Jin watched Trish as she stood and started to walk away.
Narrator, he thought. Scan her.
? Acknowledged. Beginning— ?
As he moved his gaze away, Trish stopped and turned, smiling at him as warmly as the summer breeze.
A shiver of dread raced down Jin’s spine.
"Specialist Trish, you're dismissed," Captain Silas said. "We need privacy for this discussion."
She didn't respond. Didn't even glance Silas's way. Just kept staring at Jin with her head tilted.
His instincts screamed, and he didn’t know why such a seemingly ordinary gesture triggered that. But whatever it was, Jin has learned by now to fully believe his gut.
Narrator expedite her status and get a message to Joe—
? JIN! ?
Trish took one step toward him, and the world stuttered. His vision blinked out and back in the space between heartbeats, and suddenly she was there, hand around his throat, lifting him off his feet like he weighed nothing at all.
Her grip felt like steel wrapped in skin.
Pain went white-hot through his neck. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't swallow. His hands flew up, clawing at her wrist.
? Shield activated… but it is losing durability rapidly. ?
The Helldiver mark on his chest flared to life, essence shield manifesting between her fingers and his throat. Sparks flew where her nails scraped against it, trying to close through the barrier.
"Jin!" Rudy's yell came muffled through the roaring in Jin's ears.
"Trish!" one of the officers shouted, "What are you—"
Mathew’s essence flared as he prepared to move, but Reyana was faster.
Reyana appeared at Trish's flank. Her sword glowing white as she aimed for the head—
When darkness exploded from Trish's feet.
Reyana didn't flinch. Darkness was her domain. She dove through the expanding ring with blades leading—
Her confident expression twisted to horror as the wave touched her. Her Helldiver mark activated without warning, yanking her sideways through space before the darkness could get a grip.
“Rey!” Jin choked.
Trish made a sound like a disappointed child. "Tch."
The temperature dropped so fast that Jin saw his breath turn to frost. The darkness hit the floor and kept spreading, covering the floor in something that moved like tar.
? That is not a dark element. Jin, bad news… this woman, whatever she is… is actively draining the helldiver’s mark shield. I’m facing difficulty in even activating the teleportation effect.?
Keep… Trying!
As Jin struggled against the hold, things crawled out of the darkness with wet dripping and clicking sounds, like the thing had too many joints in the wrong places.
As if that wasn’t enough, power began to surge through her.
Started at ORDER II… feeble, barely there… then climbed. Peak ORDER III in the space of a blink. The pressure made Jin's ears pop.
Then it crossed into ORDER IV and kept going.
The weight of it pressed down on everything in the room. Jin's shield started flickering dangerously.
Through the haze of pain, he heard bits of Mathew's voice, "Defensive positions!…. Ward the…!"
Jin couldn't hear the rest. His vision was graying at the edges, tunneling down to Trish's face as she studied him like a puzzle she couldn't quite solve.
Her hands had changed. Darkened. Fingers elongating into clawed points that looked more demon than human. Her eyes were pools of pure dark, like the eternal darkness of the abyss.
"You're really nosy," she said conversationally.
Jin instead tried to drive his elbow back into her ribs. His arm hit something that felt like a stone wall, and even worse, she didn't even flinch.
She turned her head instead, bringing her face close to his. Her breath was warm against his ear despite the cold radiating from the darkness. Her tone stayed bright and curious.
"Ohhh," she breathed. "So you’re the one."
Jin rasped, trying to drag in enough air to speak. To think. To do anything except dangle.
"The little pebble," Trish continued, sounding delighted. "The one that kept bouncing off everything and making all the fate lines go weird and twisty."
"Who," Jin managed, voice shredded, "the hell... are you?"
She brightened. "I’m Trish," she said. "Obviously… Though I still can't believe you're this weak. I thought the variance source would be... bigger."
Her grip tightened.
Jin's vision threatened to collapse. The Helldiver mark burned against his chest as more and more of his essence flooded into the failing shield. He was shoving everything he had into maintaining that barrier between her claws and his spine. Fortunately, he had large reserves of essence.
