[ Location: The Upside Down - Above the Creel House ]
[ Date: November 1st, 1985 - Time: Frozen ]
The sky screamed.
It wasn't thunder.
It was the sound of reality tearing apart like a wet bedsheet.
Through the rift, the Mist poured in and with it, The Limb.
It was grey, wet and big. Imagine a tentacle the size of the Empire State Building, covered in eyes and weeping sores.
It didn't just move; it warped the space around it. The dead trees near the rift turned into glass instantly. The air rippled like heat haze.
"PUSH!" Vecna roared, his voice cracking with genuine terror.
'No need to tell me twice.'
I flew up, right into the path of the falling titan-limb.
'Divine Psychokinesis: Barrier. Max Output.'
[ Ability Active. ]
I threw my hands up.
A wall of violet force erupted from my mind.
BOOM.
The limb hit my shield.
It felt like catching a falling moon.
My bones rattled. My teeth clicked together. The Aether energy in my veins burned white-hot.
"Get... back!" I gritted out, blood spraying from my nose.
I pushed. My Spirit (Finite) flared against the Spirit (Infinity) of the thing outside.
I couldn't beat it so I could only hold the door.
"Stitch it, Henry!" I screamed at the Lich below. "Sew the damn hole shut!"
Vecna raised his clawed hand.
The Hive Mind answered.
Every vine in the Upside Down—miles of black, slithering rot—shot into the sky.
They lashed out like needles, piercing the edges of the reality tear.
"PULL!" Vecna commanded.
The vines tightened. They acted like sutures, dragging the edges of the dimension back together.
The massive grey limb thrashed, hitting my shield again and again. Thud. Thud.
"I can't hold it forever!" I yelled, my vision spotting. "Weld it!"
I dropped one hand from the shield and focused on the tear itself.
'Atomic Rearrangement.'
I tried to change space and grabbed the edges of the rift where the vines were pulling.
'Fuse.'
I poured my will into the gap and welded the fabric of the universe back together.
For a split second, our minds touched.
[ Synchronization: 100% ]
I felt him. Henry Creel. Cold. Orderly. A mind like a clockwork machine made of bones. He hated me. He was disgusted by my chaotic, but controlled energy.
And he felt me. The foreign power. The System. The Clown laughing in the basement of my soul.
We both recoiled in mental disgust.
"Seal it!" we both screamed in unison.
The rift began to close.
The grey limb was severed, dissolving into ash as it lost connection to the Abyss.
But just before the final crack sealed...
The Yellow Eye looked at me.
It stared right through my shield.
Right through my Occlumency.
[ System Alert: Mental Intrusion! Firewall Breached! ]
It was a tag. Like a hunter tagging a shark.
"FOUND YOU."
Pain exploded on my right hand. It felt like someone put a cigar out on my palm.
SNAP.
The rift slammed shut. The Mist vanished. The sky turned back to its angry red lightning.
Silence.
I dropped out of the sky, landing on the roof of the Creel House. I fell to my knees, clutching my hand.
I looked at it.
Burnt into my skin was a black mark.
A spiral or maybe an eye.
It pulsed with a cold, sickly heat.
[ Status: Marked by the Abyss. ][ Effect: They know where you are. ]
"Great," I wheezed, standing up. "Now I'm on a mailing list."
Behind me, the vines retreated.
Vecna landed on the roof, a few yards away. He looked exhausted. His skin was paler than usual, his chest heaving.
We stood there for a second, breathing the toxic air.
"We stopped it," I said, turning to face him. "Good job, Henry."
Vecna looked at me. His blue eyes were cold again.
The fear was gone, replaced by the old, sickening arrogance.
"Yes," he whispered. "The threat is gone."
His gaze dropped to my hand, to the black, pulsing Mark.
"But you... you are compromised."
He raised his hand.
"That Mark... it is a door, Vivan. If I let you live, It will possess you and I cannot allow a puppet of the Abyss to walk in my garden."
Swish.
A massive vine shot out of the roof tiles, aiming straight for my heart. It moved faster than a bullet.
He thought I was weak and tired now.
'Predictable.'
I drew the Void Blade.
SLASH.
The purple-black sword cut the vine cleanly in half.
The severed end writhed on the roof.
Vecna blinked.
"You really thought that would work?" I asked, my voice dropping an octave.
I looked at him.
'He saw my mind during the sync and knows about the System interface, Shop etc. He knows I'm not just a psychic, I'm something else entirely. Something he can't control.'
"You're not saving the world, Henry," I said, stepping forward.
The Aether flared around me, no longer white, but a violent, crackling Violet. "You're just clearing the board so you can be the only monster left."
"I am necessary!" Vecna hissed, summoning a dozen more vines. "You are an infection! You carry the rot of the Void! You must be purged!"
"You call it rot," I snarled. "I call it leverage."
I pointed the sword at him.
"You're cruel, evil and worst of all... you know my secrets..."
The house shook.
"I can't let you live with that knowledge, Henry. You have to go."
"I'm taking the throne."
I launched myself at him.
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