The Brand of Light

The outbreak started in the noble quarter at three in the morning.

I woke to bells screaming across the dome. The frantic clanging meant the barriers had been breached. Karin was already strapping on her gauntlets when I stumbled downstairs, and Kaguya had her field kit ready.

"How bad?" I asked.

"Bad enough that they're calling in everyone," Karin said grimly. "Including you."

Through the clinic windows, I could see fires burning in the distance. Buildings catching flame. The dome's shimmer flickered overhead, stressed by whatever was pressing against it from outside.

"The Sephis found a way through?" Kaguya asked, shouldering her satchel.

"Or someone let them through," I said, thinking of Cornelius Blackwater and his systematic poisoning scheme. "Either way, people are dying."

We ran through streets filled with fleeing civilians and rushing plague doctors. The closer we got to the noble quarter, the thicker the air became with that familiar stench of rot and bile. But there was something else mixed in. Something worse.

◇◇◇◇

The scene at Baron Wilhelm's estate made my stomach turn.

Bodies lay scattered across the courtyard. They were wrong. Swollen in places, withered in others, as if the plague had worked through them unevenly. Some had crystalline growths erupting from their skin. Others seemed partially dissolved, their flesh running like melted wax.

"What is this?" I said, kneeling beside a guard whose arm had turned to what looked like black glass. "This is something new."

Ulric stood in the center of the carnage, his sword drawn but not glowing. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked shaken.

"They came through the cellar," he said without preamble. "A rift opened directly beneath the estate. The Sephis that emerged..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "They're different. Working together. And they're searching for something."

A scream echoed from inside the manor. Yamada burst through the front doors, cleavers dripping with ichor that seemed to move on its own.

"There's more inside," he called out, his usual grin strained. "And they're not dying properly. Cut them apart and the pieces keep moving."

I grabbed my medical kit and headed for the manor. "Then we find what's animating them and cut that instead."

The interior was worse than the courtyard. The crystalline growths covered entire walls, pulsing with sickly light. The air was thick enough to chew, and every breath tasted of copper and decay.

"Ken," Ulric said quietly, catching my arm. "There's something you need to know. They've been tearing through the estate systematically. Room by room, like they're looking for something specific. And they keep asking about the old texts."

As if summoned by his words, something dropped from the ceiling.

◇◇◇◇

The creature that landed in front of us had once been human. I could see fragments of a plague doctor's mask fused into what might have been its face. But the rest was pure nightmare: limbs that bent wrong, skin that rippled like water, and eyes that held a malevolent intelligence.

"Hello, healer," it said in a voice like grinding glass. "We've been looking for you."

It moved faster than anything that size should have been able to. I barely got my crowbars up before its claws raked across my chest, tearing through flesh and muscle. Pain flared, then immediately began to fade as my body started knitting itself back together.

The creature paused, watching the wound close with fascination. "Ah. Now I understand why you were chosen."

"Chosen for what?" I asked, genuinely curious despite the circumstances.

The orange patterns on its skin pulsed brighter. "Such sweet ignorance. Tell me, little traveler, do you truly believe your arrival here was accident? That your particular... gifts... are mere coincidence?"

Before I could respond, it lunged again.

This time Ulric was ready. His sword flared, and a cone of radiance carved through the creature's torso. But instead of collapsing like normal Sephis, it simply reformed, the light seeming to pass through it without effect.

"Impossible," Ulric breathed. "Nothing resists the light."

"Everything evolves," the creature said, advancing on him. "Even resistance to your grandfather's tricks."

Yamada's cleavers took its head off, but the body kept moving. The head started laughing from the floor.

"You cannot kill what has already transcended death," it said. "But we can kill you. Slowly. Starting with the healer."

More shapes moved in the shadows. Dozens of them, all with that same wrong intelligence burning in their eyes.

"Ulric," I said, backing toward him. "Now would be a good time for one of those family secrets you Executors are always hiding."

He was quiet for a long moment, sword held defensively. Then: "There is something. But it's forbidden. Dangerous."

