I Awakened A Divine Curse

The spiral staircase twisted like the throat of an ancient beast, narrow and stifling. The stone walls scraped Auren's shoulders as he stormed up each step, Jasper slung across his shoulder like dead weight. Meredith kept pace just behind, her breath coming out in sharp, desperate pulls, each step threatening to buckle beneath the pounding urgency.

The creature's roars reverberated through the stone, a guttural symphony of fury, making their skin crawl with cold tendrils of fear.

Suddenly, a sickening crunch echoed from below—stone tearing, bones snapping. Auren felt the vibrations lurch through the staircase. He didn't need to look back to know: it had breached the passage.

"We need to move faster."

Meredith's voice cut through the chaos with forced calm, though her widened eyes and white-knuckled grip on the wall betrayed her terror. This was, after all, something neither of them had faced before.

Maybe Auren had, but as far as he remembered, he never truly won. It was just by luck and trials that cost him over a hundred deaths.

"I'm trying not to trip on our way to a heroic death!"

Auren shot back, a breathless grin flashing beneath the helm he'd donned once again.

Another impact—this time closer. Dust spilled from the ceiling. Jagged cracks webbed along the walls, and chunks of old stone clattered down the stairwell. The structure wasn't going to last long. They were racing time—and losing.

Auren reached the top, his foot crashing into the aged wooden door that separated the staircase from the main hall. It splintered open. He staggered through and into the massive chamber, a ceiling of murals depicting forgotten histories stretching overhead, the floor inlaid with cracked tiles glowing faintly with long-dead enchantments.

The wind howled through the shattered high windows, dragging ribbons of ash and wails of distant beasts.

"There..."

Meredith jabbed a finger toward a fallen slab leaning across a shattered pillar—an improvised barricade, flimsy but better than nothing.

Auren rushed forward, placed Jasper gently behind the makeshift cover, and turned just in time to see Meredith plant herself between the boy and the door.

The creature burst into the hall.

A wall of shadow.

It had to duck just to pass through, wings scraping the stone like knives across bone. Its breath clouded the air in thick plumes of frost, each exhale freezing motes of ash midair. And its eyes... cold fire, devoid of mercy, fixed only on one thing.

Auren.

"You're still breathing?" He muttered under his breath, gaze narrowing. "Let's fix that."

He held out his hand—and in a flash of dark smoke, twin swords materialized in both palms.

The beast lunged.

Auren moved first.

He met the creature with a slide-step pivot, blades slashing in an arc of mirrored fury. Sparks sprayed as one edge scraped the creature's beak, and the other struck the armored bone near its wing joint—but neither cut deep.

Too tough.

He twisted away from a retaliating swipe, the claws raking the floor and carving deep gouges where he'd just stood. His momentum carried him into a spin, and the tip of his sword clipped one of the creature's wing joints.

This time, blood flew. The creature howled and staggered.

Meredith didn't wait.

She darted in with a jagged shard of glowing stone she'd pried from the wall. It wasn't a weapon—it was raw desperation. She rammed it into the beast's flank, piercing the thin membrane where the wings met.

The shriek that followed split the air like a crack of thunder.

But then—retaliation.

The beast twisted with uncanny speed, one claw backhanding Meredith and flinging her into the far wall. She struck it hard—too hard—and crumpled to the ground.

"Meredith!"

Auren yelled, but the creature didn't let him reach her.

It surged forward again. The force of its charge sent a quake through the floor.

Auren braced, grounded his stance—and grabbed the cloak of his armor.

Just as the creature reached him, he vanished, reappearing instantly in a darker corner of the chamber.

Seizing this brief moment of respite, Auren summoned another weapon—a silvery long blade that shimmered with blue runes.

He flashed forward with the blade gripped tight. The creature sensed him and pivoted, wings expanding to tear through him, but Auren ducked low, slipping into the beast's guard.

He swung his sword upward with both hands, channeling his ferocious will into the strike. The creature's terrifying talons crashed down, catching the blade and slamming it into the ground. Stone shattered beneath the impact. Its second leg smashed into Auren's chest.

For a moment, the world grew soundless. Then pain tore through him as the creature ripped a chunk of his metallic armor away with mere talons—talons that gleamed like polished silver.

Pinned down, one leg crushing his sword hand, the other pressing against his chest, Auren could only watch as the creature reared its head back. As those jaws plunged toward his skull, something whizzed through the air and smashed into the beast's temple, jerking its head sideways.

That gave Auren the opening he needed. The chest of his armor was ripped open, blood pouring from where the talons had crushed through.

But enduring the agony, Auren shot upward and tried to tear his hands free from the creature's grip.

Impossible.

The damn abomination, wounded as it was, still pressed its entire weight onto Auren's hand. Tearing away felt like trying to lift a mountain—every muscle in his arm screamed in protest.

Auren opened his free hand, his expression darkening with grim resolve. In a heartbeat, another sword materialized in his palm. He slashed at the creature's leg, the blade whistling through the air.

Then, something impossible happened.

The sword connected—and shattered, dissolving into wisps of dark smoke.

Auren waited for the familiar sensation of the weapon returning to his soul. Nothing came. A scowl twisted his features.

'What is this bastard made of?!'

The realization crashed over him like ice water. This was no ordinary Cursed Creature—this was a Catastrophic Blighted.

People like him knew all too well the terrifying gap between the last three Curse grades compared to the devastating two. Creatures with Catastrophic and Abyssal curses defied reason, their lethality multiplied hundredfold when rank wasn't even factored in.

A Catastrophic Blighted.

Auren knew he was cooked.