772 Curse
Filled with the courage to battle against the heavens and to strike at true gods, Lumian stood straight and tall, unflinchingly facing the ruined palaces within the Pale-White Nation.
Just then, his eyelids dropped uncontrollably, shielding his eyes.
Almost simultaneously, the voice of the Knight of Swords resonated once more in his ear: “Our target is Oxyto’s child, not the ancient god’s corpse.”
This was to prevent Lumian from looking directly across the pale-white wilderness at the corpse of the ancient death god.
“There’s nothing to fear!” Lumian quickly responded.
His voice, once it left his mouth, was also “infected” by the pallor governing this world, becoming weak, hollow, and devoid of emotion.
The Knight of Swords earnestly advised, “But this will affect our battle with Oxyto’s child; we must resolve it quickly. Once that’s done, you can do whatever you want.”
Lumian fell momentarily quiet before responding, “Okay.”
Honestly, wearing the Eggers family’s golden mask and in his undead state, Lumian felt a bloodline-based fear and an awe towards the Phoenix Ancestor’s corpse atop Death’s palace, which the courage did not dispel and even somewhat weakened, creating a balance.
Otherwise, Lumian, wielding the Sword of Courage, would not have been so agreeable!
Immediately, Lumian ignited into a bright white flame, transforming into a long spear of light, hurling towards the still-intact buildings at the edge of the palace complex.
As the fiery spear cut through the sky, it too was eroded by the pallor, dissipating and dimming even faster, which meant Lumian only managed half the intended distance.
Finally, as the pale-white light extinguished, Lumian appeared mid-air, plummeting straight towards the ground.
He landed softly on the wilderness, making only a slight sound, and all around was deadly silence.
The bright, blazing spear of flame took to the air once again.
After repeating this five times, Lumian finally reached a high tower adorned with numerous golden patterns and stood at its top, with the figure of Oxyto’s monstrous child becoming clearer in his sight.
Although the other did not display the potentially incomplete Mythical Creature form, merely seeing the bent human limbs, a head formed from several merged infant heads, and wings stretching from the torso with half pale-white, half chestnut-brown feathers, Lumian felt dizzy, accompanied by spasmodic pain.
Additionally, something inside him seemed to be calling, slowly gathering towards his abdomen.
It was the bloodline of Omebella!
Lumian felt no fear from this.
Wasn’t this inevitable?
In the next instant, two figures materialized before him.
One figure wore a black Gothic-style court dress, complete with a matching petite bonnet and her light golden hair neatly bundled up; the other, slightly disheveled, donned a traditional black vest over a white shirt.
Temperance faction demigod Sharron and a member of the temperance faction, the holder of the Knight of Swords Minor Arcana tarot card, Maric!
As they approached their primary target, they finally detached from Lumian’s body, ready to battle.
Indeed, both Sharron and Maric bore colors derived from the impressions left by Lumian, not truly manifested, appearing pale-white and dim.
Moreover, their bodies were transparent and ghostly, in a state of Wraiths.
If not so, they would have instantly died, becoming real undead creatures devoid of consciousness.
The monstrous child of Oxyto, hovering close to the belly of the ancient death god’s corpse, sensed the proximity of Lumian and the others. From a distance of two or three kilometers, it half-turned its body and looked over with its twelve clustered eyes.
Lumian immediately felt the protective essence of his mind and consciousness, shielded by the Eggers family’s golden mask, along with the life force deep within, showing signs of disintegration.
In his eyes, the temperance faction demigod named Sharron, using the reflective mirror effect of the pure gold surface, flickered twice between the crumbling palace and the high tower, coming within three to four hundred meters of the Phoenix Ancestor’s corpse.
She opened her mouth towards Oxyto’s child and emitted a piercing scream.
This was Lumian’s first time hearing Sharron’s voice.
Eroded by the pallor during its journey of over two thousand meters, the sound reached Lumian’s ears as a faint echo, almost like an illusion.
Oxyto’s child didn’t see it that way. The feathers on its wings-half pale-white, half chestnut-brown-rapidly fell off. One by one, the eyes on its face burst open, the flesh on its uncovered body festering down to the bone, as if struck by a potent curse!
Seeing this, Lumian, fearless, transformed once again into the fiery spear of flame and hurled himself at the creature. Meanwhile, the Knight of Swords flickered forward on various reflective surfaces.
Oxyto’s child let out a mournful howl.
Though distant and further muted by the dense pallor within Death’s palace, the sound was soft when it reached Lumian, yet it still made him dizzy for a moment, a bloody stench of decay filling his nostrils, involuntarily causing him to revert from his fiery spear form.
