World Filter

Hours had passed since they had left the pastry shop and made their way through the night. Mark panted as another [Force bolt] tore into a shrieking Ghast, causing a Ghost latched onto its side to abandon its host and lunge for Mark. A secondary force bolt turned it into a mist of viscera.

Jonathan stood over a Titan and crushed its skull with his fist in a concrete-splitting strike. Blood flowed down his back and cheek.

Sam had been sticking to mostly blades of wind, but the most recent pack had forced her to employ more destructive tactics by flinging earth and ice around.

They had been fighting constant skirmishes for a while now and while the group could handle most Corrupted in a direct fight, they were being swarmed. There was barely enough time for Sam to shout where they were going before running into their current situation.

Ghasts dived at them in an attempt to separate, while Titans and humanoid Corrupted would go in for the kill.

All of this struggle was caused by a new type of Corrupted and while not particularly dangerous on its own it was giving them huge amounts of trouble. Visually it didn't look like much but it was just as dangerous as any of the other evolved creatures, if not more so.

It looked to be made up of three Ordinators fused at the hips. Its legs were fixed in place, growing out of the concrete like some demonic daisy and while was unable to move its true strength lay in its ability to command the surrounding Corrupted. Three heads looked around in all directions, so there was no blind spot. It was like a much more potent version of an Ordinator, but more than just directing the flow of Corrupted this thing could manage and build formations from the Corrupted’s ranks.

Like a commander in battle, it watched their group and changed the formation to counter their strategies. It felt like they were on a chess board and the damned thing was toying with them.

Four large Titans protected it and would block any ranged attacks aimed at the thing. They soon figured out that sitting back and continuing to fire was impossible because then it sent its Ghasts to disrupt and divert. Giving the Ghouls on top of the surrounding buildings time to return fire. Mark wasn't sure where they came from but Ghosts latched onto the Corrupted and would make a jump of them if their host was killed. Making fighting the Corrupted even harder.

Their saving grace was the fact that the Corrupted were slow to follow its orders or they were fighting against its influence. This left them gaps to exploit and caused the enemy's formation's effectiveness to drop but even still the group could not advance or retreat, they were stuck.

“Cara now!” Sam shouted as she finished the spell.

Suddenly Cara appeared from nowhere and grabbed onto the football-shaped rock in front of Sam.

Tucking it under her arm she disappeared, taking the rock with her.

Reappearing a moment later, right next to the Corrupted orchestrating this roadblock. Then, just as quickly as she arrived she disappeared once more, leaving the spell floating right in front of the thing's face.

Sam clenched her fist and the spell went off with a bang of shrapnel. Unluckily for it, the creature didn’t seem to be much more resistant than a normal Ordinator and the spell ripped through it.

Right away the surrounding Corrupted were thrown into chaos, their formations fell apart, and they all charged at the group at once.

The three of them regrouped and cut their way through the hoard placing their backs against the brickwork of a nearby building.

Mark kept a construct flush against the wall to give them room to fight. [Force bolt] helped him get rid of the small fry while Jonathan dealt with the Titans.

Sam's hands manipulated multiple spells in an effort to clear the Ghouls. The horde put them under enormous pressure but in the end, the only things left standing were Sam, Mark, and Jonathan.

Mark took a look around the street that had become a graveyard.

“Cara!” he called.

A second later she appeared.

“You know you told me to keep a lookout? Well there are a lot more flying guys coming here”

“Thanks, Cara, we are going to try and lose our tail through one of these factories,” Sam said to all of them.

Mark agreed, his Prana was at the halfway mark and his Mana was practically gone he would welcome some breathing room.

They entered a large open-plan factory with very little in it. The ceiling was three stories up and Mark could see the metal underside of the roof.

“Watch the roof for Ghasts. I took shelter in a building similar to this one a while ago and it turned out to be a Ghast nest.” Mark said while keeping his eyes trained toward the ceiling for any sign of movement but as they ventured deeper, it turned out he was worrying over nothing.

