The stairs groaned under his weight as Gael staggered, one hand clutching the doorway, the other clutching his half-empty flask like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

  Maeve froze, her heart hammering as she watched him stumble, stumble forward, and tip over the stair railing.

  The fall wasn’t graceful. His coat flared out behind him like a dying crow’s wings as he crashed onto the empty altar below with a muffled thud, the stone groaning under the sudden weight. Maeve ignored the Myrmur. She sprinted forward and skidded to a halt beside him, dropping to her knees while he lay sprawled on his back with his mask tilted askew, blood streaking down his exposed jaw.

  His chest embedded with the Myrmur’s umbilical cord rose and fell in shallow, uneven gasps, and for a brief, horrible second, she thought he was just straight up going to die.

  Then a sound like wet, tearing flesh split the air.

  Her head snapped to the side just in time to see the Myrmur compressing itself, grotesque limbs folding inward, and then its umbilical cord sucked it inside Gael’s chest, disappearing into his body like a cloth through a tiny pipe. His back arched violently as his veins started turning black, and a strangled noise escaped his lips: a mix of a gasp and a laugh, garbled and broken.

  No!

  It’s trying to hide inside him so it can release its retaliation venom and die with him!

  She grabbed his shoulders, panic clawing at her ribs as she stared, wide-eyed, at the bloody hole in his chest. It wasn’t a large wound at all—its diameter was barely the size of a fingertip—but the little fleshy needle sticking out of his chest was taunting them, daring them to try to pull it out.

  Her fingers tightened, trembling. This was her fault. All of it. She shouldn’t have dragged a random person off the street into this mess. Not even if he was a Plagueplain Doctor. He wasn’t supposed to die here.

  Not for her.

  Her chest seized, a suffocating weight pressing down as memories surged forward abruptly: scorched ground, ash-streaked faces, screams of people she’d once called friends. Colleagues. Family. Her poisonous blood had killed them. Her magic had killed them. She’d destroyed everything she ever touched, and it was going to happen again, even in this part of the city.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shove the memories away.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so, so sorry—”

  “What the fuck are you even moaning for, Exorcist?”

  She paused.

  She blinked.

  Then her breath caught as she peeled her eyes open, watching Gael wheeze and raise his half-empty flask to his lips. His grin was sickly, crooked, and blood-slick, yet with a single flick of his thumb, he popped the cork and started downing the remaining glowing green liquid in a single gulp.

  Once he finished downing the entire thing, he tossed the flask away. It was surprisingly sturdy, because instead of shattering, it simply hit the floor and bounced off with a hollow clink—and as she watched it roll away, Gael leaned back into the altar, his laugh utterly mad and diabolical.

  “Watch this,” he rasped.

  And before she could stop him, his hand shot to the fleshy needle sticking out of his chest.

  “No!” She grabbed his wrist, her nails digging into his skin. “Stop! You can’t… if you rip it out—”

  “It’s using my heart as a surrogate so it can extend its own life a little longer, right?” he said coolly. “If I leave it in me, it’ll eventually sap all my strength and kill me, but if I rip it out now, it’ll do what it normally does to Hosts who try to remove it: it’ll release a retaliation venom that’ll kill me painfully, right?”

  “If you understand, then stop! The retaliation venom isn’t like any normal venom! It’s a killing curse that will absolutely—”

  “Kill its target?”

  He smiled. A sharp, maddening thing that made her stomach churn.

  “A life for a life,” he whispered.

  And then he pulled.

  The fleshy needle tore free with a sickening schlick. Black blood sprayed across the floor, and Gael shivered from head to toe, chucking the intrusive organism away as far as he could.

  Immediately, the Myrmur started screaming. It writhed and unfurled and decompressed itself in the centre of the prayer hall, returning to its normal two-metre-tall form with two legs and four arms. It wasn’t trying to pass off as a human anymore. Now, even a blind man could tell it was seriously injured as it rolled around on the ground, scratching at its own chitin plates like a poison was melting its skin, but… how?

  How did the Plagueplain Doctor bypass the killing curse?

  Her mouth went dry.

  “... How?” was all she could whisper.

  And, in response, Gael let out a weak chuckle as he slapped a patch of gauze over the tiny entry wound on his chest to stop the bleeding, still sprawled on his back.

  “Told you,” he murmured. “I saved the lady. Saved myself. Now…” He grinned faintly, pointing at her face with a shaky, trembling finger. “Time for you to uphold your end of the deal.”

