Chapter 455 On Cursed Time

Keng, Lily and the group of soldiers stood near the Curse site. Keng looked at the group for a response. The woman and Man 2 were a bit more hesitant than Man 1, who simply nodded.

"Keng, I think it might be easier to see who get afflicted with the sickness." Lily looked at him. He opened the book and flipped through the book, eventually finding his answer.

"You guys go first. We'll find you when we need to check you." Keng spoke as he kept his eyes on the book.

There are a handful of Curses that can spiritually return to the Realm once their physical body is destroyed. Like I said earlier, you have, at most, a day to prepare yourself for the second coming of the Curse. Depending on the Curse, it could be weaker or stronger based on itself, how much its consumed, and how along its evolution it went.

Vengeance, Crowned One, Pride, are a few I could name off. Reference the Curses tomes for more information on the different Curses that have a "second-phase" such as this. You should be very careful of what happens based on what Curse you're dealing with. For the sake of brevity, I'll be talking about Vengeance since I've recently dealt with one.

Vengeance Curses can quickly attain evolution due to its nature — Vengeance. If you managed to kill the physical body, quickly keep whatever it inhabited there. The Vengeance Curse must stay together to not create problems! The inability to do this will make it harder for you to track it once it reactivates. It'll try to siphon its own Cursed energy into anything nearby. Make sure it's gathered together and block it off with a Light wall! (any newbie should be able to easily do this.)

"Shit." Keng cursed.

"What?" Lily looked up. Keng looked up at the others who were still standing in front of them.

"Who cleaned up the splinters of the tree that Dryad was in?" Keng asked.

"Why?" Lily asked.

"Because we need to keep everything that Curse inhabited in. That tree needs to stay in or else we'll have a problem… Where did the splinters go?"

"Well… The soldiers from the Night crew handled it. They swept most of it up and disposed of it…" Man 1 quietly answered.

"Where did they dispose of it?"

"They used it as fuel." The woman answered. Keng cursed as he shut the book between his finger that kept the page.

"We might've just fucked ourselves. Lily, you have access to Light magic, right?" Keng looked to Lily who nodded. "Block this whole section off. We're gonna have to hunt for the Curse before it does anything suspicious."

"W-why the panic?" Man 2 asked. Keng looked over at the group and motioned at all of them with the book.

"The Curse isn't in the body of the splintered tree anymore. It got burned and used as fuel." Keng replied. His eyes wandered over towards the Village. "That means its in the air and it'll be hard to track because the Cursed energy scattered all around. I need to do the cleansing as soon as possible…"

Lily strummed her instrument and watched a wall of colorful energy move and section off the area where the Chestnut tree was. She played for awhile until the familiar shimmer of Golden Light appeared. She turned around and moved towards Keng.

"All done. What's next?" Lily asked.

"Keep your eyes out for anything suspicious. The Curse is in the air and I need to do the Cleansing Ritual now." Keng spoke. He turned and looked at the small group of soldiers still standing in disbelief. "You guys spread the word. This is official Savior business. We'll need to find a way to protect the people from getting afflicted by the Curse."

"What about my brother? He's afflicted with it already." Lily asked.

"Let's check on him. I need to see whether or not he has Cursed energy within him or not. Let's hope he doesn't have any in him." Keng sighed.

Lily led Keng back to the Village and into the back of the medical house, where Philip was staying. Mother Wang stepped out of the room, quietly turning to pull the door shut when she noticed Lily and Keng.

"What're you doing here, dear?" Mother Wang asked as she looked at Keng.

"Mom." Lily smiled as Keng waved at her. "We came to check on Philip. Is he doing okay?"

"He's doing fine. Resting like always. Why's… Uh, they look the same. Why's he here?" Mother Wang pointed at Keng.

"This one's Keng. He has tails." Lily pointed. Keng wiggled his tails.

"What're you two doing together? I thought your father didn't want you to be with him or the other one."

"Savior business, Mom. It looks like the Curse isn't gone, so he's here to deal with that. After he heard about the Curse and Philip, he decided to come check on Philip." Lily explained.

"For what? He's just in a coma. There isn't much he can do in his state… I just wish he would wake up soon." Mother Wang sighed.

"After we deal with the Curse, he should wake up." Keng spoke up.

"He'll wake up after you deal with the Curse? I thought you guys did deal with it." Mother Wang asked, confused.

"We did with the physical body." Keng nodded. "But apparently, there's some Curses that have the ability to re-manifest through spiritual means. I just wanted to check on Philip. I have an bad feeling about what's to come." Mother Wang looked over at Lily, who nodded at her.

"The Chestnut tree was Cursed and got burnt for fuel. That's what we were told. According to Lord B'haru's words in that book, we needed to keep what the Curse was in behind a Light barrier. Since they burnt the splinters and wood, the Curse is free and Philip could be targeted since he's being affected by it." Lily explained.

"So what do we do? Can we protect him from it?" Mother Wang asked.

"I'll put up a barrier on Philip until everything's solved."

"What really needs to happen is we need to barrier the entire Village." Keng sighed. "I don't think Lily can do it by herself. I'll need to Cleanse myself and help her. We should start with Philp because he's a prime candidate for the Curse." Mother Wang nodded as she looked past Lily and Keng. Fan'r, her sons and two familiar people moved towards them.

"Oh, Fan'r. Boys. What're you doing here? Who's your… guests?" Mother Wang asked. Keng and Lily turned around and watched the group come to a stop.

"We came to show our guests Philip, but I see Keng and Lily have gotten here first." Fan'r answered. "What're you two doing here? I thought you were dealing with the Curse?"

"Lily put up a barrier, but we ran into another problem." Keng replied. Keng turned to look at the door that held Philip. "They used the Chestnut tree splinters and wood as fuel. They released the Curse trapped in the wood so now its free. Once it regains its spiritual form and reawakens, it'll try to find a new host."

"And you're here because…?" Winn asked. Keng turned around and noticed Winn's glare. Even after Keng's frustratingly outburst, he was still acting like a dick.

"Because Philip could become the host and that would cause more problems." Keng bluntly answered. The group gasped in shock as Keng looked at Lily. "Barrier him. Use your Energy Sight to see if there's anything wrong with any Villagers. We'll have to barrier the place, but in the meantime I'm going to go back to the Saviors Tomb and do the Cleansing Ritual and gather more research on how to kill a freed Spiritual Curse."

"Okay, I'll do my best." Lily nodded.

"You need to go back?" Gorrum asked, stepping out of the crowd with Elder Jyu'so. "Is it that bad?"

"If I don't go back, I'm just relying on Lily to fight a Curse by herself. I could barely hold it together with the Vengeance Curse because it immediately recognized I was a threat and locked my Light away." Keng replied. "We have to prepare for the worst. Lily should be able to get things started and once I return, the two of us should be able to finish protecting the Villagers."

"What about the Curse? Won't that be a problem if someone gets infected?" Elder Jyu'so asked.

"If it gets into someone, it'll allow us to kill it… But I don't want to kill the host if we can avoid it."

"So what do we do then? Nothing?" Jacob asked.

"Keep your eyes out for anything weird. Restrain anyone who acts strangely. Lashes out, falls into a coma, whatever it is. Lily should be able to tell cause she's Blessed by Rox'su." Keng looked at her.

"Can you do it, Lily?" Fan'r asked. Lily looked at her father as he gave her a serious look. "Will you be able to do your job while your Leader is away? This is a big risk and we don't know if the Cleansing will work. Elder Jyu'so and Sir Gorrum have filled us in on what has happened with Keng, but I need to know you're up for the task. You cannot quit this one if you do it. Can you do it, my daughter?"