Veilbound Secrets: The Oath Bearer's Curse

Aric glanced down at the bodies strewn around him—broken forms of those who had once stood proud, now reduced to lifeless husks. The mana within him surged, his heart beating with a rhythm that felt distant, mechanical. He raised his hand, extending a thread of mana from his core and letting it flow through his body in calculated precision.

The thread hummed as it strengthened, lacing through his muscles and bones, reinforcing his physical form with a silent efficiency. His limbs felt lighter, his senses sharper, his strength magnified. There was no strain, no resistance—just a smooth, methodical flow as he circulated the mana in a closed loop, optimizing the energy within him.

This was control. This was power.

Aric extended his fingers, focusing the mana outward, shifting his attention to the space around him. He had already experimented with spatial magic before, but now he pushed its boundaries further. The air shimmered faintly, distorting as he tore into the fabric of reality itself, creating a narrow tear in the space in front of him. The edges of the rift flickered with unstable energy, a subtle reminder of the volatile nature of the magic he wielded.

Without hesitation, he grasped the nearest corpse—Cedric’s mangled half body—and tossed it through the tear. The space swallowed it instantly, the body vanishing into the void as if it had never been there. Aric observed the tear for a moment, calculating the capacity. His connection to the spatial fold was tenuous, but he could sense it: the space he had torn was limited, a finite pocket barely capable of holding more than three bodies.

He tested it further, dragging two more corpses and casting them into the rift. Each one disappeared with a quiet ripple, as though the air itself had consumed them. The spatial fold groaned slightly under the weight, not physically but in the subtle strain Aric could feel in his mana threads.

Three. That was his current limit—three bodies before the space became unstable.

It was, in essence, a rudimentary form of storage, an inventory of sorts. The possibilities intrigued him, though the limitations were clear. For now, it served its purpose.

But the real challenge came next.

Aric extended his hand again, focusing this time on opening a second tear in the space near him. The air distorted once more, the rift forming effortlessly under his command. Then, with a flick of his fingers, he opened another tear—a much smaller one—several feet away. Without pause, he tossed a corpse into the first rift, watching as it vanished instantly.

The second tear trembled, and for a moment, the space around it wavered. A faint shimmer appeared, and the corpse tumbled out, landing with a soft thud at his feet.

A success. But barely.

Aric noted the mana expenditure—significant. Spatial magic, particularly this kind, demanded an immense amount of energy. It wasn’t just the act of tearing space; it was the precision required to maintain two connected points, a delicate balance that threatened to collapse with the slightest miscalculation. The distance between the gates was minimal—too close for anything meaningful. And the strain on his mana heart was considerable.

For now, this would suffice. He could create teleportation gates large enough for a human to pass through, but only for short distances. The farther he attempted, the more likely the fabric of space would tear beyond repair, unraveling in ways that could lead to… consequences.

More than that, each time he opened a gate, there was a risk. The Veil, the thin barrier between the material world and the eldritch realms, wasn’t impermeable. Manipulating space could weaken it, and every tear he made thinned the boundary between realms, allowing mana—and something else—to seep through. The Wyrd lurked on the other side of the Veil, and Aric knew the cost of dabbling too deeply in its energies.

Too much mana used in too short a time… and the Wyrd’s corruptive influence would bleed into his mind, into his very being. His thoughts would twist, his body could warp. He had seen it happen to others—those who overreached, who let ambition blind them to the dangers of wielding such power.

Aric, however, was methodical. He paced himself, his control over mana as precise as the movements of his sword. Even now, as he circulated the mana through his veins, keeping his body refreshed and his fatigue at bay, he remained conscious of the risks.

The corpses that remained littered the courtyard, and Aric began his work without a word, collecting them with the same cold precision that defined his every movement. He opened tear after tear, casting the bodies into the spatial fold until the ground was cleared, leaving only a small mound of lifeless forms piled neatly in one corner of the courtyard. A mountain of corpses, silent and still.

His mana continued to flow through him, circulating in careful rhythms, sustaining his strength. But with each pulse of power, he could feel the faint tug of something deeper—something darker—just beyond the edges of the Veil. The Wyrd’s presence was subtle, a whisper at the edges of his consciousness, waiting for the moment he would slip.

But Aric didn’t falter.

He had mastered the art of restraint, his control sharper now than it had ever been. Even as the cold wind swept through the bloodstained courtyard, carrying the scent of death with it, Aric stood unmoved, his eyes scanning the scene with dispassionate clarity.

Aric’s gaze shifted from the crimson-streaked ground to his open palm, where faint tendrils of mana gathered. The mana, though silent and invisible to others, vibrated with raw potential, responding to his every thought and command. He had grown accustomed to its presence, its weight, and its demands, but now—he wanted more.

He wasn’t content with what he had. Not yet.

