It took me at least one agonizing minute to pull myself out from underneath the monster's corpse. When I finally got free, I lay on the dirt and tried to catch my breath. I could feel the Aether-infused water sending weakening ripples out from my stomach, and I had to cough up some that had gotten into my lungs.

Each wet cough sent lightning through my chest as it pulled my injured ribs. That matched the searing from the wounds to my chest and ankle and the sharp, throbbing agony lining most of the channels across my body. Even my core felt uncomfortably stretched, a likely side effect of having too much power pushed into it at once.

Thankfully, aside from my ankle, my legs had been mostly spared, and I managed to stand with only a modicum of willpower. I moved slowly, trying to avoid worsening my injuries, and when I was finally upright, I was confronted with a new problem.

Before anything else, I reached through my body and pushed mana gingerly into the ring on my hand. The cleaning enchantment triggered, and I felt it scrub drying blood, dirt, and debris from every inch of me. The sensation of something going inside of my open wounds was not one I would like to repeat, but at least it would limit the chance of infection.

With that done, I retrieved a weak healing potion designed to repair wear and tear from regular exercise and downed it in one gulp. Itching broke out across my wounds, mainly concentrated in my torso. It would do little to repair my wounds, but it should keep them from worsening.

Finally, I turned my attention to the monster's body. The wounds marring its flesh leaked dark blood, and its neck ended in an abrupt, ragged stump, revealing a mass of meat and white bone. Beneath it, the earth had turned onyx and muddy, and I tried not to gag at the scent of death and rot leaking into the air.

My scan found no hint of anything, no conscious mana control, directed will, or crude spellcraft. I did catch a hint of strange, Aether-like energy leaving its flesh before it dissipated into the air. That altered mana seemed to cause this monster's warped body, but I had no idea what might create such a change.

Still, this thing had once been human and had gained inhuman strength and speed. I did not want to become a warped monster but needed those abilities. My survival depended on uncovering every secret, no matter how dangerous.

Besides, this thing might have done it wrong. I would not.

I considered examining the beast for a brief moment but decided against it. Instead, I knelt, retrieved the same spare clothes I had used to transport previously hunted creatures, and wrapped its corpse up before focusing.

My borrowed spatial pouch tugged against my will, and it took several seconds and more focus than I had to spare. I concentrated on my desperation above all else, and finally, the enchantment yielded. The monster's corpse vanished with a soft pop, settling within the near-full storage space.

I stood again and turned to the pool. That slight movement tugged at the raw cuts across my body, turning their faint throbs into sharp, searing pain.

"Stupid," I murmured at the reminder of my reckless and impatient act. If things had been just a little different-

I cut off the thought with a sharp headshake. First, I would grab the water and return to Aresford and safety. Only then could I engage in self-flagellation.

As I took a step, the wounds on my chest throbbed again. I rubbed a hand on the cuts, grimacing and ignoring them, only to double over a moment later.

The pain mounted, turning from unpleasant to agonizing in just seconds. It felt as if the blood in my chest had turned to fire and my bones molten metal. I staggered and closed my eyes, trying to ride out the pain.

That wave abated for a second, then crashed into me again. I barely managed to hold back a scream and forced my eyes open before tearing my shirt up to examine my wounds.

They looked bizarrely clean and relatively shallow, with only thin rivulets of blood streaming from each. For all of its strength, the monster had only glorified fingernails as a weapon. But the flesh around them had changed.

My pale skin had turned purple-black, like a healing bruise. Darker lines stood out everywhere, spreading across my flesh in spider-crack patterns at speeds great enough to see with my eyes. I felt my heart stutter and my breathing catch even as a third wave of agony hit me.

Worse than the pain, though, was a sense of weight and wrongness that spread from my chest. It was not entirely physical, though, and my eyes widened before I forced my awareness inward.

My core was half-full, with thin streams of Aether still pouring into it from everywhere. The channels leading out had been widened noticeably, and once they were healed, I might actually fit.

I ignored all that and moved through them to the channels closest to my wounds.

