Chapter 825 - Nevermore: No Regrets (Patreon)

Temlat undoubtedly had one person he hated more than anyone. An individual that represented everything he despised above all else. Despised how she was just sitting up on her floating island, staring down with mockery at the average folk beneath. She had been such a shitty person Temlat had even awakened his innate curse affinity due to how much he hated her.

This hate was felt throughout a huge part of the planet as Temlat descended upon the cloud island. The others infected by the cursed plague, even the C-grades, backed away instinctively when they saw the cloaked figure approach. Be it because they sensed the dangerous energies he emanated or simply his power, Jake didn’t know.

Landing on the floating island, Temlat began levitating forward. A few times, he reached out and made a guard or servant erupt in black cursed flames, rapidly consuming them. Jake made the educated guess these were servants of the mansion he hadn’t been a big fan of.

Following along, Jake remained true to his promise as he only observed. In his sphere, he saw the woman Temlat was aiming for, hiding with two others inside a room with heavy magical seals on it. A safe room of some kind, it appeared.

Considering the state of the mansion, a large metal box buried toward the middle stood out quite a bit, and Temlat approached it at a steady pace, not rushing at all but keeping a calm demeanor. One side of this metal box was partly transparent, allowing the people inside to look out but no one to look in – outside of people like Jake who had high enough Perception to entirely ignore the one-way glass. Temlat clearly knew they could see out as he floated down in front of the box, and his voice echoed out from beneath the hood, showing the Cursed Plague Remnant had gotten a better hold of his new form, even capable of transmitting sound now.

”I hear you’ve been looking for me… well, here I am.”

Promptly, the one-way glass became two-way, revealing to Temlat the three within. Standing at the glass was the woman who had originally hired Jake to ”retrieve her pet.”

The woman who had set everything that was happening into motion. She looked through the glass at Temlat, clearly unsure what she was looking at.

”My dear? What happe-”

A huge blast of black flames shot at the metal box, making it rumble, and the magical formations crackle from the sheer energy.

”Do not call me that!”

”I… why are you doing this? No, it cannot be; my sweet little one isn’t like this,” the woman said in denial as she leaned onto the side of the wall, looking scared. However, some-fucking-how, she gathered herself and took on an adversarial stance. ”You are from those dirty slums, aren’t you!? I’ll tell you, when the security forces arrive, you’ll be in big trouble! Are you also the one who hurt my dear little one and stole its gentle visage?”

Temlat looked at her, seemingly lost for words for a moment before he just started laughing. The cloud of curse energy around him ebbed and flowed as Jake found not a single trace of happiness or humor in his voice.

”It. You keep calling me an ”it.” Tell me… what is the name of your former dear little pet? Do you even know it?”

The woman just stared as she seemed offended. ”My dear was always called my dear; it didn’t have a name.”

The response was swift and decisive. A massive inferno of black flames erupted all around the metal box, burning away at it incredibly rapidly. Curse energy and plagues both sucked against magic formations like this, but the sheer energy output was enough to rapidly overwhelm the defenses. One crackle after another sounded out as the magic formations broke, and the metal itself began to break apart.

”Then allow me to remind you. Let my name be the last word you ever hear and your final memory: Temlat.”

With that, the metal box broke apart. The two other women in the box died instantly as nothing more than collateral damage as the flames enveloped the source of Temlat’s hatred. She didn’t share the same quick death as they suffered. Her screams began to echo as the Cursed Plague Remnant floated in front of her, controlling the black curse flame.

For a good while, the only thing Jake heard was the woman’s screams, with only the faint echoes of battle in the background. Temlat was not in a hurry, as he did what he could to make it the most painful death imaginable.

Jake stared for a while at Temlat’s actions before he finally sighed and used One Step, appearing right beside Temlat, standing firmly within the cloud of cursed plague energy.

”It’s enough,” Jake said.

”Enough!? No, this bitch could burn for eternity, and it would never be enough! She deserves more than I could ever do to her!” Temlat’s enraged voice echoed out as his curse energy rumbled like a thundercloud. Jake absorbed the pure curse energy of hatred as he understood… as least as best as he could.

”I said it’s enough. Simply torturing her will accomplish nothing beyond this point,” Jake spoke in a calm voice. ”To end her Path is the ultimate revenge. To sever her impact on the world and allow her Records to fade into obscurity. That is the true way to destroy someone. Erase her from existence and show her just how insignificant she is.”

