I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren and Asenya stood in perfect decorum, alert to their surroundings. The desert's cold breath howled eerily, lifting specks of sand that danced in the air before falling back to earth, where they glistened with a pale, beautiful sparkle that mirrored the moon's silver light.

Asenya extended her hand, palm up.

"My sword..."

Auren met her gaze, and with a simple gesture, Withering Fate materialized in his hands. The moment it appeared, Asenya's face twisted into a dark grimace.

"What is that?"

Auren offered a sheepish grin.

"Well, how do I explain this... hehe... I sort of ate your sword."

How could he possibly explain that his soul had devoured everything in the Home of Rage—the swords, the throne, all of it? Now, he could feel them residing within his soul, not as shards, but as extensions of himself. Corrupted.

Withering Fate shimmered with a menacing red glow. The once-pristine blue blade that had reflected the tranquil night ocean was now a nightmarish crimson edge that pulsed with a cursed rhythm, still beautiful but in a sinister, blood-drenched way.

Asenya shifted her gaze from the sword to Auren, eyes narrowing.

"You stole my sword and ate it? You thief!"

Auren protested immediately, hands raised.

"Hey! You have no right to call me that when you shoved me into a damn hellscape!"

She rolled her eyes and turned away from him, focusing on something in the distance, her posture suddenly alert as stone.

"Well, since you're the one with the blade, you'll be doing a lot of cutting."

Auren stepped closer, shoulder nearly touching hers.

"What do we have?"

"A massive, ancient Sandworm. By the sublimity of its dangerous presence, I'm guessing one of the oldest Cursed Creatures that has existed in this place. Perhaps a Blighted Cursed Creature. As for the grade of its curse... most likely Catastrophic."

Auren studied her profile, noting the calm calculation in her eyes, before facing forward.

"How are you able to tell all of that from just the sublimity of its dangerous presence?"

Asenya pulled out a black rope and gathered her hair back, allowing only the white strand to fall across her face like a slash of moonlight. She tied the rest into a tight ponytail and responded without looking at him.

"When you've lived as long as I have and slain as much as I have, this becomes second nature."

Auren frowned darkly, a chill crawling up his spine as he suppressed the horror and dread her casual words evoked.

'Just how much does one have to kill to be able to read that much from a monster's presence?'

She glanced back at him, ice in her eyes despite the small frown tugging at her lips.

"We'll talk more about my sword later. But for now... let's see how you killed the Polypheme."

Auren shrugged, a nasty smile slithering across his face.

Suddenly the entire landscape trembled, as if the desert itself were awakening. The sand far ahead began to rise tremendously—not like a dune shifting, but like a mountain dragging itself from the bowels of the earth, surging skyward in a terrible display of power.

It rolled forward with titanic might, a force of nature given form, splitting the gathered sand before it like a blade carved from pure speed and destruction.

Auren's face drained of color as the full scope of the monstrosity revealed itself. The scene unfolding before him was no mere creature but a moving mountain shoving its relentless way toward them.

The Polypheme was a Catastrophic Wretched, which Northern was sure would have decimated the entirety of the Province of Hope if ten Consecrateds—or at least one exceptionally strong Exalted—stood in its way. But Blessed warriors of such caliber numbered only a handful dozen at best.

He gripped Withering Fate tighter, his knuckles squeezing out a cracking sound as he watched the mountain of sand lumber closer, each movement sending tremors through the ground beneath his feet.

'A Catastrophic Blighted...'

He steeled his resolve, shoulders squaring as he took a steadying breath.

'I have killed a Major Blighted before. I'm sure I can do this too.'

The next second, however...

Auren's eyes widened as the dune rose impossibly higher, and what had been riding it revealed itself. The beast tore the mountain of black sand apart in the air, causing it to spray viciously and rain down like a volley of midnight arrows.

It erupted from the blackened sands like a nightmare breaking free of ancient chains, its emergence peeling back the desert with thunderous force that reverberated through Auren's bones.

Obsidian flesh, slick and glistening, caught the dim light of the moon, casting reflections like molten mirrors—each scale sharp-edged and jagged like shards of broken obsidian that once formed part of a mighty tower. Chunks of black sand clung to its armored hide before cascading off in rippling waves, as though the desert itself resisted giving it birth.

The creature cast a long and endless shadow over Auren and Asenya, blotting out the stars above as it bent the tip of its enormous serpentine body toward them with deadly precision.

A catastrophic maw gaped open with a grinding roar that shook the very air, revealing concentric rings of jagged white teeth. They weren't just sharp—they moved. Grinding. Churning. Pulverizing the air as if it were stone. Every motion of its jaw sounded like boulders being crushed into powder, an orchestra of raw, slow destruction. Threads of saliva clung to the teeth like silk from a widow's web, stretching and snapping in the heated wind.

It had no eyes. It didn't need them. Each segmented obsidian plate of its body contained a chasm that received waves of all kinds, sensing them in ways beyond mortal understanding.

The creature loomed, impossibly tall, like havoc incarnate, wearing the body of a titanic worm that towered against the night sky—a monument to death that moved and breathed and hungered.

This time Auren did not smile.

The Major Blighted had been a big deal. But this...? This was a far cry from that—an insane cry beyond comprehension.

He didn't need further evidence to grasp the yawning chasm of power between a Creature with a Major curse and one branded with a Catastrophe curse. The difference wasn't merely of degree, but of nature.

In all this vast, terrible mix, he was merely a child—a Nascent soul bearing a Minor Curse, standing before a god of destruction.

'Oh dear... Auren, I feel for you.'

The creature stirred again, the thunderous grinding of its maws resounding across the silent desert like distant mountains collapsing. At that moment, Asenya's voice sliced through the air.

"MOVE!!"

Just as she shouted, the creature tore out a terrifying, agonizing scream that seemed born of pain itself. Waves of sound exploded from its maws, a visible force that pulverized everything in its path, turning solid ground to powder that exploded outward before evaporating into nothingness.

Auren, having launched himself away with every ounce of strength he possessed, stared blankly at the perfect circular void where he and Asenya had stood mere seconds ago. He blinked several times, mouth dry as the desert surrounding them.

'Holy cow!'