You have been afflicted with a level of gold-rank [Blightfire].

  Just being in the same area as Cinder’s power was painful even for Will. He snapped Equilibrium Mantle on as quickly as possible, regulating the environment around him so he didn’t burn to a crisp in an instant. At gold rank, it now also eliminated some of the viruses from the air, though Cinder’s magic was strong enough that a good deal still made it through. Half a breath later, he used Chaos Transfer, removing the magical disease from him and transferring them to his sword.

  He knew from experience that he would need to carefully manage his resources in order to maintain Equilibrium Mantle while occasionally ridding himself of afflictions before they could affect him. Thanks to a rather illustrious few months, Will was entirely out of boons from Envoy of Mercy besides a single level of Blessed. The last level of Purified had gone into instantly throwing both himself and Rhodium into the Beyond.

  Cinder had gotten stronger alongside Will. She didn’t get much active improvement, but she’d had access to a great deal of boons from her frankly ridiculous killcount. A lot of that had been floating around as loose experience and mana. Will hadn’t even known that was possible, but then again he’d only ever killed targets in groups of less than a hundred. There had been single days where Cinder’s kills had been in the five digits.

  She was still world rank number one. At the peak of Gold 10, she was theoretically a match for the Speaker of the Mind.

  Just looking at the stats on paper didn’t do either side justice, though. Will knew what Rhodium could do thanks to the gold-rank effect of Mark for Death. While he didn’t have details for everything, it was clear that the Speaker classes that all three of the aliens possessed carried a whole host of extra benefits to them. The breadth and depth of Rhodium’s skills were breathtaking.

  On the other hand, Will and Cinder were also much stronger than their ranks implied. Will, now freshly a Gold 0, had been punching well above his weight class for some time—hell, as a silver, he had been containing the same platinum-rank demonic eye within him that he was now. Cinder was an otherworlder with an absurd kill count, both factors that Will knew could provide insanely lopsided power boosts.

  And of course, there was the matter of both Cinder and Will possessing classes and elements that would have been banned in a traditional system-adherent society like the Hive’s. They had both discovered that there were reasons, some of them good, for banning the affixation of those particular elements, but nobody could deny that they were strong.

  Case in point: Rhodium was already afflicted by gold-rank corruption. His aura barely flickered at the pain, a self-regulating skill activating to prevent him from feeling pain, but he was on a timer now.

  Condition: [Corruption]

  - All incoming damage is drastically increased.

  - Continually applies chaos damage, which increases proportionally to the time the target has been corrupted.

  - All attributes are reduced.

  - Target cannot be magically healed.

  Will had already cut off Rhodium from his support network, then done so further by eliminating a chunk of the options he had. Corruption was a deadly combo with any outside help, and Cinder was quite possibly the best option he had.

  Not that Rhodium was going to go down without a fight. The alien might have been driven into a trap with no way out, but cornered rats bit the hardest.

  Will presumed there was a rat equivalent on the Hive’s home planet, but he wasn’t going to bother asking the alien for entomologically accurate idioms. This was Earth—or at least, it had been.

  Rhodium snarled, adjusting to his new surroundings with stunning speed. Even with his attributes diminished by corruption and his flesh flaying off his bones from the passive plague-infested heat, he had the presence of mind to assess the situation around him and identify and execute the skill best suited to dealing with it.

  Will knew the general bent of the skill thanks to his upgraded Mark for Death. A wave of energy pulsed out of Rhodium, his aura increasing in strength. This skill, Soul Fracture, was a wide-range aura-like stunning spell that targeted the mind instead of the soul as the name would suggest. Though it wouldn’t be immediately lethal or worse, it would be a devastating blow. It was also one of the only plays the Speaker of the Mind had when he couldn’t properly sense one of his attackers.

  Cinder’s magic infused her surroundings to a far greater depth than even Will’s did. Her skills made the entire supervolcano so brilliantly violent that it all seemed like one being.

  As an ally, however, Will knew exactly where she was.

  He activated Time in a Bottle.

  Skill: [Time in a Bottle]

  - Spell (chronomancy).

  - Cost: high mana per second.

  - Cooldown: scales based on how long the skill is used.

  Gold

  Accelerates your perception of time, enabling you to experience twenty seconds for each second that passes outside.

  At high mana cost, you can increase your movement speed for one objective second, though this effect ends if you use another skill or an attack.

  [Take One Down, Pass It Around] (gold) - You may now halve the efficacy of this effect to split it with one ally within 120 feet of you.

  Time slowed down for him and Cinder at the same time.

  Cinder: This feels… strange. Is this one of your skills?

  Will: Yeah. Giving us a bit of breathing room to get rid of the incoming attack.

  Cinder: It’s nothing I can’t handle. Do you know how man competing plagues infest my body?

  Will: 38?