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The command room had dissolved into screaming chaos… all others were busy fighting those tar things. Mathew's voice barking orders.
Trish watched it like a kid watching ants scatter.
"You know what's funny?" She spoke. "I only came down here to see how you people live. They never let me go anywhere fun."
She sounded genuinely offended. "Always rituals and screaming and blah blah 'bless the grand work' blah." She rolled her eyes—an eerily human gesture from something that very clearly wasn't. "So boring."
Her fingers squeezed tighter, and his lungs screamed for air they couldn't get.
That’s it, Jin decided to get something that would eliminate his need to breathe.
"Then I get here," she went on, "and you're messing up all my nice neat fate-threads! Making everything wobbly. And everyone here is so fun! The old lady on level twelve tells the best stories. The healer boy has such soft hands when he's setting bones."
Her free hand started drawing symbols in the air. Not the clean geometric lines of the runes he knew. No… These lines writhed and crawled across reality.
Each one she finished sank into her chest, and her power spiked higher.
JOE! Jin sent desperately through the whisperlink. Need help! Now!
? Interference detected,? the Narrator cut in. ? This entity is likely peak ORDER IV or… ?
Fuck!
His hand twitched toward Iron Howl. The movement was tiny. Barely there. But Trish was busy drawing her symbols and admiring her work.
Narrator. Help me.
? What are you— ?
Jin stopped feeding the shield. Instead, he rammed every drop of essence into his lungs and throat, buying himself one chance.
? Without constant power, the shield would last somewhere under a minute.?
His mantle surged without him asking it to. Chains of Harvest erupted from him, silver and hungry, lashing toward Trish. They punched through her shoulder. Her side. Her leg. Her chest. Her arms.
She blinked. "Oh. That's supposed to hurt me, isn't it? Cute."
Jin ignored the agony in his throat and focused on what the chains were telling him. This wasn’t like any experience, where there was a soul-thread and a definite depth.
With Trish, it was like dropping a bucket into a well and never hearing it hit bottom. The chains kept going. And going. And going.
Finding nothing but more.
"You're rude," Trish giggled. "Biting is for later."
? Do not initiate Harvest! ? The Narrator said sharply. ? Terminating action. I'll handle containment.?
And the narrator yanked control before Jin could accidentally feed himself a… whatever she was.
? Also, I’m almost past her interference on teleportation activation. The shield would only last 12 seconds. ?
Jin shoved every bit of his essence into a sorcery instead. It was a stupid and dangerous decision with how little time he had, but dying was also stupid and dangerous.
"By—frost's—" His voice came out strangled, broken by Trish's grip. Each word felt like swallowing glass. "—bite—render—flesh—unto—stillness—"
Trish kept drawing symbols, humming something that might have been a lullaby.
"—freeze—solid—by—winter's—wrath—"
Blood filled his mouth. He swallowed it, kept going, forced the words through cracked vocal cords.
"—become—ice—"
One more line. That's all. Just one more—
“eternal doom”
The sorcery sat in his core, unstable and furious and ready to detonate. He had maybe one second before Trish crushed his throat or the shield gave up completely.
"[Mark of Doom]," Jin hissed.
The skill latched onto Trish like hooks in flesh. Jin felt the connection snap into place as the curse sank deep. For the first time since she'd grabbed him, her expression changed.
Her smile faltered. Her eyes flicked to him. "Oh," she said softly. "That's... new. What’s this?"
Her grip loosened. Just a fraction. Just enough.
Jin dropped his full weight, twisted with everything he had, and dragged Iron Howl up under her chin in one ugly, desperate motion. His finger found the trigger. He dumped the half-finished, barely stable three-verse sorcery straight into the bullet.
"Here’s to never seeing you again," he croaked and pulled the trigger.
The gun kicked hard enough to drive his elbow back into her gut. The spell-loaded round tore through whatever passed for her skull and detonated point-blank.
