Corvin Morstan’s vision dissolved into static, the Rot-King’s triumphant visage twisting into a kaleidoscope of rot. But the ancient spirit, even without a beating pulse, stayed sharply lucid. This was not capitulation. This was precision. The jagged blade, now plunged deep into his sternum, was a perfect conduit. He’d meticulously concentrated every scrap of residual poison-qi, not in his lungs, not in his brain, but in the final, dark chambers of his heart. His distilled venom, matured over centuries, was a living thing, a coiled serpent awaiting release. His heart had *stopped* only to allow the full, undiluted dose to pool, to condense, to reach its absolute zenith of potency. Now, as the Rot-King’s chitinous blade pulsed with absorbed necrotic life, Corvin unleashed it. Not agony, but cold calculation surged through his lifeless vessel. The venom, now an invisible tide, flowed up the chitinous impaler, directly into the demon's black vessels. The beast’s triumphant roar caught in its throat. Its colossal form shuddered, a tremor that ripped through the very foundations of the lobby. Black ichor, thick and foul, seeped from the spiked blade still piercing Corvin’s chest. The Rot-King’s gaze, pits of swirling miasma, betrayed dawning confusion, then raw terror. It roared again, a sound of agony this time, as tendrils of frost, not its own, erupted across its hide. Corvin's venom didn’t just corrode; it *crystallized*, turning demon flesh into brittle, frosted glass from the inside out. A sickening crack echoed through the lobby. The Rot-King’s left arm, a trunk of blackened sinew, exploded into a cloud of shimmering, frozen dust. Then its other arm. Its legs buckled, its towering frame listing violently. The creature thrashed, a dying titan in a confined space, its flailing blows shattering what remained of the lobby windows, sending shards of glass raining down. Its mandibles unhinged in a soundless scream as its entire frame began to fracture, shedding crystalline scales that clattered on the blood-slicked floor. The miasma that had billowed around it, thick enough to choke, began to recede, drawn back into the fissure like a tide reversing. As the demon’s form disintegrated, a final, guttural shriek tore through the air, less a sound and more a rending of reality itself. Then, with a final, echoing *shatter*, the Rot-King dissolved into a swirling vortex of black dust and glittering ice crystals, depositing only a faint, bitter ozone tang in the air. Corvin’s eyelids slowly twitched shut, then opened. The snapped blade, severed from its master, stayed wedged in his chest. His body, a husk. But with the Rot-King’s destruction, the ambient miasma, the very source of the curse, had thinned. A minute, almost imperceptible thread of pure spiritual energy, freed from the surrounding chaos, drifted towards him. It was a lifeline. He seized it, pulling it inward, coaxing his poisoned meridians to respond, to *ignite*. It was less a surge and more a spark, a microscopic tremor in the abyss of his being. *Thump. Thump. Thump.* His heart gave a stutter, a hesitant beat, then another, picking up a ragged rhythm. The searing frost in his spine receded, replaced by a dull ache. He gasped, a shallow, rattling sound, as oxygen, or what little Yvaine had managed to maintain, rushed into his starved lungs. The world, previously muted, flooded back in a dizzying rush of sensation. He felt the cold, the grit of broken glass beneath him, the wet warmth of his own blood. “Corvin!” Yvaine’s voice was a ragged scream, her face a mask of disbelief and terror as she lunged forward. She’d been frozen, staring at the horror of the impalement, at the sudden, impossible dissolution of the monster. Now, seeing him draw breath, seeing the faint, impossible pulse in his throat, she threw herself at him. She caught him as he sagged, the fungal blade still protruding from his chest, his weight utterly dead. He was a marionette with cut strings, held upright only by her desperate grip. “You… you stopped breathing,” she choked out, her hands fumbling for the hilt of the blade. “You were… dead.” “A momentary inconvenience,” Corvin wheezed, his voice raw, a thin, reedy imitation of his usual sarcastic drawl. Dizziness blurred his sight again. The remaining qi was gone, utterly spent. He felt like a shattered porcelain doll. “Necessary… for the… final infusion.” He watched, dazed, as Yvaine, her fingers surprisingly steady, gripped the hilt and, with a grunt of effort, twisted. The blade, now brittle and crumbling, snapped off, creating a clean, if gaping, wound. She tore strips from her lab coat, pressing them to his chest, her face pale but determined. Tasia, who had been huddled against the reception desk, whimpering in terror, now stumbled towards them, her face streaked with tears, but her eyes bright, unclouded by the Rot. The black veins were gone, her skin clear. The miasmic wings had vanished without a trace. “Corvin?” Tasia whispered, her voice