  …

  For a moment longer, all she could do was stare at him.

  Then she clapped her own cheeks, the sting snapping her back to reality.

  Right.

  I’m the Exorcist in this professional relationship.

  Her umbrella felt lighter in her hands as she rose to her feet, turning around to face the screaming, thrashing Myrmur. It was just now clawing onto its feet as well, and its bulbous eyes were locked onto hers. Hatred burned in its gaze, but she didn’t flinch.

  That sent it a message: it wasn’t going to be able to parasitize her like it’d done to Gael, so now it had nowhere left to run.

  She was going to finish it.

  [Host is designated as ‘Gael’. Hunter is designated as ‘Maeve’]

  [System integration has completed for Host and Hunter]

  [The system is now synchronizing your eleven organ systems with the essence of your class. You have regained full control of your system-enhanced strength and Essence Art]

  [// STATUS]

  [Name: Maeve Valcieran / Gael Halloway]

  [Grade: F-Rank Wretch-Class]

  [Standard Class: Wasp]

  [Passive Mutation: Profane Eyes]

  [Essence Art: Purging Blood / Blood Covenant]

  [Aura: 117 BeS / 100 BeS]

  [Points: 0 vBe / 0 vBe]

  [Strength: 2 / 1, Speed: 2 / 1, Toughness: 1 / 1, Dexterity: 1 / 1, Perceptivity: 1 / 1]

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutation | Scent Latch Lvl. 1 / Miasma Mantle] 15P

  She barely gave the status interfaces that popped up next to her head a glance. The Myrmur screeched, its grotesque limbs clawing at the air as it lunged at her in a final, desperate move. Bloodlust oozed from every jerking motion, but again, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

  She reared ‘Mistrender’ behind her like a blade as she thumbed a button on its handle.

  Tiny spikes embedded in the umbrella’s handle immediately stabbed into her palm, sharp and thirsty. The pain was immediate, but she didn’t resist it. Her poisonous blood fed the weapon, coursing through its steel veins like molten fire, but just infusing it with her blood wasn’t her magic. That was all Mistrender.

  Her magic allowed her to imbue her blood with bioarcanic essence to turn it into an incredibly toxic mix, and when it was fed into her specially-crafted weapon…

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  The hollow shaft of her umbrella hissed as she willed her blood to toxify, churn, and coil like a serpent. It made her weapon heavier, but with her system helping her synchronize her essence-enhanced body, she was now twice as strong and fast as the average human.

  She could handle a bit of weight.

  A second before the Myrmur’s claws could reach her, she swung Mistrender upward with both hands, and she swung it faster than she’d ever swung anything before.

  Her strike connected with the Myrmur’s jaw with a sickening crack, sending the creature hurtling into the air. It shattered through the shoddy slanted wooden ceiling above, shrapnel scattering like stars, but she didn’t just stand there admiring the chaos.

  With the tip of Mistrender pointed down, her thumb found another concealed button near the base of the handle. She pressed it, and a jet of poisonous blood erupted from the tip, propelling her upward with the force of a cannon.

  The abrupt acceleration nearly wrenched the umbrella from her hands, but she held tight, her body slicing through the air as she shot through the ceiling herself and flew past the Myrmur.

  Ten meters up—three meters above the thrashing, flailing monster unable to control its trajectory—she hung suspended in the sky for a fleeting moment.

  Her gaze wandered, taking in the dilapidated clinic below. It was an utter ruin of shattered furniture, fractured wood, and unsafe living conditions, but… her lips pressed into a thin line as she felt a little insulted.

  This thing had invaded the clinic that was to be her home.

  It wasn’t leaving alive.

  So she gripped Mistrender tightly as she started falling, aiming the tip down at the Myrmur. One hand curled around the button that’d fire her blood, and the other flicked three more levels along the vertical shaft, disengaging safety locks one to three. Each click sent a shiver up the weapon as it was allowed to drink more and more blood from her body, the weapon now glowing bright green as steam hissed off the black fabric.

  The Myrmur turned its bulbous eyes toward her, staring in shock, but it was too late.

  With both hands wrapped around the handle, she pressed the ‘fire’ button.

