I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren stood with caution, jaw tightening as his fist clenched. His gaze locked onto the hall entrance.

Barely a heartbeat later, the doors burst open with a thunderous crack. Asenya emerged from behind them, her eyes wide and wild.

Her face differed slightly from Auren's memory—not aged, but changed. Her unsettling beauty still radiated brilliantly, though with a malevolent edge.

If devilish beauty had a name, it was hers.

Yet she looked disheveled—her jet-black hair tangled like thorny vines, her expression troubled. Despite her wide-open eyes, dark crescents beneath them begged for sleep.

"Oh no! How are you here?"

Auren tilted his head, his face darkening into a scowl.

"Hey buddy?! You're back! I'm so sorry I pushed you into the well?! What can I do to make it up to you?!"

Asenya shot him a blank look before a chuckle bubbled from her throat.

"Boy please. Just go back in there. I am not going to apologize for no darn thing. You wanted to earn your keep."

Her lips curled into a smile while danger danced in her eyes like distant lightning.

"And see... you did! I'm proud of you, even though I certainly in seven hundred lifetimes did not expect you to come back. Much worse on your own!!"

She thrust her hands up and began to clap!

"Bien joué, bien joué, you definitely exceeded my little, maybe non-existent expectations for you."

Her expression hardened like clay in fire.

"However... did you by chance... happen to find it...?"

Asenya showed not a flicker of interest in what he'd endured. Not that Auren expected her to care.

A grin split his face like a knife through butter.

"Old hag... you sent me in there for a heart, didn't you? I got you the heart. But oh, even whoring Hope knows you'd have to pay handsomely for it."

Asenya stared at him, face blank as fresh parchment. For several seconds, not a hint of emotion crossed her features. If anything, she seemed utterly bored.

Then, quick as a viper's strike, her expression transformed as she grinned.

"You son of a bitch! You are one maniacal existence. I'm finding it hard to believe you are sixteen. Where did you learn such manners?"

Auren's brow furrowed.

"You ridicule me. Learn? I'd never waste my precious time learning what should be common sense to me. You used me for your goal. Turns out your goal was more enormous than I thought, and that imbalances the scale. In order to balance it back, it is only proper that I trade this to you for something more precious."

The disheveled lady folded her arms and allowed a little smile, one that froze before reaching her lips.

"By the Broken Sky, you are one..."

Auren's expression darkened like storm clouds gathering.

Immediately, her pattern of words shifted.

"One smart. Smart. Very smart kid. You know what? I'll kill that Paladin you're running away from as a freebie."

Auren raised a brow, disdain etched across his face.

"You owe me that as a reward already. Besides, I kinda don't need your help with that anymore."

Asenya studied him with newfound curiosity. The smile that crept across her face was cunning and foxy—the kind predators wear before striking.

She closed her eyes and heaved a sigh that seemed to empty her lungs.

"Okay boy, what do you seek?"

"I want the coffin and the man in it."

At once, Asenya's eyes flared like kindled coals. Her expression ignited with devilish fury.

"What kind of preposterous request is that?! You want Night? For what?!"

Auren tilted his head slightly, the gesture almost playful.

"Oh? Is that who is there? Night."

He smiled—a smile that spoke volumes about getting what he wanted without breaking a sweat.

Asenya's brow furrowed with dark realization.

It took no more than the coy grin dancing on Auren's lips for her to understand she'd been baited. Perhaps what he wanted wasn't Night himself but information about Night.

Why would he want such a thing though?

She couldn't piece that puzzle together... yet.

Auren observed her for a couple of seconds then said:

"I can see already that you intend to keep a tight lip."

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out something that cast soft light across the room—a white radiant heart that pulsed with gentle glow, brightening and dimming like a captured star.

"Here is the heart that you want. But I am not going to hand this over until you answer every single one of my questions. Are we on the same page?"

After his question hung in the air, Asenya didn't respond.

Instead, her gaze froze on the heart in Auren's hand, her eyes widening to perfect circles. Beads of sweat rolled down her face like teardrops.

Auren studied her strange expression and glanced at the heart in his hand.

'What is wrong with her?'

The lady slowly extended trembling fingers toward it.

"H—how d–d–did y—you get that?!"

"By defeating the red and black creature as you asked me to."

Auren arched his brows, smugness radiating from him like heat from a forge.

"Of course, you probably had a non-existent expectation that I was going to find the creature, much less kill it."

Asenya continued to stare at the heart in Auren's hands, her gaze narrowing to a knife's edge.

She fell silent for several heartbeats. Even as Auren maintained his smug expression, watching her, waiting for her response.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally tore her gaze away from the heart and shifted it to Auren in one fluid motion.

Her brows furrowed, her face suddenly etched with stress and fatigue.

"You killed the Polypheme?"

Auren's expression darkened. He should be grinning, but her face had gone pale as moonlight, her demeanor dire as a funeral.

And it sort of reminded him that he shouldn't even be smiling with her in the first place.

"Yes. I did. You got a problem with it?"

Asenya paused for what seemed like a dozen long seconds. Then she took a step back, folding her arms across her chest.

She sized Auren up from head to toe, like a collector appraising a rare artifact.

"Where is my sword...?"

Auren was silent for a moment, then shrugged.

"Somewhere in my soul with the Home of Rage perhaps."

Asenya frowned again, clearly not understanding Auren's words and growing warier by the second. Her attention quickly shifted back to the white heart in his hands.

She couldn't mistake it.

It was indeed the heart of the only divine being that Noctis had captured. The last surviving Polypheme.

A meager, defiled rotspawn defeated the Polypheme?

That was utterly impossible!

Asenya shook her head gravely, her face twisting into a grimace.

"No. You did not kill the Polypheme. You'd be dead before you could even move, besides my sword would have killed you already if you used it. The fact that you're still alive means you were lucky enough not to draw it. Possibly something else happened there? And you just happened to stumble upon the heart? What happened in the realm of true darkness? You better start talking."

Her voice carried an edge of seriousness that made Auren feel like he was standing at the edge of a cliff on a moonless night. It was terrifying, quiet, and beautiful all at once.

But he shrugged it away with little effort.

This was much less daunting than the Polypheme's horrible pressure of imminent death that had infinitely layered over him while in the Home of Rage.

His lips parted coolly.

"Well, for starters... I died, quite a lot actually. Uncountable number of times. Hehee."

Auren grinned, a flash of teeth in the dim light of the Night Hall.