You can read 14 chapters advance on my [P].[A].[T].[R].[E].[O].[N].
Link: [email protected]/Arson09
If you wish, skip Conclusion Part 1 and Part 2. I have added them for continuity's sake (I will remove them later). There are previous chapters; start from Conclusion: Part 3.
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Conclusion: Part 1
Ethan flickered and appeared outside the entrance of the tunnels.
"I don't sense Mahito," he assessed. Even though the Humanity Curse had his own version of a hollow trace, Mahoraga had long adapted to the barrier effects, so when in close proximity, Mahito couldn't hide from Ethan.
There were many factors in play here, and Ethan was aware of that fact. But he had a gut feeling he had stepped into something larger than a single Curse.
"This place... it reminds me of that island," Ethan thought of the island that the Volcano Curse, Jogo, had formed in the Red Sea to be able to maintain his physical form while fighting at 1000% output during the Battle of New York. "It radiates cursed energy."
"There is more than one disaster-grade Curse here," Ethan noted grimly. As soon as he took his first step into the tunnels, he heard it.
SCREECHHHH!
"Not human," he heard the screeching coming from deep inside the tunnels. Two Shikigami quickly jumped out from his shadow: Kuro and Shiro.
"Let's go," Ethan said as he led the way forward. "Kill anything that's not human," he ordered.
He was in unknown territory here; he realized that fact. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Deep Inside Tunnels:
"Run, Ethan! Run!" Tabitha shouted at the top of her lungs, looking toward her baby boy as she was pinned down by two more creatures.
They were ambushed. The creatures had been waiting for them inside the tunnels.
They had followed the rabbit, but the animal did not lead the group to their freedom that had been promised; it led them to their deaths.
All of them were here, From Donna to Ellis and Fatima to the matters family...Pinned to the ground by the creature of the forest, the tunnel wasn't their salvation, they have stumbled onto the creature lair.
"Ahhhhh!" Tabitha screamed out as she felt the sharp claws of the two creatures digging into her skin. She looked to her side where her husband, Jim, lay pinned in much worse shape than she was. His eyes had gone vacant from the torture; he seemed to have lost consciousness due to the pain.
She couldn't locate Julie, but she could only pray that her daughter somehow escaped this trap—even though a more skeptical part of her mind could tell that was impossible.
Ethan tried to run out of the small opening through crawling, and damn nearly succeeded, but the granny monster caught his leg in a vice-like grip at the last possible second. So much so, she almost peeled off the skin as she jerked him backward.
The granny monster bent down and moved toward the fallen boy. She gently caressed his face, like a grandmother seeing her favorite grandchild after a long time.
" Oh, My sweet sweet boy, " she said
"Leave him alone!" Tabitha shouted through the pain. "PLEASE LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
But the monster didn't stop. The gentle caressing gave way to a grotesque peeling of the boy's skin. Though just as the granny monster was reaching for little Ethan's neck, a rustle came from the main opening of the cave.
From the dark came a towering silhouette. To Tabitha, the figure resembled a humanoid wendigo with long, branch-like antlers on his head and blazing, circular white eyes.
As soon as the creatures saw the silhouette, they stilled as if on command. They unpinned their victims and slowly walked toward all possible exits of the cave.
"ETHAN!" Tabitha shouted as she moved toward his lying form. She reached him quickly; the right side of Ethan's face was bleeding, she noticed as she gently caressed the area. But Ethan was already moving. He slowly sat up, and they both looked toward the new creature that had arrived. It was certainly not human from its appearance alone.
"OH, MY, MY," the Beast addressed the group in front of him. "It's been so long since I have personally come to a feast. Too bad the Sheriff could not join us. He reminds me of an old acquaintance, a brave woodsman. But they will be here soon, so you all won't be alone."
"Why are you doing this?" Tabitha asked, clutching her baby boy. "What did we ever do to you?"
"Why?" the Beast asked, genuinely intrigued. "This isn't happening to you for any reason, Tabitha. It is just because..." he mocked.
Though little Ethan seemed to have come to a conclusion. "It's happening because we are humans," he quoted from his favorite storybook.
"Hmm... that might actually be the closest reason I can think of," the Beast applauded the boy.
But what Ethan did next shocked everyone who was conscious. He picked up a rock from the ground and threw it at the Beast, hitting his chest with a thud. The rock dropped to the ground and tumbled to a stop in front of the Beast.
"Save the boy for last..." he commanded the creatures of the forest as they moved toward the group. Tabitha looked toward the Beast, then at Ethan. She hadn't had time to process what the boy was doing, and by the time she did, it was already too late.
She hugged him for dear life and closed her eyes for the moment.
"I will give you one chance..." came another voice from where the Beast was standing. "Where is Mahito?"
Park had used Boogie Woogie on the rock that little Ethan had thrown.
