From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 105: At the Limit

I reached the top of the slope and stopped, my lungs making sounds I would not describe as healthy, my vision dimming faintly at the edges, a warning I had ignored back when I ran one hundred laps. And I remember how that finished, with my face down in the dirt.

I could not use Quickstep, I knew that the moment I pushed it, I would stop being a person running from Corruptors and become a person lying in the dirt near Corruptors, which was a much worse problem.

Sense was gone, even thinking about it made the pressure behind my eyes feel worse.

Switch was what I had left, limited to whatever my eyes could see, no extended reach, the basic version.

Behind me the Corruptors kept coming up the slope, not fast, not coordinated, but moving on instinct, and their instinct was fixed on me.

I turned and looked at the ground between us, flat and open, no cover. Eight of the fifteen were within clear view, stretched across the slope in a ragged line, the two fastest ones had almost reached me. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

I crouched and pressed my palm into the dirt.

The mental box came together slowly, harder to picture something that big without Sense. I built it by relying on my vision, the same spatial awareness I had developed in the warehouse, reading volume by eye. Years of stacking boxes had led to this moment. My former warehouse supervisor would be so proud... though he had already faced exile and I don’t think he came back.

I had to create a big hole, right in front of me, deep enough to trap them inside. It would only buy me a few moments, but that was enough.

Switch.

The ground in front of me and a chunk of hillside where some Corruptors were switched places.

The two Corruptors at the front fell, then a half second later, an impact came from below. The third had no time to register the change and dropped in after them.

Three down.

The remaining five didn’t slow or reroute, they kept walking forward with the certainty of someone that had never needed to question if there was ground in front of them. Thankfully they were blind and dumb creatures.

Two more fell.

I was already moving down the other side of the mountain, no Quickstep, just my legs, letting them do what my abilities couldn’t anymore.

The descent leveled into a flat stretch, darker soil and some vegetation. Scattered across the ground were small puddles of dark water.

I slowed to a walk and moved toward them. Step by step I reached close enough to the puddles that the emotional scent Corruptors used to track me, would get erased. Behind me the Corruptors reached the top of the mountain. Their movement seemed to become indecisive, as if the prey they were tracking had disappeared.

Great. Now I am hidden from them, but how am I supposed to reach camp? I can’t use the cube the whole way there, what if its energy finally runs out?

Then an idea came to my mind.

My canteen was gone, I had thrown it somewhere near the serpent pit, so I had nothing to hold the dark water with. Unless...

I opened my inventory.

The sterling serpent helmet was still there, even if it was uncleansed it would work for what I was about to do. I looked at it for a moment.

It was a helmet I couldn’t wear currently, but I could still use it as a container.

I took it out.

It felt heavy, the serpent design along the sides were more detailed than I remembered. I held it carefully by the outside and crouched over the largest puddle.

I filled it, then shook it until no more droplets fell from the edge, I didn’t want to touch this stuff by accident, too many things were already stacked against me and I couldn’t afford anything else going wrong.

I got up and walked away from the puddle. My eyes fixed on the Corruptor’s reactions. If any of them started following me, I’d just kill them at this point. I couldn’t risk it.

But they seemed to have lost track of my position. They moved around the area, probably trying to find my emotional scent back.

After I confirmed they weren’t still following me and that the dark water wasn’t seeping out of the helmet, I started walking toward camp.

But that didn’t mean I could now relax.

I still had to reach the camp, it was about 7 minutes away from my position at full speed. But I wouldn’t be able to go full speed, or even at a decent speed. Each step felt heavier than the last, the helmet weighed more than it should, the ground pulled at my feet and my eyelids kept trying to close.

I remembered something Damian said back when I had the incident with Quickstep. That I had overused my neural pathways, so I guess I was feeling exhausted because of that.

Everything around me started turning from normal color, to grey, to black. I fixed my eyes on the vine beacon rising in the distance and kept on moving while holding the helmet with both of my hands.

I’d been walking for either seconds or far too long, I couldn’t tell anymore, my sense of time was starting to falter.

"Just reach the vine." I told myself, forcing one step after another. "Just reach the vine and then you can rest."

Then, after closing my eyes once, I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach it.

I had reached my actual limit.

I crouched and placed the helmet in the ground, it was the last action where I still had full control over my body. I set it down carefully, gently, the way you’d put down something precious. Or something that could kill you if it spilled.

My body dropped to the side and then...

Darkness claimed me.