You can read early chapters on my [P].[A].[T].[R].[E].[O].[N].
Link: [email protected]/Arson09
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Ethan flickered and appeared outside the entrance of the tunnels.
"I don't sense Mahito," he assessed. Even though the Humanity Curse had his own version of a hollow trace, Mahoraga had long adapted to the barrier effects, so when in close proximity, Mahito couldn't hide from Ethan.
There were many factors in play here, and Ethan was aware of that fact. But he had a gut feeling he had stepped into something larger than a single Curse.
"This place... it reminds me of that island," Ethan thought of the island that the Volcano Curse, Jogo, had formed in the Red Sea to be able to maintain his physical form while fighting at 1000% output during the Battle of New York. "It radiates cursed energy."
"There is more than one disaster-grade Curse here," Ethan noted grimly. As soon as he took his first step into the tunnels, he heard it.
SCREECHHHH!
"Not human," he heard the screeching coming from deep inside the tunnels. Two Shikigami quickly jumped out from his shadow: Kuro and Shiro.
"Let's go," Ethan said as he led the way forward. "Kill anything that's not human," he ordered.
He was in unknown territory here; he realized that fact. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Deep Inside Tunnels:
"Run, Ethan! Run!" Tabitha shouted at the top of her lungs, looking toward her baby boy as she was pinned down by two more creatures.
They were ambushed. The creatures had been waiting for them inside the tunnels.
They had followed the rabbit, but the animal did not lead the group to their freedom that had been promised; it led them to their deaths.
All of them were here, From Donna to Ellis and Fatima to the matters family...Pinned to the ground by the creature of the forest, the tunnel wasn't their salvation, they have stumbled onto the creature lair.
"Ahhhhh!" Tabitha screamed out as she felt the sharp claws of the two creatures digging into her skin. She looked to her side where her husband, Jim, lay pinned in much worse shape than she was. His eyes had gone vacant from the torture; he seemed to have lost consciousness due to the pain.
She couldn't locate Julie, but she could only pray that her daughter somehow escaped this trap—even though a more skeptical part of her mind could tell that was impossible.
Ethan tried to run out of the small opening through crawling, and damn nearly succeeded, but the granny monster caught his leg in a vice-like grip at the last possible second. So much so, she almost peeled off the skin as she jerked him backward.
The granny monster bent down and moved toward the fallen boy. She gently caressed his face, like a grandmother seeing her favorite grandchild after a long time.
" Oh, My sweet sweet boy, " she said
"Leave him alone!" Tabitha shouted through the pain. "PLEASE LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
But the monster didn't stop. The gentle caressing gave way to a grotesque peeling of the boy's skin. Though just as the granny monster was reaching for little Ethan's neck, a rustle came from the main opening of the cave.
From the dark came a towering silhouette. To Tabitha, the figure resembled a humanoid wendigo with long, branch-like antlers on his head and blazing, circular white eyes.
As soon as the creatures saw the silhouette, they stilled as if on command. They unpinned their victims and slowly walked toward all possible exits of the cave.
"ETHAN!" Tabitha shouted as she moved toward his lying form. She reached him quickly; the right side of Ethan's face was bleeding, she noticed as she gently caressed the area. But Ethan was already moving. He slowly sat up, and they both looked toward the new creature that had arrived. It was certainly not human from its appearance alone.
"OH, MY, MY," the Beast addressed the group in front of him. "It's been so long since I have personally come to a feast. Too bad the Sheriff could not join us. He reminds me of an old acquaintance, a brave woodsman. But they will be here soon, so you all won't be alone."
"Why are you doing this?" Tabitha asked, clutching her baby boy. "What did we ever do to you?"
"Why?" the Beast asked, genuinely intrigued. "This isn't happening to you for any reason, Tabitha. It is just because..." he mocked.
Though little Ethan seemed to have come to a conclusion. "It's happening because we are humans," he quoted from his favorite storybook.
"Hmm... that might actually be the closest reason I can think of," the Beast applauded the boy.
But what Ethan did next shocked everyone who was conscious. He picked up a rock from the ground and threw it at the Beast, hitting his chest with a thud. The rock dropped to the ground and tumbled to a stop in front of the Beast.
"Save the boy for last..." he commanded the creatures of the forest as they moved toward the group. Tabitha looked toward the Beast, then at Ethan. She hadn't had time to process what the boy was doing, and by the time she did, it was already too late.
She hugged him for dear life and closed her eyes for the moment.
"I will give you one chance..." came another voice from where the Beast was standing. "Where is Mahito?"
Park had used Boogie Woogie on the rock that little Ethan had thrown.
Tabitha looked back toward the entrance. She saw what looked like a man in a tailored suit standing nearly a hand's distance from the Beast, looking up at him.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
She heard the unmistakable sounds of bones breaking and crashing from around them. Before her eyes could catch up, what seemed like a shadowy wolf moved around the cave in a blitz, crushing the heads of those creatures that had terrorized the town's people for years.
As they finished, they moved into the shadows and stood some distance behind the suited man, as if on guard.
When the Beast took a second too long to answer his question, Park brought his hand, which was already encased in cursed energy, back and punched the Beast with enough force to launch it out of the cave through the ceiling.
Back in the town:
Stark, Boyd, and Tora stood outside the town's diner. The people who had arrived via the Grand Rapids Runner bus were inside the diner.
Some had, of course, not been accustomed to being told what to do; some had even tried to run off.
But when Tora used the spell that allows non-sorcerers to perceive cursed energy, and everyone in the group suffered from foggy vision and later saw a twelve-foot-tall bipedal tiger, they stilled and complied.
Ethan had not asked Tora to teleport these people outside because they had been marked by a cursed spirit. Everyone on that bus, except Ethan Park, had low resistance to Curses, and if not treated in time, their vitality would fade away until only a husk of their previous self remained.
