I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren's expression shattered, the color draining from his face until it matched the deathly pallor of bone.

Around him, malicious black branches twisted together, forming rigid spears that jutted at menacing angles. He stood encircled, trapped. The trees seemed to hum with a soft hymn of sorrow, yet the malevolence radiating from them screamed a single command to Auren's instincts: run for your life.

But escape was impossible—surrounded from all angles. He had his metal skin to rely on, yes, but mere defense wouldn't suffice. He needed to fight back. Turning his back to flee would only delay the inevitable; his metallic protection would eventually be shredded apart, and then he would be killed. Again.

'...what could be so bad about dying... I will get back up after all…'

Auren shook his head violently, trying to dislodge these dangerous thoughts that clung like cobwebs to his mind.

He feared the razor-thin boundary he now tread upon—that moment when death's significance began to wane, when the ultimate end transformed into something familiar, almost friendly. He dreaded what he was becoming.

The spears of twisted twigs launched toward him with the velocity of hungry arrows. Auren's hands blurred across the air in response, his unsheathed sword parrying each strike with precision. Sparks erupted at every contact, each impact sending shockwaves through his increasingly numbing hands.

Some spears inevitably slipped past his defense, crashing against his body only to be thwarted by his metallic skin. Their twisted edges shattered and unraveled upon contact, his body's transformation occurring microseconds before each impact.

By ignoring the projectiles that penetrated his guard, Auren channeled his focus toward deflecting as many as his straining reflexes would allow, a deadly dance of survival against the forest's wrath.

Auren gritted his teeth as each impact with the twig trees wrenched out sounds that made his ears ring with an inexplicable grief.

It was as though a burden—a sorrowful weight—pressed not just upon his heart but began at the edge of his sword, traveling painfully through his numbing arms as he blocked the strikes. The strange lamentations emanated from the Dark trees that lunged at him, movements both mournful and deadly.

Auren shot one hand forward, crushing a spear with his metallic fist while simultaneously swinging Asenya's sword to deflect another that whistled toward him.

Another spear crashed into his opened chest side, simultaneously another battered his lower side and despite his metal skin deflecting it, the force sent him flying sideways. His bare feet skidded across the cold ground before he finally came to a halt.

He prepared to draw upon the sword out of its sheath but stopped, his hand instinctively moving to his cheek where he swiped away a stream of tears flowing down one side of his face.

'Huh? Why am I crying?'

Auren couldn't comprehend what was happening. He had been entirely focused on deflecting the trees' assault, oblivious to his own emotional state. Even now, understanding eluded him completely.

But an inkling had begun to form.

Every step in this dark world demanded the suppression of fear and a steely resolve. This was the true darkness of the world—nothing here adhered to normal rules. It was high time he altered his thinking.

The first question he needed to ask himself was simple:

What could a steel weapon accomplish in a world woven by truths?

'It wouldn't be too far-fetched to call this a metaphysical world.'

This place was the origin of night itself. Perhaps at some point he would need a steel weapon, but he needed to expand his mind beyond using mere metal to block weeping branches.

Though Auren arrived at this conclusion, he felt paralyzed at a crossroads of indecision.

The broken branches—even those shattered from collisions with his metallic skin—had begun to twist and reform, preparing for another assault. The inverted sorrowful forest appeared utterly undamaged.

'Maybe it is damaged already?'

Why was the forest weeping? And why had the gravestone outside the archway described this place as the Garden of Grief in the first place?

The more Auren pondered these questions, the more bizarre and unbelievable the answer crystallized in his mind.

The spears of branches hung suspended around him, their tips quivering slightly, as though awaiting his decision.

Or perhaps his next step.

'...of Grief.'

A small, pale smile ghosted across Auren's face.

"That couldn't possibly be…"

He understood now that to traverse the expanse of true darkness required unconventional manners of walking, for this realm harbored countless secrets locked within its reality and flowing through its distorted time.

Even the mere whispers of these truths weighed upon Auren's soul with such crushing force that movement seemed impossible. He needed to steel his mind, to walk forward blindly—what he would call walking with enough resolve to ignore the insidious whispers.

This was only possible because something mattered more to him than fear.

Now, in a garden of grief, what would be the path forward? The branches were grieving, and they rejected him because he was not grieving.

If he wished to walk among them unharmed, then he needed to... grieve.

That was it—he had to grieve. This revelation sounded so absurd to him that he almost laughed.

There was only one thing Auren had left to truly grieve. And it was the very thing he had refused to face.

That was correct. Auren had never grieved the death of his mother.

Because why would he?

It wasn't like he was ready to accept her death. And that refusal to acknowledge her absence had benefited him more than acceptance ever could.

Or at least he believed so.

In actuality, he had gained more from his mother by holding her dear to himself as though she still lived. Auren felt letting go meant forgetting. And he didn't want to—he never, ever wanted to erase her from his heart.

And so, no... he was not going to grieve her.

He'd had so little opportunity to spend time with his mother; his memories of her were already shrouded in fog. This sentiment, this refusal to let go, was the precious little he had left of her to cling to.

He was not going to surrender that because of some damn weeping trees.

Never!