  A massive pillar of blood erupted from the umbrella’s tip, roaring like a cannon, and it struck the Myrmur mid-air, driving it down into the clinic floor with unrelenting force. The impact was catastrophic. The shockwave that followed rippled outwards, shaking the walls, shattering every intact window in the building, and a small crater formed beneath the creature, the rotten floorboards caved in around its twitching body.

  For her part, she simply let gravity pull her down, angling the umbrella above her. She twisted the handle, and the canopy opened with a snap, catching the air and allowing her to descend slowly.

  As she floated slowly down through the ceiling, though, the heel of her boots touched down hard on the Myrmur’s twitching, bulbous head. It couldn’t move anymore. It had no strength left. It let out a pitiful noise, high-pitched and garbled, but if it was begging for mercy, she was the wrong person to ask.

  After all, if there was one thing she hated more than Plagueplain Doctors, it was these magic-blooded wretches that dared pass themselves off as anything more than bugs to be squashed underfoot.

  So she rested her umbrella against her shoulder as she leaned in, pressing the weight of her boot down and crushing its head into bloody pulp.

  The Myrmur was ‘exorcised’.

  Letting out a soft sigh, she whipped her umbrella back into its briefcase form and stumbled a few shaky steps toward the altar where Gael was still sprawled out across. The moment she reached him, her legs gave out beneath her, and she collapsed onto the floor right before the altar, groaning as her back hit the cold wood.

  The broken ceiling above stretched into view. Fractured wooden fragments clung stubbornly to the edges, glittering faintly against the poisonous mist outside.

  And for a moment, all the two of them did was lay there in silence, groaning softly in unison, too battered to do anything else.

  “... You alive?” Maeve finally asked, her voice hoarse.

  “Yep,” Gael croaked. “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  Another beat of quiet passed.

  Then Maeve shifted slightly to make herself more comfortable on the floor, grimacing as pain flared through her limbs.

  “What… did you do?” she finally asked. “That green… liquid you drank. What was it?”

  Gael didn’t respond immediately. His gloved hand fumbled inside his coat, and after a moment, he pulled out a small decorative glass vial in the shape of a five-petal flower. The iridescent green liquid inside pulsed faintly, casting an eerie light across his fingers.

  Maeve fixed her gaze on it. Even from the floor, she noticed how strange it looked—thicker than any liquid she’d seen, almost like syrup. It moved oddly as he swirled the vial around, too, squirming and writhing inside the glass as though it were alive.

  “... Have you heard of the ‘Grimatrix Doctor’, Exorcist?” he began.

  Maeve frowned, her head too heavy to lift, so she just stared at him blankly from the corner of her eye.

  He continued.

  “The Grimatrix Doctor is the first of the Church of Severin’s Seventy-Two Demonic Plagueplain Doctors, and he is the specialist in the field of ‘Biological Annihilation and the Engineering of Death’s Precision’,” he said, swirling the little vial above his face. “Decades ago, while staying in a village south of Bharncair, he stumbled across something… unusual. Certain people in that village kept dying from a mysterious illness. No rhyme or reason. Just abrupt, spontaneous death. He suspected it was a bioarcanic viru… or, well, for less-learned folk like you, let’s just keep calling them ‘curses’. He suspected there was a curse in the village, and very quickly, he realised it was nothing he’d ever seen before.”

  Maeve furrowed her brows, wondering where he was going with this.

  “The Grimatrix Doctor eventually called it the ‘Curse that Chooses,’” he said. “He investigated around, and quite quickly, he found the deaths weren’t random at all. The curse wasn’t killing everyone—just travellers, merchants, and outsiders. The locals? Completely fine. Didn’t even know they were carriers of the curse.” He paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. “And, after cutting open a few locals for further investigation, the Grimatrix Doctor discovered the curse possessed a rudimentary ‘recognition mechanism’ that’d only make itself deadly when it recognised its host as an enemy. In this scenario, it was the outsiders. The curse had the ‘intelligence’ to differentiate between locals and outsiders.”

  “A curse that… chooses?” Maeve muttered.

  “Mhm. And here’s the kicker,” he said, flipping the vial across his knuckles. “After the Grimatrix Doctor left the village, he posited a hypothesis in which the reverse was possible: if a curse can selectively recognize and kill a particular type of host without harming other types of host, could it be possible to create a medicine that can selectively recognize and kill a particular type of curse without harming the host at all?”

  Maeve frowned.