That was until they got to the center of the factory and came across what looked like a large hill of ichor. It was moving almost imperceptibly.

“Yeah, no. Can we go around that?” Cara said.

“This is the part in the horror movie where the big monster explodes out of that pile of goo”

Since embarking on the journey with them, Cara had started to speak her mind a lot more and open up to them, Sam and her had formed a close bond in such a short time.

“Lucky for you the kid always survives to movie” Jonathan snickered.

“Hey!-”

Mark stopped concentrating on their conversation and looked up towards the ceiling, he saw no break in the roof. His eyes fell on the heap. Corruption swirled in it like a crackling bonfire. As far as he could tell it was just a Collection of the stuff but he couldn’t be sure.

Sam spoke up.

“We should probably just keep moving, right now this is not our priority.”

They all nodded getting back on target. Though Mark noticed Jonathan looking back at it with an almost disappointed expression almost as if he wanted something to jump out.

They changed course slightly and moved over to the next building. This one was empty and when they exited out into the road they had lost their pursuers.

Though rest would have been nice they had to keep moving. First light was minutes away and they were still a good ways off from home.

When the sun was up hopefully they would be able to pick up the pace.

Continuing on they entered an area with high rises. None of the buildings were lower than the fifth floor. The sun was beginning to peek out from behind the horizon, causing the building's shadows to stretch and warp.

The change of scenery was gradual and because of this Mark only noticed the odd feature of the area when they turned a corner and came face to face with an empty street filled with unnatural life.

On either side of the road, plant-like vines were growing up and out of little hills of ichor. Mark looked closer and realized they resembled something more along the lines of kelp. They swayed gently in the air as if currents were causing the movement. There were varying sizes, with some of them no bigger than Mark's arm, while others reached halfway up the sides of the highrises. The stuff was opaque and as the morning sunlight defused through the body of the plant it cast a gentle light onto its surroundings. The sight was incredible, Mark felt like he was sitting on the ocean floor looking up at the churning waves. Then he remembered that this stuff came from Corruption and though the scene was incredible it gave off an ominous beauty. As they approached the area Mark noticed the kelp never reacted or moved, good thing too because the last thing he wanted to do was to fight plants.

Sam was staring at the kelp in excitement.

“Damn, I really want a sample of these things, it looks like seaweed but look at that venous network, aquatic plants don’t usually have that type of nutrient structure”

Mark figured she meant the delicate veins flowing through the length of the stalks. Though it was difficult to see them as they weren’t black like he was used to seeing. Instead, they were a faint blue.

“They are an unknown we should keep moving, mark this area on the map,” Jonathan said.

Sam looked disappointed but nodded in agreement.

The group kept a constant pace as they made their way through the kelp forest. In the beginning, they were cautious but as nothing jumped out to attack them, they slowly lowered their guard and picked up the pace. At one point near the heart of the area, where the kelp was at its thickest, Mark felt his regeneration rate drop to a standstill. There was an uncomfortable sensation as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something was watching them

He wanted to investigate but time was of the essence. The best he could figure was that the massive kelp here was drawing so much energy from the surroundings that there was none left for them, but he couldn’t be sure.

Just as they were leaving the last of the kelp behind them Mark noticed Cara wasn’t walking next to them anymore.

Usually, she would blink off and look around, choosing to investigate her surroundings with the attention span of a kid but eventually, she would blink back to Sam’s side.

This time though Mark spotted her crouched over one of the small kelp plants.

Grabbing hold of it she began pulling it from the ground.

At the same time, Sam noticed her.

“Cara wait!” Mark said urgently.

Cara looked back.

“Don't worry it’s fine see? Sam, you said you wanted this right?” Cara called back.

She held the plant out infront of herself, having used her knife to remove it from the ground, showing a shallow root system. Pulling up clumps of dirt and concrete with it.

All three of them tense and waited.