Tabitha looked back toward the entrance. She saw what looked like a man in a tailored suit standing nearly a hand's distance from the Beast, looking up at him.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
She heard the unmistakable sounds of bones breaking and crashing from around them. Before her eyes could catch up, what seemed like a shadowy wolf moved around the cave in a blitz, crushing the heads of those creatures that had terrorized the town's people for years.
As they finished, they moved into the shadows and stood some distance behind the suited man, as if on guard.
When the Beast took a second too long to answer his question, Park brought his hand, which was already encased in cursed energy, back and punched the Beast with enough force to launch it out of the cave through the ceiling.
Back in the town:
Stark, Boyd, and Tora stood outside the town's diner. The people who had arrived via the Grand Rapids Runner bus were inside the diner.
Some had, of course, not been accustomed to being told what to do; some had even tried to run off.
But when Tora used the spell that allows non-sorcerers to perceive cursed energy, and everyone in the group suffered from foggy vision and later saw a twelve-foot-tall bipedal tiger, they stilled and complied.
Ethan had not asked Tora to teleport these people outside because they had been marked by a cursed spirit. Everyone on that bus, except Ethan Park, had low resistance to Curses, and if not treated in time, their vitality would fade away until only a husk of their previous self remained.
And besides, there were unknowns here. He didn't know about their cursed techniques; for all Ethan knew, letting anyone leave could give the Curse a chance to escape. The entity that marked the passengers could use one of them as a vessel, a beacon, or a medium to escape the town's boundaries. Letting even a single passenger teleport back to the outside world risks unleashing a dangerous, parasitic Curse on the general population. Something he could not afford.
"What are you doing? " Boys asked looking up at Tora, seeing his hands being encased in Eldritch circles.
Previously, Boyd had told Tora what had transpired last night, the Colony House massacre, when the Bipedal Tiger had asked about the Corpses of Thoes Creatures that Stark killed last night lieing in a pile near the neighbouring semetry.
Tora didn't answer immediately. He rotated his hands and a massive dome formed a barrier around the diner. With a sudden snap of his palms, the energy expanded outward in a flash. A massive dome rose from the earth, shimmering with ethereal light before solidifying into an impenetrable barrier around the diner.
"That should do it," Tora replied. If there were any Curses here strong enough to break that barrier, he would sense them first before they could get close. So, the people inside the diner remained safe regardless.
"Woah..." Boyd couldn't help but mutter. The display had momentarily distracted him from his worry about Ellis and Fatima; he felt he had sent them to their deaths.
"Sheriff Boyd, was it?" Tora asked to confirm. This startled the usually stoic man. After all, it wasn't every day he was asked his name by a bipedal tiger.
"Yes, I am. Do you..." Boyd hesitated, "do you have a name?"
"It's nice to meet you, Sheriff Boyd. I am Tora," the Tiger Shikigami replied gruffly.
"Tora, huh," Boyd tasted the name on his tongue. "So, Tora, do you have any idea where they are? The townspeople, I mean? If they are safe..."
Tora looked down sideways toward the Sheriff. "You have family there, do you?" After receiving a shaky nod from Boyd, Tora continued, "Do not fret. Your family will be safe. Ethan Park is here, after all."
"Don't blame me for not trusting someone I don't know," Boyd spoke under his breath. That made Tora turn toward the man.
"How long have you been here, Sheriff? After or before New York?" Tora asked naturally. It was uncommon to find someone who didn't recognize his master's name.
"Approximately two years my family has been here. Funny enough, it was actually during the battle. As the world was being consumed by madness, we found a madness of our own," Boyd remarked, pointing around Fromville.
"Look on the bright side, Sheriff. I have found that among those who have suffered the same pain..." Tora said, mimicking the gesture of Boyd by pointing around Fromville, "there can be no hate. Over time, they become family. You have found family in your madness; not everyone outside can say that."
"Family? I killed mine," Boyd pointed out.
'I killed her,' he thought. "But you are right, I am one lucky motherfucker."
'I don't sense any malice in him when he said that,' Tora thought, looking toward the downed man. 'What kind of mental stress is this man accustomed to?' He was a little shocked himself.
"What happened to him?" Tora asked, glancing back at Tony, who was sitting on the side of the diner.
Stark was still wearing his Mark 43; only his helmet was off. His head was downcast.
"This place... this place," Boyd reiterated. "It does things to people who get trapped here. Makes them see things. Hear things that aren't there. It did it to my wife, and it got to him too."
"Oh, but I should have seen it. I was warned," Tony spoke, still looking down. Then he looked up toward Tora. "I should have called Ethan as soon as I got here."
Tora recalled when he had asked Ethan earlier today why he would trust an ordinary human with the task of finding a cursed spirit.
