I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren listened with rapt attention as Asenya spoke. Some of her words slithered just beyond his grasp, slipping away no matter how hard he tried to piece them together. Still, he listened.

She spoke of the beginning of the Gods—how they had remembered themselves into existence. Then came the War of Defilement, the cataclysm that had swallowed the Gods whole.

Defilements. The word coiled in his mind like smoke. He had asked where they came from, how such abominations could exist if the Gods were creatures that literally willed themselves into being.

But even Asenya didn't know.

These were events older than time, ancient echoes from millions of years before her birth. The fragments she did know had been scavenged like scattered bones—whispers stolen from Aven's rare words, secrets pried from the hollow places she had followed him into.

The Lord of Night was not a man of many words, as she explained. But she had learned to read the silence between them—the weight of his scars, the shadow of his regrets, the ember of his pride.

Most of what she knew, though, came from the places he walked. The deepest, most forsaken corners of the world, where nightmares festered in the dark. It was the Night's duty to keep such horrors buried, and so Aven Noctis was always moving. And she, stubborn as stone, had always followed.

Then came the hardest truth to swallow: Aven Noctis was not a god. He was what followed after the gods went missing—one of the primordial forces that had shaped the flow of the world. She was quite emphatic on the flow of the world and not the world itself.

So Auren guessed it was time, but she couldn't ascertain if it was. Time has always existed. Or maybe it hadn't always, no one knew.

Auren's confusion must have been plain, but Asenya could offer no clearer explanation.

Seren Almyra, the First Dawn, was the only one of Aven's siblings she had ever met. The others? Gone. Hidden. Swallowed by time. No one knew where they were.

The mention of the First Dawn sent a jolt through Auren. He blurted out his theory—maybe the stolen dawn had something to do with her absence? In a rush, he told Asenya about Highrise's claim, how they had captured dawn itself.

Her laughter was a whipcrack, sharp and sudden. It died just as quickly, leaving behind a silence that answered his question better than words ever could.

No. There was no chance—none—that some upstart kingdom had ensnared the First Dawn. If Seren Almyra still lived, then dawn would return.

But when? How?

Auren didn't know.

And what of the consequences? The Night was a river, and its currents were straining against a dam. Dawn had to follow—but the path was blocked.

Something would break.

'These fools clearly have no idea what they are messing with.'

Truthfully, Auren didn't understand much either. But at least he wasn't the one poking at forces beyond mortal grasp.

Questions bred inside his skull like rats—each answered one birthing two more, gnawing at his thoughts until Asenya finally snapped at him.

By then, he'd learned enough. Who she was. Where she came from. Why she needed the heart.

So he gave it to her. It was useless to him anyway.

Now, he sat submerged in a bath of soap-frothed water, the tub a sleek monstrosity carved from a single slab of onyx. The stone drank the bathroom's soft light and exhaled it back as a ghostly glow, serene and cold.

The floor, too, was black stone, its surface etched with strange constellations. He'd traced the star-carved patterns earlier, but now, with steam curling around him, his mind circled back to Asenya's words.

They were too vast. Too heavy.

And the only reason he could stomach them at all was because he'd already rejected the existence of Archons.

Nothing in Asenya's stories had hinted at them. He wasn't sure when—or how—they'd slithered into the world's hierarchy, but one thing was clear: something older, something deeper, existed above them.

A mountain of secrets, all balanced on a knife's edge.

He imagined explaining this to some faithful, starry-eyed servant of Hope.

'…Lucien, for example.'

Auren chuckled. The boy would choke on denial before the first sentence ended.

Not that Auren blindly trusted Asenya's every word. But he wasn't fool enough to dismiss them either.

Auren scooped up a handful of foam and blew it gently, watching as bubbles scattered like dandelion seeds. His expression darkened as they floated away, fragile and fleeting.

There had been one last question—the final one Asenya answered before shoving him out, declaring she had work to do.

The symbol.

It did trace back to three divinities, Aven Noctis among them. All she knew was that he and two of his siblings had once formed an obscure cult. Ancient history, even by her standards. Something Aven had apparently grown bored of centuries before she existed.

