Chapter 82: Curse

The rise of the dragon-like creature moves the winds that surround it, causing a gust of wind to rush through the lands. The combined cry of the souls rings throughout.

Kyrie squints his eyes when the dusty gust hits him. He steps harder to the ground to avoid the wind from lifting him and carrying him away.

[The souls have broken through the seal.]

Kyrie stares at the colossal creature that could nearly touch the sky, and chills tingle his spine as the rush of adrenaline runs throughout his body. The feeling of amazement and fear makes him doubt whether he is feeling excitement or terror, or whether they are both the same.

The souls are no longer able to reincarnate since they have corrupted themselves so far that they can no longer turn their lumped souls back to individual ones. Now, the souls are lumped together into a single entity.

Phanes turns her gaze to Karta - her eyes asking for permission to release her powers to subdue the creature in front of them. Phanes knows that her meddling will cause some uproars in the god realm, but the creature in front of them has turned far beyond what normal mortals can handle. This world will be doomed if the gods do not make a move.

The serpentine creature moves its head towards the mortals by instincts. The creature is going for the weak first and consumes its way to the strongest. 

Kyrie takes a quick look towards the gods.

[The gods are not making a move.]

"Maya," calls Kyrie.

"Yes?" Maya looks up at Kyrie, staring far before he takes his eyes away and looks at hers.

"I want you to stay back. Do you understand?"

Maya nods, but her pupils shake, regretting her actions to release the souls. If something is to happen to them, then she is mainly responsible. However, she feels two warm pats on her head before she looks at the two walking towards the creature.

Kyrie and Ian grab the hilt of their swords and draw at the same time. Their eyes meet.

"Don't do anything reckless," says Ian, frowning

Kyrie lets out a smile but remains silent without promising anything.

The creature lounges towards the two, opening its mouth. Kyrie stares at the unending darkness inside that creature's mouth.

"Elder sister!" Phanes urges. She turns to Erebus; her pleading eyes ask him to be on her side.

"Phanes… You know that we cannot involve ourselves because we have a far too great influence on fate. Elder sister always…" Vita stops mid-sentence, and she slowly turns to Karta stunned.

The creature has stopped moving mid-air. The gods can sense that Karta has stopped the creature due to the silver essence flowing out of her body.

Karta sighs and signals Phanes with her head towards the creature, giving her permission to do the extermination. Phanes smiles, hugging Karta. She turns to Vita, who turned pale from shock.

"I have permission now, second elder sister!"

Like a spoiled kid in complete bliss, Phanes runs over towards the creature. She casts a dome protective shield that wraps around the three mortals.

Karta softens her expression while looking at Vita, "This world was not meant to be destroyed."

Phanes lets her powers to rise back up since she has suppressed them coming into the mortal world. 

Feeling the sudden release of the goddess's power, Kyrie feels out of breath. Despite being in the protective dome, Kyrie can barely handle the pressure from Phanes's power release. He feels as if his legs want to give up and let his body fall flat to the ground. The same goes for Ian and Maya.

Phanes lets her body wrap around with a pure gold essence, and orbs separate from her body like droplets of water. They start to spiral in a circle above Phanes, changing its shape into sharp spears of light. 

Extending her hand towards the creature, the spears, as they spiral, redirect themselves towards it based on the direction Phanes's arm would direct.

The spears propel towards the creature, piercing throughout its body without any way of defending itself. Light beams out from the wounds, and the creature starts slowly disintegrating into orbs of light. The orbs float up towards the heavens. They dissipate to combine into the air.

Kyrie lets out a breath of relief. 

[It's over.]

Phanes quickly seals her powers, and the pressure caused by her powers gets released.

The dome disintegrates.

[This is the type of power that I am facing in the future…]

Phanes walks back towards Karta with a big smile.

"Elder sister... It seems like you will have tons of things to do when we go back!" 

Getting mocked by the workload that Phanes always gives to her, Karta squeezes Phanes's cheeks. Vita silently looks at their interaction and lets out a smile. She looks at the collapsed hill and walks towards it.

"Young miss, where are you going?" Yue asks, following her.

"I am going to check out what happened to the seal."

Karta looks at Vita, who has turned to walk away, and lets her. Phanes whines as her cheeks are squeezed out of existence.

"I have let you do whatever you want. Now, you must let those mortals return to their time."

Phanes cups her face and pouts, "It wasn't me, sister…"

"What do you mean it wasn't you, don't you…" Karta catches the meaning behind Phanes's words. 

If Phanes is not the one who took these mortals into their time, then her descendants are responsible. However, that would also mean that Phanes does not exist in those mortals' future.

"How long do they belong to the future?" asks Karta disturbed.

"Around a bit more than 3000 years," Phanes responds.

"That's too soon…"

Phanes smiles sadly. Although she wants answers, she does not want to know her end. Karta's eyes shake. She turns to the mortals, planning to squeeze the answers out of them.

"Sister, they seem to have speaking restrictions from someone on our side."

Once again, Karta looks beyond what normal gods and mortals can't see. She looks at the fate strings from both Kyrie and Ian. 

'Their fate strings are heavily tampered by someone, especially the kid with black hair. Someone must be incredibly cruel to this kid to sever all his fate strings and seal their endings to prevent the strings from reattaching, causing such a cruel curse,' thinks Karta.

"What are you seeing?" asks Phanes, unable to shake the feeling off that something is wrong with those kids' fate strings.

"Let's send them back in time first."