“Only when you are about to die will your class show its powers.” Charlotte said, ignoring the frantic shouts of the Fourth. “I was already dying, so don’t feel bad.”
I felt her leaving, and it was still warm from her touch when I saw her reappearing next to one of the mages that had been pestering our walls. I didn’t see what happened; the woman plummeted to the ground without any trace of blood leaving her body.
Charlotte disappeared once more, just to reappear next to another mage. The scene repeated itself a few times, no matter what the Fourth tried. She was a black angel of death, surrounded by a halo of doom that killed on touch.
“How!” Gabriel exclaimed by the time his fifth ally had died. “Your class is sealed!”
A [Swordsman] decided it was a good idea to jump onto me using the confusion. I admired the decision and initiative, and while I saw it coming, even I was too late to react.
In the time it took me to blink, Charlotte was already standing in front of me. The attacker was met with a wall of steel; Charlotte didn’t even try to block his attack.
She moved a single finger and flickered it on the [Swordsman]‘s front. The sole movement sent a shockwave that sent all the Fourth to the ground. Following a deafening blast, the attacker flied over to the woods in the distance.
“My main class used to be level 132. Here,” she said, throwing me a book, “read it when everything is over.”
[Corrupted Class Book]
I held onto the book like my life depended on it. Charlotte was giving her life to make this happen, and the reason was in those pages. I was not going to make them go to waste.
“So, Gabriel, what are you now? Only level 70?” She taunted, clearly mocking the man’s efforts. “You’re not lucky, it seems. Once again, I’m about to kick your ass.”
She didn’t wait for anyone to say anything. The Fourth was trying to get up when she shouted at the top of her lungs. It started as a guttural sound—a predator roaring at his prey. But then it evolved; it became high-pitched, a screech of a wraith imposing her domain.
I shivered as the notes of sorrow and despair sank to my bones. The Fourth was sent back to the floor, some holding on to one knee while others straight up lying on the ground while desperately trying to cover their ears.
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Some skill turned her skin red as she started glowing in a bluish tone. The corruption was already taking a toll on her; patches of her body were dissolving in the air and creating puffs of dark fog.
“I wanted to die on my own terms.” I barely managed to recognize that ghostly voice as Charlotte. “Powerful, not classless and from old age.”
Her blue glow spread in a circle around her. I could not feel any change, but I saw the Fourth squirming on the ground, some with blood in their ears and eyes. She was pressuring them—Gabriel included—with an aura that didn’t let them breathe, less alone move.
“They fear you. You can threaten their status quo, and they can do nothing about it.“ Her mouth didn’t even move as the ethereal words reached me. “Make. Them. Pay.”
She took me and moved me outside of the battle zone, all in a sequence of events that my brain struggled to process.
Then, she launched forward, the bugs of corruption leaving a trace of ghostly images wherever she stepped. She stopped a few meters from the first soldiers and sent her fist forward with all the accumulated momentum.
The air distorted, opening a fracture that looked exactly like the space between summons. It lagged a second behind her punch. The world screamed as an explosion blew out of the face of Fixun a section of the ground, enemies included.
The earth parted in two, creating a valley where the Fourth was a second before. Molten rocks spilled from the top into the bottomless pitch of black. A column of smoke would announce the magnitude of the disaster to all surrounding cities in the coming days.
“No!” Gabriel was trying to escape from Charlotte.
He was begging, dragging his ass across the ground, tears falling without control from his eyes. He had seen true horror. His nightmares had come true. And all of it was coming for him.
Charlotte didn’t answer, or perhaps couldn’t anymore. She jumped to the air, right above Gabriel’s position, and took a dive for him. She extended her arm, closed her hand into a fist, and came crashing down full-force.
The valley she had just created was obliterated. The Fourth, Gabriel, trees, rocks, and anything within the circle of impact were absorbed into a huge implosion. Everything was crushed and packed into a mass the size of a pebble.
The blast of fire condensed into a column of light that pierced through the dungeon, cleared the clouds, and plunged the sky into red.
It took five seconds for the dust to clear up enough that I could see what was left behind. I wasn’t surprised when absolutely nothing was there. It was a pit of destruction that had killed all of the Fourth and Charlotte with it. But I needed to see what still remained inside.
I dragged myself there, struggling to make my legs work as intended. Charlotte had been level 132, almost three times my own level, and the devastation she had left behind was exponentially more than what I could do—not just three times as much.
We had failed at defending Core, and the cost of ensuring our survival had been too great. I would have died if Charlotte hadn’t sacrificed. I didn’t know how her class came to be, and I had a lot to study from the book I was still holding with all my might. That, too, had been a complete and utter failure.
I managed to reach the crater, and I peeked inside. There was a single body, slowly being eaten away by the corruption that still lingered to it.
Charlotte had died, and not even all the corruption in the world would be able to bring her back. Not her, not the Charlotte we had known. But I wasn’t intending to let her body go to waste.
I knew that the [Undead] existed. A monster. An existence out of my control. A warden destined to roam my dungeon for all eternity.
That’s the only logical action.