  Cinder: Don’t remind me. That was rhetorical.

  Will: Sorry.

  Cinder: They tried this on me. The… ESNA, I think you called them.

  Will: Regina’s group.

  From the bent of her messages, Will assumed that she was going to be fine. He didn’t mind chatting with her in the slowed time. Having his perception shattered into a thousand and one eyes had done wonders for his ability to multitask.

  Cinder sent a reply in the slowed time just as Will identified the weak point of one specific part of the Soul Fracture.

  Cinder: Yes. Long before you got them to back down. Early on, in the… when things were bad. They dropped a range extender item next to me and tried to shut me down with a collective effort from a dozen mind mages.

  Will: I didn’t even know the ESNA had mind mages. I haven’t been dealing with them much as of late.

  Cinder: It didn’t work. Every compulsion they set in my mind burned. When it comes to an implanted disease, the ones already built into me are stronger.

  Will: Good to know.

  Cinder: I can’t complain.

  Increasing the amount of mana he was spending let him increase his mobility for a short period of time, and he took the opportunity to activate Destructive Synthesis.

  This particular line of death was in an awkward spot. Will knew from his scouting skills that Rhodium had a bevy of personal defense skills that would trigger if he got too close, potentially stacking the deck against him, but the weak point of the skill was right next to the Hive alien. Killing the skill with a sword strike would almost certainly trigger failsafes.

  Fortunately, Will didn’t only have blades.

  The item he consumed this time was his Demonic Blast Scepter. Awarded in the trial of the champion as a top 32 reward, it was a silver-rank growth item that he had decided not to waste monster cores on upgrading. Those could be saved for his primary weapons, though he admitted to himself that Eclipse aside, his other sword was in dire need of some actual upgrades.

  This scepter in particular no longer served any real use for Will. It could attack with demonic magic, yes, but what use was that when he had the real deal in his head? He considered keeping it just in case he found a use for it, but he needed this attack to be at gold rank to match the Speaker of the Mind’s energy. Destructive Synthesis would grant that upgrade.

  Mana restored.

  You have gained the [Infernal Wrath] skill at gold rank for [24 hours].

  You have been inflicted with a level of [Corruption].

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  [Corruption Resistance] (gold) negates gold-rank [Corruption].

  Why the corruption? In the past, when he’d gained the affliction from using this skill, it had been because the item he’d been absorbing was too high a rank for him. What was the problem now?

  Then, a pulse of energy ran through his head, and he realized exactly what it had been as a foreign entity withinhim expressed something like a satisfied burp.

  Damn it. Richard, you dick. The demon in his eye had sensed energy that matched its own affinity and latched onto it, twisting the skill. Strenghtening it.

  At least it wasn’t interfering with him.

  Will fired the skill. It was almost identical to the one that had been in the item—a simple, concentrated blast of demonic energy that worked on line of sight. Will poured enough mana into it to make the detonation hit Rhodium, but the Speaker of the Mind wasn’t his main target. That was the skill, which didn’t die when he hit the weak point but was sufficiently weakened not to hit Will.

  You have inflicted a rank of gold-rank [Despair] on [Rhodium, Speaker of the Mind].

  [Mind Blank] negates gold-rank [Despair].

  Yeah, figures.

  As time accelerated again, Will fired off a second, then third activation of the same skill. He noted with some satisfaction that Rhodium’s condition was steadily getting worse. Even if he could shake off the pain, the combination of a mark, corruption, and the hellish landscape of what could only be described as the single most lethal location on Earth would have been an immediate death sentence for just about anyone else.

  As it was, Rhodium was not holding up well. He retaliated, but with his focus weakened by heat so scorching that it melt stone and his stats lowered by corruption, it was easy enough for Will and Cinder to fend it off or simply avoid the attacks.

  “Someone hasn’t been studying their type charts,” Will taunted. “Bug is weak to fire and rock. That’s a 4x weakness right there.”

  Cinder: You’re fighting an alien in a plague-infested supervolcano and the best you can do is a Pokemon joke?

  Will: You can hear me?

  Cinder: I can hear everything that happens within my range of influence.

  Will winced at the unsaid implication. She’d heard everything she’d done, powerless to stop herself.

  Will: Would you have preferred Digimon?

  Cinder: Just finish this.

  He could sense her aura fluctuate throughout the entire volcano. His shitty attempt at distracting her had worked well enough, thankfully.

  That still left him with a gold-rank elite to deal with, but it was seeming like that wasn’t going to be much of a problem. Will and Cinder both had skills that made fights increasingly difficult for their enemies as they went along, and the particular circumstances of this one had proved to be overwehlmingly lopsided in their favor.

  Cinder: Also, I’m pretty sure your magic’s doing a lot, and I would class that as dark, which makes you weak to bug, so the entire analogy sort of falls apart.