And besides, there were unknowns here. He didn't know about their cursed techniques; for all Ethan knew, letting anyone leave could give the Curse a chance to escape. The entity that marked the passengers could use one of them as a vessel, a beacon, or a medium to escape the town's boundaries. Letting even a single passenger teleport back to the outside world risks unleashing a dangerous, parasitic Curse on the general population. Something he could not afford.
"What are you doing? " Boys asked looking up at Tora, seeing his hands being encased in Eldritch circles.
Previously, Boyd had told Tora what had transpired last night, the Colony House massacre, when the Bipedal Tiger had asked about the Corpses of Thoes Creatures that Stark killed last night lieing in a pile near the neighbouring semetry.
Tora didn't answer immediately. He rotated his hands and a massive dome formed a barrier around the diner. With a sudden snap of his palms, the energy expanded outward in a flash. A massive dome rose from the earth, shimmering with ethereal light before solidifying into an impenetrable barrier around the diner.
"That should do it," Tora replied. If there were any Curses here strong enough to break that barrier, he would sense them first before they could get close. So, the people inside the diner remained safe regardless.
"Woah..." Boyd couldn't help but mutter. The display had momentarily distracted him from his worry about Ellis and Fatima; he felt he had sent them to their deaths.
"Sheriff Boyd, was it?" Tora asked to confirm. This startled the usually stoic man. After all, it wasn't every day he was asked his name by a bipedal tiger.
"Yes, I am. Do you..." Boyd hesitated, "do you have a name?"
"It's nice to meet you, Sheriff Boyd. I am Tora," the Tiger Shikigami replied gruffly.
"Tora, huh," Boyd tasted the name on his tongue. "So, Tora, do you have any idea where they are? The townspeople, I mean? If they are safe..."
Tora looked down sideways toward the Sheriff. "You have family there, do you?" After receiving a shaky nod from Boyd, Tora continued, "Do not fret. Your family will be safe. Ethan Park is here, after all."
"Don't blame me for not trusting someone I don't know," Boyd spoke under his breath. That made Tora turn toward the man.
"How long have you been here, Sheriff? After or before New York?" Tora asked naturally. It was uncommon to find someone who didn't recognize his master's name.
"Approximately two years my family has been here. Funny enough, it was actually during the battle. As the world was being consumed by madness, we found a madness of our own," Boyd remarked, pointing around Fromville.
"Look on the bright side, Sheriff. I have found that among those who have suffered the same pain..." Tora said, mimicking the gesture of Boyd by pointing around Fromville, "there can be no hate. Over time, they become family. You have found family in your madness; not everyone outside can say that."
"Family? I killed mine," Boyd pointed out.
'I killed her,' he thought. "But you are right, I am one lucky motherfucker."
'I don't sense any malice in him when he said that,' Tora thought, looking toward the downed man. 'What kind of mental stress is this man accustomed to?' He was a little shocked himself.
"What happened to him?" Tora asked, glancing back at Tony, who was sitting on the side of the diner.
Stark was still wearing his Mark 43; only his helmet was off. His head was downcast.
"This place... this place," Boyd reiterated. "It does things to people who get trapped here. Makes them see things. Hear things that aren't there. It did it to my wife, and it got to him too."
"Oh, but I should have seen it. I was warned," Tony spoke, still looking down. Then he looked up toward Tora. "I should have called Ethan as soon as I got here."
Tora recalled when he had asked Ethan earlier today why he would trust an ordinary human with the task of finding a cursed spirit.
"There is nothing ordinary about that human, Tora," Ethan had stated. "He is probably the smartest man this side of the galaxy. If given the right materials, I wouldn't put it past him to create an armor that can battle me on equal footing."
"You think highly of this man," Tora had acknowledged.
"Of course, it's more than that. Deep down, Stark's a good man. Deep down... I am not," Ethan had spoken as he sank into his shadow and made his way inside the church filled to the brim with demons.
As Tora looked at the man Ethan believed to be the smartest, he remarked, "It wouldn't have changed the final outcome."
"What do you mean?" Stark asked immediately.
"Apart from looping space, this place also has some sort of time dilation," Tora explained.
"Time dilation?" Tony asked, and as a look of realization passed through his face, he questioned, "How long ago did you receive the signal which I sent last night?"
"Half an hour ago," Tora provided. But as soon as he spoke, he saw it before he sensed it—a building-sized, wormy cursed spirit on the other end of the trail marching in the diner's direction.
"We've got company," Tora remarked as a Tao mandala materialized in front of his palm.
"Oh, that's a cursed spirit if I ever saw one," Boyd added as he stepped back.
"Need help?" Tony asked Tora as he put on his suit's helmet.
"Nah, I've got this," Tora spoke as he slapped his palms together, causing the Tao mandalas to collide. A moment later, what emerged from it was a serrated, circular Eldritch disk, and with a forward thrust, Tora launched it like a projectile.
As it traveled, it gained in size until reaching the dimensions to cut its intended target, the giant worm-like cursed spirit, perfectly in half through the middle.
Swish! swish!
"See? That's done. *Clap*," Tora remarked, turning back and clapping his hands.
"Hey," Boyd started, still looking at the worm-like monster. "I don't mean to tell you how to do what you are doing, but is it supposed to do that?" he added, pointing at the worm cursed spirit.
The cursed spirit that was clearly bisected in half—a blow that should have instantly exorcised the Curse—had not worked as intended, as the spirit was stitching itself back together.
"Oh shit," Tony spoke. "Am I the only one, or does that Curse look like a building-sized tardigrade to you too, Tai Lung?" he said, looking at Tora.
" What!?" Tora's eye went wide with realisation, " It's Cursed Technique is Invincibility,"