"What did you do to me?" Asher managed, his words barely making it through his horrific coughing fit as he flexed Complete Resilience's second tier for the third time that night to erase the excruciating pain he was in.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not the type to go on a smug rant about exactly how I'm killing you. I'll get just as much self-satisfaction out of seeing you dead on my workshop floor as I would watching the despair cross your face at my explanation," Eight taunted, activating whatever skill it was of his yet again that was doing this to Asher and causing him to begin screaming anew as his chest tried to turn itself inside out.

I can't keep this up, he thought, gritting his teeth as he purged whatever Eight was doing to him yet again. Already, his reserves were running low, and there didn't seem to be any end in sight to this on-again, off-again torture. He still needed to be able to actually fight and kill Eight once he actually found the man. Yet before he could even start to worry about that, he needed to figure out what was happening to him, and fast. Before Eight could begin the next round of torture, Asher triggered Comprehend's second tier ability, slowing the world around him to a crawl and buying himself precious seconds to think as his mind was removed from the horrific burning pain in his chest.

Complete Resilience should be purging any sort of negative effect he'd put on me each time I activate it, which means Eight either has a skill drastically more powerful than mine, or he's found a way to make the effect linger somehow. The question of course, is how?

Deciding a good starting point would be trying to figure out the man's elements, Asher quickly wracked his brain, going over everything he'd personally seen or heard about the man. He lives in a nasty, moldy workshop and makes potions that can do seemingly anything, if his rant is to be believed. He's famous for his magadrine powder that kills just about anything instantaneously. He runs the Whikoga branch of the Assassin's Guild, and he delivers his orders through the server via rat.

Asher paused, blinking at the sudden realization. He sends his orders via rat… And he has rats within his workshop itself? Does he have a Rat element?

Unfortunately, his frozen time within Comprehend couldn't last forever, and the world quickly sped back up once more. Thankfully, Asher had one other way to remove himself from Eight's skills. Rather than stand there and let Eight send him into another wave of agony, he slipped into the astral, removing himself from the range of Eight's skills for the moment.

Coughing a couple of times from the lingering pain in his chest, he went back to thinking.

Okay, a Rat element seems likely, but that's only one of three. I'd assumed he has a Poison element as well, but that's not necessarily a guarantee. Complete Resilience should be able to expel poisons without problem.

Another coughing fit wracked through his body, forcing him to shake and shift around despite his best efforts, each movement drastically reducing the amount of time he had within the astral realm. With every hacking cough, Asher felt his muscles tense a bit more, wearing through his skill remarkably quickly.

He did something to my lungs, Asher frowned, pressing a hand to his chest and focusing on how tight and constricted they felt. Is that it? Did he get powder inside my lungs or something? Complete Resilience wouldn't dispel a physical object. And it has to be skill-related for it to follow me into the astral realm as well.

All of a sudden it hit him, and Asher gasped painfully before coughing even harder, his eyes going wide as he realized Eight's mysterious third element. The answer had been lying there before him all this time, and he'd simply overlooked it due to its mundane nature and how he'd grown used to seeing it in dark, damp places.

"Mold?!" he barely managed to cough out as he accidentally untensed his muscles and flicked back into the material realm, every word a painful struggle. "You got mold… in my lungs?!"

Even as the sounds of rats squeaking from hidden locations around the room in some horrific intimidation of laughter assaulted his ears, Asher quickly forced himself back into the astral before Eight could use his skill again, but he could tell he wouldn't be able to hold it for long. He was already beyond tired, and his mind went over the evidence as he desperately tried to contain his coughing fit. First, was what William had told him, the inky assassin explaining how the senior assassins received their orders.

"You ever try to track a rat back through the sewer to where it came from? It's a lesson in futility. Sewer rats all but live in the muck, to the point where most of them are covered in gunk and mold."

William had said himself that the rats they received Eight's orders from would show up covered in mold. Just like the one he'd recently stabbed within Eight's workshop. And speaking of his workshop, Asher had personally witnessed strips of horrifying, almost magical-looking mold hanging from the ceiling, acting as part of one of Eight's many experiments. He'd thought they were just more reagents for his alchemy, but perhaps they were specifically grown using some special skills as well.

Oh God, how do I fight a Mold element? he thought, staring down at his aching chest as he envisioned the growing tendrils and creeping life filling his own lungs. Eight must have taken advantage of his slow search throughout his workshop, slowly sending mold spores into his lungs via the air until he'd inhaled enough to be susceptible to the alchemist's skills. He must have triggered something similar to Loratta's own Compound Toxicity skill, forcing the mold to begin growing at an exponential rate.

Asher could feel his muscles screaming at him to drop his skill and let him return to the physical realm, but he held on for quite literally dear life as he tried to come up with a solution. Surprisingly, Eight remained quiet throughout his vanishing act. Though if the man had been watching him as he'd claimed, Asher had no doubt he knew most of the limitations of his skill.