There, I found several shallow lacerations in the vessels, an injury that would typically be unpleasant but far from severe. Instead, a dark, inky substance now coated the entrance wounds. Even as I watched, it began to spread, creeping along the walls and towards my core.

Aether still moved through the channel in a constant, gentle flow, and I noticed a strange reaction to the wrongness and blight. Wherever it met my natural mana, its progress slowed for a moment. Not much, but noticeably.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Whatever disease that monster carried had spread to me, and I had no desire to find out what lay in store if I failed to purge it. I had to cure myself, and fast.

I grabbed at my core and wavered for only a moment before pulling a 'handful' of Aether down and into the creeping wrongness. Green energy crashed it in, searing away some dark substance and leaving strained, torn flesh behind. Yet the moment I paused in my assault, the rot returned.

My second and third attempts had similar results, even though I used increasing volumes and pushed past ever-growing pain. I could fix injuries, but I could not cure death. The blight had already crept halfway to my core and, if anything, appeared to be gaining in speed and resilience as it spread.

I was readying a fourth attack when my leg gave out from underneath me. The limb felt heavy, and a brief scan revealed a similar, noticeably weaker, and less pervasive infection.

Panic crept up to greet me like a familiar friend, and I grabbed all the power left in my body. I dragged it through my core, sweeping it past the wounds in my chest and down my leg, tearing through everything in my path with as much force as possible.

Web-like strands of blight burst and tore as I passed. Its spread halted entirely, and that horrible weight and sense of wrongness vanished for a single, blessed second. I let myself take a breath and pulled more mana within.

For a brief moment, I hoped.

Then, the blight returned and extinguished that ember. Though slowed and weakened, it began to creep again; this time, I had no way to stop it.

If I could not stop the corruption, what would I become? I...had wanted to accomplish so much, but I would not let myself become an uncontrollable monster. No, I refused to let myself fall to that. I would sacrifice much, but not who I was.

And I refused to die here either.

The bones in my torso twinged as I rolled onto my stomach. My right hand grabbed another healing potion and one of my weak stamina potions. Neither would do much, and both would court toxicity, but I had no choice.

I forced both down and began to move. My right leg felt numb and adamantly ignored my commands, but my left still moved, as did my arms. I reached forward, dug my fingers into the dirt, and pulled. Sharpened rocks dug into my skin, and the wounds on my chest were scraped raw, but it was just one drop in a sea of misery.

That effort brought me a foot closer at most. For a moment of weakness, I considered giving up.

Then, I reached and pulled and earned barely inches for the struggle. And again and again. There had been scant feet between me and the pool when I fell, but it might as well be miles now. Each repetition brought new, horrifying sensations as the corruption spread.

When I had ten feet left, my left leg turned numb. At five feet, my right arm followed suit, hanging limp by my side. At three, I could only take shallow breaths, and my sight began to cloud. By two, it was all I could do to reach and pull.

I could not say if it was willpower, determination, or blind, overwhelming fear that drove me forward. Would I die? Would I become another monster, waiting here until some poor victim stumbled onto me? How long would I exist in some warped state, waiting for release from a tortuous existence as a monster?

Each nightmarish thought ran through my head, and so I persevered, focusing solely on the motion of my arm, the glowing light still shining in my dull eyes and the power burning in my mind.

Finally, when my sight had vanished entirely, I felt my fingers sink not into dirt or grass but into warm water. Everything from my neck down had turned icy and numb, and even my core was a bare, flickering candlelight within my mind.

I fell forward and into the water with one final heave. Or it could have been a tumble for all the difference it made.

My body sunk underwater, and there was a moment when I nearly took a breath out of instinct. Instead, I dove inward and focused, trying to recall lessons that I had never thought would matter.

Some mages could take mana from ley lines and direct it, akin to diverting a river's flow. I had done something like that with the water, but it was a crude, poor effort. In truth, I had always thought the skill impractical for any save mages behind fortified positions.

Though I had never properly learned the skill, I would need to do my best to replicate it.

I opened my core and pulled, allowing the concentrated Aether within the water around me to enter my body. The ravaging power burned and seared, tearing into my flesh with a million infinitesimal blades. I instinctively recoiled, closing myself off from the power in a bid to stop the pain.

