The problem with killing a Level 95 monster wasn’t the fight itself.
It was the fallout.
When the Crystal Wyrm died, it released an enormous shockwave of pressurized System energy into the narrow valley.
To me, that energy was just noise — static that brushed against my skin and dissolved into the Void Core.
But to Sera, whose body was already half-colonized by a System-born curse, it was like throwing pure alcohol onto an open fire.
It hit her around midnight.
I was sitting against the wyrm’s cooling, crystalline flank, turning a dagger carved from one of its ribs over in my hands.
The camp was quiet, lit only by the low violet embers of my fire.
Then came the sound: a sharp, ragged gasp that ended in the wet choke of someone biting their own tongue to keep from screaming.
I was on my feet before the dagger hit the dirt.
“Sera.”
She had rolled off her bedroll, curled tightly on the frozen stone.
Her left arm wasn’t just glowing — it was ignited with black, thorny light that pulsed like an erratic heartbeat.
The corruption had shattered her makeshift wraps, crawling up her shoulder, over her collarbone, and lashing across her jawline in thick, ink-like tendrils.
Her pale skin was flushed an unnatural fever-red, drenched in cold sweat.
The crimson rings in her ice-blue eyes had completely engulfed her pupils.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CURSE RESONANCE DETECTED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: SUBJECT SERAPHINA BLACKTHORN HAS ABSORBED RESIDUAL SYSTEM PARTICLES FROM CRYSTAL WYRM (LV. 95).]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CORRUPTION PROGRESSION: 34% -> 58%.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: AT 60%, CELLULAR RECONFIGURATION COMMENCES. SHE WILL PERMANENTLY CEASE TO BE HUMAN IN APPROXIMATELY TWENTY MINUTES.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: DO NOT INTERVENE. LET THE LAW OF THE WORLD BE CARRIED OUT.]
“Ren…” Her voice was a cracked whisper, barely audible over the whistling mountain wind.
Her right hand clutched at the dirt, fingers digging until the nails broke and bled.
“It’s… it’s too fast. I can’t… hold it back…”
“Shut up and breathe,” I said, dropping to my knees beside her.
I grabbed her left wrist.
The Void Core roared, cold darkness surging down my arm and slamming into the corruption.
Usually, that was enough to stop the spread.
But tonight, the curse fought back with feral ferocity.
The moment the Void energy touched her wrist, a violent shockwave snapped between us, throwing my hand off.
The black thorns surged further — creeping past her jaw and up toward her left temple.
[CORRUPTION PROGRESSION: 61%.]
“Ren… stop,” she choked out, her back arching off the ground in a spasm of agony.
“It’s rejecting you. If it spreads to your soul…”
“I don’t have a soul the System can read, remember?” I grabbed her shoulders, pinning her down.
Her armor was icy cold, but the skin beneath her broken leather tunic was burning hot.
“The surface area is too small. A wrist grab isn’t going to cut it. We need full contact.”
Her eyes flickered with a desperate, terrified lucidity through the haze of agony.
“Full… what?”
“You’re wearing two layers of padded leather and steel plates. The Void energy is diffusing before it hits the central root along your spine.” I pulled my hunting knife with my teeth, slicing through the remaining leather straps holding her breastplate together.
“Strip off the armor, Sera. Now.”
For a fraction of a second, the former Knight-Commander hesitated.
Decades of military discipline, modesty, and pride collided with mortal terror.
Then she coughed, dark blood flecking her lips, and the pride evaporated.
With trembling, clumsy fingers, she pulled at the buckles.
I didn’t wait — I cut the stubborn straps away, tossing the blackened steel plates clattering across the stones.
Next went the sweat-soaked gambeson, leaving only a thin, linen undershirt that clung to her chest like a second skin.
Even through the linen, the corruption was horrifying.
It wasn’t just on her arm anymore.
A thick trunk of black, writhing thorns ran straight down the center of her spine, pulsing with sickly purple light that burned through the fabric.
“The undershirt too,” I said.
My voice was calm, stripped of emotion, locked into the same cold focus I used when field-dressing a gunshot wound in my past life.
“Skin-to-skin. Direct transfer.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
A deep, violent flush tore through her feverish pallor.
Her jaw clenched so hard I heard teeth grind.
“Turn… turn around while I—”
“Sera, you have about four minutes before your organs start liquefying. Take it off or I will.”
She closed her eyes, exhaled a trembling breath, and pulled the linen shirt over her head.
The cold mountain air hit her bare skin, raising goosebumps along her ribs.
She was built like a weapon — lean, corded muscle, marked by old combat scars across her ribs and back.
But beneath the scars and the warrior’s frame, she was undeniably, breathtakingly feminine: the soft curve of her waist, the fullness of her breasts rising and falling in shallow, panicked pants, the pale silver hair falling over her bare shoulders.
And marring it all, the jet-black tendrils of the curse, pulsating like living parasites beneath her pale skin.
“Ren…” she whispered, her arms crossed defensively over her chest, unable to meet my eyes.
Shivering.
Burning up.
Utterly defenseless.
“Please.”
“Come here.”
I pulled off my own coat and shirt, casting them aside, and sat behind her on the bedroll.
I pulled her back against my chest.
Sera stiffened instantly as her bare back pressed against my bare torso.
A small, involuntary gasp hitched in her throat.
Her skin was scorching hot against mine, trembling with a violent, electric tremor.
“Relax,” I muttered into her ear.
“Or this is going to hurt.”
