Re:Cursed

Chapter 150 148: The Crowd

Ojuz relaxed into his seat. Second row. The benefits of the fourth creed were great. After years of effort to reach his fifth evolution, he'd finally been rewarded.

Sure, the expanded access into deeper Library levels was more than welcome, but today, he had his eyes on another target.

In the seat before him, sat Mavi. Everyone else's attention was on Grifvoi. The boy was a hot commodity; the higher creed cultists swarmed him like flies, which only encouraged other Scriptures to try and latch on to his inevitable rise.

Mavi though? Ojuz had seen enough to know she had a future. One that not many others were ready to jump on. She might not have comparable potential to the one everyone had their eyes on, but with how few survived the latest Trial, they were bound to circle her eventually.

Ojuz would have his hooks in her before they could.

Down in the arena, the replacement Adjudicator began his introductory speech, and the second Bodytwister contestant teleported in. As interested as he was in this year's fight, he couldn't let himself be distracted.

Leaning forward, he spoke into the girl's ear over the rumble of an antsy crowd. "You did quite well in the first set of Trials. I was impressed."

She made no indication she'd heard him.

"If you are interested Ma̍vi, I could get you access to some powerful scrolls." His voice lowered. As common as it was to slip a scroll every now and then, he would still face punishment if he was caught. "Wouldn't you like to replace those common rituals with quality?"

Mavi tilted her head back. A slight smile settled on her lips. "I'm interested…"

Ojuz had to stifle his own grin, but before he could screw in the barb of his hook, she turned back to the Trial.

"But later. I don't want to miss this."

He followed her gaze to the rapier girl. She'd made a scene of herself declaring she wouldn't accept any cult… only to go and nestle within the Bodytwisters. Nobody was surprised. Not with the direction she took her name.

"She was part of your team in the second Trial, wasn't she?" he commented, trying to create some sort of rapport with her. "Quite strong, I've heard." Ojuz scowled. "The Bodytwisters shouldn't have been allowed to be given such an advantage. G͇rifv̪oi has a challenge ahead of him."

"You think N̪ỷx̱ila and Ly͚sy͚rã will team up?" Mavi tilted her head again.

"No doubt." Ojuz nodded. "He may be an evolution down from his opponents, but he's still the greatest threat. Besides, I've heard some talk. G͇rifv̪oi is coming in prepared."

Mavi hummed. Her doubt was clear, but Ojuz didn't comment. She would see. He had some contacts higher up, and if Grifvoi had been given the summon he'd heard, then there was little chance he'd lose. So long as the boy held out through an initial double team, he would succeed. Teleportation or not.

As the introductions were wrapped up, Ojuz's eyes narrowed upon the Machine God Worshipper and his arachnoangel. The way they climbed through the Bodytwister crowd could be taken as spiteful… but why settle there? It was odd he didn't rejoin his cult.

The Trial's ritual flared into action. Returning his attention below, he could just see the two Bodytwister acolytes preparing to jump Grifvoi. Both would think they could cut him out early. He couldn't wait to see their reactions when that failed.

Immediately, Ojuz's expectations were shattered.

Instead of Grifvoi being the target of two contestants, it was N̪ỷx̱ila. The girl was good at surviving, having lived through a Dark Star and the disaster of the third Trial, but she couldn't compare to Grifvoi. It was impossible. Lysyra must be trying to take out the weaker opponent first to gain the ritual's granted boost.

Yet, when Lysyra teleported behind the girl, her blade blocked the strike.

Ojuz's eye twitched. He doubted even he could have reacted to that.

Grifvoi charged in, sweeping his halberd and sending a deadly wave of green fire towards the girl. He'd seen that boy train. He knew how dangerous that cold flame was. And yet, the girl took it head on. She rushed through it, and came out the other side completely unharmed.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

In the next few moments, Ojuz had to reassess his opinion. Nyxila overpowered Grifvoi. She did so while attacked by Lysyra teleporting in faster than Ojuz ever expected. No matter how powerful, a third evolution name had to have limits.

"She's intense, isn't she?" Mavi asked.

He glanced down for only a moment, but in a fight like this, a moment stretched forever. By the time his eyes flicked back to the battle, Grifvoi had already been forced to summon. The blob of flesh grew on the ground as their champion groaned on the floor.

"Quite," he agreed. "But that ends now."

It was more than a little frustrating that the boy had been gifted a ritual not even he, as a fifth evolution harbinger, had access to. He understood why. Grifvoi's potential was all but proven, and it would stop the Bodytwisters from retaining their hold on the Grand Sacrificial chamber.