  Will: You played Pokemon? Every novel request you’ve given me is for the steamiest romance I’ve ever seen. I still don’t know what exactly the appeal of a “reverse harem” is. That doesn’t mesh.

  Cinder: People can have one more than one personality trait.

  Will: Fuck. Why can’t you just make this simple?

  Cinder: Life rarely is.

  Rhodium must have sensed that he was on the losing end of this, because he quickly shifted from trying to throw out more offensive spells to chittering out something else, which Will’s translation skill roughly equated to “help me.”

  When the next skill came, Will sensed the magic come not from Rhodium but from outside.

  Caiyeri: I’m assuming one of the gold-rankers turning and leaving is your fault.

  Right. Humans weren’t the only ones who could use the chat, and Rhodium’s fellow Speakers were no slouches when it came to power. Neither had followed their companion through the Beyond, rightly assuming that this was a trap, but their magic had range unparalleled by any human.

  Will: Yeah, that was me. Everything alright there?

  Caiyeri: Just peachy, as your friends would say. They’re tough, but so are we.

  That probably meant Caiyeri and the others were at their limit. A woman after his own heart, the elf always shit-talked an enemy’s capabilities if she could find a single flaw with them.

  Will: Hang in there. If you’re evenly matched right now, I should be able to turn the tides once I get back. I’m almost wrapped up.

  Caiyeri: “I should be able to turn the tides.” Do you hear yourself? The day your ego shrinks smaller than Arcadia is the day our sun dies.

  Despite his ongoing fight, Will grinned. There was the Caiyeri he knew and loved.

  Will: Well, it’s definitely not going to be today. See you soon.

  Caiyeri: Looking forward to it.

  The skill—one of the other Speaker’s, presumably the Soul’s—matched the Speakers’ tendencies to have gold-rank magic that spanned distances far greater than any gold-ranker’s should have. At least there was precedent for this—all the otherworlders universally seemed to be stronger than someone of their rank should be, and Will was sure he’d get there eventually.

  This skill was an evacuation one. Just like Rhodium’s stunning spell, this wasn’t magic that the Speaker of the Soul had naturally gained. It was part of the expanded skill list that must have had something to do with the mechanism by which they’d gained their classes. Rather than the fear-oriented skills that made up the bulk of his “main” spell list, Iridium was casting a long-range summon. Intended to drag enemies closer to him, he was repurposing it as a way to get an ally out of danger.

  Unfortunately for both of them, Will could sense the magic coming from miles away. When he’d hit gold rank, his aura senses had exploded, months of intense training making themselves known as he’d adapted to his expanded power instantly.

  Will activated his next skill before the teleport even came close to hitting.

  You have spent one level of [Blessed] to negate the cooldown of [Ravenous Feast].

  Skill: [Ravenous Feast]

  - Spell (sigil).

  - Cost: very high mana. Life force (varies).

  - Cooldown: 12 hours -> 6 hours.

  Gold

  When a magical effect targets you, you can attempt to contest it with this skill and your aura. If you are able to match or overpower the skill, you can attempt to resist it with life force in order to negate a portion or all of its effects.

  Upon a full negation of the skill, you are refunded all of the mana expended to cast this skill (but not life force). You also gain mana and stamina proportionate to the amount of resources placed in the negated effect.

  [Overflow] (silver) - Excess mana and stamina is not discarded.

  [Bottomless Hunger] (gold) - A skill does not need to target you for you to devour it. If you successfully negate the skill, you can choose to redirect it instead of devouring it.

  Darkness exploded outwards. The incoming skill would have been ordinarily difficult to find weak points in even with Will’s power increase, but the raw power of Cinder’s environment weakened it enough for him to destroy the skill. He briefly considered redirecting it to target himself instead, but he decided that it was better to confirm this first kill before taking what would almost certainly be a very dicey one-on-one.

  He consumed the skill, restoring the mana and life force expenditure it had cost to do so.

  Rhodium’s defenses finally ran out, and he caught on fire. His carapace was melting and burning and dissolving from the inside out at the same time, painting a morbid picture of exactly what the two most evil powersets on Earth had to offer.

  Cinder: You should take this kill. You need it more than I do.

  Will: Got it. One more attack should do it.

  Skill: [The Bell Tolls]

  - Spell (esoteric).

  - Cost: high mana.

  - Cooldown: 1 hour.

  Gold.

  Cleanses all afflictions from you and targets a creature you can see. The creature cannot benefit from magical healing for the next minute. Inflicts necrotic damage scaling with the consumed afflictions and any injuries the target is suffering from.

  [Withering Decay] (bronze) - Death approaches. Increases any affliction on the target by one level. Inflicts one level of [Wither].

  [Escape is Futile] (silver) - Cooldown resets if the target dies.

