I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren stared down at the battlefield, horror etched across his face.

He had been the one to devise the plan—had chosen this path, had decided that he and Asenya alone would brave this side of the horrific scheme. But how could he have known?

How could he have imagined they would face knights who fought like… Exalteds?

He had never witnessed an Exalted in battle. No one truly had. But there were whispers—rumors passed between mercenaries and soldiers. Exalteds were few, rare as miracles, and their lives so sacred that even wounding one was considered a grievous sin.

Not that anyone had ever been strong enough to try.

Yet the stories persisted. The one time two Exalteds clashed between Provinces, the environment itself bore silent testimony—carved in craters, in silence, in desolation.

Auren's gaze dropped to the clashing knights below.

The moment their weapons met, the world screamed.

A shockwave burst outward from the impact, flinging soldiers into the air like scattered leaves. The obsidian knight's broadsword—still wreathed in that dripping, liquid darkness—clashed with the Heart Kingdom warrior's spear, its shaft absorbing light like a starless abyss. For a single heartbeat, the very space between them split, fracturing under the strain of their power.

Auren's breath froze in his throat.

The two warriors moved like shadows given form—blurring, vanishing, reappearing in slashing arcs of death. The knight's mount lashed its whip-like tail toward its opponent, but the Heart warrior twisted mid-air, and the spear carved a flawless arc.

The tail fell.

The beast screamed, its flaming mane flaring in agony.

Still, the knight advanced.

With a thunderous cry, they swung their broadsword in a sweeping, horizontal arc. The Heart warrior caught it with the shaft of their spear, but the force hurled them backward, boots screeching across stone.

Then—for the first time—the dark-plumed warrior spoke or seemed to… Auren could not tell from his vantage point.

But a moment later, they launched forward like a thunderbolt.

The obsidian knight responded in kind, tearing the jagged shield from their back and slamming it into the ground. The stone cracked beneath the impact. The surface of the rectangular shield pulsed—then split open, revealing not a shield—

—but a maw.

A gaping, tooth-lined abyss shrieked with the voices of a thousand tormented souls. It howled, and the fortress trembled.

Auren's blood turned to ice.

'That's not a shield. That's a cage.'

From its depths, things began to crawl out. Skeletal hands, slithering tendrils of smoke, malformed figures with hollow sockets and teeth like broken glass. A tide of living nightmares poured forth, clawing at the walls, the defenders, even the very stone beneath their feet.

The Heart warrior halted, then leapt.

Mid-air, they drove the butt of their spear into the ramparts. The fortress groaned—an ancient, guttural sound, like something vast and living roused from slumber.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone, pulsing with crimson veins of light. A glowing sigil bloomed beneath the warrior's feet. The air bent, and for a moment—just a flicker—Auren saw something massive moving deep beneath the earth. Something old.

Then—

The ground beneath the obsidian knight exploded.

A geyser of molten gold erupted like a divine eruption, swallowing the knight, their mount, and every twisted thing that had crawled from the shield. The inferno roared skyward, a towering plume of light and heat so fierce Auren had to turn away, shielding his eyes even from the cliff.

For a moment, the battlefield fell silent.

And then—.

A low, crackling and defiant laugh crawled out.

From the smoke stepped the obsidian knight, armor scorched but intact, the liquid-dark blade now blazing brighter, darker, hungrier than ever.

Their mount was gone—reduced to ash.

But the knight remained.

He gripped his sword and shield, bracing for the second round.

All around them, the battle raged on. Highrise soldiers were already scaling the fortress walls, pouring into the kingdom and unleashing carnage in a cold, overwhelming clangor of steel and screams.

Auren watched the morbid scene unfold with a flicker of disgust before finally speaking.

"If it's not now… I don't see us being any use in this battle."

Asenya, calm as ever, reached behind her and began tying her hair.

"Unless you want to die," she said, her voice flat, "in everything you do—don't go near those two knights."

Auren shivered.

"What? Isn't that a bit obvious?! You didn't need to warn me like that."

Asenya finished securing her hair into a ponytail, letting a white streak fall across her face. Her amber-gold eyes gleamed under the moonlight, catching the battlefield's glow like molten metal. For a moment, Auren found himself staring—caught off guard by her sudden brilliance.

She caught the look and smirked, tilting her head.

"Like what you see?"

Auren jolted, recoiling as if ice had just run down his spine.

'What the hell was I thinking?!'

"Alright, boy! Time to fly!!"

Before Auren could react, Asenya grabbed him and hurled him into the air like a ragdoll.

He screamed as he was launched skyward, flailing wildly. A second later, Asenya sprinted to the edge and leapt off the cliff, soaring through the air beside him—grinning like a child let loose in a storm.

"Landing! Landing!!"

Auren shouted, panic rising in his throat.

"What plans did you make for landing?!!"

The beautiful Sculptor tilted her head mid-glide, her white hair catching the moonlight as she gave it a brief, thoughtful pause.

"…Ah… I forgot."

Auren's eyes went wide. His voice cracked.

"What?!!"

A grin split her lips a second later.

"Just kidding."

She exhaled—short and sharp—as her smile faded into something almost annoyed. Her hand moved to the band around her arm.

A pulse of darkness erupted from her body—rippling like spilled ink across the air—before coalescing into a colossal, serpentine form. The creature unfurled with a low, thunderous growl, its four legs coiling beneath it and massive dark wings spreading wide, casting a shadow that swallowed half the battlefield.

For a moment, the war paused.

All eyes turned upward as the monstrous dragon was revealed—an omen of ruin streaked in living night.

With effortless precision, the beast seized Auren by the waist with one claw, and Asenya with the other. Then, like a harbinger descending from heaven, it swept downward—graceful and terrifying in equal measure.

'Full of surprises. This woman is just full of surprises…!'