Auren's gut told him the remnants of that cult still lurked in the shadows. Worse, they were tangled in the disappearance of the Dawn—and whatever storm was brewing between Highrise and Heart.

He exhaled sharply, flicking a bubble hard enough to pop it.

"The world is so much bigger than these Archon cockfuckers realize..."

He froze.

Relisé would've smacked him for that.

Not that he cared. Words were tools, and he'd always had a creative way of wielding them. Studying dead languages had its perks.

Take cockfuckers, for example—

Auren blanched mid-thought.

'Yeah. Best not explain that one to anyone.'

Auren rose slowly from the bath, water cascading down his alabaster skin. His back was a sculptor's masterpiece—each muscle sharply defined, every contour carved with impossible precision. Two faint dimples marked the base of his spine, just above the curve of his buttocks.

He studied himself with a raised brow.

Despite dying more times than he could count, his body bore no scars, no marks of suffering. Not even a whisper of death's touch. He looked like some spoiled noble who had been pampered all his live.

Auren scoffed.

'Yea, pampered. Pampered by death.'

He strode into the bedroom, water dripping in his wake. The wardrobe gave him black linen pants tight enough to make a courtesan blush, knee-high boots, and a loose shirt that billowed like shadow given form. A cloak also waited but he'd need that later.

Much later. After he left this gods-forsaken temple to face his current arch-nemesis.

Would he win? He didn't know. But after dying to that towering sentinel so many times, one puny human wasn't going to finish him. Not today.

Well today was relative and worked as long as Dawn was still with him.

Auren exhaled and summoned the shard from Polypheme. White sparks flickered around him, weaving something both terrible and exquisite into existence.

His breath caught as silver metal bloomed across his body, forming armor so beautiful it hurt to look at.

Then—

A crimson crack. A spiderweb of dissolution. The armor shattered like glass on his skin.

[Devourer has devoured your armor]

Auren's face fell.

'That...that had been perfect.'

But as the last silver fragment faded—

[Fragmented Skill, Dark Metal is evolving...]

Auren suddenly felt something buckle in the depth of his soul. It felt like it was swirling in his stomach, his skin boiled, such that smoke was coming out and he was sweating all over, his clothes soaked.

The indigestion feeling that nestled in the depth of his soul became slightly more apparent in that moment, causing Auren to groan in pain, but he tried his best to stifle his groans, hence making them come out muffled.

A few momenrs later…

[Dark Metal has evolved to The Sentinel's Regret]

Slowly unfolding with a heavy breath, Auren summoned the runes, at the same time, stifling curses in the honor of Relisé.

[The Sentinel's Regret]

Type: Defensive/Active

Description: [This mark of regret, has been eaten by a gluttonous cursed soul. Now, it serves a greater purpose, not to protect the cursef soul, but to remind the world of what twisted, evil and vile existence he is.]

Sub-abilities: [Dark Quake], [Mourning Cape]

Auren's eyes suddenly glittered.

'Active…'

The description was a fired shot but he couldnt care any less right now, he was already trying the summoning.

It was almost the same manner he summoned shards but also different. It was faster, and sparks didn't need to swirl around him.

Because the armor and his skin were one.

His skin blacked and began to thicken, as black smoke oozed around him.

The armor was as though a cathedral of shadows had been forged into form, each jagged plate interlocking like the blade-teeth of some ancient predator. Matte obsidian bled into deep umbral undertones, as if the metal had been quenched in the void itself.

The surface bore the faint sheen of dried pitch, dull yet oppressive, reflecting light only to strangle it.

Spiked pauldrons jutted from his shoulders like broken wings that pulsed with a sickly silver glow, faint and resentful.

Around his waist, the armor cinched like a vice, its design intricate yet brutal, with sharp protrusions that made approach a punishment.

The greaves, ridged and flared, seemed grown from some underworld tree, their surface a battlefield of scrapes and impacts. The sabatons were narrow, like spears tipped in death, each step sounding like the final word in a condemned man's prayer.

A neat black cloak trailed behind him, whispering across the floor like smoke given will, while his helm—ah, the helm—was a crown of ruin.

Horned and narrow-eyed, it gave no clue to the man beneath, only a reflection of what he had become: the echo of darkness given steel.