Wasn’t This a Night Game

The Construction’s Gone to Hell Again

Since birth.

The fragment took over the body in an instant.

The host’s soul was shoved aside, forced into a corner, in a flash.

[Food!]

The fragment swallowed the soul of the host it had inhabited for so long without much difficulty, whole.

But even though it swallowed it, it wasn’t in an easy-to-eat state.

This was because the connection had been unstable, the result of being struck with holy magic every week for sixteen years.

If the connection had been stronger, if it had awakened after burrowing into the core of the soul, the soul would have been shattered and strewn before it, easy to consume.

But because that wasn’t the case, the swallowed host’s soul was in such a perfect state that it was burdensome to digest.

But what could it do?

It had to eat, first, in order to spew curses with the resentment that came from digesting the soul.

After its first, bloated and uncomfortable feeding, the fragment examined its own condition.

The state was utterly wretched.

Having been struck with holy magic for sixteen years, unable to properly settle into the soul, the structure itself had become severely unstable. On top of that, it had been forced to awaken before even being complete, so the power of the curses it could unleash wasn’t perfect either.

But other than that, there were no other problems.

Now it was fully awake, and could wield the power of the curses granted to it with crazed abandon.

[Everything. I’ll eat everything!!]

The souls of countless humans, scattered all around. Spirits, I could feel them.

The souls of parents, tormented by guilt and frustration, torturing their own daughter to save her.

The princess, enduring pain and despair to save her other half, striving to build happy memories.

The cowards, who broke under the strain of torturing the young princess, abandoned their holy orders, and fled.

The wounded, broken psyches that lingered in this very capital.

All of them, food for me.

Fragment yearned to devour them all, and so it did.

Raising the possessed host body into the air, it unleashed curses with all its might, reaching as far as it could.

The curse seeped into human bodies, their souls beginning to be devoured.

Those gnawed-away souls were transmitted directly to the fragment of the evil god, filling its belly.

More souls.

More grudges produced by digesting them.

And through those grudges, even more curses.

This was the moment the first step was taken in this endless, vicious cycle.

“Quickly! Invoke a miracle, neutralize the curse!”

The priests resisted, desperately trying to slow the curse, but Fragment found all their efforts pathetically futile.

The curse Fragment sowed was unlike any ordinary curse.

Fragment’s curse agitated the soul.

It directly planted the terror of the soul being shattered, and as that terror grew within the heart, it devoured that emotion, consuming the human’s very existence.

Being a fragment of an evil god, it understood this very well.

This… this shook the very existential roots of humanity, so no mortal could endure it.

Saints. Saintesses. Heroes.

No matter how noble, how sublime their spirit, their soul.

So, the fragment of the Evil God wasn’t surprised when a man suddenly appeared, stepping out of thin air right before it.

It scoffed, rather.

No human could be without the dread of their very soul, the source of their being, being shattered.

Foolish thing, throwing himself into the source of the curse.

If he wants to die, I’ll oblige.

Thinking this, the fragment cast its curse, but the curse only swirled around the man, unable to penetrate his soul.

Clearly, his soul trembled, wavered under the curse, but whether it did or not, the man, seemingly without a sliver of fear, rushed towards it.

The fragment was aghast.

Could this be?

Was this even possible?

If a living human’s soul was shaken, wouldn’t they be drowning in paralyzing terror?

Wasn’t that just…common sense?

In the moment the fragment was confounded by this impossible situation…

A belt struck the fragment’s cheek.

And.

Pain, beyond imagination, came crashing down on the fragment.

*

Rage threatened to blow my mind apart.

I kept swinging the belt.

Both of Jogaek’s cheeks puffed up, teeth exploding into the air.

And that wasn’t all, was it?

“You fucking b*stard wings, you piece of shit!!”

I grabbed the wings sprouting from Jogaek’s back, forcefully tearing out the feathers and eyeballs that grew there, bursting them open.

[S-Stop!!!! Stop!!!! Please!! Please!!!!!!]

Jogaek screamed.

But I didn’t stop.

“Fuck you, you son of a b*tch!! You fucking piece of shit!! Feel it too!! You feel what Iome was feeling!!”

I grabbed the wings with both hands and drove a knee into them.

*Crack!* The sound of the wing bone breaking, snapping clean through.

The fragment of the Evil God couldn’t even scream anymore.

I’d heard stories from people who’d had kidney stones, how when it really hurts, you can’t even scream.

Probably something like that.

But it’s not over yet.

Not nearly.

Considering what you did to Iome, it’s not nearly enough.

I stare at the feathers torn from the wings, filling my hand.

The ends are sharp.

“This is alright.”

I approached Iomehne’s body, she was just hiccuping, unable to react because of the pain.

I lifted her hand.

Then, I took the feather’s sharp tip beneath her fingernail.

“You thought it was over?”

The feather’s sharp point dug into the tender flesh beneath the nail.

Iomehne’s body jolted.

[aaak!! aaak!!!]

She was trying to escape, but how could she when even the very spacetime of her soles was frozen?

I punched her in the stomach, the escapee, and continued the beating, swinging the belt so hard her limbs bruised.

She couldn’t last long.

A shard of an evil god or whatever, seems like she couldn’t endure such pain amplified three thousand times.

[aaak!!]

The shard of the evil god spat out a gruesome scream, ejected from Iomehne’s body.

A hideously black mass emerged from Iomehne’s mouth.

[You!! Mine!!]

And then, screeching, it flew towards me.

I didn’t resist.

I closed my eyes tight and accepted the evil god’s curse entering my body.

Yeah.

It’s the end now.

