Chapter 131: [VOID]
The smell came first.
Not of death — death was a smell Kai knew from the underground rings, from the alleyways where someone waited too long to call for help. This was something else. Organic matter that hadn’t decided if it was rotting or transforming.
Mara detected it at five hundred meters.
"Nausea," she said.
"Already?" Serah said.
"In a minute."
Kai felt the acid in his throat at four hundred meters. The resonance Qi responded without him deciding it — the air’s frequency clashing with his, the Qi filtering by default.
The nausea cut off.
Mara looked at him.
"You?"
"Not anymore."
"And us."
Kai looked at her.
He moved two steps closer to Serah, two to Lira, two to Mara.
All three within two meters of him.
The nausea cut off for all three.
---
[DraconicLegacy]: THE QI FILTERING THE AIR FOR ALL THREE. without Kai deciding it.
[Stephen_Summers]: two steps to each. two-meter radius. passive shield.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ same as with the time magic. the Qi protects those nearby. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: Kai didn’t think it. he did it. instinct.
[Bangsund]: the borderland Streamer said it. "the Qi that emanates from you also protects those near you." confirmed.
[Drakeking]: two meters. three people. if they separate more than two meters they lose the protection.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ the shield’s radius matters. Kai is going to have to keep them close the whole fight. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
The first corpses were at two hundred meters.
Creatures. At first.
A deer from the eastern sector with its jaw split by its own weight. Teeth grown backward instead of forward. Legs bent the wrong way at the joints.
Beside it, another smaller creature, unidentified. Mouth where the eyes should be.
Five meters beyond, three bodies that had been wolves and no longer were.
Serah stopped for a second in front of the three bodies.
She kept going.
---
[DraconicLegacy]: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ the bodies.
[Stephen_Summers]: mouth in place of the eyes. that’s what active corruption does.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Serah stopped for a second. wolves. that affects her more than she’ll admit. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: backward teeth. reversed legs. anatomy as a suggestion.
[Bangsund]: someone passing by for the first time. I’m reading this at work and I already regret it.
[Drakeking]: @Bangsund welcome. bad time to arrive but you arrived.
[Zerox]: the fresh corpses and the rotted ones. [VOID] has been doing this for weeks.
---
At a hundred meters the forest changed.
Trees with bark that moved when no one looked at it directly. The ground with stains of the wrong color. The air visibly denser — you could see it was air, something air normally doesn’t allow.
A creature detected them.
It lunged from the left — something with four legs and too many mouths, moving faster than the structure of its body should allow.
Serah intercepted it midair.
Her claws found the throat.
They fell to the ground.
Serah got up. The creature didn’t.
"Black blood," Serah said. Looking at her claw.
"Don’t touch the skin with it," Mara said. "Whatever gets into those creatures."
Serah wiped her claw on the ground.
---
[DraconicLegacy]: black blood. Serah wiped it on the ground. without saying more.
[Stephen_Summers]: the creature moving faster than its body allows. corruption breaks the body’s rules.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Serah intercepted midair. full primordial reflex. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: Mara warning about the blood. she knows something about corruption she hadn’t mentioned.
[Bangsund]: trees with bark that moves when no one looks. that’s worse than if it moved all the time.
[Drakeking]: the dense air, visible. Kai’s Qi is filtering it but outside the two-meter radius there’s that.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Serah, Lira, and Mara glued to Kai. not by choice. by necessity. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
The center of the area was a clearing.
Not natural. Circular. The ground black, absorbing light instead of reflecting it.
In the center, a man.
Standing. No visible active system, though Kai knew it was active — HUDs had signatures you could detect with Qi if you knew how to look. With his own stream running. With forty-eight million viewers according to the counter visible from where they stood.
Dressed in white.
In the middle of the black clearing, in the middle of the corrupted forest, in white.
He watched them arrive.
He smiled.
"You made it," he said. "I’ve been waiting for you."
---
[DraconicLegacy]: dressed in white. in the center of the black clearing. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ
[Stephen_Summers]: 48 million viewers. six more than the borderland one. this one is higher up in A_D_M’s system.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ "I’ve been waiting for you" ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: he knew they were coming. he knew when. the borderland Streamer knew too.
[Bangsund]: 48 million watching this. watching us too now. inter-stream viewer.
[Drakeking]: the white in the middle of everything else. deliberate. showing the corruption doesn’t affect him.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ [VOID] smiles. no smile in this arc has ended well. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
Kai stopped at ten meters.
"Are you [VOID]?"
"That’s the name A_D_M gave me." He smiled wider. "I prefer my own, but A_D_M doesn’t ask when they register."
"What’s yours?"
"It doesn’t matter." He spread his arms as if showing the clearing. "Here I’m [VOID]. Here is what I am."
Serah had her markings active. Lira her glasses off — red eyes reading the terrain. Mara with her arms loose.
[VOID] looked at the three of them.
He stopped on Kai.
"Rankless. No record. No official summons." He tilted his head. "We’re alike."
"No."
"We’re both something A_D_M shouldn’t have here."
