I Awakened A Divine Curse

Asenya's face drained of color as she crept toward the center of the First floor hall—the alcove that housed the stone coffin where the Lord of the Night supposedly slumbered.

She halted a few paces from the coffin, close enough to peer inside.

The stone lid had been shifted slightly—not enough for someone to escape from within, unless the culprit aimed to mislead her.

The most chilling revelation: the coffin lay empty. Nothing but dark, frigid emptiness greeted her gaze.

A shiver rippled through Asenya's body as she stumbled backward, fingers raking through her hair. Her face contorted in disbelief.

A tempest of countless silent questions crashed against her mind...

Who could commit such an act?

The mystery didn't end there.

How could Aven Noctis not be in the coffin? Throughout her years trapped here, she'd assumed he lay within—not because she'd verified it, but because the entire situation with the Night Temple and the obsidian coffin aligned perfectly with the Lord of the Night's designs.

Clearly, someone had pried open the coffin during her absence upstairs, perhaps discovering what she now saw—no body.

The gap created by the shifted lid was too narrow for anything substantial to slip through.

Of course, she considered the possibility of deliberate misdirection. Yet she also recognized that anyone who might have awakened Aven Noctis would likely be dead already.

So while she harbored these suspicions, the bitter truth crystallized in her mind—she had been deceived.

Again.

She groaned, pain and fury melding into a single sound.

"Curse you!"

Then she whirled and stormed away, brushing past Auren, who cast the onyx coffin a fleeting glance before following in her wake.

Soon, they emerged from the Night Temple onto the Black Desert.

Its frigid sands offered strange comfort despite the grueling trek, their legs sinking with each step, dragging their pace to a crawl.

After a stretch of heavy silence, Auren studied her rigid back and spoke, his voice slicing through the quiet like a cool blade.

"So what are you going to do now? Where are you going?"

Asenya remained mute for several heartbeats, her face still twisted with rage.

Eventually she said:

"Where is that Paladin again?"

Auren arched a brow.

"Well, I don't really need—"

"Shut up and tell me where the Paladin is, or anything else that can be crushed."

A crooked smile spread across Auren's face behind her, reeking of wicked schemes.

"Oh? Looking to blow off some steam? I have a better idea. The Paladin holds no weight—that guy is overrated. You need something more... worthy!"

Asenya halted and glanced back, eyebrows lifted.

"And what would that be?"

Auren explained with calculated calm, his smile solemn.

"You see, there are two kingdoms, as I mentioned before, jeopardizing the world's balance with their skirmishes over differing beliefs. One literally stole dawn and drowned the world in eternal darkness to create a battlefield favorable to them."

He paused, gauging her reaction before continuing.

"In my opinion, no people deserve punishment more than those who selfishly shatter the rules governing the world simply because they can. If you're looking to vent your rage, why not become their rod of judgment yourself?"

Auren's words wove a flawless tapestry of persuasion. But Asenya knew him now, and had grown familiar with his tactics. The way she stared down at him in silence, one eyebrow raised, revealed her awareness.

Yet she seemed to agree. Without a word, she simply turned around.

"Lead me there, then."

Internally, Auren's grin widened to predatory proportions.

"Yes, ma'am."

Auren marched forward with false confidence.

Where was the Kingdom of Heart or Highrise? The damned boy had no idea.

But only he needed to know that—Asenya didn't have to.

Right now, she seemed so emotionally raw that she needed to destroy something—anything.

And it just so happened that she carried enough destructive power to potentially serve as his escape route through this hellish trial, or memory, or whatever it truly was.

'On that note... I don't think it's either of those actually.'

This world possessed too intricate a structure to be merely some memory Archons conjured to test Blesseds.

What baffled him was how no one had ever realized this. Or was this trial simply that deceptive?

Either way, he needed to investigate more thoroughly when he returned...

'...if I return...'

Even confined to the chamber of his mind, Auren's inner voice carried a weight of melancholy.

His death in the Province of Hope felt impossible to view as something he would rise from, if he were honest with himself.

Each death pulled him further from the certainty that he would ever wake again in the real world, the one he knew and came from.

He wanted to embrace the idea of abandoning that world for this one—after all, hadn't that world abandoned him first? Yet the choice wasn't as simple as it seemed.

Beyond his debt to the Archon of Light, curiosity gnawed at him, along with hope that Relisé still lived. If she did, he longed to see her once more before departing; if not, he wanted to be the one laying chrysanthemums on her grave with each change of seasons.

She had loved those flowers deeply.

'A strange flower with an equally strange name.'

These things were annoying strings that tied him to the world of the archons, to H'trae.

And so even though Auren was greatly tempted to continue to dwell in this strange concoction of a world, and never found out if he could resurrect, he still felt heavily reluctant.

The fear was there, but the mind that knew what was the right thing complicated things furtherly for him.

He sighed.

'I envy dumb people. Life must be so simple.'

"You seem rather distracted for someone who should be a guide."

Asenya's voice carried no force—calm, cold, and soft—yet Auren detected the banked fury simmering beneath her measured tone.

He chuckled nervously, casting a fleeting glance over his shoulder.

"What can I say? Even kids like us have their own worries."

She arched an eyebrow.

"Suddenly calling yourself a kid is hilarious."

"What? Am I not? Compared to you who has lived five centuries, I've only lived a decade... well, four more years and it'd be two. But that's still a mere droplet compared to your ocean."

Asenya shook her head slightly.

"The way you amuse me is..."

She froze mid-sentence, her expression darkening into a frown.

Auren's pace had already slowed, his eyes narrowed with razor-sharp focus. He'd sensed the subtle disturbance the moment Asenya fell silent.

Something was stalking them across the black desert.

Something massive.