As expected, the odds almost immediately flipped back in Grifvoi's favour. Nyxila was thrown onto the back foot, barely able to save herself from the summon's thousand flailing spears.

He doubted even he could beat that summon. And that was before the thing had been improved by cold fire.

Confident that victory was now theirs, Ojuz glanced over the crowd. There were a surprising number of harbingers around. Despite being a fraction of a cult's population, the people around him were predominately harbingers that he had at least some passing recollection of.

Though, thinking further, it wasn't that unexpected. Harbingers were the only ones who would have even come close to reaching the final Trial. This battle meant much more to a harbinger than any other cultist, and were likely to offer favours or resources for seats.

Ojuz had been lucky to have a seat handed to him due to his new standing.

It was strange to be back here after so many years. The last time, he'd been disqualified in his own Trial finale. As much as he hated to admit it, any one of these three would have wiped the floor with his year.

The cheers of the crowd brought his attention back down on the fight. Just as he'd expected, Nyxila was on her last legs. It was honestly surprising how she continued to stand with so many wounds littering her body. Apparently she hadn't survived such disasters for nothing.

To make matters worse, Lysyra suddenly appeared and drove a knife into the girl's back. From the angle of attack, it should have cut into her spine, yet Nyxila spun and scared off the teleporting girl once more.

Despite still not knocking her from her feet, the wound was bad. Blood spilled like a fountain, and curled around her body in unsettling imagery of clutching hands and tentacles. A curse, if Ojuz had to guess. Enough talk had gone around for him to know she'd inherited a bunch from whoever her parents may be.

She stood there, wavering. If Ojuz wasn't so desperate to see Bodytwister blood after what they pulled with the Null Scar, he might have pitied the girl. She was moments from dying on her feet.

Against all wisdom, Nyxila didn't run from Grifvoi now mounted on his summon. She rushed in to meet him. The result was as expected; the girl was drilled with spears.

That's where it should have ended. Her soul should have slipped free, to be consumed by the Darkness, or abused by some ritual. Her body should have slumped, dead. But instead, something unthinkable happened.

As the summon raised Nyxila into the air while on the verge of death Ojuz had a clear view of her eyes. Immediately, he felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. He could not stop the shiver that ran down his arms.

Ojuz had faced many a monster; both man and beast. He had become all too familiar with the eyes of a being that wanted you dead. It was a murderous intent that shone in one's eyes. Yet… never in his life had he seen such single-minded desire to kill.

Nyxila's body was failing, but she did not care in the slightest. She was obsessed with Grifvoi's death.

The fourth creed Scripture didn't have so much time as to dismiss the fear that engulfed him before his eyes seemed to fail him. One moment, the girl hung by four stingers; the next, she was in free-fall with a cloud of fragmented bone exploding outward.

Ojuz made sure he didn't blink, and yet he still failed to follow the girl's next movements. All he knew, was that Nyxila was suddenly underneath the mount, and the mount was launched into the air.

The crowd was silent as the empowered sixth tier creature fell on top of its rider, crushing Grifvoi's leg and pinning him there. Nobody could believe it. A creature that weighed near a tonne had been knocked through the air by a diminutive girl like that?

He couldn't look away. He wanted to believe his eyes were lying to him, but he wasn't given the chance.

Nyxila struck the toppled mount in an instant. Its spears desperately tried to fend her off, but she didn't even seem to notice as she began to wail into its chest. Fist after fist. Her fingers tore bone free as if digging through loose soil. She moved too quick for the beast to stop. It was dead in seconds.

Ojuz gaped. And he wasn't the only one. All around him, fourth and fifth creed cultists stared down into the arena with startled eyes.

No matter how much he prepared, how many scrolls he bought or parts of his skin he sacrificed, Ojuz would not have been able to kill that summon. Yet… a girl of sixteen — only a third evolution — had done so with ease. She'd punched through bone his ritually enhanced strength could not have accomplished.

Fourteen years. That's how long it had taken him to reach the fifth evolution after his Naming. He took pride in the strength he'd gained… and yet looking down into that glass arena, he knew he would die a hundred out of a hundred fights against this child. He would lose to a girl two evolutions less than himself.

He despised the thought.

What was even worse, was the girl was not going to die from the injuries that should have killed her. She'd somehow healed, and lacked even a scratch.

Ojuz barely paid attention to his cult's Champion getting a blade shoved through the neck. Nor did he care about how today's target now gnawed on her fingers and pressed her knees into her chest. His head, like many others, swivelled to the upper creeds, desperate for permission.

Each had vicious glares of their own as they stared down into the amphitheatre. They shook their heads in denial, but the moving rituals across their skin signalled a different command.

Not yet.