Two more times, I tried to scry on the park the Withered had overtaken. Both times, I immediately was smacked back, the Water Mirror not even fully forming in the area I wanted to look into. After the second time, I noticed a distinct scent in the air around it, one that made me worry.

The moment I noticed it, and realised that the mouldy scent wasn’t just carried in the moist air but was something else, something supernatural, I began to focus power into my eyes, to get a better look.

And what I saw caused my gut to clench in disgust. There, where the Water Mirror had exploded moments before, I could see a faint trace of magic seeping into our reality as if the strike that had shattered the scrying sensor near the park had somehow fed back here, into the Mirror we used to see. And not only fed back to the point of destroying the mirror but fed back to the point that now, there was a bit of backlash reaching for us.

“Shit,” I muttered, already drawing on my magic to get rid of the stuff. I couldn’t be sure what the magic would do, but just the scent and look of it disgusted me. There was Life Magic within it, but there were also traces of decay, rot and disease, all mixed up into a fetid compound that I wanted to have nothing to do with. For a moment, I considered the best ways to get rid of the disgusting mix and I realised that I could only imagine four ways, three of which were out of my reach.

The most straightforward was Darkness, the all-consuming Void I theorised as one of the most powerful expressions of the element, capable of consuming everything, matter, light, energy, and even space itself. The Void could take it all and make it into nothing, into the ultimate emptiness. Sadly, I could only imagine what this expression of Darkness would look like, I was far from being able to conjure it. So, no black holes to swallow some nastiness for me.

Both Fire and Light would also work, both could be used to purify by burning. Whether it was sunlight to disinfect, or powerful light in general, or the purifying flame, both concepts were easy to grasp, though I doubted I would be able to conjure up either with sufficient power. My loathing for the elements didn’t help me much there, to say nothing of my lacking affinity.

And lastly, the only method I could readily summon, was Death. Plan, simple Death, strong enough to overcome the life elements binding the disgusting mixture together, to bring an end to it. It was a simple solution, and with gritted teeth from the discomfort of summoning an element harmful to myself, I conjured up a swath of pale grey, life-sapping power. It seeped from my hands, spreading almost like a mist, as it followed my intent, tearing through the traces of decay that had entered the area.

I managed to remain standing, even after summoning enough Death Magic to wash away the taint that had tried to reach the two of us, but it was a near thing. Summoning small amounts of Death Magic was one thing, but I had conjured up a lot more than I normally dared to. And it hurt, my joints started to ache, my muscles felt strained and tired, it was a pain unlike any I had felt before.

But it was only a passing pain, as the magic I had conjured ate away the decay that had travelled through the connection I had established, the pain started to fade, allowing me to relax a little.

“I can’t try again,” I told Lia, “No idea how the Withered manage to do it, but they can easily slap aside the connection. They managed to send something through and I’ve got no idea what it was supposed to do. but I’m confident the answer would be, ‘Nothing good’. I think I managed to destroy what they sent, but I wouldn’t want to risk that they get better at the process.”

“Mother, when I changed Alex, there was something pushing back, do you remember? Could it be that the Withered spread like some sort of disease, a virus or something like that, and that something was what they send through?” Lia asked, looking down at Alex, still hiding beneath her chair.

“Maybe not a virus, but a fungus? Or a parasite, maybe spores, that might make sense?” I replied, thinking about the weird lattice-like structures in the various Withered brains I had dissected. If it was some sort of infection that established itself in the brain, it might manifest in symptoms like we had seen in the Withered. Before the Change, fungal infections, or at least infections with some sort of parasitic agent, had been a major trope in Zombie fiction, so it might make sense that reality here was trying to imitate fiction. And what a headache that would be, there was so much fiction written about horrible circumstances so people could feel good about their own mediocrity, it would fill countless libraries. If that all was miraculously coming true, reality itself might just spontaneously unravel.

“Whatever the case, we shouldn’t stick around. And I’ll have to carefully check, so none of us are infected,” I shook my head, not liking that idea at all. Sure, I had magic that would hopefully kill any infection, but that only helped on a small scale. Unless I managed to gain enough power to wipe out the source.

“Let’s go, we’ve got a few more hours,” I told Lia. We needed to get to Apple Gate Farm, hopefully, the people there had gathered enough power to be useful against the Withered. Otherwise, things might seriously go south. Or maybe there was a way to contain the Withered, until the people there had enough power or until I managed to push myself far enough so I could wipe them away.

But the infection had to be contained, or the area would quickly turn out inhabitable. Which the people at the farm needed to know.

“What are we doing?” Lia asked as we moved down the stairs back into the streets. By now, the drizzling rain had turned into a downpour, already drenching our clothes. It was another thing we needed to replace, the clothes we had originally worn were rapidly outliving their usefulness, the mass-produced stuff was barely holding together, regardless of how often we tried to stitch it back together.

“The Farm,” I told her, before elaborating on my plans. Not that I really had any plans, at least none that would work long-term. It was an almost amusing bit of irony, that, for once, I needed other people to be strong, in order to help out with the fight against the Withered. The weight of their numbers could only be stemmed with numbers of our own, or with serious magic, that I couldn’t conjure up yet. At least not unless I sacrificed a bunch of people, which I had as my Plan B. Maybe I should consider making it Plan A, especially if we managed to capture a bunch of Shattered, they had their use in Blood Magic.

Sure, I didn’t have the reserves to conjure up something akin to the destruction I had rained down on Hatterion in my bid to avenge Olivia and I certainly couldn’t bring the same powers to bear that I had summoned with the help of the Nexus, but did I really need those?

I really didn’t, did I?

“Keep an eye out for powerful Shattered,” I told Lia, as we moved, making her stumble for a moment. We hadn’t hunted Shattered for weeks, certainly not the powerful variety, not since we realised that there was competition for the mindless Undead between Withered and Shattered. But if I could catch a few powerful Shattered, I would hopefully be able to destroy the Withered once and for all.

“Let me tell you a bit about ritual magic,” I began, “Remember how I managed to heal you? That was a simple ritual, it was essentially only me, slowly pouring out my powers so I could harness more than I normally could. But there are more complex rituals, rituals where the caster not only uses their innate Astral Power but also Astral Power from outside sources. And as you know, I’m quite adept at Blood Magic,” I explained, Lia listening with bated breath. It was quite amusing, how interested she looked.

Somehow, the rain felt far less annoying as we continued on our way. Not now, after I had hopefully broken my Gordian knot. I didn’t need to motivate other people to become strong, I merely needed to make the right sacrifices. But maybe I should give the people at the farm a chance to do the right thing, before I started to conjure up the closest thing to hel on Earth I could manage.