumult, raging silhouetted colossus grappling around a black iris. In others it was like a parasitic bruise, a coagulation of blood massed and hardened until it protruded obscenely. Flat, sharp, soft, sloping. It was a mess of purple that streaked across features, distorting them. Somehow Hellas eyes were more disturbing.

I needed to move. Needed to help. But even with my new strength, what chance did I have against an armed guard? In the game, I'd been nearly invincible. Here, I was just...

Lyn stirred slightly, a small sound of pain escaping her lips. The guard placed a box over her, and began to walk to the front of the cart.

I frantically patted my pockets, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. The pouch Lilac had given me earlier - I pulled it out with trembling fingers. Inside was a small glass bottle filled with shimmering liquid that caught the dim light like captured moonlight, swirling with an otherworldly glow. It was beautiful and terrible all at once, like staring at a star that had fallen to earth.

What did I have? Nothing. Maybe I could overpower her as she is distracted.

My heart hammered in my chest as I drew nearer, muscles tense with desperate purpose. But as I moved to strike, the high crack of stone on my shoe made me freeze.

Before I could even think to dodge, her hand shot out and seized my throat. Her grip was like iron, lifting me off my feet with inhuman strength. The purple corruption in her veins pulsed with dark energy, spreading across her skin in web-like patterns. I could feel the cold bite of it trying to seep into my flesh where she touched me, like frost creeping across a window.

She held me like a toy.

"What are you doing?"

With my open I grappled my hand against her head. It did nothing, my hand couldn't even pull at her skin.

"How did you get here? How did you know?"

I kept feebly whacking at her. Impotent.

"I guess we will find out."

Her eyes turned purple and purple crept from her arm onto mine. It moved and I started to get very worried.

I raised the bottle with my other hand, she tilted her head at it, curious, and smashed it against her face.

The purple and moonlight mixed. Glass went everywhere, I was cut. Much of the contents splattered to the floor, some splattered into my eyes, my nose, my mouth.

It tasted like knowing without thought. Like a cool breeze on a springs day. Like the full-moon on a street with no streetlights. Remembering when you thought you had forgotten.

She smiled. "Just how weak are you?"

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"Pretty… weak."

A drop entered her mouth and she shrugged.

She held me and reached across, touching her hand to my head. The purple leaped from her hand up my hand into my mind. She seemed surprised by this.

The tide was strong. It pulled at me. Yet like the prow of a ship I cut the wave. It rushed and rushed and a speck against the void I held. Hands gripped my ankles, they hugged me with warmth, cupped my cheek and whispered in my ear.

I could see it now. I was there again, a paragon of strength, purple and amazing. A huge army of men and monsters alike built a mound I stood atop, emperor of blood, salvation from life, destroyer of faith. The unbeliever.

This is strange. I wasn't really a fan of that shade of purple, I'm more of a fun purple guy than the pulsating, dreary abyssal purple that shone out of my eyes.

All the world bowed before me. I was the leviathan in Hella's eyes. Black and terrible. Eating away at the root of the world while the masses cried out, screamed for my love. I was adored.

Hmm. I don't get it. This isn't… me.

A family. Me in the middle. It was a happy scene, warm and inviting they loved me not like they loved the leviathan, but like I belonged.

Their eyes were black, their smiles. I did not recognise these people.

I could see its offering, knew it could do as it promised. I just don't care. What is an emperor of blood but an emperor of rot? What is it to be loved and not to love? It was the shadow of success, a misunderstanding spooled out and put back together misshapen and ugly.

I want… I want to eat apple cloudy cider hot like that one time I did with my mom. I want to sit in on itchy grass and pat my dog and worry about the sunlight. I want to walk next to sparkling streams and catch the little fish that dart there. Or try to. I walked there now, and the torrent came with me.

I held a sword. Huge, flaming, magnificent.

The guard, dissolving from a black flame. My old sword magnificent again, all my powers, my levels, back. No one would defy me. I could excise the rot of this city. The power would be awesome and terrible and my reign would be benevolent and just.

