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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ralo_ramone on 2026-02-06 17:07:06+00:00.
The faint light coming through the windows dimmed, and the man who had been trapped inside the System Shrine jumped to the floor. He walked a few steps forward and stopped at the edge of the steps leading to the altar, black miasma pouring from his body, heavy like incense. His presence hurt my authority. It felt as though the full sum of the Corrupted Ancient’s authority was now within him. [Foresight] pinged my brain in despair, shouting into my ear for me to run as fast as [Minor Aerokinesis] allowed me.
There was something wrong with his very existence, and I wasn’t the only one who had noticed it. Around me, King Adrien, the dukes, and the other level fifties froze as if they were kids who had stumbled upon a mountain lion in the middle of the street. No. A mountain lion barely measured up to the Corrupted Ancient’s presence.
The world itself seemed to bend into the Corrupted Ancient’s new avatar, and I understood that the creature’s power was on par with the Fountain or the Runeblade. Months ago, when Byrne was teaching me about runeweaving, he had mentioned that the big magical bodies worked no differently than gravity wells for magical teleportation. At the time, I had understood those words as merely theoretical blabbering, but now I felt it firsthand.
The environmental mana dragged towards him, and even the threads of mana flowing through my body were pulled through every one of my pores. It felt less like standing before a human being and more like standing too close to a natural disaster. It was entirely different from standing near the Fountain. Where the Fountain had shown an odd sense of curiosity and awe, here I sensed only pure malice and hatred. No, that wasn’t quite right. My brain interpreted it as malice, but it was something else, not a human feeling.
I used [Identify], but as soon as the skill ‘touched’ the monster, I felt a burning pain behind my eyes.
“Hey!” I shouted in English. It was worth the attempt. “Are you in there? Do you understand me?”
The Corrupted Ancient looked at me, but apart from that, I couldn’t tell if he had understood my words. The weak mana signatures that I had detected inside the Shrine were nowhere to be found, and I knew the original owner of that body was no longer in there.
I had a good idea why the body of one of the creators of the System was stored there. Complex runic strings didn’t just work on their own. Like the Runeblade, they needed a living being behind them. Only the simplest enchantments, like the Warm Blankets, could go forever without someone interacting with them. Much like the Lich’s original body trapped inside a Shrine crystal, the creator of the System used the bodies of his coworkers as part of the hardware. It's no surprise that the System was beginning to fail. The System Shrine wasn’t just a simple Shrine. It was a transmission node that broadcast the System to the area, and it was a mausoleum with cracks in its foundation.
Was this part of Byrne’s plan?
Red mana surged through Lord Kigria’s body, and he shot forward before anyone could stop him. He moved like an arrow. The moment he left the ground, [Foresight] sent my brain in a rush. I saw the trajectory of the attack, the Corrupted Ancient’s authority moving, and the unavoidable outcome. Lord Kigria was going to die.
The Ancient’s body split in half, and a black tentacle emerged from the space in his chest. The tentacle moved faster than my [Foresight] could anticipate and smacked into Lord Kigria. The burly man flew back against the cathedral’s wall, punching deep into the stone before falling to the ground covered in blood.
“Runeweaver’s Army, attack!” King Adrien shouted, raising the Runeblade over his head. Corruption tendrils extended up his arm and shot across the cathedral, and the Corrupted Ancient caught black flames. His body didn’t physically burn, but I felt the flames gnawing down his authority. The flames vanished as the man let out an inhuman scream.
Lord Herran raised his axe above his head, drawing enough magic from his reserves to give Mana Exhaustion to anyone below level thirty. Then, he sliced the air, creating ripples through the environmental mana. At first I thought nothing would happen, but reality seemed to tear behind the Corrupted Ancient as a dark blue mana blade appeared out of nowhere.
Lord Gairon channeled his mana, and hundreds of chains made of pure light emerged from the ground and the walls, trying to tie the Corrupted Ancient down.
Lord Jorn merged with the shadows just to reappear behind the Corrupted Ancient and bury a mana knife in the back of its neck. Before the monster could retaliate, he disappeared, the black tentacles swiping through thin air. A wave of flames engulfed the tentacles, and the whole stone dome came down crashing on the monster’s head.
