Page 423 of Light Leech

“Holy… I didn’t think it would be that easy in the end.”

She smiled, but it was missing her usual light. “Easy? You were on the brink of death.”

“I think I realized that when I fed.”

“Forget about that, Pet. It’ll only make your life harder. The… um… Naoma part, that is. Don’t forget what it feels like to almost die, though. You need to be more careful in the future. A virus feeding on your reserve like that means death. Got that?”

“You remember that, too. You plug?”

She opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. “We’ll get to that in a moment. Are you okay?”

“Sure? Is he really… dead?”

“Kim? Oh yeah, that thing stood no chance outside of its carrier.”

“Dokkaebi?”

She nodded. “You consumed one half, I finished him off.”

“How?” I laughed, feeling a little more joyous now that it was all behind me. “What is with… this? I thought you were–”

She was quick to cut off that thought. “You criticize me for being a skeptic, but that’s what saved me in the end.”

“You mean… you knew that Sha was not Sha?”

“I knew he was something, until I gave myself to him. With his guard down, I saw what the creature wanted. I knew that we would make it through the Test without a problem. Once I saw how hungry it–he, I don’t know what to call the freak–once I knew what he wanted, it was easy to see that he was part of the system. My theories proved true and look at who won.”

“Right, but what about you in the system?”

“He was my virus so I became his. I used his supernatural light and let him pull me through until the end. When they pulled him into the system, they pulled me in as well.”

“Does that mean—“

“It means Dokkaebi is gone and I am the system’s controller now.”

“You’re… the Correction?”

“I’m the zegging Correction. Sure, we have the rest of humanity to convince of the truth of their planet, but with the enemy out of the way and their mind in my hands–or my mind in their body–we should be able to do something.”

“What about Pure Knowledge?”

“It’s everything here. All records of human knowledge as we know it. Even though I am a part of it, I still have some human limits. We have access to the world’s database and can do with it what we will. We could change the neuronet to show the truth of everything right now, but I think we need some groundwork before we do that. Sure, the Gongtide is on us already, but once we turn humanity’s view on reality, who knows what chaos will ensue. We have the tools, now it’s time to lay out the plan.”

“Pulse! Are we ready to head back now?”

“Petya—“

“You need to stay here?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be with you. I just…”

“You’re dead. They really killed you, didn’t they.”

“Yes.”

Silence hung between us.

I choked on a sob as I struggled to breathe, my back convulsing as the pain of bereavement struck after what had been false hope.