As I stepped back through the portal, I expected to emerge into chaos.

  But there was only the usual hustle and bustle of a city, particular in the main plaza, and with the cult only just starting to scatter. If there had been any of the screaming and panicking that I’d been expecting, then I of course would have heard it from the platform—what with my portals communicating sound these days.

  This was good. This meant that whatever Alenna was really up to, she hadn’t finished it yet. Part of my mind couldn’t help but worry that Lore had hurried straight for her—what if he stumbled across something he shouldn’t? Just what would she do to protect her secret, and would she do it to a man she thought of as a brother?

  The last of our team, Corminar, stepped through the portal, and I looked back through it at the orc. ‘You coming?’ I asked. ‘Last chance.’

  ‘Can get me back to Rose Home?’ she asked.

  ‘This is as close as you’re gonna get.’

  The orc in orange robe shrugged, then stepped through with a handful of other cultists from Zelas. I allowed the portal to shut behind her; whatever was coming next, I suspected I’d need two pairs of portals to—

  Someone screamed.

  It was distant, barely noticeable above the din of the cultists crowding the square, but it was the sort of noise I’d been listening for. Sounds of panic. Alarm bells—this noise metaphorical, existing only in my head—started ringing. ‘Where?’ I asked Corminar, the only other person in our group to have noticed the scream, and the only one of us with superior elven hearing.

  ‘Southwest,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps two hundred yards.’

  I nodded, oriented myself based on where I’d once seen the sun set over Coldharbour’s western sprawl, and began to push through the crowd in the direction the elf had said.

  I heard scoffs and tuts erupted behind me as I pushed through without regards for people being in the way, and without worrying about stepping on people’s feet. The scream could have been nothing. I hoped it would turn out to be nothing, that I would irk all those people without solid cause. But, as these stories so often go, the person who’d screamed had done so with good reason.

  A woman stood, unmoving, in the centre of a main road that led directly out of town from Coldharbour’s main plaza. Others on this busy street gave her a wide berth, staring and cowering and fleeing. In a time long since passed, I might have done the same, considering this woman’s skin had turned grey, and a black ooze was just now beginning to seep from her pores. The people of Coldharbour were well versed in corruption by now; they knew it when they saw it.

  ‘Corminar!’ I shouted, but the elf was already moving. He grabbed a glowing glass vial from his alchemist’s satchel, and he tossed it to me. I snatched it from the air in the same moment that I portal sliced into a nearby carriage, sending its bags of produce tumbling onto the ground. I snatched a plank of wood from the debris, then poured the contents of Corminar’s potion over it.

  The wood burst in flames.

  ‘I should—’ Arzak started, reaching out to take the flames from me.

  ‘No,’ I said. There wasn’t time to explain my latest ability selection, but now that I could use Titan Husk, I was the person safest to approach the corrupted woman. Still, the team could do with fire of their own to defend themselves. I touched the end of my makeshift torch to the scattered wooden debris of the shouting merchant’s cart, setting it alight, and turned back to the enemy.

  When I met her eyes, I saw no life behind them.

  I drew in a deep breath. We could do this. We’d done this before. I just didn’t think we’d ever have to do it again.

  I raised torch in one hand, and my dagger in the other, and I activated my new ability for the first time. As with Ash Husk, my skin rippled and changed—but it settled on no solid form, instead continuing to warp and shimmer. As I crossed the dusty road towards the enemy, it looked for a moment like she wouldn’t react, that the corruption had not yet taken hold enough for her to do more than stagger around town. But then, at the last moment, an oozing arm whipped up to block my attacks.

  I bounced off the arm, hitting the dirt hard.

  ‘Styk!’ Val cried, fear sharp in her voice. I’d not explained, of course. She didn’t know that I could resist the corruption now, with this new ability. Maybe that was an oversight, that it was an unkindness to let her think I was about to die. Oops.

  I thrust a hand up in the air, flashing the witch a shimmering thumbs-up sign, before opening a portal on the ground and falling back through it. I landed in front of the enemy once more.

