As Kairos continued to hold his time shields, he was somewhat impressed with how everyone else was working together. His three fellow deities had followed his orders exactly, and, in the few places where Corruption had gotten in, it seemed like the mortals were slowly beating it back.
In fact, across the whole universe, mortal races were cooperating on unimaginable scales. Fleets of ships from the Vohra, Ksithans and Rethavok were scouring the edges of the universe, destroying smaller droplets; Skyavok and Temthans were swiftly evacuating places most at risk, Lanex and Spasts were coordinating attacks and communications, the Athrens were ferrying Thraki and Banikans around to deal with Corruptions on neutral and abandon worlds and the Vrekans were hard at work designing purification systems to decontaminate infected water supplies. Heck, even the Torr were hard at work, both assisting with evacuations and building incendiary weapons to help combat the Corruption.
At the same time, Arkay had neutralized pretty much every major intrusion on the northern hemisphere, Sini had sealed up all the holes and Epani was creating a steady stream of resources to make sure the others could do their duties. And not one of them had doubted Kairos’s demands.
It was actually amazing. Kairos was proud. While Kairos was pretty sure that they couldn’t destroy the Corruption (it was simply too large), if they kept this up, the Corruption would eventually back off and look for an easier meal elsewhere.
There was a chance.
Or so Kairos thought.
The Whenvern shook himself down, then strengthened his main shield. The Corruption was trying to break in again, right in front of Kairos. He was unsure whether the Corruption had any real tactics, or if it was just trying to brute force its way in. What concerned Kairos more though was that he was certain he vaguely recognized this strain. It was an utterly ancient strain. Older than Epani and Sini. But also ever so slightly older than Arkay. Kairos had… not met, but seen this Corruption before, however Kinisis and Kenon had both… talked it into leaving. They had offered something to it. Kairos didn’t know what. But after that, the Corruption had left somewhat peacefully.
This time round, it…
Kairos paused, then approached the shield, peering through it. He was certain that the Corruption was peering back at him. In fact, it had stopped bashing repeatedly on the time shield, and Kairos could see… eyes. And some sort of figure. The Corruption was inspecting Kairos. Was that a smile?
The Whenvern blinked. In that millisecond, the Corruption suddenly struck, firing a sharpened claw through the middle of the time shield, causing it to shatter. It had done so completely without thought, circumnavigating Kairos’s prediction powers. All Kairos could do was growl in agony as an inky talon pierced through his wing and trickled into his body. The pain was so intense that Kaiross found himself falling through the void, down towards a nearby planet.
Thankfully, both Arkay and Sini had realized something was wrong, and they had appeared to assist, but neither of them were capable Time Drakes the way Kairos was, and while Arkay had forced the majority of the Corruption back out through the shattered shield and Sini was starting to erect a new barrier, combining her Life Goddess and Time Drake powers, Kairos quickly realized it didn’t matter.
He’d been hit.
Kairos was corrupted.
Unable to control his pain, Kairos found himself crashing onto the nearest planet, scraping through an ancient forest, uprooting trees. He hoped that Arkay would come down and help him, but the Thantophor was busy desperately closing the massive hole the Corruption had ripped in the side of the universe. And while Epani had telepathically asked if Kairos wanted her to come and help him, he couldn’t risk Epani or Sini getting too close and getting corrupted themselves.
That being said, Kairos wasn’t alone for long. Clearly, the destruction of an entire country’s worth of forest had attracted the attention of the locals. Or, rather, one local. A single Thraki had appeared. They scanned the scene, realized something was wrong and swiftly made their way over to Kairos’s punctured wing.
“Don’t, little one…” Kairos growled.
The Thraki glanced at Kairos, then hovered above the wound and took a deep breath. Without hesitation, it breathed fire across the wound, an attempt to burn away the Corruption.
“I have to help!” the Thraki growled between breaths. “We can’t give up!”
Kairos sighed. The Thraki was right. But Kairos was immediately distracted by something else. Horrible chanting. He had heard the chanting before, but now he was infected, Kairos could understand what it was saying.
“Little Time Drake! Join us, won’t you?”