fragile, as if afraid he was a ghost. She knelt beside them, her hand reaching out, hesitant, towards his blood-soaked shoulder. “Still here, little sprout,” Corvin managed, a faint, lopsided smile touching his lips. Then, the world spun one last time, and he collapsed fully against Yvaine, his eyelids heavy. Weeks later, the city had settled back into its usual rain-slicked rhythm. The ‘flu epidemic’ that had swept through the metropolis had inexplicably vanished, abandoning epidemiologists to baffled theories while public health officials scrambled for explanations. Bleakmoor Institute, however, was a different story. Dr. Penhaligon, after attempting to explain the lobby’s extensive structural damage, the mysterious disappearance of a patient, and the sudden outbreak of ‘mass hysteria’ as a shared therapeutic hallucination, found himself summarily dismissed and thoroughly discredited. He was last seen babbling about the cathartic power of 'collective unconscious shadow-boxing' to a bemused local news crew. Dr. Yvaine Helstrom, however, had risen. With Penhaligon’s ignominious departure, and her sharp, if unorthodox, insights into the ‘flu’s’ rapid disappearance, she was appointed interim head of Bleakmoor. She had immediately initiated a radical overhaul, installing air filtration systems that specifically targeted ‘unidentified atmospheric particulates’ and reinforcing the sub-basement with a new, reinforced alloy designed to ‘contain geological anomalies.’ Corvin Morstan, fully recovered, now sat across from her in what was once Penhaligon’s opulent office, a room that now smelled faintly of sterilizing agents and industrial-grade air freshener. He wore a crisp, if ill-fitting, denim jacket over a plain dark t-shirt, a stark contrast to the hospital gowns he’d come to despise. His sarcasm had returned with a vengeance. “Discharge papers, you say?” Corvin drawled, plucking the neatly typed document from the large mahogany desk. “Into your ‘personal care.’ Such a clinical term for what I imagine amounts to indentured servitude, Doctor.” Yvaine leaned back, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. Her usually severe hair was pulled back in a loose bun, a few strands escaping to frame a face that looked less weary, more alive than he’d ever seen it. “Think of it as community service, Corvin. You saved the city, but you also blew up a good portion of the lobby. And you still haven’t explained half of what you did.” “And you still refuse to admit demons exist,” he countered, raising an eyebrow. “A rather fundamental disagreement, wouldn’t you say?” “I admit there are… unknown pathogens with highly unusual properties,” she conceded, her smile widening slightly. “And you are the only one who seems to understand their… unique biological interactions. My research requires a dedicated consultant.” Corvin let out a soft snort, a hint of genuine amusement in his eyes. He folded the papers once, then twice, tucking them into his jacket pocket. “As long as the compensation includes suitable alchemical ingredients. And no more mandatory group therapy.” “Agreed,” Yvaine said, standing. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a particularly fascinating soil sample from the sub-basement to analyze. And Tasia is waiting for you outside.” Corvin nodded, a rare, almost gentle expression on his face. He walked out of the office, down the now-repaired corridor, and pushed through the heavy glass doors of Bleakmoor Institute for the last time. The perpetually gray city spread before him, shrouded in its familiar drizzle. Tasia stood under the main awning, looking healthy and vibrant, a college textbook clutched to her chest. She beamed at him, a genuine smile that reached her eyes, utterly free of the shadows that had once plagued her. “Ready to go, big brother?” she asked, her voice light. “Always,” Corvin replied, stepping out into the rain. He opened the large, black umbrella he’d found tucked away in the lobby’s lost and found. He held it over Tasia and then, almost unconsciously, extended it to Yvaine, who had just stepped out behind him, a small, contented sigh escaping her lips. The three of them stood there for a moment, bathed in the soft, diffused light of the overcast sky, the sound of rain a comforting white noise. As Corvin glanced down, navigating a particularly deep puddle, a flash of sapphire caught his eye. From a rusted sewer grate at the edge of the street, a single centipede crawled out. Its segmented body was not the dull brown of the street, but a vibrant, impossible blue, radiating a faint, almost imperceptible glow. It scuttled across the wet pavement, fast and silent, then vanished into the shadows of a nearby alley. Corvin’s eyes narrowed. Another grandmaster, then. And this one clearly favored the venom of the Cerulean Scourge, a technique he hadn’t seen in millennia. The rain continued to fall, washing the city clean, but stirring a fresh, unsettling ripple in the urban currents.

Discharge Papers