My mouth opened against my will, and bubbles sprayed past my lips as whatever was left in my lungs escaped. I tried to force it closed again, but such commands had grown impossible. My flesh was no longer my own.

Yet I did not drown.

That strange miracle existed in my world for just a heartbeat before I set it aside and reached out again. Every part of my mind screamed to hold firm and push back against the Aether surrounding me, but I ignored those instincts. I relaxed, and once more, raw power crashed into my body.

Letting that untamed power rampage would kill me, but I needed it to scour my body free of corruption. But how?

The first idea I seized upon was that of tempering. As power poured into my body, I pulled it down each channel in slow, careful, unending waves. Months of practice made it instinctive, but I had worked with energy a fraction of the density.

My first clumsy wave did not stop the blight, nor did the second, third, or tenth. However, each repetition brought greater control and efficiency. As the flow went from clumsy and uneven to steady as a river, the spreading infection slowed, then stopped.

Then, it began to recede.

Each repetition purged a fraction of the blight from within my flesh. I felt my body lighten and my muscles relax. Yet the boundless power around me purged more than just an infection.

Lingering, hidden dregs of blockages throughout my vessels tore free and flowed from my skin. My core and channels expanded, forced wider than ever. Most of all, as the corruption vanished, what it exposed thrilled and unsettled me in equal parts.

My channels appeared healed but changed. What had once been pink-tinged red flesh had been stained deep green, verging on black, leaving spiderweb patterns everywhere. They seemed the densest where my channels had been strained and torn but faintest at my core. I suspected the power of my counterpart's liquid mana, contained though it was, had been enough to hold the corruption at bay.

Despite its unsettling appearance, that new flesh felt healthy and unchanged, save for one thing. It felt more robust, weathering the waves passing through my body with less strain than ever. I had no idea how, but purging the blight strengthened me.

I had achieved a balance, though the corruption remained in spots. If I relaxed, it would gain purchase and begin to spread again, and if I pushed harder, I could purge it entirely. I tensed and prepared to do as much, but a thought occurred to me.

If curing this infection had strengthened me, why let the opportunity pass? It was a risk that I considered for a simple, chilling reason. If I was already on the path to becoming a monster, nothing I could do now would stop that.

So, I closed myself off from the Aether around me and allowed the blight to spread again. It pounced in an instant and began to creep along my channels again. I examined the flow this time and noted that although it spread in all directions, the lion's share was always towards my core.

When the first fingers began to creep into my core, I opened myself again and pushed it away. And for the first time since falling into the water, I smiled.

I could not say how long I repeated the process of letting the blight spread and stain my channels before burning it away. Each time, it moved slower and changed less of my flesh, but each repetition left me greater than before.

Finally, when my channels had been fully stained black, and my core now reflected emerald light against onyx, I pushed. The blight vanished in an anti-climactic flood, and I felt the last lingering bit of weight disappear.

I floated there for a time, letting more mana sink into my core. With my strengthening vessels and the sheer volume of power at my disposal, it was near-effortless to gather more and more. Finally, when my core had reached its capacity, I closed myself off again.

The Aether within me roiled, unstable to the point where it would take days, if not weeks, to settle, but it had reached the peak of Vapor. I could, at any time, compress and advance to a Haze. In fact, the only thing stopping me from doing as much was an almost laughable fact; I had no idea how.

When I finally felt ready, I opened my eyes and swam back to the pool's edge. It was still agonizing despite everything. My ribs hurt as much as before, if not worse, and I found that strangely comforting. I doubted I would feel pain so sharply if I was becoming a superhuman abomination.

The sun had set by the time I emerged onto dry land. I coughed and hacked, expelling the water from my lungs before taking my first breath in hours. That rotting smell from the monster's blood was present but muted, and the prevailing scent in the air was once more frost and snow.

After everything, it seemed wasteful not to collect what I had come here for, so I knelt by the pool and filled the remaining vials with the glowing water. Then, I straightened up, grabbed the remnants of my spear from where it fell, and started back for Aresford.