As Cara walked over nothing seem to change in their environment.

No Corrupted came out to punish them, nor were the rest of the plants reacting.

Mark was just sighing in relief when Cara arrived.

Suddenly she slowed clutching her head, then she stumbled and stopped. Finally, she sat down right in the middle of the road. By now, they could all see something was wrong.

“Wow… my head is killing me,” she said as she got paler by the second.

“Drop it, Cara,” Mark said as he moved to her side.

She released it, letting the kelp drop to the floor.

Mark expected some kind of poison. So as soon as he got to her he cast [Cleansing surge] the spell but found nothing to clear out, at the same time Mark used [Prana pulse] to see what was going on in her body.

By now Cara was bleeding from her nose and her eyes were beginning to roll, her whole body was shaking.

Sam held Cara's head up and spoke to her.

“Cara sweety, look at me, stay with me. Mark! what's going on!?”

Mark didn’t understand what he was looking at.

All of Cara’s Mana was burning away and her mind was taking a beating. It was almost as if someone was mentally attacking her. Her Mana attribute should naturally defend her but she was panicking and leaving herself wide open to attack. As he continued to search with [Prana pulse] he found something.

He’d seen this before.

Mark’s eyes darted to the plant and he made the connection.

It was simplistic, but Mark realized the plant had somehow created a Mana bridge like the ones he saw with Boe and Ethel.

This one was much weaker and seemed to have a simple design but it was definitely the same. It was fighting Cara for her Mana and winning. Siphoning off her Mana at an alarming rate and using it to grow. Looking down at the plant its roots were already trying to dig back into the ground.

Mark was about to tell Sam to destroy the thing when he stopped himself. The connection was one way and it was drawing Cara’s energy to keep itself alive. If they hurt it, it would drain Cara to keep itself alive.

The connection between the two meant that killing one might very well kill the other. They needed to sever the connection before killing the thing.

“Sam, when I tell you to, burn the thing!”

Mark told her, pointing towards the kelp.

The connection between the two meant that killing one might very well kill the other. They needed to sever the connection before killing the thing.

He wasn’t certain it would work and he was low on Mana but Cara was fading fast so there was no choice. Without time to be careful Mark pulled a large amount of Mana to the threshold of his skin and began casting [Mind spike], it was the best tool in this situation but he hoped he didn’t do more harm than good. As soon as he did he could sense the minds in the area.

At that point he realized then that these plants actually had consciousnesses, the larger they were the stronger the ‘mind’. Though Mark could tell they only held simplistic desires like 'consume' or 'grow' but it was that simple-minded determination that made them so dangerous. They were fighting with a single goal in mind and Cara was not even attempting to combat its pull. If one this size was giving her this much trouble, then the others would probably be much stronger.

Realizing time was short Mark directed the spell, this time though, instead of targeting a mind he targeted the connection between Cara and the plant. Slamming it down he tore through the connection. Right away the kelp tried to reestablish the bridge but Mark destroyed that too.

“Now!” Mark grunted.

Sam never hesitated as blue flames washed over the plant. There was the smell of burning sugar as the kelp burnt up in seconds.

Cara’s condition stopped getting worse and her eyes slowly focused.

Mark was glad it had worked or things could have gotten dicey there.

When Sam saw she was okay, her shoulders drooped in relief. Mark checked on her physical health and sent some Prana to help her mind while Sam watched her closely over his shoulder. Finally, when he was sure she was okay he handed her over to Sam, who launched into a talk about touching things that they didn't understand. Cara looked shyly at Sam and her anger seemed to evaporate.

Soon enough they collected themselves and kept moving.

Putting some distance between them and the kelp forest the group continued their journey. Though not before Mark looked back at the apartments, searching through the morning light for the gently moving kelp, poking out from the tops of the buildings. They had been lucky Cara had not touched an older stalk or Mark might not have been able to break the connection. That kelp forest was bad news and it was only growing as time went on.