A high-tier curse: Shooting Flesh.
It was a torment akin to being struck across the entire body with a hammer, where every blow drove massive nails into the flesh and sharp needles through the intestines.
Within that horrific pain, which would have caused an ordinary person’s mind to fail instantly, Sien barely managed to keep his consciousness focused.
He immediately assumed the First Stance of the Nightwalker Family, the Pose of the Wraith, and vanished.
His opponent was a Highmaster of the family. No matter how skilled Sien was, a clumsy attempt to hide his presence would result in him being caught immediately.
*Crunch!*
Gretel, who had been driving needles and nails into a doll of light, suddenly stopped.
“Where did our Sien hide?”
He could not deceive her eyes.
The figure of Sien remaining there was merely an afterimage left behind by the Pose of the Wraith. Gretel smiled coldly, waiting for the Sien who had shed his husk to reappear.
It was then.
The “husk,” which she had thought was a mere afterimage of the wraith left behind, suddenly kicked off the ground.
“Ah! You tricked me!”
Gretel raised her voice in surprise. Of course, a powerhouse of her caliber wouldn’t truly be caught off guard by such a simple trick.
She was merely smiling, find the clever technique of her young nephew quite adorable.
Even if he had undergone the Confirmation Sacrament and become a Master, nothing changed.
In the eyes of a Highmaster, the pinnacle of the family’s power, even the current Sien was nothing more than a child.
Soon, several dark, obsidian blades were forged from mana around Gretel.
At a glance, they looked similar to the Cyric Knives Sien had previously forged with Telekinesis. In fact, since both used mana as their power source, there were many similarities between Telekinesis and curses.
However, the decisive difference between the two magics was that curse magic lacked the clear physical substance that Cyric magic possessed.
The pitch-black blades Gretel forged were the same.
Unlike a Cyric Knife, those obsidian blades could not exert any physical influence on their own. They left no wounds when they cut, and the blades would not even clatter against one another.
‘It’s dangerous to touch those blades.’
No matter how skilled Sien was, he had to avoid being touched by them. Even if they were phantom blades without substance that couldn’t inflict a physical wound.
Fourth-tier curse magic: Blade of Pain.
It was similar to the doll of light Gretel had shown earlier.
Curse magic, unlike Cyric magic, could not exert any physical influence on its own because it exerted its influence directly upon the opponent’s mind.
Furthermore, the pain that curse magic inflicted directly on the spirit could not even be compared to having flesh cut, organs crushed, or bones broken.
It was a lethal magic capable of killing those with even the strongest of wills without leaving a single visible wound.
A forbidden technique designed to thoroughly destroy the opponent’s soul.
*Clang!*
A sound that shouldn’t have been heard echoed through the air.
It wasn’t the sound of steel on steel or metal clashing. It was unmistakably the sound of blades colliding.
Sien’s Cyric Knives, forged through mana, clashed with Gretel’s Blades of Pain.
He had met blades made of mana with an equal amount of mana.
“How is it? Are you starting to get interested in curse magic?”
Gretel asked as she held the Blades of Pain with the first-tier Telekinesis magic, Invisible Hand.
“Since you can already use Telekinesis to that degree, you’ll probably master curse magic in no time!”
“It’s not bad,” Sien replied, meeting her strikes with his own Cyric Knives held by Invisible Hands. “But I haven’t seen how a Nightwalker Assassin truly uses magic yet. Surely this isn’t all?”
“Hehe, of course not!”
Gretel smirked at Sien’s provocation and spread both arms again.
Her voice turned cold and chilling, unlike anything heard so far.
“Cursed Kraken Stance — .”
It was the Ninth Stance of the family, a unique Sword Style improved through Gretel’s own hands.
In an instant, an uncountable number of Invisible Hands appeared around Gretel, each holding a cursed blade.
The number of Invisible Hands and Cyric Knives Sien could currently deploy was around ten. In comparison, the hands and blades Gretel manifested by alternating between curses and Cyric magic were, quite literally, beyond counting.
It was a crushing pressure, as if the cephalopod sea monster inhabiting the North Sea had extended its legs to coil around and constrict a ship.
Suddenly, a secret of the Ninth Stance he had seen long ago in the family’s underground library flashed through his mind.
‘I ask thee who seeks the ultimate mystery of the Ninth Stance,
A human has two legs, an octopus has eight, and a squid has ten.
How many legs does a Kraken have?’
The common-sense answer would be “unknown.”
However, as soon as he saw the scene before him, he realized it.
That common sense was the correct answer.
Unknown. There were so many they couldn’t even be counted.
It was an overwhelming quantity that made one lose any thought of resistance. Furthermore, the malice imbued in those blades was neither the familiar aura of a sword nor a Cyric Knife.
They were Blades of Pain intended to destroy the opponent’s mind and soul.
The Kraken’s tentacles, filled with malice, struck down.
It was a quantitative offensive that the dozen or so Cyric Knives Sien controlled could not possibly block. Like a rain of blades pouring from all directions, the Blades of Pain struck down as if the monster of the deep were reaching out to crush Sien.
He tried to block, but he couldn’t.
Sien only had about ten “legs.”
In contrast, Gretel’s “legs” were not so limited.
*Crunch!*
A single obsidian blade pierced Sien’s chest.
