[Your feedback ascension mode ends]
Nyxar's black body returned to its original state, his red eyes turned back to black and white, and his elongated teeth and claws retracted.
Exactly one minute after those words, Nyxar's body was filled with excruciating pain; he felt like screaming.
But because of that new sound, he didn't; instead, he quietly curled up and fell to the ground. Since his shirtless body was drenched in blood, the black soil clung to him completely as soon as he fell.
Nyxar immediately thought he needed to get to his underground city somehow, but his curse wasn't over yet. To be honest, Nyxar didn't even know what it was. Besides, how far could he travel with a broken left leg and that disfigured body?
The strange sound gradually intensified, and Nyxar's face contorted into a strange expression of pain and fear.
Finally, the figure emerged from the darkness; it was a baby honey badger.
It was about a foot long, and unlike other badgers, the white stripe on its upper body extended all the way to its nose. It had beautiful black eyes. Sniffing with its small white nose, it went to its mother, who had been killed by Nyxar.
At first, it thought its mother was sleeping and tried to wake her up in every way it knew. It licked the face that had been pierced by the spear, bit it with its tiny teeth, and jumped on its face.
It was less than a month old, so it didn't understand what had happened, what was happening, or why its mother refused to wake up, and it began to cry.
Its cry was irritating, but anyone with sense could tell that it was weeping. After a while, it lay down on its dead mother's head, still crying. Nyxar, who was lying down watching everything unfold with agonizing pain, felt a sense of relief that it was not another immediate danger, but he also felt a little sad looking at the baby honey badger.
Nyxar's sleepy eyes slowly closed, "Nyxar, run, don't look back, live your life to the fullest," it was a young woman's voice.
She said these words as an aberrant Phyllium was tearing through her body. Young Nyxar saw his mother one last time; the same look she gave him was the one this mutated honey badger gave him in its final moments.
Nyxar's eyes slowly opened, he untied the t-shirt wrapped around his waist, slowly got up, struggled to put weight on his left leg, but somehow started walking.
He looked one last time at the dead honey badger and its cub lying there crying on its head, and then started walking.
"I don't know how you're going to survive in this cruel world now. Forgive me for being a reason for your current state. I only did this for my own survival."
In his ten years, Nyxar had done many things to survive, some of them terrible, but back then he never worried about anything in his mind. For some reason, what he did today bothered him; perhaps it was because Nyxar saw himself in the place of that baby honey badger.
He opened his curse window to see if he could find any answers there, but it was empty.
[Destination: Broken Bridge]
No one in the world fully understood this curse; how it originated, its purposes, why this curse existed – there were many reasons for this.
The curse was only fifty years old, there was no communication about it among humans, no human had yet surpassed the third form, and many other factors contributed to this lack of understanding. With many thoughts, he went to some parts of the broken bridge, looking for any sign that the curse 0 might end. It was of no use, except that the pain in his body intensified.
Nyxar, who was walking, suddenly stopped. His face contorted, his eyes stopped blinking, and after slowly shaking his head left and right, he rushed to where the dead honey badger was.
His eyes first fell on the baby honey badger; it was still there. He went near it and looked at it for a few seconds.
Nyxar thought that perhaps killing this baby honey badger would be the way to end curse 0.
The baby badger had peacefully fallen asleep. Nyxar decided to kill it in its sleep.
He slowly took out the iron rod that was stuck in the mutated badger's head; it was covered in red blood.
Nyxar's eyes showed no emotion. Slowly, his right hand, holding the rod, was raised. Before striking, Nyxar gently stroked the baby badger's body once, before killing that baby.
The baby badger woke up. It didn't show any fear upon seeing Nyxar standing before it; instead, it licked his hand.
[Your curse 0 is completed]
[The badger has chosen you as its master]
[You're instincts form awakened]
[You got honey badger armor]
[You got ten curse counts]
A red light emanated from the dead badger's body and merged into Nyxar's body, clearing his curse count.
"What? Is this it? My curse is 0? Now I have to babysit this baby honey badger?", Nyxar was wide-eyed, more concerned about his new responsibility than the rewards, the new form, and the joy of clearing his curse. The baby badger had started biting his leg, "in this world I hate many things but one of the things I hate most is responsibility now I have one?" Nyxar stared that baby honey badger.
Nyxar bent down and picked it up. "I don't know what to do with you. First, I'll go to my city and find out more about you there," he thought, and started walking.
He didn't even bother to look at the honey badger armor he had received. He wanted to reach his city before his body deteriorated further, and he walked as fast as he could with his painful leg.
His body couldn't hold out much longer; he fainted and collapsed right there before he could cross the broken bridge.