I Can Purify Corruption Through Intimacy in the Apocalypse

A few minutes earlier…

“I have a question.”

Lucien looked at the three of them in turn before continuing.

“Lynn told me the Hollow has a habit of striking suddenly and retreating the moment it's injured. But what exactly does its attack pattern look like?”

Most Hollows tended to have recognizable patterns once someone survived long enough to observe them. The Hollow Knight, for example, relied heavily on shield charges, swordplay, and sudden bursts of aggression. The problem was that what Lucien currently knew about the Spider Hollow was still too broad to be truly useful.

He knew it could manipulate web-like threads. He knew it attacked with its claws. He knew it was extremely fast.

What he didn't know was how those traits translated into actual combat behavior.

Calla fell silent for a moment as she gathered her thoughts.

“...We've only encountered it a handful of times, so maybe our observations aren't completely accurate.” Her expression tightened slightly. “However, there is one thing that stayed the same in every fight—it always attacked from directly above us.”

Her gaze lowered for a moment.

“Rena got caught during one of those attacks. It... ate her face.”

The room fell silent.

Selva's expression darkened at once, her lips pressing into a thin line as she looked away.

“Rena?”

Lucien recognized the name at once.

Rena was a mercenary. He had worked with her several times before, and she wasn't weak by any standard. If someone with her experience had failed to react in time, then the Spider Hollow was even more dangerous than he had initially assumed.

“Yes.”

Calla exhaled quietly through her nose.

The memory clearly wasn't a pleasant one, but she continued anyway.

“After that, it retreated immediately. Then it tried to do the same thing again later, but by then we were expecting it.”

Lucien gave a slow nod, signaling for her to continue.

“At some point, it starts targeting anyone who becomes even slightly separated from the group.” She raised one hand and made a short slashing motion through the air. “Most of its close-range attacks come from its front claws. If we create distance, it'll either lunge at us or use its hair like a whip.”

Her tone became a little more confident as she reached a subject she was familiar with.

“We've managed to learn the telegraphs for those attacks, at least.”

“Anything else?” Lucien asked.

Calla thought for a moment before shaking her head.

“Not that I've noticed.”

Lucien remained silent for a few seconds, organizing the information in his head.

“That's already enough.”

“Well, I do have a question,” Aldren interjected.

Lucien turned toward him.

“Are you sure it's blind?”

One of Lucien's brows rose slightly.

“Why?”

“Because it managed to avoid some of my attacks.” Aldren folded his arms across his chest, a faint frown forming as he recalled the encounter. “Not all of them, but enough that it felt deliberate.”

That immediately caught Lucien's attention.

“Did it dodge before or after you started moving?”

Aldren paused to think.

“After.”

Lucien nodded.

“Then it's probably reacting to movement, sound, or vibrations rather than actually seeing you.”

His gaze drifted toward the distant rooftop where the Spider Hollow continued pacing back and forth.

“Blind doesn't necessarily mean unaware. And to be honest, I'm not even completely certain it's blind.”

Back in his old world, he'd once spent an embarrassingly long time reading about spiders after briefly wondering whether one could be kept as a pet. One thing that had surprised him was just how poor the eyesight of most spider species actually was. Instead, they relied on other senses. Some could detect even the slightest changes in air currents through specialized sensory hairs, allowing them to react to movement without ever seeing it directly.

A punch thrown toward them, for example, might be detected long before it landed.

The Spider Hollow, however, wasn't necessarily a spider.

The name was merely a convenient classification. Just because it possessed web-based abilities didn't automatically mean it shared the same biological traits.

Making assumptions based on uncertain information was a good way to get people killed, and Lucien had no intention of building a plan on something he couldn't verify.

After a moment, a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Whether it's blind or not won't matter much for the plan I'm proposing.” Lucien lightly tossed the stone in his hand before catching it again. “All we need to do is make its speed useless.”

***

Now.

The instant Aldren avoided the Spider Hollow's attack, he reached into his clothing and threw something at the creature while it was still crouched on the ground from its landing.

Crack!

A glass container shattered against its body.

Almost immediately, the Hollow's limbs spasmed. Its shoulders jerked violently, its clawed hands scraping against the pavement as its entire body convulsed.

Hollowed Disruption Compound.

“Ergónis mótu, ignis voláre!”

Calla had been waiting for exactly that moment.

Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she completed the chant, one hand thrusting forward without hesitation. The air around her palm shimmered briefly before a blazing sphere of fire surged across the street.