  “As of right now, medicine in Bharncair falls into two large categories.” He raised two fingers, holding them out over her face. “The first type are broad-spectrum remedies, but they’re crude, inefficient things. Medicines such as liquid silver for scab curses and black arsenic for skin curses work sometimes, sure, but they also poison the patient. The side effects ain’t anything to laugh at. The same goes for the second type of medicine, which is pain relief medicine. Darkwater opium, herbal decoctions, and mandrake roots are all consumed to numb the symptoms of a curse, but they don’t fix the root cause. They’re primitive. They don’t really work.”

  Then he smiled, a mad, wicked grin that stretched from ear to ear.

  “You want statistics?” he began softly. “In Bharncair, most deaths don’t come from injuries. They come from venoms, toxins, overdosing of bioarcanic essence—all ‘curses’ that execute a ‘kill command’ in the human body. Sometimes, there’s no easy way to get around a powerful curse. The inescapable law of biology dictates that when something is ‘killed’, something must ‘die’. But…” he trailed off, grinning up at his vial. “That ‘something’ doesn’t have to be a human life.”

  He shook the vial lightly.

  “This,” he said, “is the Symbiote Elixir: an organic cocktail of a thousand secret ingredients—don’t ask, I ain’t telling—that essentially creates a living organism inside your body. It ain’t some boring inert potion. It’s alive, and it has one job: to recognize threats to its host and die in their place.”

  He started shaking the vial even harder, and the liquid inside started to make a soft, screeching sound.

  “Let’s say you get a lethal dose of a ‘curse’. Normally, what happens is that the curse courses through your veins and executes a ‘kill command’ in your body, which poisons your flesh and blood,” he said. “Normally, you’d die. But with this? The symbiote elixir in your blood will specifically recognize and target the curse, and then intercept it before it can execute the ‘kill command’ on you. It takes the hit, sacrifices itself, and saves you. It’ll do the same for venoms, toxins, and all sorts of incomprehensible curses. If you can name it, the elixir can protect you from it. You get hit with a petrification curse? The elixir gets petrified in your stead, and you just shit it out the next day. You catch a cold curse? The elixir gets bedridden for you, and you sneeze it out in the sink. It’s a medicine that targets the curse, and only the curse. It doesn’t hurt you in the process like broad-spectrum and pain relief medicines.”

  Maeve’s eyes widened as she stared up at the vial. The liquid was pulsing faintly like it had a heartbeat.

  So Gael finished his explanation with a tone of smug satisfaction. “Basically, when I ripped the Myrmur’s heart out and it injected its retaliation ‘killing curse’ into me, the symbiote elixir in my bloodstream intercepted it and died in my place. After all, the inescapable law of biology states that a life must be traded for a life. It just doesn’t have to be mine.”

  And that was the end of it.

  The ‘Symbiote Elixir’.

  Maeve stared at the shattered ceiling above her, the faint sting of the Myrmur’s blood still sharp in her nose. She didn’t know what to say, really—but she did know how she wanted to react.

  “... That’s a madman’s elixir,” she muttered, the words barely escaping her lips. “An anti-curse elixir. Where did you learn how to make it?”

  Gael shifted on the altar, letting out a dry laugh. “You insult me, Exorcist. I invented it myself. It’s my patent, my one and only, and now that I know it actually works, I’m gonna be fucking rich.”

  She turned her head slightly to stare at him, and silence stretched between them once more.

  Then she pushed a hand through her tangled hair, grimacing at the grit and grime.

  “Right,” she mumbled. “In case you didn’t catch it earlier… my name is—”

  Gael didn’t bother looking at her as he clicked his tongue. “I know your name. I don’t have the memory of a flytrap.”

  Her eyes narrowed, irritation flaring through the exhaustion. “I was just reminding you in case you forgot, Doctor.”

  “But while we’re on the subject of our professional relationship,” he continued, gesturing vaguely at the destruction around them, “you’ll be paying for all this.”

  Maeve blinked. “What?”

  “The ceiling. The broken walls. The floorboards. The medical fees for patching you up thirty minutes ago when you were still inflicted with Alchemist’s Bane. You’re footing the bill, right?”

  “But I don’t have any money.”

  “... What?”

  Before Gael could fire back, though, the distant front door slammed open with a resounding bang, and Maeve tilted her head to see a young woman standing in the doorway with impressively wide eyes.

  Gael seemed to recognise her.

  And he started laughing nervously as she glared at him.

  “What the fuck happened here?” she snapped.