I Awakened A Divine Curse

'Was I… pushed?'

The thought barely had time to settle before the sensation hit—his head plunging into the black water.

Cold. Soundless. Absolute.

Then—

—nothing.

But just before the nothingness embraced him fully, Auren's instincts flared.

His arms lashed backward, flailing for something—anything—to catch. Desperate fingers clawed the empty air.

And caught something solid.

The hilt of a sword.

Without thinking, without questioning, he gripped it tight and yanked it free. The instant it came loose, his body slipped under, consumed entirely by the black water.

Not a ripple. Not a splash.

As if the surface had swallowed him like smoke.

It happened so quickly—so absurdly fast—that Asenya, with all her experience and razor-sharp pride, stood frozen for a beat too long.

She blinked once. Then leaned over the rim of the well, her golden eyes slightly wide—expression muddled with something rare:

Uncertainty.

"You imbecile…"

She muttered, the words tumbling through clenched teeth.

"...That sword will kill you faster than any Night creature will."

Her voice echoed down the vast hollow, swallowed by the endless dark.

But she knew better.

Words did not travel there. Not truly. Not anymore.

The well wasn't just a hole. It was a border. A convergence carved by the Lord of the Night himself—a boundary forged between the known Night and what lay beyond it.

What Auren had crossed wasn't space.

It was threshold.

Everything cast into it—light, sound, time itself—fractured into facsimile. Echoes of echoes. Ghosts of meaning.

The well of time was a firmament created by Aven Noctis after witnessing a Son of Star known only as Aeternum Tempus.

Asenya's frown deepened. She slammed her fist on the rim of the well, her knuckles cracking sharply against the ancient stone.

"What an imbecile he is!" she spat.

***

Auren felt everything become nothing.

—or rather, he didn't feel it at all.

It was too sudden. Too sharp. Even if he'd had time to brace himself, to process, he doubted he could've made sense of it.

The nothingness that wrapped around him wasn't cold, nor warm.

It simply was.

Even though he was sinking—drowning—it wasn't like drowning in water. There was no fluidity, no resistance, no sense of direction.

It was all just… nothing.

He couldn't scream. Couldn't move. Couldn't even try. His limbs didn't respond, his mouth wouldn't open. The only feeling tethering him to himself was the sword in his grip—its hilt clutched in white-knuckled desperation.

And so, his body continued to descend.

A soundless fall through a narrow black water.

Yet the pain was real.

His lungs burned.

His nose burned.

His eyes—every inch of him screamed in raw, guttural agony.

But it was a scream without voice.

It was the kind of suffering Auren had never imagined—not even in his worst nightmares.

It was like being strangled from the inside out. Like trying to cry for help with no mouth, no throat, no air—just the echo of yourself. An echo stretched too thin.

Yet somehow, the pain remained. Tangible. Crushing.

And then—

Auren was no more.

[You have died from drowning]

[Devourer has devoured your death]

[You have resurrected]

[Your body grows stronger]

[Your resistance to drowning has grown tremendously]

Amidst the blank vastness, Auren could still hear the voice.

—Flat, emotionless, worn down like an old machine tired of repeating the same lines.

He also saw the symbols, runes, glowing faintly in a language only the he and the conveyor understood. They floated before him on a pale white panel, stark against the dark water.

It was strange.

Unnatural.

And yet… comforting.

Comforting in a world without sound.

Then the drowning returned.

The pain came back. The burning. The clawing desperation in his chest. The same death, only this time—it came slower.

His resistance had grown.

But that resistance was no mercy.

It simply meant he wouldn't die quickly.

He endured it all. Again. And again. Longer than before.

And so the silence dragged.

The pain lingered.

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes—soundless, useless tears in a place where emotion had no shape.

One of those tears fell down.

Sinking like he had, piercing the invisible surface of the black water.

But unlike Auren, the tear slipped through.

It dropped out of the well, gliding through a windless atmosphere… and landed—softly—on a dark, cloudy ground.

And at that exact moment—

Auren fell.

The descent shifted.

Like something beneath him gave way.

Like the water itself opened.

And now he wasn't sinking anymore.

He was falling.

Auren's eyes flew open.

Hollowness rang past his ears, silent and swift, as he twisted mid-fall to glance beneath him—only to freeze.

The ground below wasn't ground at all.

It was sky.

Dark skies.

Clouds the color of bruised shadow. Stars flickering faintly like scattered sparks across a smothered canvas. The horizon stretched out, wide and slow, but not above him—beneath him.

It was like falling toward the night.

'Sky…?'

That was what it looked like.

Auren blinked rapidly, unsure if he was falling through the heavens or diving headlong into some upside-down world where everything was reversed.

He wasn't flying—no, he could feel gravity clawing him down. The weight in his stomach, the sensation of descent—it was unmistakable.

He was falling hard.

He glared downward at the distant nightscape that posed as ground, his thoughts racing.

There was no resistance. No foothold. No wings to slow him. He could not even feel any wind passing him, just emptiness, and the inevitable.

'Maybe…'

He thought briefly.

'If it really is sky, I'll just pass through it. Like the stars. Like light.'

But he knew better.

He never liked science—not really. Unless it involved the physics of swordsmanship: the methodical art of momentum, equilibrium, and force—how to shift weight and channel movement through a blade.

Those parts? Those he adored. He could listen to a lecture on centrifugal balance in combat for hours.

But Astrophysics trauma?

'No thanks.'

He exhaled deeply, clearing his thoughts. No more distractions.

There was only one thing left to do was to brace himself.

He curled slightly, shoulders forward, jaw clenched.

And then—

Impact.

His body crashed into the night-sky ground with a sickening force.

Bones shattered. Organs burst. Blood exploded outward like crushed tomatoes under a steel heel.

For a second, there was nothing but stillness.

Then—

[You have died from falling…]

[Devourer has devoured your death]

[You have resurrected]

[Your body grows stronger]

Moments later, Auren stirred.

He groaned faintly, then rolled onto his face. No pain. No fractures. His limbs moved freely—too freely for someone who had just been splattered into pulp.

He blinked.

Then blinked again.

He felt…

Fresh.

Like someone had polished his soul and slid him into a newer version of his body.

A small smile broke across his lips. Quiet. Unbidden.

Then a soft giggle followed, odd and breathless, as if the absurdity of it all had finally gotten through to him.

The smile faded. The laughter vanished.

His gaze drifted toward what should be the sky but was rather an expanse of endless black sand, pupils dilated, soul silent.

Dying felt…

Refreshing.