Curselock

Chapter 115: Belief

"Coward!” the Harbinger of the Toy Maker spat through his fingers.

The man still held his face, the skin on his forehead gushing blood. He let out a guttural growl, forcing himself to stand. Slowly, as darkness circled him, he pulled his palm away. A thin line of sticky red pulled with it before it snapped, splattering the snow. Even through the blood and mangled skin, the brand was clear, a “W.”

“Coward!” he yelled again, this time his voice resonating with a horrid illness. His eyes wobbled in their sockets, his vision going red from the stain. He tried to wipe them off, but the thick liquid only spilled faster.

He screeched, magic lashing out of his palms like a snapping turtle. Three ropes of mana then connected him to the former puppets lying dead in the street. With a grunt, he shoved his hand to the sky, the movement taking control of the bodies.

Slowly they got up, their soulless husk-like bodies nothing if not hosts to the Toy Maker’s vile magic. They moved with jittering jolts, puppetry unlike any other. Magic strings held their limbs, moved their locked-up muscles, forced their progression forward. They were eternal, they were indomitable.

Leland took a step back without even realizing. His shoulders morphed slightly into the black fog that blocked his escape and for a moment he felt a deep chill. With enough presence of mind, he made himself stay out of the dark barrier, unsure which death trap was worse. Three formerly dead enemies and one puppet master or an unknown darkness.

“Kneel before me!” Leland yelled knowing his attempts were mostly futile.

He had already taken the three puppet’s souls, which left only one possible target for the curse. Leland maneuvered the curse’s blueprint in his mind the best he could, making sure that the purple fire spouted around the Harbinger. At the very least, he was putting the battle on a timer.

Either the Toy Maker would have his soul removed or Leland would die.

The flames entered reality exactly as Leland imagined, encasing the man and his three dead bodies. The man eyed the flames and green mist that started leaking from his body, but only truly reacted when a soul of the Damned made its appearance. It quickly locked fiery hellish eyes with the man, marking the man’s soul for extraction.

The man did not like that. He flicked his wrist, commanding his minions to move. They strutted forward, each lurching the first few steps like they were wearing invisible heels. They stumbled over their feet, failing to move like their once-alive mirror images.

The sight made Leland snarl. In his mind, a magical construct that slowly corrupted a location was nothing compared to the true evil he faced. Reanimation magic? Darkness that felt of paralyzing cold? Indiscriminate murder?

“Fracture!”

The curse flowed through Leland’s body like a whirlpool of direction. He didn’t snap, he didn’t need to. His mind was as clear as ever, he didn’t need pesky movements. He didn’t have the luxury, not in this battle.

The curse connected to the Toy Maker with an invisible effect. Leland knew, however, that damage had been done. Not enough to break a bone, but enough to weaken movement and cause plenty of discomfort.

“Fracture!”

“Fracture!”

“Fracture!”

“Fracture!”

No curse broke a bone, the target too far outside Leland’s range of consequence. He had hamstrung himself, knowing that any more was just a waste of mana and lifeforce. He already felt weaker at the wave of attacks. He had another soul he could consume, he had another source of power and lifeforce.

But was it worth the risk when he could possibly be saved from a life-ending attack?

The choice was made for him as the three corpse-puppets passed through the purple fire uninhibited. Without a soul, Circle of Souls had no claim on their imprisonment—

Leland dove, skirting through the snow as a carpentry hammer sailed through the air with a high-pitched whistle. He looked up in time to see a second projectile being thrown. Throwing himself forward, he narrowly dodged a candle stick.

The sudden attacks weren’t what made his heart beat like a drum, however. It was that the weapons entered the dark fog and disappeared out of sight… only to appear back in the puppets’ hands a moment later.

The Toy Maker laughed with mania as he gestured with his strings for his creations to attack again. And again. And again.

Leland didn’t think, he only dodged. He ran when he could, hiding behind what he could. But the dark fog blocked his movements. It slowly crept in, cutting off areas once unmolested. Soon he was in a shooting gallery the length of the town street. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to realistically run.

The hammer whizzed by his face at breakneck speed, passing through the fog and returning to the thrower. But Leland noticed something. A faint smell. Iron.

He focused on the puppet, finding its throwing hand bloodied. With every throw, every inhuman throw, the puppets broke. It was slight, but torn skin led to torn muscles. Instantly he pivoted, shifting to attack.

“Maul!” he screeched, commanding his crows to attack the puppet’s hands.

But the puppets moved uncaringly. Every bit of skin removed, every new slash across their knuckles and palms, didn’t matter. Not when their actions were controlled by dark magic and a darker mind.

From inside the Circle of Souls, the man cackled. “A Harbinger! You! You disrespect the halo! You bring shame to your Lord! You know not how to fight! You know nothing, you know nothing… huh…?”

Cursing at himself, Leland tried Curse of Collapse. The spell fizzled in his mind, failing to connect to the motionless hearts of the toys.

He could slow the Toy Maker… but what good would that do? What could he do? Dodge until he dropped? Until he ran out of stamina? Until he was hit? No. That just wouldn’t do. Leland scanned past the puppets, finding his enemy in a mass of green mist. The power difference was high, Circle of Soul was working, just not with haste.