No. I'd rather be fishing.

My sword changed, dangling into water, my line bobbing up and down with the river, always a false hope of a bite. I haven't caught anything in a long time. I guess that's why they call it fishing not catching! I chuckled to myself. My dad's line started whirring. A bite! He reeled in furiously until you could see the pale body of the fish rise out of the black. "Pop!" he tried to raise it out of the water, and something gave. The fish disappeared in a splash and we looked at his line. Twisted in a spring, his knot must've given. "I should really learn how to tie a fishing knot." He shrugged sheepishly and grinned at me. We googled it and without his glasses he couldn't see what he was doing so I did it. I missed my dad.

This thought seemed to enrage the purple. My sword, it could give me anything. An ocean of fish. Anything.

I'm not sure it understood. That's what I had fought for so long. That's why I had struggled. Not to do this again, not to become the flame-demon, the conqueror, the whatever. Just let me, be me, live my life not again sacrificing everything just so others could have something. Let me be selfish, and have the things I hadn't for so long.

My dad's visage came then. Smiling and black eyed.

But he was gone a long time ago.

Indignity like a waterfall. Rage a crashing blade that thrummed against my head. I saw red and only red. Bile filled my mouth.

"YOU DO NOT GET TO KNOW HIM! YOU DO NOT GET TO KNOW HIM!"

It tried to pull back, but I would not let it, I sunk my rage into it and pulled it in. Unceasing, uncaring as it wriggled and tremored and thrashed.

A screaming, crying tear pinged throughout the mental plane.

I was left with drags of purple in my hand and as force disappeared, having cut its losses and run. I was left alone with a much smaller presence. One that had not seen the light of day in a long time.

She was looking at me, still trying to process what she had seen, but now she began to remember and her memories dragged us under.

It was a little girl, running being swept into her mothers arms. It was a woman dragging a mother away from her child.

It was a woman. The merchant had not paid his taxes, the firemana leapt up the side of his cart voraciously. Couldn't've afforded lacquer then. It was a girl buying a biscuit, she got two because she hadn't made a fuss at the market this time.

It was a woman, running, running. A political criminal had escaped. A cat-kin woman, an ox-kin boy, a rabbit kin girl. Pounding down familiar dark alleyways, baton at the ready to restore order.

It was a little girl, running, running, down black alleyways, up twisting side streets, running. From a woman. She rounded a corner.

The child saw the woman and the woman saw the child and everything came undone.

Then the woman returned. Spent. And unknowing. Her face was pale and sweaty. Her breathing hitched and hawed, yet the purple of her face was gone.

"I'm… sorry" She muttered. Tears ran down her face, she grasped my clothing. "Thankyou… thankyou."

My legs nearly gave out as I stumbled back to where Lyn lay. The purple corruption that had started spreading to my arm faded like morning mist, leaving only tender, bruised skin behind. Whatever had been in that bottle, it had done more than just clear the guard's corruption - it had given me a glimpse into the darkness eating away at this city's heart. Not just the visible corruption that stained their skin, but the deeper rot that had taken root in their souls.

I checked Lyn's pulse - still steady. She was starting to stir, her eyelids fluttering. I needed to get her out of here before more guards showed up, before someone else decided to take advantage of her vulnerability. In this city, it seemed, mercy was a currency few could afford.

[ CELESTIAL TIER POTION - RESISTED! ]

[ CELESTIAL TIER MENTAL INVASION - RESISTED! ]

Achievement!

[ Unbound by Level, Flesh or Creed ]

Force an enemy significantly higher level than you into submission

+1 WIS

I felt as though my frontal lobe had finally kicked in. Like darkness ever-present around me receded a touch. The constant flickering of consciousness was made less of a waking dream and the sharpness of it all came into focus. The misery, the distraught anger. The walls of brick made so imperfectly because the. I was so much greater. I could feel how the wristband sapped my meagre mana now. Looking around I felt… fear. Something was wrong, something that had tickled my senses now poked at me.