"There is nothing ordinary about that human, Tora," Ethan had stated. "He is probably the smartest man this side of the galaxy. If given the right materials, I wouldn't put it past him to create an armor that can battle me on equal footing."
"You think highly of this man," Tora had acknowledged.
"Of course, it's more than that. Deep down, Stark's a good man. Deep down... I am not," Ethan had spoken as he sank into his shadow and made his way inside the church filled to the brim with demons.
As Tora looked at the man Ethan believed to be the smartest, he remarked, "It wouldn't have changed the final outcome."
"What do you mean?" Stark asked immediately.
"Apart from looping space, this place also has some sort of time dilation," Tora explained.
"Time dilation?" Tony asked, and as a look of realization passed through his face, he questioned, "How long ago did you receive the signal which I sent last night?"
"Half an hour ago," Tora provided. But as soon as he spoke, he saw it before he sensed it—a building-sized, wormy cursed spirit on the other end of the trail marching in the diner's direction.
"We've got company," Tora remarked as a Tao mandala materialized in front of his palm.
"Oh, that's a cursed spirit if I ever saw one," Boyd added as he stepped back.
"Need help?" Tony asked Tora as he put on his suit's helmet.
"Nah, I've got this," Tora spoke as he slapped his palms together, causing the Tao mandalas to collide. A moment later, what emerged from it was a serrated, circular Eldritch disk, and with a forward thrust, Tora launched it like a projectile.
As it traveled, it gained in size until reaching the dimensions to cut its intended target, the giant worm-like cursed spirit, perfectly in half through the middle.
Swish! swish!
"See? That's done. *Clap*," Tora remarked, turning back and clapping his hands.
"Hey," Boyd started, still looking at the worm-like monster. "I don't mean to tell you how to do what you are doing, but is it supposed to do that?" he added, pointing at the worm cursed spirit.
The cursed spirit that was clearly bisected in half—a blow that should have instantly exorcised the Curse—had not worked as intended, as the spirit was stitching itself back together.
"Oh shit," Tony spoke. "Am I the only one, or does that Curse look like a building-sized tardigrade to you too, Tai Lung?" he said, looking at Tora.
" What!?" Tora's eye went wide with realisation, " It's Cursed Technique is Invincibility,"
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Conclusion: Part 2
"What happened?!" the beast thought incoherently. He had just been in the tunnels, and now he was suspended in mid-air 300 feet above the ground.
"That human..." The beast gained some coherence, recalling Ethan's face. Then came the memory of what the human had asked him: 'Where is Mahito?'
"How does he know that name?!" The beast spoke out loud, a flicker of surprise and worry in his tone. "Wait, did that human hit me? What an incredible speed. Is this the sorcerer he warned me about? Is this Park?"
A conversation the beast had had with the humanity Curse surfaced next.
"You are saying a single human poses a threat to our entire existence," the beast had asked, looking at the shadowy silhouette of Mahito.
"Yes, Ethan Park could be dangerous," Mahito had replied, though his malicious smile had not left the curse's face even when he talked about the potential end of his species.
Before the beast could do anything to save himself from his current predicament, a small rock that had traveled with the Curse on his upward journey
flickered, and in its place appeared the Divine General Mahoraga. The General gripped both of the beast's antlers and delivered a brutal front kick to his stomach, resulting in a brutal mutilation of the beast's antlers.
Grunt! Grunt!
And the beast was launched downward towards the bottom of a hill, though Mahoraga remained suspended mid-air.
"MAHHHHH!" Finally, the General let out a bellowing roar as he threw the antlers away and flickered out of view.
Down below, on the edge, Ethan had watched the display. "Someone is cranky..." he commented as Mahoraga dissolved back into his shadow.
Ethan jumped into the dust cloud that formed after the beast had landed, spiderwebbing the entire rocky floor. With a swift release of cursed energy, Park blasted the dust and smoke out of the area.
Though as soon as he landed in the center, the beast was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, Ethan's eyes locked onto the tree trunks.
The towering silhouettes of monstrous spiders began to crawl out from the dark canopy, their segmented legs clicking together. Along with the giant monstrosity, hundreds of tiny, pale black arachnids began to erupt from the bark, carpeting the forest floor in a skittering wave that advanced toward his boots.
"Time for you to die, Sorcerer!" the beast's voice echoed from around the forest. "You may have been born stronger than other humans... but in the end, you are just like all the rest of them. You are no match for my cursed technique. Inside this barrier, I am effectively a God..."
Ethan remained unbothered by the advancing threat. He glanced sideways. "If I had a nickel for every time I encountered a curse who fancied himself a God... I would have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice..."
'Is he looking at me?!' the beast thought frantically as he adjusted his position. Ethan's eyes followed his movement. 'How is this possible... I should be hidden. Is my technique failing me?'