Temlat’s attention was on Jake for a moment as he finally released a pulse of power. The flames intensified, and after a final scream of pain, the woman’s entire body disappeared, not even leaving ash behind. In the final moments, a bit of curse energy was released from her dead body, but Temlat instantly motioned and scattered it, refusing to allow it to be absorbed into him.

Jake had said before he wouldn’t interfere, and yet he had stepped in anyway. Not just because he believed that Temlat was doing something senseless but because of what had to come next.

It was his time to take responsibility as a teacher. To see if Temlat truly realized the consequences of the Path had had chosen.

Sin Curses were the most powerful… but they were also insatiable. They would never be satisfied and never reach their goal. Jake’s Eternal Hunger would always demand more, always be a glutton, to the level where it would try to consume Jake if it got too famished. In the same way, Temlat would always need an outlet for his Sin Curse of Wrath. Sin Curses were based on emotions that couldn’t be killed simply by fulfilling them. Wrath was something internal. What you yourself felt, regardless of what you direct your wrath at. You would always find a new target to hate, always find a new outlet. Not feeding the curse would only result in an internal collapse as the hatred turned toward the one and the only thing it could: himself.

The anger would be fully directed toward Temlat. Toward his own existence. He would begin to hate life itself, hate the entire world. This often resulted in someone infected by a Sin Curse of Wrath simply losing their minds and beginning to mindlessly destroy anything and anyone around them, only stopping when slain.

That’s why people used Sin Curses so sparingly, and if they began to lose control because the curse grew too powerful for them, they sealed it away. A bit similar to what Villy had proposed Jake could do with Eternal Hunger if the weapon ever got too much. He could ”sever” it from himself and have it sealed away and drained of energy until the weapon just became an inert object many, many years later. It seemed like a waste, but it was better than Eternal Hunger getting hungry enough to just outright eat Jake, even if it would result in its own demise.

Temlat… couldn’t seal away his curse. He was the curse incarnate.

There was no breaking free of the curse’s influence, no escape from its effects. Temlat’s Path was to be a Cursed Plague Remnant until the day he died. He was to spread the Sin Curse of Wrath, with the only reprieve coming when the curse also took his own mind… or if he managed to fight it long enough and stay lucid, see himself fade away and die in a struggle against his own emotions of wrath.

”What will you do now?” Jake asked after a long silence.

Temlat didn’t answer right away as he just stood there, looking at where the source of his hatred had died. Where he had killed her. Jake felt that a sense of emptiness and lack of purpose had begun to affect the curse energy around him, but after Jake asked, it refocused.

”End what I started. She was a symptom of a disease… one that only a plague can cure.”

Jake nodded, understanding what Temlat would do.

”Then do as you have to. I will stay and watch as promised… and once you’re done, let us speak once more. As you said, I’ll be a witness to your Path.”

Temlat turned to Jake, his face clearer than ever, even seeming to have a bit of color to it. He nodded decisively as he took to the air, Jake focusing on reentering his stealth state before following. Jake also quickly saw where his student was headed.

The woman had mentioned it, but the most powerful people on the planet hadn’t fallen yet. While the whole planet was effectively just one massive city, there were more dense areas than others. Temlat had resided in the second-to-most dense area, with only one other place having more people living there. With more people also came more C-grades and the closest thing to a government this world had.

One could view this fighting force as the army, even if they called themselves security forces. There were thousands of C-grades in the mix, but they all faced an opponent they weren’t fit to fight. Temlat also had an army with him, as the central government was the main focus of the outrage of many. A full-on war was happening as the soldiers tried to defend their stations, but killing only served to turn them to the side of the enemy.

Some could resist, but they were in the minority. Mages and those with high Willpower, more often than not, managed to stay clear-headed even as the cursed plague infected them, but their calmness only made them targets of the irrational rage of others.

As time passed, Jake noticed how Temlat had begun to slightly change the target of the curse of wrath. No longer was it merely those in power… it became those withpower, too. Those with the potential to grow powerful and become the ruling class once more.

The army quickly fell to Temlat and his army of infected. From there, the slaughter truly began. Those who had been fighting side by side before began to butt heads, and the D-grades turned toward the C-grades, while the C-grades turned to the C-grades higher level than themselves.

Jake’s estimation of the cursed plague taking an entire week to infect the planet also turned out to be off by two days. Five days was all it took for the cursed plague to infect practically every single person on the entire planet. Due to how everything was constructed, there were truly no places to hide, and as long as someone – anyone – knew who and where you were, you too would become infected. It also helped that the planet was pretty small compared to something like Earth.

