Chapter 248: Flushing The Worm

“You see that?” Will asked, gesturing at his little model of a barge.

He’d made it by enhancing the details of the physically manifested map as high as they would go, matching the map to the shape of the ship, then tagging every Climber on board with a marker on his Legend, which allowed him to watch them move about in real time.

The ‘Vincent’ tag had separated itself from the Climbers. He’d figured out either consciously or unconsciously, that Will could only teleport to people, and had placed himself where he could watch all of them at once.

This gave them an excellent opportunity to separate the worm from the Climbers.

“He’s isolating himself.” Zodiac said, nodding.

“As soon as we start pressuring him with all four of us, he’s going to blow Steve. We have to maximize the amount of time they have to react.”

“Can we just let them land on the island then, if it’s sheltered by the Key Site?” Travis asked.

Will raised his finger and paused.

“Hold that thought.”

Will moved back to his anchor butler on Giant Island, popping up beside Loth.

“Travis had a good idea.” Will said.

“He was due for one.” Loth said.

“If we can get the Climbers on the island, we might be able to give them time to use their Doors to escape.”

“That’s asking for people to get squished. You wanna move the giants first?” Loth asked. “They’re not going to be eager to abandon their homes twice in rapid succession. Although given the short time between them they might still be in the right mindset…”

“I think someone’s going to need to…‘motivate’ them to move.” Will said.

Loth’s lips peeled away from her serrated teeth. “I can do that.”

“Alright, here’s how I want it to go:” Will said, manifesting the map and explaining the basics of the plan. The barge was moving as fast as it could in the atmosphere, a brisk eighty miles an hour, which meant it was only a few minutes out.

They got to work.

On the barge, morale wasn’t so great. The Climber’s stood back to back, watching their surroundings with bloodshot eyes, as every minute or two, another attack would come from an unusual angle.

“That’s William Oh, isn’t it?”

“I got hit by William Oh! I’m gonna immortalize this bruise with a tattoo!”

“Nobody told me he could teleport!”

“No, I’m pretty sure I heard he could.”

“Why is he working with Zodiac? Shouldn’t he be helping us?”

Can’t allow them to follow that line of questioning. Vincent thought.

“Clearly William Oh been turned by the worms as well!” Vincent said, loud enough for them all to hear. “My Abilities tell me there’s a second thing living in that skull. If that’s the case, we should not hold out hope for the rest of the Tower.”

The faces of the Climbers fell, seemingly struck by the sudden realization.

“That’s right, we may very well represent the last of humanity!” Vincent shouted “But make no mistake! There is hope! The infected will attack you, they’ll try to lie and use any trick they can to weaken your resolve, but always keep in mind! I can save them! I can remove the worm! Your friends, your family! As long as I live, we can take them all back, one at a time! And remember, we’re not fighting the real William Oh! We’re fighting the worm in his skull!”

They regained just a bit of their color as Vincent pumped his fist in front of them.

“I really don’t know why we’re going through so much effort to save your asses.” William Oh said as he shot out of the floor beside one of the Climbers.

Compared to this random assortment of dockworkers and island-hoppers, William Oh was lightning fast, flitting around and delivering brutal strikes to the nearby Climbers with the back of his axe.

Thankfully he isn’t just killing the hostages, Vincent thought, warding off a chakram aimed at his back and a tomahawk at his front. Things would be much harder if these hosts thought rationally.

He’d expected Will to show up now, at the last few seconds before they made landfall at the island. Either he had to defend the island or surrender the only defensive position against Steve’s Floor-scouring flames.

It wasn’t much of a choice.

Vincent lifted his foot to rush in when William Oh stomped the deck, a pulse of Charge emanating from his amulet.

Suddenly the ship bucked downward an instant before becoming trapped in ice as far as the eye could see, coming to a complete halt from eighty miles an hour.

The entire crew save for those inside the barge began flying through the air, tumbling wildly as they shot towards the island.

Vincent instinctively secured his footing by condensing and reinforcing the air under his feet, recoiling an instant before William Oh arrived.

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He’d expected the young legend to go for a strike, but instead the young man dumped raw miasma out of his hand to pierce his flame aura and simply shoved Vincent, hard.

They’re separating me!

In an instant, he saw their aim.

The ones flying forward would land on the island in the next few seconds, and if they could hold Vincent back, they could force him to Cannibalize Steve at their leisure.

He could feel Zodiac’s telekinetic strings at the edge of his perception, rushing forward to secure the Climbers on-board.

Cannibalize.

Whatever plan they had, the only way to throw a wrench in it was to detonate Steve before they were ready for it.

These hosts would risk their own lives to save those with far less value than their own.

Seize them, Vincent instructed his fae. If he could get them tangled up fruitlessly fighting the immortal fae, they would die in flames.

In the distance, Steve seemed to glow for an instant before turning into pure white, an expanding nova of fire that expanded deceptively slowly in every direction.

It might seem slow, but it was moving at the speed of sound, and it would only take a handful of seconds to reach them.

“Pull out!” William Oh shouted to Zodiac as the ancient Lord swept in.

“Gotta get my boys!” Zodiac shouted back flying straight down through the deck into the guts of the barge.

Vincent moved to seize Zodiac with the floorboards, but William Oh disrupted his control with a tap of his toe, the two control Abilities competing for the deck long enough for Zodiac to slip past.

His fae tried to grab Zodiac, but William Oh rushed forward to tackle them as they shot towards Zodiac.