'His cursed technique revolves around nightmares and illusions. That implies... he isn't the creator of this barrier,' Ethan concluded. As the vibrant tail of his Kitsune emerged from his shadow, he continued,
"Illusionary techniques of such a low level won't work against someone like me..."
Ethan added as the spiders that were about to close in on him vanished from their place. Lady had done her work, and as usual, it was phenomenal, as she even had the beast trapped within his own mind.
Inside the beast's mind, he was reliving his earliest of memories. The memory of a brave woodsman.
A long, long time ago, in the darkened forest, the beast moved along the forest floor without making any sound. He was following the light... the light of the lantern.
He had given the humans trapped inside an ancient Fromville several lanterns, and he had given a lantern to the woodsman personally.
The lantern worked similarly to the talismans of the current town. As long as humans were in the lantern's light, he couldn't harm them. That was the binding vow he had used to enhance his technique to another level. The only trick was... only the beast possessed the oil that could keep the lantern lit.
The woodsman was collecting an urgent supply of wood. As the weather favored rain in the coming morning, it was crucial they had dry wood.
The beast lurked from behind one of the distant trees, looking at the human who was brave enough to traverse during the night with him around.
"It seems you are running out of oil, woodsman..." the beast spoke from beyond where the lantern light ended. "Why not let me take the lantern for a while?"
"BEGONE, beast..." the woodsman answered his call without looking back. "I have fought you for the lantern before... and I will fight you again."
"No need for violence, woodsman..." the beast replied in a silky tone. "Now, what direction did those children go?"
The beast was asking about the pair of children that had been the latest prisoners of Fromville. The woodsman didn't give him what he wanted.
"Don't you care about keeping the lantern lit? Don't you care about your daughter's soul?" the beast tried manipulation as he circled around the dazed woodsman, using the man's daughters as tokens in his favor.
The woodsman looked down; he didn't want his daughters to die. He wanted them to live a full life like he had. He wanted them to have families... to have children... to be loved. But he also didn't want to snuff out the lives of those pair of children that had made it here recently.
"One cannot trade the souls of children like they are mere... tokens. There has to be another way," the woodsman pleaded with the beast.
"NO," the beast announced. "There is only me. There is only my way. There is only the forest... and there is only surrender."
Before the woodsman could reply, the beast started retreating. "Be sure to keep the lantern lit... or your daughter's flame will go out... forever."
Seeing it retreating, the woodsman shouted, "Beast! Beast!" But in response, the cursed spirit only sang his favorite song.
"TRALALA LALALA, chop the wood to light the fire..." came the distant melody.
Some days later, The Beast had, of course, killed the woodsman's daughter along with the pair of children from that day. Though, he made sure to keep the woodsman alive so he could watch.
Now, the beast loomed over a drunken woodsman who sat beside his daughter's rotting corpse.
The lantern had started to flicker. There was no oil left. The last remaining oil was in the lantern, and it was running out fast.
'It wouldn't last the night,' the woodsman thought grimly as he stood.
"I curse you, Beast! A day will come when you will be as helpless as I have been today. You will plead for mercy, like I have, but just like today, it will not be heard," the woodsman declared as he tipped over the lantern, and the flames went out. "You will die the most horrible of deaths."
Those were the woodsman's last words.
"You will die the most horrible of deaths.
You will die the most horrible of deaths."
And those very same words echoed inside the beast's mind again and again until they effectively blotted out all other thoughts.
After what felt like days to the curse, the echo stopped, and the beast was back in the real world once more. He looked up and saw a human with an eight-handled wheel hovering above his head.
"Run," Ethan simply said as he charged forward, continuously activating Boogie Woogie to change position.
The curse stood taller than Ethan's frame. He observed Ethan's march for a moment, before the word 'Run' registered in his brain and he complied. The Curse understood instinctively, This man is more savage than Beast.
'He and his shikigami can swap places with inanimate objects too,' the beast observed. 'I don't see the winged shikigami. Why is he marching towards me? Isn't he a summoner? Is he going to fight me in close combat?'
"ETHAN PARK!! IS THERE ANYTHING YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING?!" the beast asked rhetorically as he flew in the opposite direction from where Ethan was closing in.
The curse prepared to dodge and counter the sorcerer he was facing, though as he looked back up, he saw a sight, a sight he was familiar with: a flock of shikigami birds that looked awfully like his murder of crows.
Afterall, Everyone who ever entered Fromville had encountered a murder of ravens as their welcoming party.
Yes, Ethan had discharged Raiju's Barrage, the same attack that had vaporized Mahoraga from multiple times during his taming rituals.
A single Raiju strike was capable of obliterating a special grade's defenses, and the beast was being targeted by a murder of them.
'What the hell?! Crows?!' the beast questioned as he flew with speed across the forest. 'They are following me,' he noted.