Trish's head came apart in a spray of gore and ice and something that definitely wasn't blood. All humans had.
Got her. Thank god. Got—
Her body should have dropped.
Her grip should have failed.
Neither happened.
No. Nonono…
Mass writhed at the neck stump. Not bleeding. Reforming. Flesh bubbled up like someone was pouring it from the inside. Bone grew with wet clicking sounds that made Jin's stomach turn. Skin crawled over everything like watching maggots build a face.
Her voice didn't come from her mouth. It came from inside Jin's skull. Gravelly and amused and deeply, deeply annoyed.
"You had to go and ruin my fun time."
Her fingers—no, claws—had extended another two inches. They punched through the failing shield and dug into the side of his neck. Proper punctures this time. He felt blood run hot down his collarbone.
The Helldiver shield whined. Fractures skittered across its surface like ice splitting on a frozen lake.
Then it shattered.
The pressure on his windpipe went from horrible to lethal.
Take me away NOW! Jin screamed internally in desperation.
? Activating…>
Jin felt the Lifeguard charm activate, pulling him sideways through space. With the last bit of consciousness he had, Jin hissed one word.
"Harvest."
The chains yanked power from Trish, and Jin choked on the influx. Too much. Too fast. Power flooding his channels like liquid fire—
? I warned you not to do that! Terminating connection! ?
Trish snarled with fury and threw her power into the connection, trying to pin him in place.
For once, fate didn't care about what she wanted, and the world for Jin yanked sideways as he was hurled through the rifts of space.
He fell.
The fall lasted maybe a second before he slammed into a table, sending cards and coins scattering across the floor.
"...the fuck?" someone yelped.
"What the—"
"Who the hell—"
Pain lanced through Jin's neck and shoulder. His heart stopped as he felt something still clamped around his throat.
His eyes focused, and he sighed in relief.
It was Trish's arm. From the elbow down. Fingers still digging into his neck. The stump at the elbow was clean, likely cauterized by the teleport's spatial shear.
Jin gagged, grabbed it with both hands, and pried. The thing fought him, fingers tightening, muscles spasming, nails trying to bury into his skin.
"Nope," he rasped. "You’re done."
He forced his fingers under her thumb and wrenched. Something tore with a wet pop. The grip finally broke. He ripped the hand away and sucked in air that felt like knives.
He shoved the arm straight into his storage ring before it could decide to grow a new body.
"HEY!" a guard shouted. "What the—"
Jin pushed himself upright, taking stock. Small room. Low ceiling. Four guards in guard uniforms stared at him in wonder and amusement, like how in hell he'd just materialized from air.
Which was fair. He had.
"Sorry," Jin croaked. His throat roared in agony, but he managed. "Didn't mean to crash your—"
Jin's danger sense flared half a second before the blade would've opened his kidney. He twisted, the knife scoring his side instead of punching through.
!!!
Jin dropped off the table. The follow-up strike hissed past his shoulder, aimed at his heart.
The attacker stumbled with momentum, and Jin caught his face as the man turned. Normal features. Tan skin. Shaved head. Bastion patch on his jacket.
But his eyes were wrong. All black. Just like Trish's.
"Karst, what are you doing?" one of them blurted. "Dude, what the hell—"
The attacker spun and drove the knife into his friend's throat.
Blood sprayed. The guard went down choking.
Jin used that half-second. His dagger materialized. He drove it up under Karst's jaw, angling for the brain stem, then put a bullet through the man's temple for good measure.
The cultist dropped.
? Multiple hostile signatures detected, the Narrator said slowly. All carrying minor blessing of the Darkened One.?
The narrator said slowly.
? All converging on your position. Estimated time: ten minutes.?
Jin stood there, blood running from his neck, throat on fire, surrounded by corpses and confused guards.
? Partial harvest completed! ?
"Vipers in the den," he said, his eyes lingering on the notification for harvest completed. "But at least something's going well."
~~~
PS: Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon, you can read upto one month ahead... It would be awesome if you guys, you know...
? ? ?
Jin is fucked...