Lord Kigria bellowed as he stood up, blood coming out from every orifice in his head. A thousand red mana blades appeared around his body like the tail of a peacock, each one containing so much mana that I had to tone down my mana sense so as to not be blinded.
Chieftain Alton rained arrows at a rate I could only watch in awe, turning stone into dust. The cathedral, even if it had been built by magical stonemasons to endure magical attacks, was shaken to the foundations. The floor caved in, and the stained glass windows burst out.
The onslaught of attacks continued, each one strong enough to destroy a small town on its own.
The Corrupted Ancient began dodging the attacks, using his tentacles to grab on the columns and swing across the cathedral. The Imperial Knights and Marquis followed like bloodhounds, seemingly defying the laws of gravity with their huge bodies and heavy armor. Lord Kigria’s blades and Chieftain Alton’s arrows traced bright lines as they shot through the frontlines with hairsbreadth precision.
The Corrupted Ancient expanded his authority, making the spells fizzle before they could hit their body and shielding himself against physical damage. One of the Imperial Knights was hit by a tentacle and sent flying through the hole in the roof. Another was struck down midair and hit the ground, never to stand again. Even a graze from the tentacles left behind a dark patch of Corruption.
The attacks were ineffective. No matter how strong the System users were, their skills lost strength as soon as they came into contact with the Corrupted Ancient’s authority.
Byrne’s words echoed in my mind.
You still have a part to play.
Finally, I understood what my part was. Ignoring all the alarms going off in my brain, I pushed my authority forward, asserting my presence and my existence on both the magical and physical planes. My authority clashed against the Corrupted Ancient, and as if they were two giant hands, I tried to tear him apart.
The Corrupted Ancient turned his head to me.
“It’s working,” Holst muttered.
“Darius, tell Adrien when to use the Runeblade!” I shouted, moving forward.
Vampiric. Grab. Snatch. Rend. Tear. My authority transformed into the jaws of a wolf, and I tore into the Corrupted Ancient’s authority piece by piece. My brain tried to catch up with the meanings of the magic language as I used it, but any attempt to translate it fell short. Magic knew no words, just pure meaning. Pure action.
The Corrupted Ancient asserted his domain, pushing me back.
My brain and my body burned as if someone had set me on fire. The damage to my authority was real, but even that painful sensation was just my brain trying to make sense of the attack. [Foresight] screamed in my ear for me to pull back.
“Now!” Holst shouted.
King Adrien raised the Runeblade and black flames engulfed the Corrupted Ancient. The creature screeched and thrashed around, trying to suffocate the flames both in the material and the magical plane. Ignoring [Foresight] pleading, I shoved my hands into the maw of the beast and held it open, forcefully providing a vulnerability for the flames to latch onto, its metaphorical teeth burying deep in my metaphorical flesh.
“More!” Holst shouted again, although this time his voice barely reached my ears.
The Runeblade’s fire clung to the monster like an army of termites.
King Adrien’s words reached my ears like a faint whisper, despite the fact that he was shouting at the top of his lungs not a meter from me. “Protect the Runeweaver!”
The picture of the physical world and the magic plane were fully overlapped. The Corrupted Ancient thrashed his way into us. Lord Gairon’s chains fell from the skies as he tried to slow the creature down, while Lord Herran and the Imperial Knights used their defensive spells to put a wall between us. From the magical plane, they all looked like small specks of dust whose powers shone briefly, like shooting stars.
The Corrupted Ancient towered above me, his influence swallowing all the tiny constellations that surrounded us. Then the realization settled. The creature wasn’t completely there yet. All this time, we had been wrestling against a tentacle, an appendage of his authority, and the main body was still coming.
Something was wrong.
The weight of the Corrupted Ancient’s authority crushed me down, and I felt like every single bone in my body had been ground into dust. I screamed in pain, but no noise came from my mouth. In the physical world, King Adrien and the others protected my body, but I wasn’t completely there. The connection between my authority and my body became a thin st...
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