Slaughter roamed every street and building. Megastructures fell like dominos, and every single sky island was brought to the ground, viewed as monuments of oppression. The mines were blown up and collapsed, as barely anyone was spared.

A week after Temlat had appeared, the planet was borderline unrecognizable. Not a single towering building remained standing as the entire surface of the world was covered in debris. Trillions had died and killed each other in rage.

Throughout it all, Jake had kept to his promise and witnessed Temlat carrying out his Path. He nearly stepped in many times, but at every instance, he stopped himself upon confirmation that Temlat remained lucid and in control despite everything. As long as that was the case, Jake wouldn’t directly interfere.

Everything seemed senseless, but Jake began to see a purpose. At the end of the day, he also saw that Temlat had grown in level far more than he had ever expected possible for a newly evolved C-grade… but he had also seen how it hadn’t increased in a day, communicating he had hit a wall. One he would find very difficult to ever overcome. He had gotten powerful, though.

[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath – lvl 248]

Temlat himself had finished off the last C-grades on the planet, meaning none remained. Jake released a Pulse of Perception and did see some survivors. Not many, but there were some hidden beneath. E-grades, children, the weak and oppressed who had been living in squalor only a week prior.

Flying down, Jake appeared standing beside Temlat, who was floating above where the governmental head office had once been. Now, it was only a huge black crater as Temlat had burned away even the debris to erase information about the society that once was.

“My question comes again… what now?” Jake asked.

The feeling of emptiness from the Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath was even stronger than before. With everything destroyed, he would soon need a new target. Seconds ticked by before Temlat finally spoke, his voice as empty as his aura.

“From the very beginning, I just wanted revenge. I wanted that bitch to die and see the world that allowed someone like her to exist crumble to the ground. Both of those things have now become a reality. The only survivors are those who remember the injustice… who were so pitiful no one even felt any wrath toward them. Let them be the ones to rebuild a new world for themselves, one that is better than what was,” Temlat said, having clearly given this entire scenario a lot of thought.

Jake simply listened, knowing now was not the time to add his two cents to the situation.

“Even now, I feel it creeping up. I feel my mind being consumed because I suppress my own urges. I want to just fly into the multiverse and look for my next target… to infect everything. Without you, Teacher, I wouldn’t even be able to remain lucid right now…”

Temlat looked toward the sky as he began to condense his form. The huge cloud of curse energy gathered into one singular humanoid form as Jake saw the half-elf he had first seen appear before him once more. He kept looking upward for a while before turning to Jake.

“Teacher… am I an idiot?”

“Very much so,” Jake nodded. “But you at least chose to be an idiot yourself. Chose your own Path.”

Temlat smiled despite the Sin Curse. “I did… and it was totally worth it. I do not regret my decision to become what I am in order to fulfill my goals. But… I do have one regret…”

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“I don’t want to just die with this world. Your words… that allowing Records to fall into obscurity is the ultimate revenge… to be forgotten… I don’t want that,” Temlat said, turning to look at Jake. “Will you remember me?”

“I am known for having a shitty memory, but I think you’ll be hard to forget,” Jake shook his head and put a hand on Temlat’s shoulder. Even with his student’s control of the cursed plague, it still tried to constantly infect Jake, failing at every turn when faced with Palate and Eternal Hunger.

“Thank you,” Temlat muttered. “Then, could you fulfill one final selfish request of mine?”

Jake already had a good idea of what he wanted as he nodded. “If it’s something I am capable of.”

“Please allow me to die when I am still me and have no regrets of my actions. Consume my existence so my Records can at least still persist in some way,” Temlat finally said. “Please consume me with your own Sin Curse.”

“Alright,” Jake simply agreed, knowing Temlat had thought this through.

Motioning, Eternal Hunger appeared in his hand. Without Jake even doing anything, it began to give off a hungering aura toward Temlat, wanting to devour him.

Temlat looked at the katar as he bowed deeply. “Thank you for giving my life meaning and allowing me to do something with it.”

With those words, Temlat’s form began to break apart. Eternal Hunger lashed out to eat, and Jake, for once, didn’t hold it back but just held up the weapon. Temlat’s form began a torrent of black smoke that buried itself into the black katar, getting consumed in the process as one Sin Curse devoured another.

After less than a minute, nothing remained, and as Jake looked down at the mythical weapon in his hand, he could only sigh loudly as he clenched his fists.

“My first student… Temlat… and this is how it ends. Fuck I’m a shitty teacher…”