I Awakened A Divine Curse

The creature's embodiment, even as it sat leaning on one hand and unmoving, caused Auren's heart to tremble tremendously.

Yet he gulped and walked closer nonetheless.

He approached the dais but hesitated before taking his first step upon it. Something whispered in his mind that entering the forest of swords would trigger movement in the creature.

And just as he suspected, the moment his foot touched the first step of the dais, the orb of light in the creature's eyes blazed brighter. It shifted away from its resting hand and slowly began to rise.

Though Auren had anticipated its impressive height, color drained from his face as the shadow of the creature continued to extend, engulfing him completely.

'What in the world...'

Auren's jaw hung slack.

He glanced down at the massive swords scattered around him. Their towering size and heft hadn't concerned him before, but now they loomed like omens of his fate.

'...I... am... cooked…'

The dark polypheme towered like a sentinel of the true darkness. Then it moved, seizing one of the swords buried in the dais.

The glass floor scorched with blinding light as the creature wrenched out the greatsword—with a force that seemed to channel a thousand soldiers, yet appeared effortless to the polypheme.

Auren's face paled, but he didn't freeze—at least not for more than a heartbeat. As the burnt sword regained life and color in the creature's grip, Auren's survival instinct kicked in, and he was already pivoting away.

The sentinel of darkness, despite its gigantic height, moved with terrifying speed. It blurred forward, the black and silver greatsword whistling through the air as it arced toward Auren.

The entire scenery smeared into a streak of motion. Auren was fast—at least he had always thought so. His speed was no accident; he had trained relentlessly, pushing his legs to respond with their own intelligence, knowing that velocity formed the core of masterful swordsmanship.

But the giant, supernatural strides of the sentinel rendered those efforts futile and vain. In less than a heartbeat, the creature's sword sliced across his frame. His upper body spiraled into the air while his lower half continued running forward, as if his limbs had indeed developed intelligence of their own in that final, terrible moment.

Eventually, the lower half stopped running and collapsed to the ground, just as his upper half landed beside it, his eyes frozen wide in death. Then a rain of blood followed, soaking the scene in dread.

The sentinel's eyes blazed for a moment, then dimmed. The obsidian and silver greatsword fell, its sharp tip nearly kissing the ground.

It shifted and slowly turned, its crimson tattered cloak billowing softly like lonely winds as it stepped away from its vanquished foe.

It suddenly halted, motionless at first. Behind it, the blood was thickening and merging. Every crimson droplet that had escaped Auren's body sought its way back home. As they converged, they stretched like scarlet tendrils and began to pull his severed body together.

Soon enough, it was done. Auren was whole again. A couple of seconds passed before he gasped desperately for breath, shooting upright.

He clutched his throat as though his voice had vanished. His heart burned—not literally—his body was intact, but death had interrupted his mind mid-thought when everything shut down. That processing automatically completed as he resurrected.

Auren heaved, his shoulders visibly rising and falling as he stared at the sentinel's back with wide, disbelieving eyes.

He frowned a moment later and slowly retrieved the sword that had fallen beside him. Then he stood, gradually unsheathing the blade.

It was when the hollow, whispering song of steel entered the silent dark air of the Citadel that the creature turned around. It tilted its head slightly, as if puzzled by something inexplicable about Auren.

Auren smirked madly.

"Yup! That's right... I have a very bad habit of not staying dead. Trust me, I would like to right now. But habits..."

He shrugged.

"Often times, we can't control them. They just happen."

Auren noted the creature's gaze shifting, gradually turning cold.

"Yeah. I know, I'm talking too much. I didn't used to be much of a talker, but right now, I'm so nervous. I don't know—I think I'll be dying a lot... maybe this is my odd way of processing and preparing myself for the dread that I'll be going through in a couple of seconds."

The creature stared impassively, then began to advance, dragging the long sword across the glass floor. A screeching, ear-splitting sound reverberated throughout the entire Citadel.

Facing such imminent and unavoidable death, the least of Auren's concerns was a mere detrimental sound.

He refused to wait for the sentinel to strike. He dashed forward, veering sharply to the left. As the creature's eyes blazed anew, it swung the massive sword from behind in a devastating overhead arc, crushing the very spot Auren had been racing toward.

But Auren had already pivoted right with razor-sharp precision. He launched himself into a magnificently high leap, rolling mid-air with his sword lashing out at the gap in the creature's chest region.

As his strike connected to what he believed was vulnerability in the black metal armor, dull blue sparks erupted outward. Auren met unexpected resistance—his blade might as well have struck ancient stone.

His eyes widened in that crucial moment. Before he could even begin to fall, the Sentinel drove a fist into his chest. A circle of air exploded outward, followed by a compression of impact before violent expansion, and Auren was sent hurtling away.

The chains rattled violently as Auren crashed into the distant ceiling. He plummeted, somehow landing on his feet, only to double over, gruesomely coughing and vomiting blood.

The creature vanished in a blur of motion and was already upon him, its massive leg sweeping forward. Auren felt his entire body tear with inexplicable agony as the limb slammed into his side, wrenching out another concussive shockwave before he was sent helplessly tumbling through the air. His skull smashed against one of the massive chains, splitting open on impact, blood spraying like a crimson waterfall as he fell.