3 03. The Cursed Villain.

The scene was chaotic, with many fearing that their end was near. Even the S-rank heroes found it difficult to subdue Zach. In the end, their unwavering perseverance yielded an unexpected result, as a single hero pierced the heart of the most fearsome villain who was even more menacing than the demons.

However, it turned out that the hero who defeated him was none other than his best friend, Alexis Wellington.

"Aside from being recognised as one of the major villains in the novel, Zach Darkmoor was also referred to as the cursed villain due to the runic marks that stretched across his body."

Zach was cursed at the age of five by a demon when he and his mother visited a city in the Southern continent, commonly known as the Beast continent.

At the time, no one could have predicted that not only the city but also the entire beast continent would be invaded by demons. Countless influential families and commoners alike were slain and devoured by the merciless demons, leaving very few to escape to the neighbouring continents.

During the chaos, Zach was inadvertently separated from his deceased mother and became cursed by a demon.

However, the reason he was cursed was as a result of a misunderstanding, because he was mistaken for someone whose dragon blood was flowing in Zach's veins.

Now, he was fated to lose everything he held dear, and as a way to haunt him throughout the remaining years of his life, the curse left a mark across his body that instilled fear into a five-year-old Zach.

He overheard a conversation between some healers as to what the curse meant and it turned out that he was fated to have those he cared about die at his own hands.

Afraid that this might be his Aunt or one of the seven girls he was living with, Zach distanced himself from everyone around him, including his Aunt, who took it upon herself to raise him. He never said a single word to anyone again out of the fear that he would end up hurting someone he cared about.

Sometimes he even thought of running away but he stayed because of his Aunt.

However, even though Zach tried to change his fate by staying away from others, it didn't prevent his Aunt from being killed when he was eighteen and undergoing his enrollment test at the World Academy.

This was a major blow to Zach because his Aunt had been doing everything in her power to find a way to rid Zach of his curse, which is why he decided to stay and not leave the mansion in the first place.

His Aunt's sudden demise pushed Zach to the brink of insanity, with his mind dead set on accompanying her and his dead parents. However, he changed his mind because of the seven girls living with him, with two beast girls in particular playing a major role in his sudden change of mind.

All seven girls were rescued by his Aunt during the merciless rampage of the demons in the beast continent a few years back.

Zach grew to love one of the two beast girls while he saw the other as his little sister, and their names were Aurora and Luna respectively.

He cared about the other girls as well because they had all grown to view each other as family.

His closeness to the girls and his relationship with Aurora eventually made him open up to them and more people, until the day before his twenty-second birthday when he was manipulated and deceived by a demon into thinking that his best friend had claimed his girlfriend like a trophy.

The demon needed something only Zach could give him, and in return, he promised to cure Zach of his curse and make him stronger than ever before.

Thinking that if he finally got rid of his curse he would become a better version of himself, Zach agreed to the demon's demands and the demon released a massive amount of corrupted mana into him, corrupting Zach's mana core.

This blackened his heart and he began to destroy everything around him after the demon hypnotized him into thinking that Aurora would never be interested in someone like him.

This angered Zach and he decided to eliminate the competition. In other words, his best friend.

He searched around for his best friend, to end him, but he was unsuccessful. So he returned home that night, but to his surprise, seven assailants were awaiting his return.

Fearing that Aurora might have been captured or worse, killed, he attacked all seven assailants.

However, when he pulled out his sword from the final assailant, he was surprised to see Aurora in front of him and not the last assailant.

It was then that the harsh reality dawned on him.

He had been made to think that the only family he cared about were the same assailants he was trying to protect them from.

Then the thin thread holding Zach's sanity together finally snapped.

Everyone became an enemy in his eyes.

"In the end, Zach lost not only his parents and his Aunt, but also Aurora, Luna and everyone who cared about him," Zach said depressingly while staring at the ceiling.

He slowly rose up from the bed with a determined look on his face.

Since this was going to be his new life from now on, Zach chose not to hate or whine at his luck of being transmigrated into the worst character in the novel.

Zach wasn't going to let this new chance at life go to waste.

Unlike the villain in the novel, Zach wasn't really bothered about the curse because he knew there were two ways to rid himself of the curse.

The first way was to find the demon who placed the curse on him and kill him.

"But I do not know where exactly the demon is or how to even find him," He said, before thinking about the second option.

The second was to decipher the curse mark himself.

The curse mark was more like ancient magical runes that had been forgotten for centuries but was inscribed on his neck, chest, arms and back.

This was what Zach's Aunt had been trying very hard to solve but failed to resolve until her death.