The Great Core's Paradox

Laying in my little carved-out nook a few slithers below the Coreless, tail caught securely within my mouth, I had some time to figure things out.

I needed that time. Needed that bit of safety that it gave while I figured things out.

Another mind was poking and prodding at mine. One that had far more depth than the spore-puppets that I was used to controlling. Those were simple; easy to understand, easy to control.

My newest minion was not; unlike with my spore-puppets, I could feel him resisting. Trying, anyway. Pushing at the link between us, some small, hidden part of him trying to exert his own will. I could have let it free, I guessed. Could have given him close to the same level of awareness and free will as he had in life, only a few changes marking him as different from before.

I didn’t do any of that.

Instead, I pushed back, crushing that resistance with ease. It came naturally, as if I were a giant bad-thing and the undead Coreless were a helpless small-thing scuttling underfoot. The natural order of things.

That thought made me sick; it reminded me of how easily the same thing had been done to me, when the Death Core stole me away from the Great Core. But I pushed through it anyway. This was different.

The now-undead Coreless had already turned away from the Great Core. I was just bringing him back into the light, kicking and screaming.

When he finally understood the gift that I was giving him - if he ever understood - I was sure that he’d feel much better about things - but, for now, I was forced to keep the vast majority of his mind pushed down into the dark. Bits of thought and memory played against the outer edges of my mind, incomprehensible things that I didn’t have the time or ability to interpret, but his emotions - dulled and distant though they were - were easier to understand. Similar enough to the connection that I had to the bearers of the [Little Guardian’s Totem]s that I could figure out what he was feeling.

He wasn’t enjoying this. I wasn’t surprised. That was okay, for now. His mind pushed a little harder against my control, an uncomfortable tingling pressing against my head-scales, and that was less okay.

I shoved him all the way into the dark.

With that done, I focused on turning my newest minion towards his fellow blasphemers. My newest minion wouldn’t last terribly long; I could already tell that the death essence keeping him going was starting to fade, sacrificed in order to temporarily allow his lifeless body to continue moving.

But he would last long enough - and at least when his body eventually failed, it would do so while serving the Great Core.

A much better death than he might have otherwise had.

A gift, really.

Leo had always taken pride in his position as the mine’s Overseer. Taken pride in what it allowed him - a strength far greater than most, with armor and weapons that allowed him to beat back the strongest of monsters. Where some of his underlings’ gear had minor flaws - not many, but some - Leo’s was flawless. Able to hold its barrier of wind for longer, and able to extend his Windspear’s reach beyond what the others’ could.

Even then, he had never fought an Ascended before.

Not before today.

It had been stupid to think that they would take one down so easily; the things were creatures of legend. And now, Devon was paying the price for their idiocy as he lay there on the ground, wounded and screaming.

But there wasn’t anything they could do for the man. Leo just hoped he survived. It wasn’t looking good for him.

His fingers tightened around the shaft of his spear, flexing nervously. Sweating under his armor, the dribbles running in itchy lines between his fingers. He wasn’t sure why he was paying so much attention to that. It wasn’t like that was worth noticing; he was wearing gauntlets. His grip would hold.

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Shaking himself out of his shock.

“Defenses up! Get that thing out of the ground!” Leo shouted. It was enough to break his underlings out of their own fugue, and they quickly hopped to, activating their Wind Barriers and stabbing at the ground where the Ascended had disappeared, each thrust stopping just short of actually touching the stone before a blade of wind extended outwards, smashing against it.

The stone cracked oddly in places. Too easily. It was brittle. Soon enough, a tiny tunnel started to form from those odd pieces as they shattered into dust, one just large enough for the equally-tiny Ascended to slither through. Still, their thrusts managed to follow its path, reaching further and further into the ground.

And then the worst possible thing happened. The damn thing had turned - and, suddenly, thrusting downwards just wasn’t good enough anymore, and they were forced to break through pieces of stone that were far more resistant to their efforts to find it again.

The hairs on the back of his neck rising, Leo pushed harder on his armor’s enchantments, expending extra charge in order to more fully encase himself in wind - a sudden bout of paranoia bringing thoughts of the snake sneaking its way upwards again and doing the same to him that it had to Devon.

It was only because of that bout of paranoia that he survived what came next.

Without warning, the recently-intensified barrier around Leo flared as its defenses started to break. The change in pressure was enough for the Overseer to jerk his body to the side in a burst of motion, letting a glowing piece of metal trace a glancing line across his armored side instead of landing more directly. Metal scraped against metal with a deafening shriek.

Leo let the misaligned blow turn him further, swinging around and bringing his own spear to bear, heart full of fury - because that hadn’t been a monster. He was sure that that idiot thief, David, had stolen Devon’s spear and tried to take advantage during the confusion. Leo hadn’t been planning to kill him for his failure to throw the null-water earlier - just rough him up a little bit - but now…

The thought never finished.

It hadn’t been David.

“D-Devon?” he stammered. The man didn’t look right; not at all. Black lines like inky tendrils grew across the surface of his face, a jet-black scrawl that wrote of sickness and death. Behind the sickly guard, David was still backed into the same corner as before. Notably not holding a spear. Just his apparently-retrieved bucket of null-water, held up as if it were a shield. He wasn’t the problem. Not right now.

Leo ignored the thief, focusing on his fellow guard instead.

The fellow guard that immediately tried to stab him again. It was a poor thrust, and Leo easily deflected it. Devon had always been a slacker when it came to practice with his spear, and it showed. And the man wasn’t in his best form, either.

He moved oddly, stepping forward in jerking, stuttering motions that weren’t nearly quick enough to catch Leo off guard.

“The fuck you doing, Devon?” Leo barked, recovering enough for his surprise to shift towards anger. “Put the fucking spear down before I put you down.”

Devon didn’t listen, just staring back at Leo with an annoyingly slack jaw. Made him look like an idiot. Black-flecked saliva dribbled down his lower lip, and the man thrust his spear forward again.

Slowed by his barrier of wind, Leo easily batted the thrust aside, pushed forward, and made good on his threat.

The tip of his spear found its way into a joint of Devon’s armor, reaching past the man’s raised arm and thrusting up through his armpit. Leo followed through with it, too, activating the spear’s enchantment and sending a blade of wind through the wound, tearing his insides up further as he pushed metal and wind all the way through, only stopping when their bodies pressed together and he could push no further.

Devon’s blood bled black, spilling from his mouth and mixing with the lesser black of his saliva - but he refused to fall. Instead, he abandoned his spear, teeth snapping at Leo’s face like an animal. The Overseer just barely managed to save his nose, leaning backwards.

He couldn’t help but notice that his former friend’s breath smelled like weeks-old carrion and rot. Still, as horrifying as that was, Leo was fine. He would win.

Someone screamed behind him, and Leo’s confidence wisped away.

Somehow, he had forgotten about the Ascended below them.

Fuck.

That was a much bigger problem than Devon, as confusing a problem as Devon’s betrayal was. He pushed the black-bleeding guard aside. The man fell, and Leo used the momentum to pull his spear free again.

“You! Thief!” Leo bellowed, projecting his voice so that it would raise over the wind and the screams. “Give me that Skies-damned null-water!”

More than ever, Leo was sure that it would be needed to kill the Ascended. Stabbing the damn thing wasn’t enough last time, and he wasn’t going to just hope that it would be the next.

The thief shook his head, eyes wide. Leo scowled, stepping towards him.

Devon stood up again to block his path, and the Overseer stabbed him again.

Just like before, it didn’t seem to take.

Devon just stood back up, standing in the way again.