The Result of Change

The guardsmen questioned me relentlessly about my origins, class, equipment, and my minion.

I was currently sitting in the guard station, with almost all of the city guards watching me carefully as I was interrogated. I had been questioned for several hours already.

I knew that any answer I gave wouldn't be satisfactory, so I kept silent, not wishing to reveal anything about myself that I didn't need to. All I revealed was my name and my business in Beniham.

Eventually one of the guards became frustrated, slamming his fists down on the interrogation table.

"HOW DO WE KNOW YOU AREN'T HERE TO ATTACK THE CITY?! YOU WILL ANSWER US EVEN IF I HAVE TO GET ANSWERS BY FORCE!"

The guard grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and stared into my eyes with a mixture or frustration, anxiety, fear, and genuine concern for the city.

I sighed. I had really hoped they would have given up and let me in, but it seems like I have to go to plan B.

"Well if I wanted to attack the city, I wouldn't have agreed to this tedious interrogation. Besides..."

I casually waved my hand.

Pulsating spears of darkness surrounded all of the guards necks and limbs. A palpable sense of fear and tension formed in the room.

The guard holding my shirt swallowed nervously.

"....I would have killed you all by now if I really wanted to."

I waved my hand again, dismissively. The spears disappeared, and all the guards dropped to their knees, shaken.

"Well, I'll be on my way. You can find me sleeping at the inn near the adventurer's guild."

I got up, and walked at a relaxed pace out of the guard station.

My three eyed raven turned to look at the guards and cackled mockingly.

................................

Getting a room at the inn was easy. I paid like any person would without saying a word, and the innkeeper hurried to get me a key, almost tripping on himself along the way. He seemed afraid of me like the guards were.

I didn't blame him, as I was now, it would take someone truly powerful or truly foolish to not feel fear.

I fell onto the soft bed in my room, my raven minion perching on a table near the bed.

Much had happened since I obtained [Death's Key].

When I stabbed myself with the relic, I had begun to experience the eternity of agony that its cursed caused. Within that eternity, I basically learned how to accept pain for what it was. I still felt vividly felt pain and getting hurt still hurt, but I achieved a mental state that accepted pain as a natural consequence of life. It wasn't insanity, just a different outlook. As such, I accepted the sensations of pain as naturally as I would accept the feeling of breathing.

It was at that moment that I managed to break out of the loop of agony the curse from [Death's Key]. Regaining my senses, I began a slow journey out of the dungeon.

Killing the [Guardian of Death's Key] had ended the curse affecting the dungeon, and I had begun accumulate experience from killing the Guardian and the Rot Wyrm beforehand, but it seemed impossible for me to recover the rest of the experience I should have gotten. Apparently the dungeon had used the experience to create new monsters to stop me.

I managed to regroup with Biggie, who had been patiently waiting like I had told him too. The interference with the mental connection with Biggie left him in a hibernating state, but returning to him brought him back to his senses.

With my newfound power, we had easily slain all the monsters on the way back. [Death's Key] had evolved into its sword form from all the killing I had to do before I left the dungeon. I had used the [Cursed Ashes] I had collected from killing monsters and greatly increased the ranks of my curses as well.

As I reminisced, I examined my status while lying down on my bed.

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[Name: Charon]

[title: Disciple of the Fallen Angel]

[Title details: Following the teachings of the bearer of all of humanity's evils, the Disciple of the Fallen Angel is able to be inflicted with special curses reserved for the most wicked in existence.]

[Class: Evil of Humanity]

[Class details: Every 10 levels, a powerful curse will be inflicted upon the user of the class. Active curses gained by the class will increase in rank depending on usage and clearing conditions. Class user will gain a bonus to all stats per level]

Hp: 1120/1120

Mp: 1240/1240

Lvl: 98

Str: 345

Def: 295

Res: 280

Mag: 585

Wis: 90

Luck: -99

skills: none

status conditions:

Curse, Eternal Suffering (rank: DEUS)

[Curse inflicted by the Supreme Deity. Upon death of the inflicted, The inflicted will resurrect at corpse's location with full HP after 5 minutes. The inflicted is also unable to go insane, and will vividly experience every pain in life.]

Curse, The Powerless (rank: DEUS)

[A curse inflicted by the Supreme Deity, the inflicted is unable to learn or invent new skills. However, if a skill will transform into a curse, then the curse will apply.]

Curse, Extreme Misfortune (rank: DEUS)

[Seeking death but unable to die, this curse reflects the severe misfortune of the inflicted, setting their base luck to -99]

Curse, Cain's Desolation (rank:???)

[Damage dealt upon the inflicted will be reflected to the attacker multiplied by 5. Curse causes all plant life touched by the inflicted to rot.]

Curse, Mark of the Dragon (rank: ???)

[Actions made by the inflicted that are deemed to be taboo, sacrilegious, heretical, etc., will charge a meter. Expending the meter will unleash a powerful wave of destruction from the inflicted. Deals more to targets with the "blessed" or "holy" attribute. Curse will cause hostility to immediately arise from individuals with or associated with the "holy" attribute.]

[Meter: 11/100]

(Curse, Touch of the Old Ones) evolved into *NEW*(Curse, Knowledge of the Old Ones, rank: B)

[inflicted by coming across knowledge of the Old Ones. Curse allows the inflicted to summon and host a minion of the Old Ones at the cost of their sanity, costs 50 Mp to permanently summon 1 minion. Inflicted can currently host 2 minions max.]