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Complete Resilience is only slowing the mold's insane growth and maybe removing the roots once it's dug into my lungs, but it's not getting rid of the mold itself. It's still getting worse every time Eight activates his skill, Asher realized with a shudder. I need a way to kill the mold before it can finally rip its way through my lungs, or close my airways completely. Hell, I bet it's only because of Eternal Regeneration I've lasted as long as I have.

Unfortunately, his time was finally up. Another horrific coughing fit overtook him, and his muscles gave out for the final time, forcing him to drop his skill and return to the material realm once more.

Right into Eight's waiting hands.

Asher screamed, falling to the floor and coughing out blood as searing eels of fire tried to dig their way out of his chest. He activated Complete Resilience yet again, purging Eight's skill and halting the mold's growth, but doing little for the pain that was already present. Panting, he managed to look up from the workshop floor, surprised to find one of the large, bloated rats covered in mold staring at him from only a few feet away. The rat's bloodshot eyes stared into his own, and it opened its mouth. Though rather than squeak or try to lunge at him and sink his jagged teeth into Asher's flesh, instead, Eight's voice rang out.

"You're hanging on for longer than I expected," Eight spoke through the rat, chuckling at Asher's look of shock and pain. "Clever, too. I never actually expected you to figure out what was killing you. Though I doubt you'll last much longer. Even if you could keep halting my skill forever, which I highly doubt by how exhausted you look, I can feel the mold growing inside you. You're merely buying yourself a few extra minutes. What was it you said about fighting? You enjoy the struggle, I believe? Well. Here you go. Struggle away."

Asher couldn't even muster the energy to scream as Eight triggered his skill yet again. He'd progressed to the point where he could feel the tendrils of mold trying to dig their way out of his lungs. He activated Complete Resilience for what had to be the fifth or sixth time in the last few minutes, his body shaking as he struggled to remain conscious through the pain. Without throwing so much as a single attack Eight's way other than to kill one of his rats, he was almost entirely spent, and he realized at that moment that this wasn't a fight he could win in this condition.

He had to get out of here, and fast.

With one last ditch burst of energy, Asher created a compressed tunnel of space and thrust an arm through it, wrapping his fingers around the rat Eight was using to taunt him and pulling it toward him. The rat screeched and sank its jagged teeth deep into the flesh of his hand, but he managed to hang on.

What was a small bite wound to a man whose lungs were currently tearing themselves apart?

"I'll be back for you," he hissed, specks of his own blood spraying out onto the rat with every word. It took a monumental effort, but Asher focused through the pain and imbued a sliver of himself into the dirty rat latched onto his hand, placing an Eternal Mark on it. It was the best he could do with the condition he was in, and he could only hope that the rat would allow him to find Eight again.

Assuming he lived through this of course.

Before the pain could get any worse or Eight finally finished him off, Asher hurled the rat away and triggered Recall, his mind too awash with pain to even focus on any one mark in particular. The world shifted and twisted around him for a moment, before he was unceremoniously deposited on the floor of Draken's lobby.

His face was pressed into the floor, his body curling into itself as he twitched and all but scratched at his own chest with his nails, desperate to get the invading mold out of his lungs by any means necessary. The world was swimming around him, and he barely managed to make out the gasps and shouting that his sudden appearance in Draken's manor caused.

Guess the cat's out of the bag on my Recall skill, he thought, his mind becoming strangely lucid all of a sudden. It was almost as if the pain had grown to such an all-encompassing point that it no longer existed. Asher felt a hand on his shoulder, and he peered through tear-filled eyes to see Kree staring down at him, the young man's face a mask of horror at his current condition.

Ah… I made it to Kree… he thought, smiling with bloodstained lips as he continued hacking out what felt like pieces of his own lungs. Thank God… I wouldn't want Samantha or Brian… to see me like this…

The small part of Asher's lucid mind contemplated his chances of survival. Theoretically, he could heal through even death if his body was still mostly intact. But he didn't know if the mold currently digging its way out of his chest would be kind enough to leave his body in a state that qualified as mostly intact. Not to mention, so long as the mold remained within him and continued to grow throughout his body, even if he did come back, he'd probably just die all over again.

This… isn't looking good, he realized, the world starting to grow dim as his eyelids began fluttering. To think… mold, did me in… of all things.

A freezing wave of energy washed over him, seeping into his very bones and nearly bringing him back from his descent into darkness as Draken's face suddenly appeared over him, the nobleman looking more worried than Asher had ever seen him. Unfortunately, it was like trying to throw a bucket of freezing water on someone being prepped for surgery by an anesthesiologist. Not even the shock of Draken's Death Aura was enough to rouse Asher from the darkness, and he felt himself grinning. With one final, rasping breath, he placed a hand on his chest, trying to get his explanation across.

"Mold…" he managed to cough out, more flecks of blood flying everywhere and ruining Draken's expensive-looking rug that he was lying on. "Mold…" he muttered one final time, before even coughing became too much of a hassle and he let his head thunk back onto the floor.

The last thing he felt was the chilling hand of Death as Draken desperately and ironically tried to save him with his Death Aura, before everything went black.

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