Chapter 824: Nevermore: The Child Who Is Not Embraced By the Planet Will Spread His Plague

Chapter 824: Nevermore: The Child Who Is Not Embraced By the Planet Will Spread His Plague

The curse energy within the underground room kept increasing with every passing second. The former freedom fighters stood catatonically as their bodies still burned, and Jake felt that their souls had already mostly been extinguished. They were being reduced to nothing more than the hatred within their hearts.

Plague energy also slowly began to emerge, infecting the mostly dead people. Jake realized now it had come from the dagger Temlat had used to stab himself with. The half-elf had changed it to somehow inhabit a nascent plague of some sort. It wasnt a true plague yet, though. Temlat was far from being capable of making something like that, but it had the fundamental building blocks.

Building blocks Temlat had merged into himself right as he evolved.

Jake remained an observer as he waited for nearly a minute, the curse energy in the room continuing to rise. It was feeding into the evolution as far as Jake could tell, affecting Temlats evolution just as he had wanted it to.

He didnt know what would emerge once the evolution was complete. However, he didnt have a good feeling it would be something acceptable. Curses and plagues were both less-than-fondly looked upon in the multiverse, and a merge of the two could only end in disaster. Especially with what Temlat had done right as he evolved. He had purposefully damaged parts of his own soul, as far as Jake could tell.

Which meant he didnt plan on emerging as anything even close to a normal person anymore.

Soon, the energy reached a crescendo. Jake felt the Sin Curse within his own Soulspace rumble to life as curse energy tried to infect Jake, Eternal Hunger gladly eating it all up. Jake breathed in through his nose as Palate faintly activated, eliminating the traces of a plague that attempted to infect him.

Then, out of nothingness, a figure appeared. A cloaked being that looked surrounded by darkness, its form not entirely corporeal. It looked vaguely like Temlat had with his hood up but Jake barely felt the familiar aura of his student. Instead, he felt only a bubbling mass of anger, and with a deep breath, he analyzed the being in front of him.

[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath lvl 200]

The former freedom fighters all turned to black energy as they fed the Plague Remnant, the magic circle beneath him fading right after, having done its job. Jake considered what to do, genuinely unsure what his next actions should be.

He knew what Plague Spirits were. They were the premier example of beings that should be killed on sight if anyone encountered one. Mostly, they appeared when powerful death-affinity energy gathered in an area and was nothing more than mindless elemental-like beings who lived only according to their instinct to spread their plague and consume all life.

Jake also knew of another creature called Curse Remnants. These were very similar to Plague Spirits, but instead of a plague, they spread their curse energy far and wide, cursing anything and everything. As with Plague Spirits, these were also simply mindless creatures with nothing more than an instinct to spread their namesake to the world.

Both were considered living calamities. Beings to destroy. However Jake didnt remember ever coming across anything called a Plague Remnant. Much less a Plague Remnant of Wrath, indicating Temlat managed to finally evolve his curse of hatred into the Sin Curse of Wrath.

The easy explanation was that Temlat had truly managed to fuse the two into one. To create a cursed plague which actually didnt seem that weird. The two concepts mixed well, both being highly infectious magical ailments that could infect from one person to another without needing the original source to get involved.

One thing was clear: the being before him was a living calamity. Even if Jake didnt recognize it, he knew it was dangerous. Whats more, the aura it gave off wasnt meek by any standards. It was still only a C-grade, but Jake knew that it was a powerful variant.

Paths tended to be more powerful if they also included giving something up or having severe restrictions. Jakes class was the easiest example; his Path making it so he couldnt get any experience from anything lower level than himself. Temlats Path had taken far more from him than simply that.

The Plague Remnant in front of him began to slowly move as it turned into a dark smoke that quickly sought outside the underground chamber. As the Remnant left, Jake knew what would happen if he did so. He knew that everything around him would be infected and a chain reaction would start. A snowball of cataclysmic proportions.

However, as Jake looked at what Temlat had become and analyzed the plague energy trying to constantly affect him, Palate quickly gave him an understanding. If he killed Temlat here and now, everything would end. The world would be saved.

Jake seriously considered it for a second until the smoke stopped just before the exit of the chamber and took on the form of a hooded figure once more.

[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath lvl 212]

He leveled up at an unprecedented speed, and from the looks of it, things were barely slowing down. At least not yet. Jake knew he was an empty cup that was just slowly getting filled with shitty muddy water. The curse energy that made up the Plague Remnant was getting contaminated by all the beings that were consumed along the way, and it would take a long time for him to properly consolidate himself once he was done.

