"Alright, another one!" Kaito grunted as he limped towards the sharp, crystal formation.
It marked the third Reality Anchor. This one wasn't still like the last. It pulsed with a sickly, hypnotic green light.
The air around it shimmered with phantom echoes.
He pulled out a small, scanner-like device.
"Let's see what kind of cosmic bad news this one's hiding. My betting pool's on 'ancient blighted toaster oven of doom.'"
Elara, however, didn't share his grim humor. Her face was pale, drawn tight with a profound sense of dread.
As they approached the Anchor, she swayed, pressing a hand to her temple.
"This… this Anchor is different. It's screaming! Not with pain, but with… echoes. So many lost realities. So much consumed. It feels like it's bleeding memories, Kenji, and they're horrifying!"
Her voice was a faint whisper, full of deep disgust that made Kenji's hairs stand on end.
Kenji felt it too. The Blight felt even stronger here. It was a heavy weight that pressed down on his soul.
His Corruption Influence meter was already a furious red, flashing [CRITICAL! Sustained exposure degrades vessel integrity. Caution Advised!].
This Anchor felt like a wound, an open portal to something utterly monstrous. He gripped Shadowfang, his knuckles white.
Kaito, meanwhile, had begun his scan, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Okay, this is… not good. My scanner's picking up residual energy patterns. Not just blight, but… distorted temporal signatures. Like a cosmic data dump. Hold on…"
Suddenly, the Anchor pulsed violently. Not with the pure energy of the last one, but with a sickening, green-black light.
Kenji felt a wave of information crash into his mind, overwhelming, agonizing.
It wasn't just data; it was a flood of sensations. Screams echoed. Dimensions tore apart.
An ancient, terrifying ambition grew cold and vast. He saw worlds that were vibrant and alive.
They twisted and contorted, dissolving into ugly masses of blight. He saw Noxius. Not as a creature, but as a cosmic parasite. It is a vast, shadowy consciousness.
It spreads through reality, absorbing and redefining everything. It makes all things part of itself.
The Anchors… they weren't just being corrupted. They were being assimilated, turned into conduits for this horrifying expansion.
Kenji stumbled back, clutching his head, a guttural sound escaping him.
The System screamed, [Warning: Direct Information Imprint! Vessel Integrity Critical! Resist Assimilation!].
He felt the Heart of the Eclipse inside him connect with the vision. It brought a scary sense of recognition, like seeing its own grand purpose. The strong lure of shared power was huge.
It tempted him to let go, to accept the truth, and to become one with it.
"Kenji! What's happening?!" Elara rushed to his side, crying.
Kaito, meanwhile, had fallen back from the Anchor, his scanner sparking wildly.
"He's downloading! It's… It's showing him everything! The sheer scale of it… It's not just a monster, it's a… a universal cancer! It's not destroying, it's consuming!"
The Anchor pulsed again, and the visions intensified. Kenji saw a world that was once lush and green.
Now, it was a grey landscape of twisted decay. The former inhabitants had disappeared, their forms blending into the twisted, living mass of Noxius.
This was the terrifying testament to its power, the horrifying truth of its ambition.
Then, the true horror hit. Noxius knew. It knew they were here. It knew they were uncovering its secrets.
The ground around them began to writhe.
The sickly green light from the Anchor intensified, casting long, twisting shadows. The air itself grew heavier, vibrating with a palpable rage. Noxius was responding.
From the very ground, colossal, lumbering forms began to tear themselves free.
Not the agile stalkers or the raw power of the harvesters. These were Blight-Judges. They were huge, multi-limbed constructs.
They moved slowly but were devastating.
Their bodies pulsed with raw, concentrated blight energy. Their eyes, glowing with cold, focused malice, locked onto the trio.
"It's a direct response!"
Elara cried, her voice trembling.
"It's sending its generals! It wants us silenced!"
She tried to raise a Lumina barrier, but the darkness around her choked her light. It flickered unsteadily.
"This is too much!" Kaito yelled, frantically looking for an escape route, his eyes darting.
His tech was still struggling, but he pulled out a handful of small, specialized emitters.
"It's like the whole damn dimension is screaming at us! I need to overload its sensory input! Kenji, give me an opening! Elara, shield us!"
He began tossing the emitters to create local distortions near the oncoming Blight-Judges.
Kenji pushed the overwhelming visions aside. The roar of the Heart of the Eclipse was almost deafening in his mind.
He couldn't lose control. Not now.
He channeled raw power, not for defense, but for disruption. He unleashed a powerful Void Blast.
This dark energy wave spread wide, pushing back the Blight-Judges. It wasn't meant to destroy them, but to create chaos.
The Corruption Influence meter hit solid red. He pushed on, ignoring the pain and the warning.
The Blight-Judges roared as the Void Blast hit, their massive forms shuddering.
They were momentarily disoriented, their attacks faltering. But they were too massive, too powerful to be truly hurt by this.
Elara took her chance, pushing her light to the max. A bright barrier shimmered around them, stopping the blight's tendrils and the swift Memory-Eaters.
These creatures zipped through the air, trying to invade their minds.
"Hold! I can protect us for a moment! But the memories… they're too strong! It wants us to drown in its truth!"
Her voice was strained.
It held deep pain as she battled both physical attacks and the mental assault from the Anchor.
Kenji fed the barrier with his own strong Corruption Influence. He felt his mind fraying at the edges.
He could almost hear Noxius's vast, cold laughter echoing in the depths of his being.
Fools. You seek to defy me? You are merely… understanding your place.
"We need to break contact!" Kenji roared, his voice hoarse.
He couldn't hold this for long. He had to create an exit. He threw himself forward like a dark blur.
His Shadowfang spun in a whirlwind of chaos. He wasn't aiming to defeat the Blight-Judges, merely to stagger them, to carve a path, to buy them seconds.
He sliced through a thick tendril from one of the Judges. It felt satisfying, but the cost was huge.
His body protested. The Shadow Brand burned, and a quick vision of his twisted reality flashed before him.
He pushed through it, through the pain, through the fear.
They broke free, scrambling away from the now-furious Anchor and its monstrous guardians.
Kaito hunched over and coughed violently. He finally stopped in a jagged crevice. The corrupted Anchor's 'memories' had overwhelmed his senses.
"This… this thing isn't just destroying worlds. It's absorbing them. Making them part of itself. It's not a monster, it's a damn cosmic cancer!"
Elara trembled as she stared at the distant, corrupted Anchor. Tears streamed down her face.
"So many screams… so many lives… consumed. We can't let it reach our reality, Kenji. We can't."
Kenji gripped Shadowfang so tightly his knuckles turned white.
His System still blared [Corruption Influence: CRITICAL!], but the shocking truth of Noxius's ambition strengthened his resolve.
He looked at his comrades, his eyes blazing with a dangerous mix of fury and fear.
"It wants to make us part of its collection," Kenji growled, his voice thick with raw hatred.
"Well, I'm not going to be a souvenir. We're going to find a way to cut this thing out. And then, we're going to burn its heart from the inside out. Let's find the next Anchor. And pray it gives us a weapon, not another history lesson."
He pushed himself forward, into the relentless, blighted dark.