It was then Leland noticed the soul of the Damned. It stood before the man, fully unearthed into the realm of the living. It hunkered in height, standing tall over the man like a bully on a playground. It didn’t move, it didn’t attack. It couldn’t, not under the limitations of its summoning.

But it could intimidate.

“What are you?” the Toy Maker asked, his voice rushed and muted.

He stared into the soul’s burning eyes, finding an eternal sea of agony. For a moment he was lost in the power beyond. For a moment he saw oblivion, he saw what was waiting for him.

The man fumbled back, tripping over the red dyed snow. “G-get away from me!” he shouted, flicking his palm out.

A tidal wave of darkness shot forth.

The soul of the Damned was unflinching.

It stood tall through the dark, never allowing its gaze to be broken. It was eternal. It was indomitable.

The man forced himself away, his back finding the purple flames. He yelped in pain, his eyes never leaving the beast of his nightmares. Green mist continued to leak. He didn’t know what it meant, only that he needed to act. He watched the soul for a moment, realizing that it still hadn’t approached.

“Y-you can’t touch me?” he whispered to himself before laughing. “What kind of Harbinger are you?”

The question went unanswered as the Toy Maker returned to his assault. The three puppets pushed forward, the snow shifting at their slow pace. They didn’t need to go fast, not when the assault was on too fronts. The darkness never ceased to enclose, inching Leland one step closer at a time. At least, until the puppets were in range to attack in melee.

They swung their weapons at the Legacy of Curses, each attack narrowly missing to the point that the purple mist radiation from Leland’s halo wafted with the attack.

Hand to hand fighting was something Leland wished he could avoid for the remainder of his life, especially since nearly dying to the wraith in King Everald’s arena. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. That was why he sparred with Glenny. So dying was never an option.

Even with lacking experience, inefficient movements, and worse stamina than the average farmer, Leland survived. The threat and knowledge that his enemy knew of his friends weighed in his mind. He didn’t know if they were safe, or if they were the man’s next target. The not knowing was what pushed Leland, was what kept him going even as his throat went ragged.

His crows tore one of the puppet’s legs off at the knee. It then crumbled to the ground, still wildly swinging its candlestick. The flock moved on to the next one, doubling their efforts on a specific joint.

Every moment Leland had to catch his breath was agony. His chest heaved and shuddered. His feet felt frozen from the cold. His legs begged to stop. But he didn’t, even as the garden trowel sheared into his back. The pain was fleeting, however. Leland didn’t feel it. His mind didn’t let him. Any injury could be healed. Any wound regenerated. His thoughts were kept at bay, the ad—

The puppets froze and the Toy Maker screamed, “What is this?”

Suddenly not having to fight for his life, Leland felt everything ten fold. He paused long enough to look at his enemy, already planning to keep his body moving. He couldn’t stop now, not if he wanted to be able to dodge again.

But seeing the man made Leland stop regardless of plan. The Toy Maker was in a cloud of green mist.

Enough mist for the soul of the Damned to grip.

Leland smiled to himself as the soul forced its ethereal hand into what made the Toy Maker an individual. It found purchase and yanked.

“No!” the man screamed, his head swiveling to Leland.

In an instant, the three strings attached to the man’s palm disconnected and a new one took root. It was thicker, stronger. It latched into the single corpse with the least bodily wounds, forcing it to move with unreserved power. It punched, uncaring of the sundering throughout its body.

Leland’s eyes widened and he activated his necklace protection. A bubble snapped in place around him, only to be instantly shattered by the puppet’s fist. He was thrown back, skipping off the snow and crashing into the darkness.

As the puppet’s arm fell apart and many bones through its body broke, Leland reappeared before it, in the same manner that the thrown weapons had reappeared. The puppet didn’t hesitate to reel back with its other, less broken, arm.

Leland couldn’t react in time.

The fist hurdled with the power of a vile Lord, aiming for center mass. The blow never landed, however. The soul of the Damned carrying Leland’s last remaining lost soul intervened, stopping the punch dead.

The puppet then crumbled like it had been hit by a trebuchet’s payload. It was nothing more than a blood pile of viscera and bone.

Across the way, the Toy Maker battled with the soul of the Damned attempting to take his soul. But as he had already learned, the soul was uncaring of any temporary obstruction. It was eternal.

“Tell it to stop!” the man yelled to Leland. “If you kill me, my Lord will make sure you suffer!”

Leland didn’t respond.

The man’s black halo waned, the power resonating within flickering like an eerie campfire. His expression likewise fell, at least, until he heard the words of his master and Lord.

The command was clear and resolute. His life was unsavable, but a promise hung in his mind. He was to be reincarnated with earnest, to be reinstated into the true Toy Maker’s army. To be reborn with the knowledge that the fake Harbinger before him was dead.

All he had to do was give his Lord a new toy. All he had to do was let his Lord control him.

The soul of the Damned then fully removed the man’s soul from his body, killing him instantly. The soul phased into the ground, reappearing at Leland’s side in a kneel. It thrust its hand out, offering the now lost soul to its master.

Leland frowned. Something wasn’t right. The dark fog didn’t fade.

Slowly, his eyes were drawn to a source of power. It released from the man’s corpse, resonating with the cold air like a hurricane inside a tornado. Immoral noxious vapor bellowed, turning the night sky into a pure dark void. Fog circled, wrapping through the battlefield until it found its target.

The man’s corpse lifelessly got to its feet.