The irony of the situation didn't elude the beast. He had hunted humans in this very forest for centuries on end, and now he was being hunted in the same forest by someone he couldn't harm.
"Is this what they felt?! Is this what he felt?!" the beast spoke, recalling the woodsman, who had faced him with nothing but bare hands.
"Such helplessness," he added, looking around forward. A moment later, the Raiju barrage that had separated at the beginning came from the front, where the beast was heading. "How could the woodsman stand against someone like me, knowing he would be dying? Just how?!"
The beast didn't get his answer as multiple Raiju hit their mark, creating circular holes in the curse's form, spewing out purple gore and guts.
"I know you tried your best, but that's what makes it so disappointing," Ethan said as he observed the beast's battered form. It hadn't died, of course; Park had aimed the Raiju to strike non-lethal spots only.
"Partially Summoning: Tiger Funeral Reversal: Po: Cursed Spirit Manipulation," he muttered, and the beast started dissolving around him, swirling toward Ethan.
"It hurts, hurts...., I didn't mean to, Please...." the curse spoke incoherently.
Ethan's focus remained on his hands, where a dense core of cursed spirit energy was materializing.
A bright flash later, the ancient cursed spirit canonically known as the Beast was exorcised and absorbed by Ethan Park.
Ethan dropped the condensed orb into his shadow, where Po waited, and a few seconds later, the Beast emerged back from Ethan's shadow.
"You can speak coherently, can you not?" Ethan asked the cursed spirit.
"I possess a higher level of sentience than most of my kind," the beast answered truthfully.
"You like the sound of your own voice, don't you? Next time, a simple 'yes' would suffice," Ethan instructed, and the beast lowered its head in submission.
"Satisfy me with your answers... or my shikigami will have a feast," Ethan added as the Divine Dogs flickered out across the distant hill, and the Kitsune emerged from Ethan's shadow and started nuzzling Ethan's hand. "Do you understand what I am telling you?"
"Unfortunately, I do. I will answer truthfully," the beast complied.
"Where is Mahito?" Ethan asked, clenching his fist.
The beast looked at the man before him and answered, "I don't know where he is exactly... but he isn't here."
'A curse under Cursed Spirit Manipulation cannot lie to its master...' Ethan sighed out, unclenching his fist, which had gone white.
"What exactly is this place? It's not a simple barrier. Tell me everything you know," Ethan asked next.
"This place has been many things across eons... a sanctuary... a meeting ground... but in the last two decades, it has been used for another purpose," the beast provided.
"What is it?" Ethan questioned.
"It's a...Storage, Storage for Hundreds of millions of Dormant Cursed spirits,"
Conclusion: Part 3
Back in town, in front of the diner:
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
Tora landed gracefully back on the ground.
He had just blasted the curse with enough power to exorcise a typical Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Unfortunately, Tora couldn't use his more catastrophic techniques, like the Seven Suns of Cinnibus. That specific spell conjured the immense heat and devastating power of seven actual suns, making it one of his deadliest offensive weapons; however, casting it here would undoubtedly kill everyone in the town. Even the citizens hiding deep within the tunnels would be vaporized instantly.
Tora suddenly found himself trapped in a dilemma. The tardigrade Cursed Spirit possessed a broken Cursed Technique: Invincibility.
The only definitive way to kill it was to completely annihilate its form with a single, overwhelming strike, If even a cell remained, It would regenerate completely.
Yet, despite its overpowered technique, the creature's massive, building-sized body and sluggish movements made it incredibly easy prey.
"My high-level spells would kill everyone here, but the standard attacks capable of exorcising a high-tier Special Grade can't obliterate the tardigrade in a single hit," Tora muttered internally, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"You need precision, Tora—a middle ground," Ethan's voice echoed clearly through their shared mental link.
Tora pondered the advice for a moment. As a sudden look of realization washed over his face, he glanced back toward where Tony stood, the polished silver of the Iron Man armor gleaming brilliantly beneath the sunlight.
'I think I just found our middle ground,' he thought to himself. "Stark! Get over here!" Tora shouted across the plaza. Tony didn't need to be told twice; igniting his repulsors, he closed the distance and reached Tora's position in a single, mechanized leap.
"What's the play here...?" Tony asked, his faceplate sliding open smoothly.
"Well, the tardigrade regenerates in an instant... The only way to permanently kill it is with a strike that completely obliterates the entirety of the curse's body in one shot," Tora explained. "And that is where you come in..."
"Me?" Tony questioned skeptically. "No way. This armor can't output anywhere near that much power..."
"You mean...not yet," Tora corrected smoothly as he reached out with his open palm and firmly touched the shoulder of Tony's suit.
"What the..." Tony muttered aloud as Tora's physical form suddenly started dissolving directly into the armor.
"I thought imbuing my suits with Shikigami was impossible..." he added in disbelief as the Iron Man armor's red and silver color scheme shifted into a deep black and silver, and the faceplate automatically slammed shut over his face.