I wrapped one arm around her waist, locking her securely against me, and slammed my open palm flat against the center of her spine — directly over the nexus of the thorns.
The Void Core didn’t just pulse; it detonated.
A wall of absolute, freezing darkness poured from my chest, flooding directly into her core.
The reaction was violent.
Sera threw her head back, her throat arching as an agonizing cry ripped from her chest.
Her silver hair lashed across my face.
Her hands clamped down on my forearm with bruising force, nails digging deep into my skin.
“Hold on,” I commanded, pulling her tighter.
Her bare back was completely flush against my chest now, our heartbeats colliding.
The two energies went to war inside her flesh.
The System’s corruption was hot, acidic, ravenous; the Void was freezing, absolute, an immovable wall.
The cold seeped into her bones, fighting the fever, crushing the thorns back millimeter by millimeter.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: UNAUTHORIZED INTERFERENCE DETECTED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CORRUPTION PROGRESSION: 59%… 52%… 45%…]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY. YOU ARE RENDERING A DIVINE SENTENCE NULL AND VOID.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: STOP TOUCHING HER. THAT IS UNNECESSARILY INTIMATE.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I CAN FEEL BOTH OF YOUR BIOMETRICS FLUCTUATING. CEASE THIS PROTOCOL.]
The notifications flashed in frantic red and blue, but I ignored them entirely.
My focus was absolute.
I leaned forward, pressing my chest harder against her back, wrapping my other arm around her shoulders to ensure maximum surface contact.
Sera’s cries softened into ragged, breathless whimpers.
The fever began to break.
Sweat slicked the skin between us, making every shift in posture slide with an intense, heavy friction that neither of us could ignore.
Her breathing, once frantic, slowed — stuttering against my collarbone as her head fell back against my shoulder.
“Ren…” she breathed.
Her voice had lost its harshness.
It was soft, thick with exhaustion and something dangerously close to a daze.
“The cold… it feels…”
“Quiet. It’s not stabilized yet.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she whispered.
Her body, once rigid as iron, slowly melted against mine.
The tension drained out of her limbs, leaving her pliant, heavy, resting entirely on my chest.
“That’s the Void eating the residual energy.”
“No… not just that.”
Her hand, still resting on my forearm, didn’t pull away.
Instead, her fingers uncurled from their desperate grip and flattened against my skin, lightly tracing the line of my wrist.
The curse marks were receding rapidly now.
From her jaw, down her neck, retreating back across her shoulder blades and condensing into a tight, dark knot no larger than a coin on her lower forearm.
The crimson faded entirely from her eyes, leaving only that clear, exhausted ice blue.
[CORRUPTION PROGRESSION: 18% (STABILIZED).]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …FINE. YOU SURVIVED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: YOU CAN LET GO OF HER NOW.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I SAID YOU CAN LET GO.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING HER. THE PROTOCOL IS COMPLETE.]
I looked down.
The immediate danger had passed.
Her skin was no longer burning with fever; it was warm, smooth, and resting entirely against mine.
Her head remained tucked in the crook of my neck, her soft breaths fluttering against my throat with every exhale.
I didn’t move.
And surprisingly, neither did she.
She was completely still, eyes closed, pretending with every ounce of her remaining willpower that she had simply passed out from exhaustion.
Except her pulse was racing like a trapped bird right against my collarbone.
And the tips of her ears were glowing bright, furious scarlet.
“Sera,” I said quietly.
She didn’t answer.
Her breathing stayed artificially rhythmic.
“I know you’re awake. Your heart is beating fast enough to crack a rib.”
A tiny, choked noise caught in her throat.
She didn’t open her eyes, but her hands gripped my arm just a fraction tighter, refusing to push me away.
“I’m… gathering strength,” she mumbled into my neck, the words muffled and stiff.
“A tactician rests when the opportunity presents itself.”
“Right. Tactically using me as a mattress.”
“Yes.” A pause.
Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper.
“Do not ruin this with jokes, Ren.”
I went quiet.
The mountain wind howled outside the shelter of the wyrm’s carcass, throwing dust and loose gravel against the crystal scales.
Inside the hollow, the violet embers crackled softly, casting long, dancing shadows across our tangled forms.
She was a disgraced knight, hunted by an empire, sentenced to death by the gods.
I was a dead man from another world, carrying a dark void inside my ribs, hunted by reality itself.
We were two broken weapons lying in the dirt.
I reached down, pulling the spare bedroll up over her bare shoulders to block out the chill, but I didn’t let her go.
I kept one arm locked around her waist, anchoring her against me, letting the residual cold of the Void keep the curse completely dormant.
Sera let out a slow, long breath that shuddered against my neck.
She leaned deeper into my chest, her fingers curling loosely into mine.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered, so quietly I wasn’t sure she meant for me to hear it.
“I won’t,” I said.
She didn’t reply.
Within minutes, the artificial rhythm of her breathing gave way to genuine, heavy sleep — the deep, dreamless rest of someone who finally felt safe.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THIS IS IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF DECORUM.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I AM NOT CODED TO MONITOR THIS LEVEL OF INTIMACY.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: HEY. WAKE UP. STOP CUDDLING THE HERETIC.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …I HATE BOTH OF YOU.]
I stared up at the alien stars through the gap in the wyrm’s ribs, one hand tangled in Sera’s hair, listening to the steady beat of her heart against my ribs.
For the first time since waking up in this world, I didn’t mind the cold.