There was no visible wound. No blood flowed, his organs weren’t torn, and his bones didn’t break.
“Gah…!”
Blade of Pain.
Just as the name suggested, there was only pain filled with malice.
*Crunch!*
He had experienced the pain of his physical body breaking so often he was sick of it. He thought the same was true for mental pain.
However, the pain inflicted by a master curse-user tenaciously dug into and shattered the weakest and most unhealed parts of the spirit.
It forcibly dragged out the pain and memories of the time he had fallen into the deepest abyss of despair.
Gretel could not even imagine the despair and pain the current Sien Nightwalker had suffered and would suffer.
Ironically, the pain Gretel showed Sien through her cursed blades was her own end, which Sien had witnessed.
Every time Sien had marched to war against the Empire and emerged victorious, every time he had wounded them…
A severed piece of Gretel’s body, who was being held captive by the Empire, was sent to the family estate.
Each piece arrived while still fresh with blood.
The Holy Empire, which had completely cast aside the hollow ideals of chivalry through the “War of the Last Knights,” was not even an “Assassin’s Nation” like the Republic and the Nightwalker Family sought to be.
It was a nation of demons wearing human skin.
An indescribable despair gripped Sien.
It was not a scale of emotion that a mere 17-year-old child could harbor. At the same time, it was a pain so great that even Sien, who possessed all his future memories, could not endure it and began to lose his reason.
“……!”
He thought he had experienced every horrible pain the world had to offer. To the point where having his bones crushed and organs mangled didn’t even qualify as pain.
However, there was exactly one pain he could never get used to, one that never healed.
The pain of losing his family.
“Family is everything…”
Within the pain that felt as if a part of his soul were being torn away, Sien murmured softly.
Sien was prepared to do anything to protect his family.
“Si… Sien?”
Gretel gasped, momentarily flustered by the storm of mana erupting like a rampage.
It was a ridiculous surge of mana that even she hadn’t expected. No, what surprised her wasn’t the sheer quantity of mana itself.
It was the absurdly intense hatred felt within that mana.
Cyric magic and the school of Telekinesis were powered by a strong and clear will — .
Curses, on the other hand, drew their strength fundamentally from hatred and resentment.
And now, the power of the curse Sien was manifesting before Gretel transcended her imagination.
It was a whirlpool of hatred that made even the Witch gasp in horror.
Just what could have planted such a terrible seed of malice in this child?
The indescribable malice swirled and escaped Sien’s control, forming the shape of a dark, obsidian blade at his fingertips.
A black sword forged from pitch-black mana.
Then, the countless Blades of Pain that had been stabbing Sien vanished, turning into fleeting particles of mana. They dissipated like raven feathers fluttering in the air.
“Nevermore…!?”
Gretel also knew the name of that sword. How could she not?
The Cursed Blade: Nevermore.
A high-tier curse magic that could cause instant death just by grazing or touching the opponent.
And it was the ultimate mystery that had to be obtained to master the Fourth Stance of the Nightwalker Family, the Stance of the Raven — .
The cute young nephew she thought she knew now had dark, unfamiliar eyes she had never seen before.
“How is he already using the mystery of the Fourth Stance…”
It was a level of mastery that made even a Highmaster of the Nightwalker Family waver.
In that state, Sien kicked off the ground.
His movement was incomparable to what he had shown before. It was the Pose of the Wraith reached to a state of perfection. Furthermore, held in Sien’s hand was the worst demonic blade, said to be the pinnacle of the Fourth Stance, the Stance of the Raven.
In that figure, the image of the young nephew facing his family could not be found.
There was only an assassin of the Nightwalker Family… a Highmaster, who freely deployed the ultimate mysteries of both the First and Fourth Stances.
“But if I use any more power, Sien will — !”
Of course, Gretel hadn’t earned the title of Highmaster for nothing.
But she wasn’t sure. How much power should she use against the current Sien? She couldn’t gauge the depth of the young nephew standing before her.
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t envision an ending where they both walked away unharmed.
“If so, then I’d rather — “
It was then.
“That’s enough.”
*Clang!*
A silhouette parried Sien’s malice-filled blade.
It was a blade that emitted a chillingly cold and pale moonlight.
A divine-tier artifact of the Nightwalker Family.
A legendary blade of the continent that stood shoulder to shoulder with Roland’s Durandal, the King of the Round Table’s Excalibur, and Galahad’s Sword of the Strange Hangings — .
It was the chilling edge of the Moonlight Sword.
“Brother Johann…”
The smiling man, Johann Nightwalker, stood there.
He skillfully suppressed Sien’s rampaging, irrational attack as if it were a child’s tantrum.
A soft smile still hung on his lips.
“Were you planning to hurt your family?”
— Suddenly, another chilling edge gleamed along the nape of Sien’s neck.
“Stop, Sien.”
It was the blade of Hansel Nightwalker, the Hunter.
“Ah…”
The cursed mana that had been swirling out of control dissipated. He realized then.
His soul, which he thought had been shattered and broken — his everything — was still here, intact.
And yet, he had been on the verge of hurting the very people he had sworn to protect with his own hands.
His stance collapsed, and he fell to his knees. His fingertips were trembling faintly.
“You absolute idiot, moron, blockhead Gretel!”
At that moment, Hansel’s roar directed at his younger sister echoed through the air.
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