With this howl, Oxyto’s monstrous child morphed into a writhing, twisted, huge pale-white bud. The exploded eyeballs, festering flesh, and fallen feathers were all absorbed into the bud.
In a blink, the bud blossomed, sopping wet, and produced two children.
One was intertwined in pitch black and dark red, its sores festering rapidly until it stilled, turned pale, and fell to the ground; the other was an unscathed, massive bird-clawed monstrosity.
Through this transformation, Oxyto’s monstrous child shed the curse and was reborn.
But Sharron seized the moment, her figure reflected within its clustered twelve eyes.
Oxyto’s monstrous child froze mid-air, just a few dozen meters from the Death’s main hall where the Phoenix Ancestor’s corpse lay.
In its twelve gleaming beautiful eyes, the figure of Sharron, wearing her petite bonnet, flickered in and out of view, soon illuminated by intense, bright white light.
A flamboyant spear of flame shot forth, striking an ancient, partially collapsed tower nearby.
As the light dispersed, Lumian, single-handedly wielding the Sword of Courage, appeared.
He did not hesitate or feel fear. Despite the dizziness and pain in his head, his eyes turned an iron-black.
This iron-black shade emerged only to be eroded by the pallor, harmonizing completely with this nation.
This did not impede Lumian’s observation of his target’s weaknesses, though all he saw was pallor.
Compelled, Lumian relied on his Hunter kin senses to detect weaknesses, picking the most appealing and battle-raging spot among those pale hues.
Once again, he became the increasingly pale and dimming fiery spear of flame, positioning himself above Oxyto’s monstrous child.
His figure outlined; he grasped the Sword of Courage, blazing with bright white and blue flames, and plummeted like a boulder towards the body of Oxyto’s monstrous child.
As they drew close, Lumian struck at the monstrous bird-clawed infant’s abdomen with his broadsword, now tainted with pallor.
He was using his Cull.
Before this, the Knight of Swords, Maric, appeared atop the half-collapsed tower, slipping on a ring carved in the shape of the sun god’s bird.
In his hands, he quickly formed a lance as clear as pure sunlight.
This caused the nearby pallor to fade slightly, erasing shadows and causing the Wraith-like state of the Knight of Swords to melt inch by inch. Droplets of dim liquid fell like wax in a fire.
The droplets evaporated quickly, leaving behind a bit of dust that slowly dispersed.
Enduring the melting of his right side, Maric’s expression twisted into one of madness as he hurled the lance of sunlight towards Oxyto’s monstrous child.
Considering that Oxyto was a Shaman King of the Moon pathway, the temperance faction had prepared a Sun pathway Sealed Artifact in advance, which unexpectedly proved useful at this time!
This Sealed Artifact, both in effect and trait, would bring significant harm to the Wraiths.
The clean and bright spear of flame became an anomaly in this pale world.
It too was being eroded, but it was also dispersing the pallor, appearing to be able to strike the body of the monster child before Lumian’s Sword of Courage could.
Although the monstrous child of Oxyto was possessed by the demigod Sharron and forcibly controlled, it wasn’t completely turned into a statue to be slaughtered at will.
It struggled against the influence of the Wraith, as its “reborn” body slowly contracted, seemingly returning to an embryonic state, seeking the comfort of its mother’s embrace, while unleashing its own Paramita.
The pale-white wilderness quickly engulfed the surrounding ruined palaces and the half-collapsed tower, also drawing the bodies of a few Blessed of Death who had died in this area into its scope.
In the deathly silence, a horrific giant snake, bearing only bones and some rotting flesh with exaggerated wings, sprung from the collapsed palace into the air, blocking the path of the Knight of Swords’ spear of sunlight.
The blinding sunlight burst forth, filling Lumian’s eyes.
His strike with the Sword of Courage did not slow down; he firmly slashed downwards.
The sunlight blackened his pale, dim skin, sparking a burning smoke.
A soft “clang” sounded as Lumian’s Sword of Courage struck the head of the winged giant snake, splitting the target, which had become exceptionally fragile after absorbing most of the sunlight damage.
In a barely audible silence, the snake’s bones either evaporated or shattered, completely losing their support and falling like rain to the ground.
With the help of the giant bone snake blocking a strike for him, Oxyto’s monstrous child controlled by Sharron contracted even more fiercely.
Its half pale-white, half chestnut-brown wings and bent limbs had merged with its body, forming a sphere, with only its head, formed from several merged infant heads, still visible.
Its Paramita then encompassed the entire main hall of Death and the corpse of the Phoenix Ancestor.
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