"More dangerous than dying here?"

"Potentially." He looked at me, and I saw genuine fear in his eyes. "It's called the Brand. It... changes people. Permanently."

Another Sephis lunged. I caught it with both crowbars, the heated metal searing through its chest. It laughed and kept clawing at me.

"Changes them how?" I asked, tearing free and regenerating the gouges in my arms.

"It imprints the light directly into the soul. Grants the ability to channel pure radiance without tools or crystals. But the process..." He ducked a swipe from a creature that had been creeping up behind him. "No one has survived it in over a century."

I looked around at the advancing horde, then at my friends. Yamada was grinning, but his swings were getting slower. The Sephis were learning, adapting to his patterns. Karin and Kaguya were still fighting their way through the outer corridors, but even with flame gauntlets, they wouldn't last long against creatures that reformed after being cut apart.

"I'll survive it," I said.

Ulric stared at me. "You can't know that."

"I've survived everything else." I met his eyes. "And if I don't, I'll regenerate and we can try something else."

"The Brand affects the soul, Ken. If it destroys that..." He shook his head. "You might not come back at all."

The creatures were closing in. I could hear Kaguya calling my name from somewhere deeper in the manor, her voice edged with panic.

For the first time since arriving in this world, genuine fear coursed through me. Neither pain nor discomfort. Fear. Everything else I'd faced had been temporary setbacks. Burned alive? I'd wake up in a few minutes. Torn apart by monsters? My body would rebuild itself. But this was different. If the Brand destroyed my soul, there might not be anything left to regenerate.

The very thing that made me valuable, my immortality, suddenly felt fragile. All this time I'd been throwing myself at problems because the worst case scenario was a few minutes of agony followed by resurrection. Now I was staring at actual death. True, permanent, final death.

My hands trembled slightly as I gripped the crowbars. After months of being unkillable, the possibility of mortality was terrifying in a way I hadn't expected.

"Then we'd better hope souls are tougher than bodies," I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. "Do it."

◇◇◇◇

Ulric's preparation was swift but precise. He raised his sword, runes blazing along its length, and fired a concentrated orb of pure light directly at my chest.

The impact tore through my shirt like paper. Light erupted from the point of contact, searing into my flesh with impossible heat. But instead of burning me, it carved something deep into my sternum. The pain was beyond anything I'd experienced, beyond physical agony into something that felt like my very existence was being rewritten.

I dropped to my knees, gasping. The light wasn't fading. It was spreading, forming intricate patterns that burned themselves into my skin. A stylized sun blazed from the center of my chest, geometric rays extending outward in perfect symmetry.

My vision went white. I pitched forward, face hitting the corrupted floor of the manor. Every nerve in my body screamed. My regeneration tried to kick in, tried to heal what it perceived as damage, but the light fought back, establishing itself as a permanent part of me.

I could hear the creatures hissing in the background, their forms wavering in what might have been fear. But their voices sounded distant, muffled by the roaring in my ears.

"Get up, Ken," Ulric's voice cut through the agony. "Fight through it. The Brand is taking hold."

I tried to push myself up, arms shaking. The light from my chest cast harsh shadows on the walls, brighter than any torch. Each breath felt like swallowing molten metal. But slowly, agonizingly, I managed to get back to my knees.

"How do you feel?" Ulric asked, his voice hoarse with strain.

I flexed my hands experimentally. They felt the same, but different. Like there was something waiting just beneath the surface.

"Strange," I said, my voice rough. "Like I'm carrying a star in my chest."

One of the Sephis chose that moment to attack. Its claws raked toward my throat, and I raised my hand instinctively to block.

Light erupted from my palm.

Raw, unfiltered radiance washed over the creature like a tide. It screamed, a sound like breaking glass, and simply evaporated. Erased.

The other creatures recoiled, hissing.

"Impossible," one of them snarled. "You are not of the blood."

"You sure talk a lot for walking snot bubble." I said, staring at my glowing hands in wonder. "I'm something else entirely."