Scene: "The Mountain That Never Was"
Setting:
A desolate mountain ridge, far from civilization. The sky overhead is hazy, tinged violet — a leftover scar from past calamities. Max walks to the edge of the cliff, alone, carrying the Senbon Katana on his back, arms still lined with the dark sigils of his curse mode.
Max (muttering to himself):
"Alright… let's see what these freakshow powers can actually do."
He kneels, pressing his palm to the ground.
"Cursed Mark — initiate."
A faint ripple of black energy seeps from his hand. The earth trembles. Nothing happens immediately.
Max frowns.
"Huh. Well that was—"
Then it begins.
Veins of black lightning web across the stone under his feet. The entire mountain groans as if in agony. The sigils on Max's body glow — deep purple and hungry.
Suddenly, shadowy figures begin crawling out of the cracks in the earth. Curse Apparitions — humanoid phantoms made of smoke, whispering unintelligible words, their fingers like sharpened bones.
"Okay... so that's new."
Max took one cautious step back.
"Note to self: definitely not ghosts. Definitely worse."
They don't attack Max.
They crawl toward the mountain.
And then… decay begins.
Like time fast-forwarding by millennia, the entire mountain begins to rot — first the peak, then the ridges, then the trees and soil themselves turn to black dust.
In under a minute, the mountain is gone.
Max, standing in the center of a scorched crater, breathes out slowly.
"Okay… that wasn't subtle."
A single curse apparition remains — kneeling at Max's side like a loyal dog.
He looks at it.
"You my minion now or what?"
It bows.
Max (grinning):
"Cool. I name you Stabby. You get first dibs next time we fight a Namsari."
He walks away, the crater yawning behind him — a monument to how far his powers have evolved.
And how dangerous he's becoming.
Scene: "The Dragon That Shouldn't Exist"
Character: Max Conrad
Setting: Ruined cliffside plateau, sunset bleeding across a shattered mountain range
The sky was dimming — blood-orange clouds streaking across the fractured skyline. Max stood alone atop a jagged cliff, the wind barely brushing his coat, silent atop a ruined plateau. His fingers flexed around the Senbon Katana, crackling with a faint hint of static. His heart drummed — not with fear, but with expectation. His hand twitched slightly — the aftershocks of unlocking something dangerous… something cursed.
"Okay… Curse Mark. Curse Apparitions. Senbon slice. That's the combo, right?"
He glanced down at a jagged column of stone at the edge of the cliff — thick enough to take a hit, ancient enough to be forgotten.
He extended his palm toward it.
The Curse Mark ignited, flashing across his skin in a web of black and violet. A glowing sigil was shot into the stone formation, branding it with a corrupted glyph — etched itself onto the stone — writhing like it was alive.
Suddenly, the ground cracked open.
Thin, eerie fissures spread like veins through the dirt. From within them came the Apparitions — humanoid phantoms made of black smoke, whispering and twitching with jerky, unnatural motions. They clawed up from the cracks, fingers like bone knives, and began to circle the marked stone.They surrounded the marked pillar, their ghostly claws weaving through the air in spirals of static. The energy around them surged.
Max exhaled and gripped his Senbon Katana.
"Now or never."
But still, he raised his blade.
"Let's see what you can really do."
The First Slice.
He flicked the katana — a clean, smooth motion.
The blade shimmered as it struck the target — and like before, it dispersed into hundreds of lightning needles, each one infused with compressed violet thunder, drilling into the rock.
The explosion was immediate.
A 100-foot-wide crater bloomed from impact, kicking up dust and static.
"Still OP. But no dragon."
Then he felt it.
His right hand ignited — not with fire, but with something colder, more sinister.
Purple flame surged up his forearm, wrapping his hand in a burning curse sigil — glowing like a brand of divine wrath.
"Wait—what the—?"
His HUD pinged silently.
A new line of code scrawled across his vision:
[Dragon Execution Judgment Fang: Armed]
Max blinked.
"...Okay."
He stepped forward, raised his katana again… and sliced.
The Second Slice.
The blade barely grazed the marked surface. No spark, no clang — just a whisper through air.
The apparitions screeched. The glyph on the pillar erupted.
"Huh—?"
Then the ground beneath the target shattered detonated in a thunderous explosion of dark lightning.
Then the world broke.
BOOM.
The earth exploded from below — and from it, a dragon made of pure cursed black lightning erupted, coiling and screaming into the sky.
It was massive — easily 200 feet wide 8 stories tall, its serpentine body etched in black storm-veins, spiraling with crackling hatred. Its eyes burned like dying stars — furious and cold.
Max stood paralyzed, whispering:
"That's just… hate given shape."
The Curse Apparitions lunged into the beast's body, merging into its lightning like tributaries feeding a storm.
The dragon lunged at the marked pillar — biting down hard, stone cracking in its fangs. The dragon bit the marked column with godlike rage, then ripped it upward — hoisting it into the sky like prey.
It thrashed the massive structure into the air, shaking it violently. It shook the pillar violently, thunder booming in all directions.
Then, with one final surge of fury…
SLAM.
It drove it down slammed it into the ground, cracking the entire mountainside, with an ear-splitting crash, vaporizing the area in a storm of lightning and dust.
An aftershock wave rippled across the plateau. Trees snapped. Birds vanished. The entire region dimmed under the weight of residual VYTHRA corruption and decay ash. The air reeked of ozone and death.
The crater was now 300 feet wide — the epicenter still sizzling, and no regeneration would work within its radius.
The air sizzled with a static so thick Max's clothes fluttered despite no wind.
The cliff Max stood on had been halved.
"Holy hell… what the was that?"
He looked at his hand — still faintly glowing.
"Okay, note to self — curse mark, ghost mark, then mini-slice = do not try unless I wanna delete a mountain."
Max just stood there, blinking.
The purple fire around his hand faded.
He looked down.
"...So. One cut. No big deal."
"Second cut? Revenge of Godzilla."
He turned and walked away slowly, still processing what the hell had just happened.
Behind him, the cursed lightning dragon dissipated into ash and memory — its roar echoing faintly like the end of a war.