[Ethan never said it was impossible, Stark... Only that it depended on the Shikigami's personal preference,] Tora's voice spoke directly from the internal HUD of the suit.
"Wow... This is incredible..." Tony exclaimed, viewing Tora's presence through the digital HUD interface.
[Examine it carefully,] Tora continued as Tony piloted the suit upwards toward the Cursed Spirit. [If you wish to create a suit of armor that can successfully exorcise Cursed Spirits... consider this current state the standard.]
As soon as the Tiger Shikigami finished speaking, Tony fired up his repulsors and launched himself some distance away from the path where the massive tardigrade curse was heading.
"You really think this is gonna work?" Stark asked as he took aim manually, targeting the tardigrade with a small rocket roughly the size of a large pen concealed within his gauntlet.
[I know it will...] Tora answered confidently through the HUD.
The small missile hurled forward from the armor's weapon pod, streaking through the air toward the main mass of the Cursed Spirit.
Swish! And Thud!
Tony turned his back to the creature and calmly began walking away in the opposite direction. The massive curse itself hadn't even realized what had just hit it.
First came a tense, heavy silence, and then a few seconds later... the rocket detonated with catastrophic fury.
Boom Boom Boom Boom
Meanwhile, Tony had already reached the Sheriff, and both of them safely took shelter inside the protective barrier Tora had erected around the diner moments ago.
From Boyd's perspective, the environment surrounding the diner was swallowed in a blinding flash of pure white. A long, agonizing minute later, when the massive explosion finally subsided, everything—every house, every car, even the sturdy barn—had been flattened to the ground. Nothing remained of the town of Fromville besides The Diner and the faint, lingering smell of ozone...
The Underground Chamber
Ethan stood silently inside a colossal underground chamber. The cavernous chamber itself was easily the largest monument he had ever laid eyes upon.
As far as his sight could pierce into the gloom, the chamber existed, extending even far beyond the horizon.
The rows contained pods—hundreds of millions of small, spherical, egg-like containment pods.
"They are all empty..." Ethan noted grimly, carefully observing the structures. 'Every single pod carries a faint trace of a unique Cursed Energy signature, distinct to its own... and all of them rank well above Semi-Grade 1,' Ethan analyzed.
"These were once the hibernation pods for hundreds of millions of dormant Cursed Spirits," the beast provided, "though they were systematically cleared out some years ago."
"How long ago exactly?" Ethan asked.
"I believe it was around May of 2012... so roughly two years back," the beast answered after some brief thought.
'The Battle of New York...' Ethan noted the timeline, connecting the dots. "A potential outbreak of one hundred million Cursed Spirits," he spoke the heavy words aloud, as if testing how they felt.
And yes, even for someone of his power, that specific number was terrifying. Not because his own safety was threatened, but because if an outbreak of that scale actually occurred... the number of immediate civilian casualties would easily reach into the millions.
"I have no idea where they were ultimately moved," the beast continued as he made his way toward a highly specialized chamber, something closely akin to a central control center for the massive facility.
Ethan followed closely behind. 'This is advanced technology...' he observed, analyzing the sophisticated hardware inside.
At the dead center of the room lay a main split-screen monitor, surrounded by complex machinery that was easily a decade ahead of anything currently available to the general public,*' This Is Shield Tech, Or was it Hydra's?'*
Armageddon:
"What's up? You look like you've got something on your mind," a voice spoke directly from the main terminal as the large screen flickered to life—a voice Ethan was intimately and uncomfortably familiar with.
He was currently standing right in the middle of the central control room within the unending underground chamber of the Town of Fromville. The warden of Fromville, the Beast Curse itself, had brought him to this location.
A moment later, Ethan's own face appeared on the terminal screen. No, not his exact face, Ethan realized with calm, as if he had been expecting it, expecting him. This was Seth's face.
Park had mentally prepared himself long ago for the moment he would witness Mahito coiled around Seth's stolen body. Seeing it now didn't break his resolve.
No, this was an invaluable opportunity. Even though Mahito was not physically present in this room, the upcoming conversation could give him critical insight into what the cursed spirit had been planning all along.
At the same time, a more pragmatic part of his mind couldn't help but inwardly mock just how utterly desperate the Curse of Humanity had become.
"Kuh-kuh, what is it? You look like you have something to say," Mahito taunted again, his voice sounding subtly distorted as it echoed out from the speakers mounted along the walls.
"Not really. It just warms my heart to see you so desperate," Ethan replied, a confident smirk breaking through his lips.
The last time Ethan had crossed paths with the Humanity Curse, it was before he had successfully undergone the grueling Mahoraga Taming Ritual—back before he was anywhere near as experienced as he is today. Even back then, Mahito had been forced to run away, even after temporarily stripping Ethan of his Cursed Technique via the Law Curse.