“Never…” Kairos grunted.
“You will not…” The Corruption seemed to pause mid-sentence. “Oh! Little Time Drake! I know you! I remember! We have passed by! I am so glad that Lady Kinisis joined the ranks of the Fass, the Corruption, in the end!”
Kairos ignored the Corruption’s chants, and focused on what Sini was doing. She knew something was up. She knew Kairos was corrupted. And, worse, she knew that the Corruption was trying to take control of Kairos’s time powers, to slow time down to a crawl, so it could consume the universe without resistance. Kairos did consider passing his Fundamental of Time directly to Sini, but he risked the Corruption following that transfer, and Sini getting corrupted as well.
Something distracted Kairos. The Thraki that had tried to stop the Corruption from spreading had disappeared, but they had swiftly returned with allies. There were now ten Thraki all trying to burn the Corruption from Kairos’s wing. It wasn’t enough. Kairos wondered if even Arkay’s blood would have been enough.
The Whenvern suddenly growled in agony as the Corruption tightened its grip on him. This scared off most of the Thraki, but the first Thraki remained, still fighting.
“Little Kairos, you should close your eyes and join us. You always craved immortality. The Fass is endless and eternal. A single slither is all it takes for us to remain. We cannot be destroyed entirely. Kinisis realized that. The gift she gave me realized that. You can realize it too, by joining us.”
“I refuse!” Kairos howled. “I refuse! I will not- AAARGH!”
The Corruption bit deep. While Arkay and Sini had managed to close the holes the Corruption had made, it didn’t matter any more. Despite Kairos’s struggles, the Corruption was clawing its way through Kairos’s mind, and was stealing his power over time. The Forward Flow of this universe was slowly falling to the Corruption.
Whale-like bellows echoed through the atmosphere. Epani tore through the skies, casting flaming meteors across the planet. She was well aware that Kairos was slipping away, but with Sini desperately trying to wrestle control of the Forward Flow away from Kairos from a distance, and Arkay now stopping the entirely of the Corrupted mass outside the universe from breaking in on his own, Epani had no choice but to put herself at risk.
It didn’t matter. Epani wasn’t a Time Drake, and Kairos had lost control of his own body. An explosion of temporal energy rippled from Kairos’s body, slowing everything down. Unable to fight time itself, Epani found herself somewhat frozen in place, as Kairos’s claw, covered in black goo, wrapped itself around her throat.
“I am sorry, Epani…”
“He is not sorry.”
“I am.”
The Corruption paused for a moment. Time was slowing down across most of the universe, but there were pockets that were weirdly still unaffected. The other two deities were still fighting back. And as a strange blade cut across the Corrupted Whenvern’s arm, the Corruption realized there was a greater prize to be had.
That dagger was just enough to skew things.
The Corruption no longer had full control of time. It had MOST of that control, but the combined strength of what the Corruption now realized was a Khrajahu and an Oull was enough to basically bring the conflict to almost a stalemate. Yes, the Corruption could eventually wear Sini and Arkay down, but the Corruption was impatient.
The Corruption wasn’t even that hungry. Now it was here, it could leverage its position to obtain something far more useful than an otherwise rather annoying and annoyingly small meal.
“My little deities. Khra, Jahu, Khrajahu and Oull. Kairos and Epani, hybrid and null. Children of Kinisis. You put up a good fight, yes?”
“What the fuck do you want, monster?” Epani snarled, trying to free herself from Kairos’s grip.
“While we could fight forever, and I would eventually win, I am willing to compromise. Join me at the centre of the universe, won’t you?”
“Why?”
“My dear little Jahu. You love this universe. I have an offer for you. Hear me out, won’t you?”
Epani’s eyes glanced around, looking for her siblings. She was in no position to fight back. And the telepathic traces from Arkay and Sini heavily suggested they didn’t trust it. But as Epani’s eyes met Kairos’s, Kairos stared back at her.
“We have… a chance to save our universe, Epani…” Kairos whispered. “This… isn’t the path I imagined… but it’s our only shot now…”
Epani took a deep breath. “Fine… Not like we really have any other options…”