Perhaps it was the positive thoughts swirling around me, or something else entirely, but the curse wasn’t taking hold.

Even the shards of the Evil God, spewing curses directly, had no effect.

Then, simple: I’ll just shove the source of the curse, that Evil God fragment, directly into my soul and detonate it.

That’s a guaranteed ticket back to Korea.

I believed it without a sliver of doubt.

The fragment seeped into my body, vanishing.

Yes.

This is finally it.

Farewell.

Empire of Arcal.

It was filthy meeting you.

Let’s never meet a…….

[No!! No!! aaargh!! Argh!!]

Wait a minute.

What in hell is wrong with this b*stard?

Why is he screaming like that?

[You!! You!! You tricked me!! Tricked me!!]

The Evil God fragment, about to burrow into my soul, suddenly started howling.

[Why in your soul!! Why is that there!…….aaargh!!]

“Just a moment!! No way!!”

My scream went unheeded. With a *crush*, the fragment of the Evil God shattered instantly.

And then, just like that, it crumbled, vanishing into nothingness.

Along with it, a glorious light erupted from within me.

The light, in moments, splintered into thousands of tiny shards, silently.

Beginning to fall to the ground.

If a star shattered and fell to earth, it would be a sight like this, fairytale-esque yet truly beautiful…….

But shit?!

My Korean reincarnation?!

My shortcut cheat code to skipping Hell?!

Weren’t you supposed to dig into my soul and take me as your new host?

Why’re you suddenly cracking apart and disappearing on me, dammit!!

Why!!

*

When the curse erupted.

Every human in the capital felt the sensation.

Naturally, Erpa felt it too.

She, along with the mages and witches of the Magic Tower, began rushing urgently towards the Imperial Palace.

And there, Erpa witnessed it.

Against the backdrop of the morning sun rising in the distance, a woman with black wings, firing curses from her wings.

And the figure of Saint Amael, so brazenly treading empty air towards such a woman.

“Amael!!”

Erfa, reflexively drawing her wand, was about to rush towards the Saint, but a white-robed priest of the Order, stood beside her, and urgently lunged to hold her back.

“You mustn’t approach!”

“Why! I have to save the Saint! *I* have to!…”

“Approaching the source of the curse will only corrupt and destroy your soul!! You’ll die if you rashly approach! Normal methods won’t work!! With a curse source that potent, at least dozens of priests need to use the Miracle of Exorcism!!”

Erfa felt a violent conflict within her at the priest’s words.

She had to save the Saint.

But there was nothing she could do.

“Will the Saint… survive?”

The white-robed priest painfully lowered his head at her question.

“It’s too late. We must destroy the Saint’s soul, and the soul of the being that has become its host, completely with the Miracle of Exorcism.”

Erfa felt her blood turn to ice.

Saint Amael.

Her love.

Her everything.

How could she possibly live without him?

Could she live in a world without him?

Her heart screamed for her to shake off the priest right now and rush to save the Saint.

But she couldn’t.

Because, in that final moment, she recalled the Saint’s words, spoken to her sometime past.

To consider Erpa herself, before all else.

Thinking it over, it was a prophecy for this very moment.

The Saint was a seer, of course she knew this moment would come.

Erpa clenched her fist, bone-crushingly tight.

Her eyes squeezed shut.

A belief that the Goddess Lilia would never abandon her Saint.

With that belief, she turned her back on the Saint who struggled with the shard of the evil god.

“What must I do!!”

“Gather those afflicted by the curse! I will bestow a miracle upon their souls, slowing its progress!”

“Hurry!”

Instead of running to the Saint, Erpa chose the path of saving the people.

Frantically, she swung her wand, magically moving those writhing and suffering from the curse, delivering them to the priests.

But no matter how hard she tried, how desperately she strived, the curse only spread further.

No magic,

No miracle,

Could stop the curse from digging into people, devouring their souls.

All she could do was pour holy magic upon the already-lodged curse, trying only to delay it, if even by a little.

“Please!……Please!”

Tears spilling, she moved as many people as she could, as far from the source of the curse as possible.

Despite it all, her pleas were mocked as the curse only tightened its grip on the capital.

A future where untold numbers would have their souls gnawed away, dying as they were, was all that remained in that moment.

“The, the curse!………”

“It’s vanishing!”

The curse ensnaring countless souls peeled away, beginning its return to its source.

Everyone craned their necks, gazing at the sky.

The Saint and the source of the curse were locked in combat.

The fierce battle, to anyone watching, was turning decidedly in the Saint’s favor.

Too distant to see clearly, but the shriek the curse’s source vomited out resonated plainly with everyone.

“The, the Saint…?”

“Unbelievable!! Controlling a curse so potent, at this level?”

“Is… is that even a thing?!”

Everyone was stunned.

And Erpa, of course, was equally astonished.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The next instant.

The curse’s source let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Then, a glorious light erupted from the Saint’s body.

A light so radiant it momentarily eclipsed the rising sun itself, soon dissolving into tiny, glittering shards of light, slowly descending from the sky to the earth.

The lights, one by one.

Descended upon bodies writhing, screaming under the curse’s lash.

And with that, the faces of the tormented calmed, stilled.

“Fragments of souls, devoured by the curse’s source…”

A priest of the White Order, muttering, vacant-eyed.

“A miracle.”

“A miracle of the Saint.”

“He…He has saved us.”

All within the capital, gazing upward at this vision, like a dream.

The morning sun, now fully risen, blazed upon the capital.

In that relentlessly holy morning light, the Saint stood, treading upon empty air, silently weeping, gazing into the sky.

It was a scene, no one could deny, from a magnificent myth.