  [The Clock Strikes Twelve] (gold) - Inflicts true damage instead of necrotic damage. You may now also target any creature that you have affected with a skill in the last 24 hours.

  A bell tolled, and the Hive alien’s suffering ended.

  You have defeated [Rhodium, Speaker of the Mind].

  Achievement earned: First Contact

  You are the first Earth native to kill an extraterrestrial User* during your cycle. Given your previous achievements, it is reasonable to assume that you have set the tone for future negotiations. Congratulations on first contact. It won’t be the last.

  *This does not count extraterrestrials that interfered with the cycle. This also does not count extraterrestrials that were killed on their native planets.

  Reward: You have earned a platinum-rank [Full Restore Potion]. You may need it.

  The bug-like humanoid crumpled into diseased ash, corruption eating away at even the bones of what had once been a powerful gold-ranker.

  Will sensed a great deal of magic releasing from the corpse, though this wasn’t the kind that was attached to a skill and therefore relatively simple to kill. Ranking up didn’t reset cooldowns, so he’d had to use his last level of Blessed in order to use Ravenous Feast just moments ago. As such, he didn’t have a way to eliminate the unfiltered magic from simply escaping.

  Though he couldn’t trace it, he could identify what it was. At gold rank, Pages of the Past, an intelligence skill he hadn’t had reason to use very frequently, now gave more detail than it had before.

  His suspicions as to what it was were confirmed once he scanned it.

  Will: One gold-rank elite down. Looks like his power’s returning to his planet, though. Looks like this is a hereditary class of sorts. Whoever was second in line for the position is going to receive most of his power, but hopefully they’re a good deal weaker than he was.

  Caiyeri: Heard loud and clear. Are you done on your end? Think the other dickhead’s coming back.

  Will: Yeah. One moment.

  Rather than address Cinder through the chat, he made his way down to her chamber, inventorying Rhodium’s corpse and the various pieces of equipment he’d had on.

  “Good work,” he told her, glad for his upgraded Equilibrium Mantle. With it at gold rank, it felt like a slightly uncomfortable warmth instead of a near unbearable heat in here. “I appreciate your willingness to help.”

  “Of course,” she said, letting the cocoon of magma around her fall into the lava pool around her. “That thing wasn’t human. Does that have to do with the other planet?”

  “Yeah. They came from the other planet, which I’m pretty sure is a lot less tolerant of people like us there.”

  “I can imagine why.”

  “So can I, but the fact remains that we’ve still got a world to save,” Will said, shrugging. “That was the only one that one hundred percent needed to die. The others… well, we’ll see. Stay on standby if you can?”

  “Of course,” Cinder said. “I’m always ready. Thanks for the last dump of books, by the way. They’ve been nice.”

  “Thank god the system lets me scan books,” Will sighed. “I think I would have gone insane trying to copy down… what was it, a milking farm?”

  “It’s called romance and it’s art,” Cinder said haughtily.

  Will chuckled, happy to see that she was slowly recovering. “I’ll take your word for it. I’m gonna bounce now. See ya.”

  “Good luck out there.”

  Caiyeri: Other dickhead’s definitely coming back. Take your time, though. It’s only a bunch of lives on the line.

  Will: I’m coming, I’m coming. Jeez.

  He slipped into the Beyond, then back to the portal he’d come in through.

  And then immediately started falling.

  Will: Oh, I left my portal like two miles up.

  He did see the other two Speakers, though. They weren’t quite where he’d left them. Both of them were far closer to the ground now and practically swamped in magical effects both friendly and hostile.

  Will: I’m going to try taking a page out of their playbook.

  While he didn’t have a skill to project his voice like the Speakers did (fittingly enough, he thought), he did have another option.

  #

  “Rhodium is dead,” Iridium said. “There will be a new Speaker of the Mind, now.”

  “Regrettable, but inevitable-doomed,” Osmium replied. “He was always too careless. The corruption wielder’s fault?”

  “Yes. He has returned. Ignore the others. Kill the corruptor.”

  A flash of mana besides them had Iridium acting on instinct, firing a blast of fear at it.

  “I would appreciate if you didn’t do that,” said a new presence. It barely registered to Iridium’s eyes, even though it was a gold-rank. A familiar.

  “You are interfering,” Iridium said. “Step aside. Our only quarrel-business is with the corruption wielder.”

  “What a coincidence,” said the presence, who Iridium now registered was a winged angel-like familiar. “The name’s Aza. I have a message from him.”

  “I’m going to kill it,” Osmium said.

  “Wait,” Iridium interjected, antenna twitching. “Speak, familiar.”

  “You got it,” Aza said. “He says, and I quote: ‘hey, fuckass. Can we stop killing each other for fifteen seconds and talk? I’m not the biggest threat to the cycle on this planet by a long shot.’ End quote.”

  The familiar disappeared, leaving a very two confused Hive members behind.