The Orc Chieftain strode toward Liora, his tribal war tattoos gleaming green-black under the broken sky. Around them, the other orcs jeered and shoved the captives into a ring, waiting for the show. Liora smiled, blowing him a teasing kiss. He laughed, crushing her in a bear hug. Adarin caught the rapid beat of Liora’s heart. Her thoughts flooded his mind from all directions.

  'Mother Ishna, forgive me for what I’m about to do. Please—this can’t happen.'

  For the first time, her focus pierced him—sharp, honed by years of training. Her forehead pressed against the orc’s as his hand groped down her back. She returned the touch, but through her nerves Adarin felt the shift—her arms locking like iron vices, not a lover’s embrace. Adarin watched as she lifted her head, staring deep into the rapist’s green-black eyes.

  As their lips neared, Liora inhaled deeply. A strange force coursed along the implant in her gut, lighting it up. Energy gathered around her lungs, funneled into the implant, then surged back out as their lips met. Words echoed in his mind, twisted with guilt, pleasure, and dark satisfaction: 'You die now.'

  They kissed—a strange experience as Adarin realized he wasn’t controlling the body. He focused, watching energy fill her lungs. As their tongues tangled and parted, she exhaled into his mouth. The orc stiffened. His once soft lips turned cold, rough as old paper. Saliva and bad breath gave way to the taste of rotten meat.

  Liora opened her eyes, staring into the orc chieftain’s wide eyes. He struggled, but she clung to him like a piranha inside a chest cavity. He thrashed uselessly as she drove the last of the poison into his lungs like a funeral kiss. Adarin narrowed his focus. A targeted exhalation—some kind of nanotech gas weapon. Brutal. Effective.

  His body grew cold against hers, shivering as he struggled—arms flailing, trying to push her away. His fingernails dug into her flesh, but he couldn’t move his muscles. Elation and adrenaline surged through her. She inhaled deeply—drawing all the corruption from him into herself.

  A chuckle filled the mental space around Adarin. 'Oh, I am not done with you, my dear lover.' The breath greedily pulled at the man’s rotting lips, while Adarin felt the implant in her gut glow with energy. Several points on the man’s body resisted the dark tide, but it was the futile struggle of a candle against a winter storm.

  Adarin observed how the man’s skin and flesh began to rot. As she let go of his lips, a manic smile split her face. She is high on victory and adrenaline. Oh, fuck, what a goddamned rookie.

  Peripherally, he noticed the tattoo on her arm change.

  You have defeated a Level 10 Orc Warchief!

  Normalized strength difference 250%

  Number of Levels gained: 0 (1)

  As she turned, murder in her eyes, Adarin cursed the chaos around them. Torn tunics. Girls struggling on the ground. A ring of orcs jeered and laughed—until the warchief hit the ground. Laughter died. Faces twisted in shock. Several stepped back, muttering in disbelief. Then she swept her head sharply and exhaled.

  A pestilent swirl of dark green gas escaped her mouth as wild laughter burst from her lips. Adarin nodded in appreciation. She’s cold. No hesitation deploying nano-bioweapons—that’s good. I could work with that. More air left her lungs. She breathed in again, then screamed, expelling the last of the corruption.

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  “DIE!” she screeched—anger, terror, frustration, the sum of all horrors she’d known in this war. The warriors scrambled, but none moved fast enough to escape the expanding cloud. They screamed. Even those covering their noses and mouths gave up, howling in pain as putrid blood streamed from their ears and eyes.

  Adarin ran an assessment protocol, estimating over 97% casualties from the attack. It was as the reports said. Highly advanced nanotechnology blending with augmented reality to give the impression of mystical forces. The toys of gods rendered into the tools of children. The girl had done well, almost as good as a true professional. Well… professional. Skilled amateur.

  Liora laughed maniacally. Then she spoke. “Okay, girls, we are—” Her words died as she turned. The sisters and their rapists writhed in agony, vomiting putrid pieces of lung like maggots squirming in their own filth. Liora’s scream tore through him. And in that moment—visions of when she had first used this power—her exhaling, children dying, her family dying, a dog mother losing all her fur, desperately trying to shield her puppies in a corner.

  'What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?' The chant pressed in from all sides. Adarin shook his head. Well, she’s an amateur, all right.

  She ran to her sisters, kneeling in front of the tall healer from earlier, and he felt another sharp spike of focus. Energy surged from her hands, up her arms, gathering in the implant near her heart before flowing outward. Gentle light bathed the other girl’s body, as Liora focused on a wide but detailed set of anatomical memories. Her writhing slowed—but Adarin guessed the lung damage was irrecoverable, never mind the toxins in her blood. Looks like those healing techniques are limited to their breath of medical knowledge. Interesting.

  Liora pressed her hands to the girl’s heart and face, murmuring a prayer to Ishna. Adarin sneered. Religion ain’t gonna help you. Concentration might. Can I help her? No. Better let the mage die. I only need one of them, after all.

  Liora wept over the girl. Writhing slowed; breath steadied—but blood bubbled from her mouth with each inhale. Then the girl’s eyes opened, staring in wide-eyed horror at Liora.

  “Oh God, Annie, in the Mother's name, please—I didn’t want this.” Annie’s iron-gray eyes met Liora’s. Blood frothed at her lips as she tried to force one last breath into words.

  Liora scrambled her other hand to her throat. “Oh Holy Mother, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What are you saying? Please?”

  The other girl gasped weak but clear words. “You monster. You killed…” Her eyes lost focus.

  Waves of raw emotion crashed in Adarin’s mind. He withdrew into a shell. The girl sobbed, clutching her dead friend, screaming until her lungs burned. Her screams doubled as she noticed the swirling ink spreading across her skin. Adarin’s mind flickered between chaos and cold calculations. The brutal tally of kills blinked up, indifferent to suffering.

  You have defeated 37 Orc Warriors!

  Average normalized strength difference 174%

  Number of Levels gained: 0 (13)

  You have defeated 11 Priestesses of Ishna!

  Average normalized strength difference 87%

  Number of Levels gained: 0 (3)

  Time passed as Adarin sifted through Liora’s memories. Rare moments of companionship. Being an outsider. Mother Magret—the elder healer whose blood stained her robes. The woman who took her in after she killed her family.

  Slowly her energy exhausted itself in grief. Her sobs became irregular, her movements slowed to a halt. Half an hour after Liora stopped moving and had curled up next to her dead friend, a cold wave of the same energy swept the courtyard—this time sharper, more structured. It lingered on all the corpses. And around Liora.

  Adarin frantically cycled through her senses, but the girl was a wreck—despair, pain, tears. Utterly useless. Dozens of torn throats groaned in the silence. Then—a single person's footsteps could be heard approaching them. They stopped nearby.

  Silence fell over the courtyard, broken only by groaning from where the other people had fallen and the faint drip of blood and other liquids. A young man’s voice cut through the stillness, sharp and irritated: “Demiurge’s Curse—what went wrong this time? Grab her. I need to study her corpse.”

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