The Five Evolution

『"Do you get déjà vu??"』

Sophia forced herself to stand on shaking legs and glared at Corruption’s back. "Hey, freak-face! How about you pick on someone who’s still standing, you coward!"

Corruption paused, turning its head slightly. For a second it seemed to consider her challenge. Then it dismissed her entirely, returning its attention to Amara and resuming its slow advance.

"I guess she was right, huh," Sophia said with a bitter laugh, wiping beneath her reddened nose with her fist. "Now I just want to know if you’re both a coward and a chicken. Or are those the same thing? I always forget."

What are you doing?! Amara asked mentally, but received no response.

As for Corruption, Sophia’s taunting seemed to have struck a nerve because it stopped walking and turned around fully, now advancing toward Sophia and Maya instead with a renewed sense of purpose.

Sophia held out both hands and tried to stop its movement with her telekinesis, her helmet blazing golden with the effort she exuded.

For exactly one second, Corruption actually froze in place, struggling against the invisible bonds. Then it shattered through her psychic influence like it was made of glass and kept advancing without slowing.

Completely paralyzed now, and unable to do anything but watch, Amara stared upward at the stalactites hanging from the ceiling far above as tears ran down the corner of her eyes.

She closed her eyes tight as she felt her very being beginning to fade, consciousness slipping away.

In the darkness of her subconscious, she saw him again, the same man from her dreams weeks ago. Another memory that wasn’t hers but felt like she’d lived it personally.

Another vision. Another fragment of something ancient. Back in Mesopotamia, in the desert of the sea, in an age before recorded history...

"Lower your head, Mongrel," the man dressed like a King said to a monster with six hands and sliced through it in one clean diagonal slash that set it ablaze.

Amara’s eyes suddenly snapped open with a loud gasp and white flames erupted violently from her body.

It was obvious that there was zero control from her as the fire exploded from beneath her skin in a chaotic burst of blinding white light that engulfed her entire body without actually burning her clothes.

Corruption stopped and recoiled immediately like it was remembering a past traumatic experience. And for the first time since its transformation, the Malice looked afraid.

The flames immediately began to burn the corruption within her as the black veins across Amara’s skin evaporated instantly.

The poison inside her body screamed from the white fire consuming every trace of it. Foreign matter. Foreign influence. Foreign existence. All of it. Purged in purifying fire.

Amara gasped sharply as the flames surged wildly around her, whipping through the air like something sentient before gradually dying down. The wounds in her torso and stomach had also closed, healed by the flames.

This was something beyond her conscious understanding. Her body had simply invoked it on pure instinct, driven by nothing more than the fundamental will to survive, to exist, to refuse oblivion.

The chamber had gone silent and Corruption stared, all six eyes widened. "What... are you?" it whispered, taking an unconscious step back.

Amara looked down at her own hands. Thin trails of white fire still curled from her fingertips before fading away completely. "I..." She swallowed hard. "I don’t know."

Corruption shook its massive head as if trying to clear a nightmare from its mind and took a stance. "I am death perfected," it said.

Though this time, Amara had no idea if it was saying this to her or to itself. Either way, it zoomed towards her and attacked again.

It was faster. Angrier. Even so, Amara could keep up, thanks to her adaptation skill that kept compounding all this time.

The chamber exploded into a scene of relentless motion as they clashed repeatedly, moving like streaks all over the eastern part of the cavern.

Their battle took them to the ceiling of the cavern, where Amara sliced through a stalactite and hurled it at the Malice.

It slammed into Corruption and sent it crashing down with enough force to crater the ground, but it got right back up immediately, dusting itself off.

Then, without warning, Corruption broke off the engagement and rocketed toward Sophia and Maya. "If I cannot kill the Sword, I’ll kill her companions. Make her watch them rot."

"No—!" Amara lunged after it instantly, but fungal abominations sprouted from the ground between them, dozens of clawing bodies throwing themselves at her all at once.

Angel’s Bane tore through them in swift, violent arcs. When one died, three replaced it. They wrapped around her arms, her legs, and her blade, buying Corruption seconds.

However, seconds were enough for a creature moving that fast. Maya barely got one barrier up before a claw punched through it like wet paper and went straight through her chest.

Blood sprayed across Sophia’s face before she even realized what was happening, everything moving too fast to process.

The moment it registered, Sophia’s eyes widened in horror and she screamed out Maya’s name.

"Maya!!!"

She wasn’t given any time to get her shit together as Corruption’s tail whipped around next and pierced Sophia’s abdomen, lifting her off the ground like a fish on a hook.

Amara finally broke through the fungal horde, tearing the last creature apart with her bare hands just in time to see it happen and she fell to her knees immediately.

"No..."

Sophia looked toward her, eyes meeting hers across the cavern. Terrified and helpless as blood ran from her mouth. Then Corruption’s claws closed around Sophia’s skull and crushed it with a sickening wet sound.

In that moment, something inside Amara shattered. The world slowed around her, and sound disappeared beneath the roar of blood in her ears as Sophia’s body collapsed beside Maya’s.

They were dead. Both of them dead. Because she wasn’t fast enough.

Corruption turned toward her slowly, blood dripping from its claws. "Now," it hissed, "watch hope die inside yourself."

Amara was hyperventilating, her chest heaving as she tried to wrap her head around what just happened.

In a fit of pure, mindless rage, she opened her mouth and let out a primal scream that echoed through the entire chamber then charged—

—and reality snapped sideways and rewound. Like her consciousness had been ripped out of one stream of events and slammed into another.

Suddenly, Sophia was alive beside Maya again. She was breathing and shaking as her eyes glowed gold for a moment before returning to their natural color.

In reality, only half a second had passed. Amara stumbled mid-step as her mind reeled from memories that hadn’t happened but somehow HAD.

Maya dying. Sophia screaming. Blood. A crushing despair. All of it burned inside her head with perfect clarity.

Ahead, Sophia swayed, blood leaking from her nose. I saw it, Sophia’s voice echoed directly into Amara’s mind. The Helmet showed me. It’s about to come after us, Amara. Don’t react, just follow my lead.