Yet Jake doubted he cared. In fact, he doubted Temlat would be able to even feel the emotion of caring much longer as the curse energy from all the infected and dead people mixed with his own. At least Jake thought so, but to his surprise, he still sensed Temlat. He saw that he still maintained his humanoid figure standing in the middle of the warehouse.

He retains an ego even now is it because of the presence-resistance training we did?

Jake had been able to hold onto his mind when he consumed all the curse energy from Eternal Hunger because of his Bloodline-empowered psyche, so it was entirely possible Temlat had built up enough resistance to handle the influx of curse energy he experienced. Compared to the curse energy that eventually gave birth to and still resided within Eternal Hunger, Temlats current form was nothing. One had to remember that this planet only had C-grades on the weaker side as their strongest, and barely any of those had even fallen yet.

Time passed as the cursed plague spread further and further. Attacks on the sky mansions had begun to happen, but their defenses were far more impressive compared to anywhere else. The formations alone were nearly enough, and when most of them sprung large laser towers and what looked like Tesla Coils, Jake thought the masses were done for.

However, that was when the nobles showed they truly had no idea what they were dealing with. Be it in a foolish attempt to save resources or pure ignorance, they began to send out their security forces to fight. The automatic defenses would not be affected by the cursed plague, but these guards?

Hundred were instantly killed by each C-grade bodyguard as they dominated the sky, killing in droves. The D-grades and even E-grades who had joined the assault didnt stand a chance, but this was where another scary aspect of cursed plagues was seen.

With every kill, a bit of the energy invaded these C-grades bodies. With every kill, they got more and more infected, and as they had no time to sit down and purge the energy, the outcome was obvious.

It was one of the strongest guards who had also killed the most that fell first. His eyes were bloodshot, and right after killing a dozen D-grades, he turned around and roared as he released a massive blast of fire toward the floating island where he used to be employed. His hatred toward the owner who forced him to perform a massacre was obvious. The automatic defense system instantly triggered and attacked him, but he defended himself well. The other C-grades saw their friend being attacked, which seemed to also push them over the edge as they also began to attack the nearby sky island.

In the meantime, the D-grades kept coming for the guards and the island both. It was pure pandemonium, and Jake could only watch in silence as the barrier broke on one of the smaller sky islands. The woman who used to call the living calamity currently washing across the world a pet lived in one of the larger ones where the defenses still held out, but it was only a matter of time.

Temlat had been the first domino that started a cascade effect that appeared unstopable. Millions more were infected every single minute as Temlat no longer even needed to do anything. The cursed plague was spreading all by itself, causing destruction all across the planet.

Jake had flown high up into the air as he stared down. The spread was impressively fast, and as the planet wasnt overly large, Jake guessed it would reach everywhere within a week at most.

A single week for an entire planet to fall to one newly evolved C-grade Jake understood why Plague Theory and curses were both not anything to be taken lightly. It was something most factions outright banned, to the level of hunting down people they believed were researching it unauthorized or while not part of a big faction.

The former half-elf himself was also growing in power still. After half a day, when nearly half of the sky islands near the original source of the cursed plague had fallen, he had already gained nearly thirty levels from the billions upon billions of infections and deaths he had caused.

[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath lvl 229]

His leveling speed had slowed down, though. His container for experience was just about full, and even if he kept growing stronger and absorbing more energy, it wouldnt translate into levels much longer. Jake also knew that once he did hit a wall, it would be incredibly hard for him to ever overcome it. This was one of the reasons why Villy was so insistent on Jake also making sure he had a good foundation leveling this fast felt nice and looked overpowered, but it was sacrificing long-term power for short-term gain. Alas, Temlat already knew this when he evolved...

No new developments happened for a good while. The massive cloud of pure curse energy around Temlat now covered several square kilometers, forming a domain all around him. He looked to be entirely focused on gathering this energy until suddenly, Jake saw it all begin to gather. A second later, he realized why.

The barrier to the mansion Temlat had once called a prison had been broken and the massive cloud of curse energy shot upwards, the Sin Curse making the air shiver in his wake. It gathered into the cloak, and to Jakes pleasant surprise, a face emerged within. Temlats unmistakable visage didnt only tell Jake he still retained his ego... but that he was going to personally unleash his own Wrath on the woman who once dared call him her pet.