  ‘I forgot how strong this made you,’ I said.

  The corrupted woman didn’t reply.

  As I charged in again to attack, I became peripherally aware of more shouts and screams erupting around me, but I was too focused on this fight to give them a second thought. I dummied with my dagger, causing the enemy to swing their arm up to block once more, and then I stepped through a portal. Appearing behind them, I bought my flames down upon their back. The monster’s flesh sizzled.

  It wasn’t enough to kill the beast. Far from it. Fire was the corruptions’ weakness, but it still took a good deal of it to get anywhere. Last time we’d fought one of these, I’d dumped masses of flaming Needlework supplies on it. Since then, however, I’d not had a chance to stock back up. I did have one advantage over last time, though; I could touch it.

  I leaped onto the monster, feeling the oozing corruption against my rippling flesh. As before, it was cold to the touch, almost so cold that it felt like a burn. I ignored the sensation and wrapped my limbs around the creature, holding on tight while pressing the flames against it. To distract the monster, I also opened a portal beneath it, sending the pair of us high into the sky above Coldharbour.

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  We tumbled down towards the ground, spinning. The monster hissed with the pain of the torch now pressed against its chest. Despite being weakened by the flames, it was still strong enough to wrench me away, and a moment later, we tumbled separately. I caught sight of crowds fleeing down streets below, of not one but two pillars of smoke. Then it hit me—where there was smoke, there was fire.

  And I could control where we landed.

  One of the pillars of smoke was just one road away, on a narrow street that ran mostly parallel to the main road we’d been on. I put my arms out at my side, trying to stop myself spinning, and then focused on opening a portal both above the fire and below the falling monster.

  My aim was true, the corrupted woman falling through the portal and landing on the source of the smoke, but now I had two new problems: I didn’t know that the monster was dead, and I was now fifty yards away from a very sudden stop.

  I dealt with the “me being about to die” problem first, opening a portal beneath me an another near to the pillar of smoke—but this one facing upwards. As I’d practised a couple of times before, I waited until I was at the peak of my soaring back into the air, then opened a portal directly beneath me. I fell through it, landing back on the streets of Coldharbour.

  The source of the pillar of smoke was a burning building—a bakery, in fact. Both customer and patron had long since fled the establishment, which lent itself to me returning to a tried-and-tested technique: dropping a building on the monster.

  I whipped my hands forward, using them to aim properly, and I portal sliced and portal sliced at the burning beams of the ceiling, until the two-storey building collapsed in on itself—and the monster burning within.

  Level ? corruption defeated!

  Worldbending — +6,700xp

  Worldbending increased to level 66!

  Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

  Knifework — +1,300xp

  I staggered backwards from the falling, burning building, coughing the billowing dust back out of my lungs. To my left, I saw Val, Arzak and Corminar running down the alleyway from the adjoining street.

  ‘How did you…’ Val asked, staring at my rippling skin.

  ‘New ability. I’m corruption-proof. Will explain later.’ In situations like these, there wasn’t time for full sentences. Panicked ex-cultists, still in pale orange robes, ran down the street with wide, frantic eyes. And the shouting grew louder behind me.

  I turned around slowly, already knowing what I was about to find. That’s when I realised why everyone had fled the bakery. It wasn’t just the flames, it was what caused the flames: another of the corrupted locals.

  ‘Just how many of these things are there?’

  If there was more than one, then chances are that there were more than two. Chaos was taking hold in Coldharbour, and quickly the city was spiralling out of control—these monsters being at the heart of it. We needed to take these down while they were few in number, else this would get out of control. This rapidly spreading corruption had the potential to destroy not just the city, but Alterra itself.

  ‘How could Yusef want this?’ I asked, more out of exasperation and panic than because I was actually looking for an answer.

  But Val gave me one anyway. ‘He couldn’t. Something’s gone wrong.’

  I nodded, then charged into battle once more. As I struck monster with fire, I felt something weighing heavily on my gut—a sense that we couldn’t kill the corruption quickly enough.

  A sense that we were doomed.