" The curse of what?" Ginny asked as she strode to Leilani and caught her arm, she didn't know about curses because all her life she only spent her time studying the basic etiquette of being a daughter of the count but with just one look at Leilani's face and she knew that it was nothing good. For a witch to be so scared of a curse there was no way it was as simple as snapping fingers and concocting a potion. " What does the curse of living dead mean?"
" It..it's the worst curse that someone can cast on his enemy," answered Leilani as she covered her forehead and carefully tried to remember everything that she knew about the curse of the living dead. "It's a curse that's frowned upon because it requires the sacrifice of a siren without the blood of a siren this curse will always be unfinished. Sirens, no matter how bewitching, they are beings with life—— any act that snatches the life of an innocent will be condemned and so will be the castor, they will have to suffer a pain that knows no bound for committing a crime as worse as murdering someone. But of course, the pain is temporary once the curse manifests itself in the body of the one who is being cursed, the rebound will stop and the pain will ease."
" In many cases, the caster of the curse dies but if they are lucky to find another siren who can ease their pain, then they will survive because a siren is the only one who can ease the pain of a mage."
Ginny clenched her fingers she already had a very good idea of who was the caster of this curse. "Is there any way you can heal my father?"
Leilani shook her head as her brows scrunched up. "It's rare, a curse like this is hidden from the general public lest they try to learn it and act upon the instructions given in the books. Only the royal family have these books that mention the curse of the living dead and only they know how to counter this curse as well, if you want me to help your father, you will have to bring me those books because even I didn't have the permission to enter the forbidden library." Then she turned to look at her father and added with a slight frown. " And you have to do it soon before it arrives."
" It arrives? What's going to arrive?" asked Ginny as she looked at Leilani for answers she was really upset that Leilani was talking in circles instead of stating all the facts at once.
" The thing that's sucking the life force of your father," whispered Leilani in a haunting murmur. " A being worse than human and deadlier than beasts, a demon."
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Ginny's head buzzed as she staggered behind, all the colour draining from her face. " De...Demon?"
Leilani nodded with a solemn expression. " The curse of the living dead is more like a ceremony to summon demons into the realm of the mortals. It was banned by the fourteenth King of our Empire when his son tried to use innocents humans to summon an army of demons, it said that the fifth Prince was tired of waiting for his efforts to be acknowledged by his father, and he decided to abandon everything and started to walk on the path of black magic, after years of trial and error, the fifth prince of the Empire was able to successfully summon a demon to the mortal realm using the body of a human that was neither alive nor dead as a portal to hell. This darkest part of the history was later removed by the royal family because they didn't want the commoners to know that something like that happened under their watch so they erased the battle of demons and humans from the books."
" However, they couldn't erase the memories of those who witnessed the entire thing with their own eyes," said Leilani with a heavy tone. " My grandmother watched the battle happen in front of her eyes and accompanied the Emperor to the battle. She told me that the fifth prince only had an army of ten demons yet he annihilated more than half of the Empire and killed hundreds and thousands of humans in his wake… if not for the holy Saintess and the powers of the mages, the Empire of Edessa would have been long wiped from the history of mankind."
"And you are saying that you can do nothing to stop this?" asked Ginny looking at Leilani in disbelief, this was the first time she lost her calm like this but what else was she supposed to do? What was worse than her father being cursed? The fact that his body was being used as a stupid channel to connect the mortal world and the realm of hell.
" I told you this curse is not something that can be studied by just anyone only the Royal family——" Leilani stopped as her eyes snapped to Ginny and she exclaimed, " The Duke of Terranova!"
Frowning Ginny looked at Leilani. " What?"
" The Duke of Terranova," repeated Leilani as she slapped a hand over her forehead. " Why didn't I think of this before, the Duke is also from the Royal family and his palace is a complete mirror copy of the Royal palace, he must have the copies of those books as well. Though the Crown Prince doesn't like the Duke, the Emperor is fairly nice to him given he resembles his mother, the Holy Saintess.. why not go in there and steal those copies and bring them to me?"
Ginny was too stunned by what Leilani just said that she practically ignored the fact that Leilani called the treatment of the Duke' nice'. " Are you out of your mind? Can you not see the mist hovering around the wasteland, all the damn time? That man is an archmage with the worst possible mania, if I try to steal from him, he will turn me into a pufferfish and have me for lunch."
Leilani shrugged. " Without those books, I cannot help you either, if you want to save your father then you have to go to the Duke's palace."
Lips pursed Ginny glared at Leilani. This damn witch why doesn't she ask her to go and just head to the realm of the Devil King?