Stretching his fingers, he began drawing more mana from the air, feeding it into the gathering thread at his palm. It pulsed once, twice, as the energy thickened. He didn’t have an affinity for fire, or any element outside of space. That much had been made clear to him. But control? That was his strength. His command over mana was unparalleled, a mastery that went beyond what any mage could dream of. Most trained for decades, carefully honing their skills. But Aric? He had lived through the memories of hundreds of lives, many of them mages, each one leaving a fragment of their knowledge, their struggles, their victories. Where others would have been driven mad, lost in the tangled threads of past lives, Aric had only grown stronger, refining his control with every experience.

It wasn’t just practice—it was understanding, distilled through countless perspectives. And through it all, he had learned. That was why his control was absolute.

Aric didn’t need an affinity.

He concentrated harder, compressing the mana further. It wavered, struggling under the pressure, but he held it in check, forcing it into form with sheer will. A spark flickered within the mass—a faint glimmer of red. He pushed more mana into it, feeling the strain as the energy became unstable, volatile.

With the slightest flick of his wrist, the unstable mana ignited. A fireball bloomed into existence, the flames swirling chaotically as they hungrily consumed the concentrated energy. He watched it carefully, allowing the fire to spin and grow, balancing the instability without losing control. It hovered in his palm, small yet fierce, casting an eerie orange glow across his face.

The fire crackled and hissed, its edges dancing with barely contained rage, but Aric’s expression remained impassive. He closed his fist, snuffing the fireball out of existence, the mana dispersing harmlessly back into the atmosphere.

It wasn’t enough. The power he wielded wasn’t about simple destruction—it was about control, precision.

Aric looked beyond the courtyard, his gaze locking onto a line of large trees at the edge of the estate. Without hesitation, he gathered mana once more, this time compressing it into a dense, formless mass. No element, just pure energy—unstable and volatile. He aimed his hand toward the trees and released the gathered force.

The ball of concentrated mana shot forward, hurtling toward the nearest tree. The impact was immediate, violent. The explosion ripped through the bark, splintering the trunk into jagged shards. One by one, the huge trees fell, each reduced to splinters by the cascading bursts of force. He watched as the final tree exploded into bits, the noise ringing out in the silent air.

The ground smoldered where the trees had once stood, a testament to the raw power that coursed through his veins.

But this… this was just the beginning. He had discovered that, despite lacking an elemental affinity, he could manipulate mana to mimic other forms of magic. It wasn’t as clean or efficient, but it worked. The trick was pushing mana to its breaking point, creating instability before releasing it in a controlled burst.

However, the process wasn’t without its dangers. Too much instability and the Veil could tear.

He exhaled softly and turned back toward the small mountain of corpses he had created earlier. The wind carried the acrid scent of blood and death through the courtyard, but Aric moved through it without pause. Climbing to the top of the heap, he found a spot where the bodies had settled unevenly and sat down.

The height gave him a vantage point to survey the estate—desolate, ruined, silent. His hands rested on his knees, but his eyes stayed sharp, cold, calculating. Power hummed quietly beneath his skin, a constant reminder of what he could do, of what was now possible. His control was growing, but his reach… it still wasn’t enough.

He gazed at the horizon, where the last rays of daylight faded, casting long shadows across the land. In the silence, Aric’s mind began turning, contemplating his next steps, the future ahead of him, the forces still hidden from view.

Without shifting his gaze, Aric spoke, his voice low, cutting through the still air.

“How long are you planning to hide it?”

There was no one there. No visible presence to answer his question. But he knew the voice was listening. It always was. It had been there when the relic had bound itself to him, whispering cryptic messages, guiding him subtly through every trial he had faced.

Now, he demanded more.

The air around him felt heavier, as if something unseen had stirred. A faint, almost imperceptible whisper echoed in the recesses of his mind, but no clear answer followed.

A faint smile ghosted across Aric’s lips—cold, devoid of warmth.

He knew this game all too well.

The silence stretched on, but Aric wasn’t impatient. He stood atop the pile of corpses like a grim sentinel, gazing out over the blood-soaked courtyard. His body was still, his breathing calm, and his mana flowed through him in steady, controlled pulses, like the beat of a second heart. He had all the time in the world, or at least, it felt like it. The wind carried the faint stench of death, but even that seemed irrelevant, distant. It was just another part of the scene he found himself trapped in. He would wait.

And then, as if sensing that Aric had already pieced together much of the puzzle, the voice came, its tone laced with something between amusement and resignation.

“So you figured it out?” The voice echoed within his mind, familiar, cryptic, and yet now exposed.

Aric’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon, his expression unmoved. “Of course I did. You didn’t perfectly hide it.”

Everything had been leading to this moment—this realization. It wasn’t a sudden epiphany, nor was it a single clue that unraveled the truth. No, it was the accumulation of inconsistencies, the subtle gaps that had slowly come together, like pieces of a fractured mirror, reflecting a twisted reality.

"Haha...."

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