Over the years, as Ethan continued walking the arduous path of a true Sorcerer, the journey had transformed him.
Not in loud, dramatic ways, but in subtle, deeply meaningful ways. It had taught him genuine caution—a hard-earned lesson that no master of the Mystic Arts could ever truly teach in a classroom. While his inner drive remained intact, experience had tempered his more reckless tendencies.
"Aww? You think this is desperate?" Mahito asked rhetorically, his jaw hanging open. "No, no, no. Little Ethan, this," he added, pointing around the room, "this is all by design. I have been keeping an eye on you, you know?" Then, as if remembering something particularly interesting, he added, "How did you like my reality manipulator, Baby Phoeb?"
That gave Ethan pause, though he quickly recovered. "He was cute," he replied curtly. "I didn't enjoy killing him."
"Oh yes, you did," Mahito answered flatly.
"Yes, I did," Ethan admitted after a moment's thought. "So why aren't you here? We could have a rematch, you know?" Ethan nudged.
"Rematch?" Mahito asked, looking almost a little baffled himself. "We have never had a match to begin with. Park, I watched your fight with Phobetor. I know about your Tenth Shikigami. Not to mention, you can outwardly project Reverse Cursed Technique. It would be as foolish as it would be suicidal to fight you as you are."
"Spoken like a true loser," Ethan baited the Curse. He knows about Mahoraga from my fight in Fairview? As for RCT, I haven't really been discreet with its use, so it's expected Mahito knows about it.
For a sorcerer of Ethan's level, a calamity grade, there is very little that a Curse even at Mahito or Jogo's level could do, even if they had advance prep time. Against any curse in a direct confrontation, Mahoraga would not lose.
"Aye, a loser I may be. But to be a coward is to be human, no? And what am I, if not the reflection of humanity? I am a true Human, Park," Mahito added with far more seriousness than his usual self.
"But I would say, I didn't expect you to send Tony Stark my way," Mahito continued as a gleeful smirk reappeared on his face. "I had a little fun with him, gave him a little taste of what a curse really is. Though I think I broke him," the Curse added, the last part almost as an afterthought. Mahito's eyes took on a sharper look as he stared down at Ethan.
That was something else that had been bothering him since he first saw Stark unharmed.
"Why is Stark still alive?" Park asked. Is it a trick?
"Heh. I have a hundred million semi-special grade cursed spirits at my disposal. Why care about a single human, when I could wipe out nations in alphabetical order? In a world of War and Death, the man with the biggest army is King," Mahito answered, then in a higher pitch, he quoted, "and honey, you should see me in a crown."
"Biggest army, you say. But you can't use them, can you?" Ethan asked. A slip from the Humanity Curse, and Ethan caught it immediately. If Mahito had access to such a force, why hasn't he used it yet? The simplest answer is often the right one: you can't use them.
"Ah?" Mahito mumbled.
"Wipe out nations in alphabetical order? No, no, no. You have had this army long before I was born, most likely centuries. So why didn't you use it?" Ethan added, as a smile started forming on his face. It had to be some kind of Binding Vow. Particular conditions have to be met before Mahito could discharge this army.
Kenjaku, the mastermind villain of JJK, was able to bypass and nullify the ancient binding vows he made with curses over a millennium because he switched bodies to Suguru Geto, a Cursed Spirit manipulator. Ethan recalled JJK lore as he observed Mahito's reaction, and seeing the ever-present malicious smile fade from the Curse's face all but confirmed his suspicions.
The situation wasn't resolved—not by a long shot—but knowing Mahito didn't have total control over those numbers was a relief Ethan didn't realize he needed.
Mahito tilted Seth's head at an unnatural, bone-snapping angle, his stitched eyes staring through the screen with hyper-fixated intensity. "Not just a brute, then? Bravo… seriously, bravo. It's a good thing, you know, that I don't currently control the entire force. But it's only a matter of time before the conditions of the ancient binding vow are met, and I release a force capable of crippling humanity…"
Ethan glanced to his side and extended his arm. Using the anti-gravity of his RCT Sheep Shikigami, Aries, he pulled a metal chair from the opposite side of the room toward him.
"What do you want?" Ethan asked, sitting down.
"Hmm…" Mahito hummed, pretending to ponder. "Doesn't it bother you?"
"What does?" Ethan asked.
"Being despised by the people you've sworn to protect," Mahito replied.
It was true. Ever since Park had stopped Hydra's resurgence, Ethan had incurred the wrath of the general public.
"I've taken no such oath." Ethan didn't hesitate. "I do what I do out of my own volition. It's the only way I know how to live."