(Curse, Love of Viola) evolved into *NEW*(Curse, Undying Love of Viola, rank A)

[inflicted by the lingering love of Viola that has been corrupted by Viola's hate, the curse allows the inflicted to cast (Void Lance, curse variant) by spending 10 Mp. The Inflicted can also cast (River Styx), a unique ability enabled by this curse; cost is 200 MP. If the one inflicted is not one loved by Viola, the curse will rapidly drain their hp. Curse causes tragedy and misfortune to gravitate towards romantic endeavors involving the inflicted.]

(Curse, Undead Spite) evolved several times into *NEW* (Curse, Death's Guardian, rank: C)

[Curse Details: Upon death, the remains will reanimate as a powerful undead Guardian and be controlled by the soul of the inflicted. Curse negates healing magics cast by others onto the inflicted (Special strengthening condition unlocked): Curse can be strengthened by dying several times.]

*NEW* (Unique Curse, Jack the Ripper, rank B) formed from combining curses (Poor Assassin), (Unhinged Sadist) and (Midnight Slaughter)

[Curse Details: Inflicted is harder to detect, and becomes undetectable at night unless they deliberately reveal themselves. Inflicted receives a 2x damage boost on the first sneak attack every night. Inflicted receives a 1 hour stat boost after 1st kill of the night. Curse causes feelings of immense pleasure in the inflicted when killing, and can cause addiction.]

*NEW* (Unique Curse, Aura of Mammon, rank C) formed from combining curses (Midas' Touch) and (Greed).

[Curse Details: Inflicted will earn and accumulate wealth easily. Curse causes half of the inflicted's finances to permanently turn into mud at the end of the day.]

*NEW* (Unique Curse, Aura of Beelzebub, rank C) formed from combining curses (Preta's Burden) and (Gluttony).

[Curse Details: Inflicted is unaffected by ingested poisons. Inflicted will receive temporary stat boost after eating, stats boosted depends on items consumed. Curse causes inflicted to always be hungry.]

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I finished examining my status, and decided I wanted to eat. (Aura of Beelzebub) always left me hungry, but the (Aura of Mammon) always managed to get me enough money for me to eat continuously. I reached into my travel bag and pulled out some raw monster meat and began chowing down.

Biggie crawled into my room through my window, undetected. Because my curse (Touch of the Old Ones) evolved into (Knowledge of the Old Ones), Biggie had evolved and learned new skills. Biggie had changed from a "lesser-hound of Hastur" to a full-blown "hound of Hastur." Biggie hadn't really changed too much physically, but he had grown bigger and had 2 more legs and an extra tail.

Biggie's new skills included (Blade Maelstrom), where Biggie would turn into a flurry of blades, mincing up all he ran across. Another skill was (Vorpal Stinger), which allowed Biggie to extend his tail and pierce through almost anything. Biggie had a near sure-kill skill called (The Yellow Sign), which buffed Biggie for a gigantic amount of stats for around 5 minutes. However, most of Biggie's enemies wouldn't last 5 minutes after the skill had been used. Biggie could also use (The Yellow Sign) to inflict a massive debuff on an enemy by first stinging them with his tail.

As I stared at Biggie, My three-eyed raven took a scrap of meat from my bag and began pecking at it.

I named the raven "Wiz", as he was much more intelligent than Biggie. Wiz's species was "Observer of Azathoth", specialized in information gathering and magic. Wiz was able to look at other's status, hide my status, actually have a conversation with me, and use several eldritch spells.

Some of Wiz's spells include (Eldritch Blast), a spell that fired a ball of eldritch energy, and Wiz's ace in the hole, (Lapse in the Dream), which allowed Wiz to briefly distort reality, either removing an object, an affect, remove a small chunk of an enemy, or modify an item or person to Wiz's wishes.

(Lapse in the Dream) had some pretty severe limitations, such as the range of the spell, the mp cost, its long channel time, and the extremely small area the spell's reality altering effected. Also, if Wiz tried to alter a fundamental law of the world such as physics, the spell would either fail or the change would last less than 1/5 of a second in a small, specified area. The System remained untouchable, and Wiz could do nothing to change it.

After reflecting on my minions, I recounted the changes in my abilities. (Undying Love of Viola) had granted me access to the curse ability (River Styx), which allowed me to manifest an unlimited amount void spears in a 50 meter diameter around me for 1 minute. I had used it earlier to intimidate the guards, and thankfully it had worked.

I still needed to test out the curses (Jack the Ripper) and (Death's Guardian), but I knew that the time would come soon.

I sent a mental message to Biggie and Wiz to remain on watch for the night, the quietly dozed off.

...................

(Another point of view)

We had felt the massive amount of mana surface near Beniham, and had decided we would go to investigate, hoping to finally find the mortal we had been searching for.

We decided that I, Valandis, Purified God of Flames, would be the one to investigate Beniham while the others searched elsewhere.

However, as long as Bennavfor protected his subjects and territory, I could not search the city freely.

I would have to rouse my followers within the High Inquisition to assemble and prepare to lay siege on Beniham. Once my army was ready, I would personally destroy Beniham and Bennavfor for defying the God of Chaos. I would watch them all be burned in my flames.

And I would be rewarded once I found the human.