"I didn’t kill creatures or corrupt a forest."
[VOID] laughed.
"Yet."
---
[DraconicLegacy]: "here I’m [VOID]. here is what I am." — full introduction.
[Stephen_Summers]: he prefers his name but prefers the other one more. that’s a functional psychopath.
[Warwolf]: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ "yet." HE LAUGHED. "YET."
[Martijn_Wiersma]: comparing himself to Kai. Kai rejected it twice. [VOID] said it three times.
[Bangsund]: 48 million viewers watching someone tell Kai they’re alike. what do they think?
[Drakeking]: @Bangsund some are going to believe him. that’s the problem with [VOID]. criminal audiences don’t think like Kai’s.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Kai firm. doesn’t give an inch on the comparison. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
"Why do you do this?" Kai said.
[VOID] looked around. At the corrupted forest. At the stains on the ground. At the dense air.
"Because I can." Simple. "Because A_D_M brought me here to do worse things than I did in my world and didn’t tell me how far to go. I’m figuring it out."
"And the bodies?"
"The bodies are consequences." He smiled again. "Corruption needs something to corrupt. It started with fungi. Then plants. Then the smaller creatures. Now the big ones."
"And after?"
[VOID] looked at him.
He didn’t answer.
He looked at Serah.
Looked at Lira.
Looked at Mara.
Back to Kai.
"I’m going to do a demonstration."
---
[DraconicLegacy]: HE DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION "AND AFTER?"
[Stephen_Summers]: visible escalation. fungi, plants, small creatures, large ones. the next category is obvious.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ "I’m going to do a demonstration" ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: he looked at the three before saying it. they’re the demonstration.
[Bangsund]: 48 million waiting for the demonstration too. [VOID]’s chat is different from us.
[Drakeking]: someone with 48 million viewers asking for escalation. that chat demands blood.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Serah, Lira, and Mara with their bodies ready. Kai too. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
[VOID] extended his hands.
Not toward Kai — toward the clearing.
The black ground trembled. The stains of the surrounding forest coordinated. The dense air concentrated.
And the corruption launched itself at the group.
Not a creature. Not a physical attack. Area — the entire clearing becoming an active agent, seeking the three bodies that weren’t Kai.
Serah raised her primordial aura.
The corruption absorbed it and kept going.
Lira launched the blood mist.
The corruption absorbed it and kept going.
Mara with her gray aura.
The corruption found the thin points in two seconds.
---
Kai’s resonance Qi rose to 100% without him deciding it.
Not released in one direction — at 100% in all directions.
The two-meter nausea radius expanded to five. To ten. To fifteen.
The corruption reached the edge of the radius.
It couldn’t enter.
It crashed against the Qi’s frequency and dispersed outside, searching for another way, finding none that wasn’t Kai.
Serah inside the radius. Lira inside. Mara inside.
All three untouched.
---
[System — update]
[Resonance Qi — new application registered]
[Active area shield — radius 15 meters]
[It was not deliberate]
[It happened anyway]
[The system updates the list of things Kai does without deciding]
---
[DraconicLegacy]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ FIFTEEN METERS ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Stephen_Summers]: primordial aura absorbed. blood mist absorbed. gray aura with thin points. Kai’s Qi the only thing corruption couldn’t process.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ the system noting "it was not deliberate. it happened anyway." that system already has a preformatted form for Kai ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: corruption trying to enter. finding no way. that’s frequency incompatibility again.
[Bangsund]: fifteen meters of passive shield. that’s enormous. the borderland chat said Qi was unique. now we see it at scale.
[Drakeking]: all three untouched inside the radius. Kai without deciding anything. pure instinct.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ the #Sinpaisaje chat breathing. the girls are okay. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
[VOID] lowered his hands.
The corruption retracted to the clearing.
He looked at Kai.
He was no longer smiling as before — something more specific. Real interest. The smile that appears when someone finds what they came looking for.
"There it is."
Kai looked at him.
"That’s what I came to see."
---
[DraconicLegacy]: "THERE IT IS. THAT’S WHAT I CAME TO SEE."
[Stephen_Summers]: [VOID] wasn’t corrupting the eastern sector for fun. he was doing it to draw Kai in.
[Warwolf]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ 12 events in 90 days. ALL OF THEM WERE BAIT. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[Martijn_Wiersma]: the demonstration wasn’t against the girls. it was to force Kai’s shield. [VOID] wanted to see it.
[Bangsund]: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ A_D_M sent the report knowing Kai would go. [VOID] expected him. chain of coordinated events.
[Drakeking]: the smile changed. no longer a psychopath playing. someone who got information.
[Zerox]: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Kai firm at the center of the clearing. the three behind him. [VOID] with the answer he wanted. the real fight starts next. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
---
[System — notification]
[Current viewers: 22,300,000]
[Resonance Qi shield — 15 meters — sustained]
[[VOID]’s active corruption — retracted to the clearing]
[The system notes that [VOID] was specifically waiting for Kai]
[The system notes that the 12 previous events were probably bait]
[The system has no information about why]
[Yet]