"Details, details… What's that human saying? *If it walks like a duck…* But what if it doesn't have to be that way? What if you and I share a different destiny? Something a little more… scorched earth. Shock and awe. Blood and bone. And in the end, only one of us left standing. Isn't that what you want?"
Ethan leaned forward in his chair. "Too fucking right. More than anything."
"I look forward to it. I'll be seeing you again soon," Mahito answered as the monitor screen went dark.
The Day of the Trial: 4th May, 2014 — 4:03 a.m.
All of the survivors of Fromville were promptly returned to their homes. Some came into the cursed town with their whole family and were leaving as the sole survivor. Others were lucky enough to have someone who had gone through that hell together. All in all, one thing was for sure: the survivors of Fromville had become a family—a family forged not in blood, but in flames. No matter which corner of the world they found themselves in, they would always carry a piece of Fromville with them.
In the residence of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth McCord:
Beth had just woken up groggily. She checked the time—it was 4 o'clock in the morning. She hadn't slept much last night, still dealing with the chaos of the previous day, and a big chunk of her day went into cleaning up the mess of the one and only Ethan Park.
Apparently, he claimed that he had brought a kid back to life in the form of a panda. Yeah, she knew how absurd that would have sounded to her in years past. But after everything she had witnessed and read about the Sorcerer, she didn't dismiss it out of hand.
Due to her previous position in the CIA, she had intimate knowledge about Ethan Park—something not available to the general public. She knew for a fact he had brought back an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. from what she could describe as functional death. Not near-death or from the brink—no, the agent's body had been cold, his brain function flatline, and he had been brought back.
"But why bring the agent back as a person, and the child as a panda, a Cursed Corpse As he had called it? Was he planning something for the child?" She didn't know—not yet. But Beth was determined to find out. She would have him today, sitting across from him, answering her questions.
And then there was another matter: the massacre that occurred in the Church of Palisade. More than a hundred people dead inside the holy place—and guess who was spotted at the entrance of that very church that evening: Ethan Park.
Her own Chief of Staff, who was an occult enthusiast, had mentioned the possibility of mortal sacrifice. Now, Elizabeth didn't know much about sorcery, apart from the fact it existed as some sort of advanced science in Asgardian terms. But she understood the principle of equivalent exchange. Did Park's sorcery also have a price? A price paid in blood?
She didn't know, but she knew this: wherever or whenever Ethan Park was spotted, a catastrophe or a miracle followed. It was as if wherever he roamed, death followed.
She slid out of bed. She wasn't exactly going to get any sleep today anyway. Immediately, she noticed something off—Henry, her husband, was not in bed.
"Is he in the library again?" she thought with slight annoyance.
Her husband, Henry McCord, Ph.D., was a retired United States Marine Corps captain, ethics professor, and theologian. He was a Gulf War veteran. They both worked at Georgetown University before the President had requested her aid in his administration due to the untimely and, frankly, suspicious death of the previous Secretary of State.
He currently taught at the National War College and the National Security Agency, and served as an ethical advisor to the President.
Beth and Henry had differed last night, and they had what she would consider their first real fight in years on the subject of how to deal with Ethan Park.
Beth had, of course, remained steadfast in her stance: if Ethan doesn't comply with the proper authorities and follow the law of the land, then he wasn't just a threat to the United States of America, but to the whole world.
Henry, on the other hand, had been cautious.
"You don't provoke someone who can flatten Washington on a whim," he had said.
"It is precisely because he can do that on a whim that he has to be stopped—or at the very least, controlled," she had replied.
Henry had raised concerns about their family's safety, their children—something she resonated with, but she couldn't back down, not from this fight.
"He's probably writing his new book," Beth spoke out loud as she made her way down the stairs.
They lived in a Federal-style brick townhouse with classic historic architecture. Being the third most powerful person in the free world had its perks.
Her house spanned approximately 3,700 square feet across four distinct levels. It contained 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, 5 wood-burning fireplaces, original wide-plank wood floors, and exposed structural wooden beams and brickwork.
In Henry's opinion, it featured a cool, smoky tone contrasting with rich architectural moldings and staircases.
But the heart of the home, in Beth's opinion, was formed by the L-shaped kitchen, dining, and snug sofa area, alongside a sitting room centered around a piano.
The house also contained a dedicated library—something Henry had turned into his home office.
Beth made it past the living room and the kitchen. Perhaps he could help relieve her of some of this stress, and it had been a while since she and Henry had make-up sex. She giggled internally at the thought, skipping a step or two in excitement.
But as she crossed the threshold of the library door, she saw him—Ethan Park—sitting across from her husband, sipping high tea.
"What the fuck?" Beth muttered out loud, loud enough for both Ethan and Henry to hear.
"I told you it was a bad idea," Ethan added, looking toward Henry, his mouth still covered by his teacup as he continued drinking.
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A/N: So how was the chapter?
{ "I ALWAYS COME BACK" }
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