FWOOSH—BOOM!

The Spider Hollow instinctively curled inward while suffering the disruption, and the fireball struck it squarely from above. Flames erupted across its upper body, forcing its frame downward before slamming it into the pavement hard enough to crack the stone beneath it.

A shrill, distorted screech tore from its throat.

SKREEEE—!

Now.

Lucien's expression sharpened.

There was a reason he had positioned himself only a few meters from Aldren.

The moment the Hollow hit the ground, he released Shadow Concealment and moved.

His body surged forward.

One step.

Two.

Three.

The distance disappeared instantly.

The Spider Hollow was already beginning to recover. Its limbs twitched. Its head jerked upward. One claw dug into the pavement as it tried to push itself back to its feet. But it’s not fast enough.

Lucien launched himself onto its back, both daggers were already in his hands.

As he raised them, he willed the Weave's power into the blades. A warm yet overwhelming sensation flowed through the steel, golden-black strands of energy briefly coiling along the edges before settling around them like a faint aura.

Corruption Strike.

Lucien's face remained calm, but his eyes were completely focused as he drove both daggers downward with all the force he could muster.

SCHLK!

SCHLK!

The blades punched through flesh and sank deep into the Spider Hollow's skull.

The creature froze.

For the briefest moment, everything seemed to stop.

Then its entire body convulsed beneath him.

GRAAAAAH!

The Hollow bucked violently.

The sudden surge of strength threw Lucien off its back before he could react. He let himself go rather than cling on, leaving both daggers buried in the creature's skull, but even then he nearly paid for it. One of the Hollow's claws lashed through the air during its frenzy, passing close enough that he felt the rush of displaced air against his face.

Instinctively, he raised both arms to shield himself.

Scrrrk!

Pain flared across his forearms as the claws grazed them.

A moment later, he hit the ground and rolled roughly across the pavement before finally coming to a stop.

“Lucien!”

He heard hurried footsteps approaching.

Before he could fully push himself upright, Selva dropped to one knee beside him.

“Stay still.”

Her voice carried an urgency that left little room for argument.

She pressed a palm against his forehead.

“Zoḗgennis vī, caro vivat!”

A warm sensation immediately spread through his body. It wasn't entirely pleasant—there was a faint stinging discomfort accompanying it—but the pain in his arms rapidly faded nonetheless.

Lucien flexed his fingers experimentally before letting out a small breath.

“Thanks.”

Selva offered a quick nod before turning her attention back toward the battlefield.

Lucien followed her gaze.

The Spider Hollow was weakening.

Even after becoming Hollows, the brain often remained one of the most critical parts of their bodies.

Corruption Strike enhanced the force of melee attacks while injecting Abyssal or Weave Corruption directly into the target. Against Hollowed creatures, the effect was particularly destructive.

And from everything he had observed through Corruption Detection, it was also where the greatest concentration of Corruption accumulated. If there was any place worth targeting, it was there. Which was exactly why he had aimed for it first.

There was another reason as well.

From the knowledge the System had granted him after his relationship with Seren advanced, he had learned that Weave—the world's equivalent of mana—naturally opposed Abyssal energy. When a sufficient amount of one was suddenly forced into the other without warning, the result was often instability, disorientation, or outright confusion.

Exactly like what the Spider Hollow had just experienced.

“Should I go in?” Aldren asked, his grip tightening around his sword as he watched the creature thrash.

“If you want to die, be my guest.”

Calla's answer came immediately and without a trace of sympathy.

The Spider Hollow's limbs were still lashing around unpredictably. Even someone as fast as Aldren would struggle to get close without risking injury.

Aldren grimaced but wisely stayed where he was.

Instead, Calla lifted a hand and calmly prepared another spell.

“Ergónis mótu, ignis voláre.”

A second fireball streaked across the street.

FWOOSH—BOOM!

The impact slammed into the Hollow's upper body and engulfed part of it in flames.

After that, the creature's movements noticeably weakened.

A few twitches remained. One claw scraped weakly against the stone. Its body jerked once, then again.

And then nothing.

The street fell silent.

Still, nobody dared to move.

Only after the Hollow remained completely motionless did the tension finally leave their shoulders.

Aldren let out a long breath.

Calla lowered her hand.

Selva's expression softened in visible relief.

And beside them, Lucien quietly exhaled as well.

A moment later, a familiar notification appeared at the edge of his vision.

[+100 CP & +28 XP]