Paragon of Skills

chapter 264

A Few Minutes Prior

Nimirea's arms have black scales that crept past her elbow during the second exchange with Jacob Cloud and have not stopped since. She can feel them shifting under her skin, not growing but replacing, as if the bone and muscle beneath are being eaten and rebuilt in a shape that is not hers.

She can still use it. That is the worst part. The arm works better than before. Faster, stronger, more precise. Every strike she throws with it lands harder than her right.

I need to end this or the monsterification will take over

So far, she can still keep it under control, but if it goes any further, she really risks ending up just like Iskara.

Jacob Cloud is standing twenty feet away. His Domain of Ruin and Bones has transformed the arena floor into a landscape of bleached ribcages and obsidian pillars. His body is covered in red mana circles that pulse with rhythmic bursts of vapor, and his aura sits at a level that should not be possible for someone his age.

Nimirea brings up her corrupted arm and blocks a wave of cursed energy that tears across the arena floor like a scythe. The impact drives her back three paces. Her heels carve grooves into the stone.

He's gotten stronger since the last exchange.

The traps outside the arena are feeding his Devil's Engine. Every affliction his Champions absorb translates into raw power for him.

Plus, with the fact that he's gotten stronger, Nimirea has been riddled with Afflictions herself.

She counters with a lance of black fire that punches through two obsidian pillars and forces Jacob to sidestep.

Jacob sends a volley of bone shards from the ribcage structures. They curve in the air, guided by the Domain, and converge on Nimirea from five angles.

She destroys them with a sweep of her corrupted arm. The black scales drink the necrotic energy and convert it. Her arm pulses. Grows slightly.

Stop feeding on me, DAMMIT!

She shifts her weight to her right side and throws a conventional strike. A clean arc of condensed Mana aimed at Jacob's midsection. But he blocks it with the silver sword. The impact rings across the arena. His eyes, still silver from the First Seal, study her.

"Your arm is getting worse," he says.

"I'm aware."

"Then stop using it."

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"That's not how this works."

He is stacking Afflictions. Every exchange, every strike, every moment she spends inside his Domain adds another layer of degradation. Bleed. Necrosis. Mana Drain. Soul Erosion. They pile on top of the corruption already threading through her body, and the corruption metabolizes them, growing stronger with each new layer.

Clever bastard.

She launches a combination. The corrupted arm is faster. It hits the silver sword and drives Jacob into a pillar of his own domain. Stone explodes behind him. He rolls to his feet immediately, vapor hissing from the silvery circles on his body. Blood at the corner of his mouth.

Good.

A tremor in her left shoulder. The corruption is reaching for her chest.

She pulls back. Stands in the center of the arena floor, breathing hard.

Her left arm is fully corrupted. Now, black scales reach from her fingertips to her shoulder.

But she is a Dark Champion. She made her choice years ago. She knew the risks.

Jacob is walking toward her again. The silver sword hangs at his side and the Domain churns around him, ribcages cracking and reforming, pillars rising from the stone.

"You know what's going to happen if you keep fighting," he says.

"I know."

"You'll monsterify. Fully. Like Iskara."

She saw what happened to Iskara. She saw what that boy did to her. She saw the body on the stone.

"Don't compare me to her," Nimirea barks.

"Why not?"

"You don't know anything about me!"

Nimirea's corrupted arm twitches. The scales ripple from wrist to shoulder and for a moment she feels the arm move on its own, independent of her will. She catches it. Locks the muscles. Forces the fingers to unclench.

Not yet.

Jacob stops walking.

"Surrender," he says.

"No."

"Nimirea."

"I said no."

Then the voice comes.

It arrives telepathically from the Prophet, the link of Corrupted Mana that runs between every Dark Champion and their master.

Activate the Twilight Skill.

Nimirea goes still.

The fight is lost. Korrath is down. Iskara has just lost. The traps have empowered Jacob Cloud beyond what we projected. You are the last. Activate the Twilight Skill. Complete the contract.

A Twilight Skill. You give the entirety of your soul to the God you serve and, if you are strong enough, if you have performed enough acts in the God's name, you receive a Skill that rivals a Rainbow Skill. Some say it surpasses one.

The price is absolute. The soul is consumed, and what remains is a vessel of the God's power.

Nimirea looks at her corrupted arm.

She looks at the arena floor.

She looks at Jacob Cloud, watching her with those silver eyes that see too much.

She takes a breath.

"There's no going back," she says.

The Corruption in her body begins to stir. The dark veins across her shoulder pulse and spread, racing toward her heart, becoming a ghastly red, and she can feel the architecture of the Twilight Skill beginning to assemble itself inside her.

She reaches inward. Her soul is there and she prepares to give it away.