Chapter 204. The Consumption of Essence
Corvus thrashed like a snared wolf, his movements frantic and jagged. In his hand, a blade forged of shimmering, unstable energy hissed and whistled as he swung it in a desperate arc, but the blow never landed. It broke harmlessly against the shimmering emerald barrier that shrouded the hand currently crushing his throat. Within his chest, the stolen power of the Mind Stone pulsed with a rhythmic, golden heat, trying to rebuff the intruder, yet it found no purchase. The verdant sorcery of the Rune of Bravery was not merely a shield; it was a predator, coiling around the golden light and slowly, hungrily, beginning to pull it apart.
Vshukh!
With a sudden, violent flare of light, Noah's left hand unleashed a concentrated bolt of energy. It tore through the air with the sound of a crackling whip, shearing through Corvus's shoulder. The arm fell away, but there was no spray of crimson, no splintering of bone. Corvus's form was a vessel of pure manifestation, and the severed limb dissolved into a haze of golden mist almost instantly. Noah's eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on the hand that had supposedly held the Mind Stone—the hand he had just severed in hopes of claiming the prize.
As the arm vanished into the ether, Noah realized the palm was empty. "Nothing..." he murmured, his brow furrowing in a mask of cold calculation. "Why would you clench a fist around a ghost?"
A dark realization dawned. Corvus had been guarding a void, a phantom grip to deceive his enemy. If the Stone was not in the hand, it had to be woven deeper into the fabric of his being—intertwined with the very core of his energetic soul.
Without a word of warning, Noah tightened the fingers of his magically-enhanced left hand and drove them into Corvus's chest. The sensation was like plunging a hand into a pool of electrified mercury—thick, resisting, and humming with a power that bit at his skin. He raked his fingers through the interior of the entity, searching for the hard, physical anchor of the Infinity Stone, but found only the turbulent flow of energy. Frustrated, he withdrew his hand, his expression hardening into a look of grim resolve.
"If I cannot find it," Noah whispered, his voice echoing with a chilling calmness, "I will simply take everything you are."
His right hand, still locked like a vice around Corvus's throat, surged with power. Corvus felt the shift immediately. The physical world seemed to recede, replaced by a terrifying sensation of weightlessness. He tried to strike back, but his limbs felt like leaden weights, his energy-form dimming as if a shroud had been cast over his sun. Panic, sharp and cold, finally pierced through his madness. He was being drained.
From the depths of Corvus's body, thin, luminous threads of gold began to leak out, drawn toward Noah's skin as if by an irresistible tide. They swirled around Noah's arm, being purified by the emerald aura of the Rune before sinking deep into his own chest.
Noah took a long, steady breath, activating the [Undead Grip]—a dark facet of the Rune of Bravery's power. It was a skill he had honed in the shadow-drenched alleys of the city, tested on the scum of the streets. Against mortals, it was a death sentence; it withered the flesh and turned the spirit to ash, leaving nothing but a husk of grey dust. But here, against a creature of pure energy, the skill found a far more potent feast.
He wasn't just taking life; he was siphoning the primordial essence of the Mind Stone itself. The golden streams didn't merely dissipate; they flowed into his heart, igniting a fire in his veins that made his very soul feel as though it were expanding. It was a slow, agonizingly beautiful growth. With every pulse of the siphoned energy, his physical form grew denser, his muscles taut with newfound strength, and his mind sharpened to a razor's edge.
Corvus watched his own demise in the reflection of Noah's cold, green eyes. He could feel himself fading, his light turning to shadows. The desperate struggle of his mind manifested as a kaleidoscopic shift of his facial projections—one moment a mask of screaming fury, the next a visage of weeping terror, and finally, a hollow, eerie calm. It was the frantic dance of a mind being erased.
Noah watched the flickering faces with a twisted sort of amusement. "A valiant effort," he remarked, "but you are merely fuel now."
Suddenly, the dimming light within Corvus flared. The golden energy, which had been sluggishly retreating, abruptly reversed its flow. It began to burn with a blinding, white-hot intensity, swelling within the shell of his body like a star moments before its collapse.
Noah's eyes snapped wide. This wasn't a counter-attack; it was a final, suicidal gamble.
Boom!
The world vanished in a roar of white light. The explosion was titanic, a shockwave of raw, unbridled energy that tore through the surrounding space. Noah was forced to throw up his arms, his emerald shields groaning under the pressure of the blast. The force of it broke his grip, throwing him back through the debris-strewn air.
When the light finally cleared, Corvus was gone. He had not died, but rather shattered himself into a thousand stinging shards of light, scattering across the battlefield like embers in a gale. Noah lashed out with his magic, igniting the lingering trails of energy and causing a series of secondary pops and hisses, but the core of the enemy remained elusive. Corvus had abandoned the bulk of his form, sacrificing his very substance to buy a moment of freedom.
Moments later, a tattered, ghostly figure coalesced near one of the Chitauri skiffs. Corvus's form was now a pale shadow of its former glory, his radiance dampened to a flickering candle-flame. But as he looked back at Noah, the madness in his eyes had been replaced by a chilling, lucid clarity. The explosion had burned away the Mind Stone's corruption, leaving behind only the cold, hard instinct of a survivor.
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