"It's something Flynn quickly came up with. A substitute for the holy seal to protect us in battle," he added, showing off his own ring. Several golden runes flashed mildly around his body.
"Stuffs like that won't work on me. My Mage Path is in complete contrast to the Luminescent Mage Path. You could say I'm almost no different from the curse," Kaiser explained as he fabricated his blade of darkness once again.
"Well, that's... How are you going to fight this curse without getting corrupted, then?" Aldous asked, solidifying the swirling smoke into arrows.
The arrows shot at the curse in a flurry whilst catching up in flames.
"Need I repeat myself? I'm almost no different from the curse," Kaiser answered with a small smirk creeping on his lips. "I had always rejected this side of me, not only because of the amount of Mana that darkness itself usurps, but because of what darkness is as a concept. It's a primordial force of nature that carries along malice, corruption and other malevolent intricacies along with it."
Watching the flaming arrows pierce through the curse like needles through flesh, Aldous smiled, "Just as I thought. Getting disconnected from its place of birth had grounded it more to reality. Our attacks can affect it now."
It wasn't that he ignored Kaiser's explanation, they just spoke simultaneously. They nodded at each other, in affirmation of their individual words.
"Good, let's get this over with," Kaiser said, bolting at the curse in a streak of darkness.
Chilling whispers echoed within his sword of darkness as he slid underneath the curse's lunged arm. Getting back to his feet, he swung his sword upward, cutting a huge gash underneath the gigantic arm.
Kaiser turned with a slide and slashed at the opposite side, lopping off the arm completely. He then displaced the sword and jumped back as fast as he could.
The air before the curse crackled as a gargantuan ball of flames, twice its size, was hurled towards it like a nova. It was too distracted by Kaiser and its severed arm to notice the imminent danger in time.
By the time it turned to look at what was coming, the massive fireball slammed into it with so much force, the curse was blitzed across the village to another side of the dome, creating more cracks around it.
Aldous raised a brow as the curse hugged tightly to the fireball, even as much as it burned it. The curse pushed itself forward a bit before turning rapidly on its axis and hurling the fireball back at its caster, adding a corrosive influence to it.
"Why am I even surprised? It's a curse," Aldous shook his head, stretching his hands forward as the corrupted ball of flames got to him in an instant.
He hurriedly put out the flames and jumped back to escape the thorns of corruption that came along with it. However, the curse had also gotten in front of him, in the air with buckled knees.
Still in mid-air and seeing the Curse's body cast a wide shadow over him, Aldous Benedict simply scoffed wryly, "I messed up."
With a menacing roar, the curse pummelled Aldous into the ground with its two feet, upheaving more of the village's soil.
At the very moment of impact, smoke, fire, and a golden flash of light emanated between the curse's feet and Aldous's body.
Kaiser's eyes arched down as he saw this happen. He was more pissed than surprised. The curse hadn't even been born yet, and it was taking them out one-by-one.
By battle standards, Kaiser was the only one left on the field. Henry Sage and Flynn White could only stay on the side-lines.
Bringing his sword of darkness back into existence, he jumped into a slight hop before shooting at the curse from behind. He got above it almost at the same time he had left his prior location.
With the blade of the sword faced down, Kaiser landed knee-first on the Curse's body and stabbed downward.
However, the spikes of corruption on its back suddenly jutted out longer and stabbed into Kaiser from all sides, leaving him hanging in the air like a skewered meat.
Though poked from all sides, Kaiser fought against the corruption with gritting teeth. But there was not much that he could do as his Mana had a similar signature to that of the curse, speeding up the corruption process.
But then, Kaiser soon realised that it wasn't eating him like he had expected. It was as though he had grown immune to corruption.
Or rather, he had an affinity for it. Maybe, just maybe, if he focused hard enough, he could also gain some control over the concept.
Then, at that very moment, Kaiser found himself standing in a void of pitch darkness. Two red flaming eyes opened before him, their gaze intoxicating. Planets paled in comparison to them when it came to size. Kaiser could feel himself getting killed and respwaning times without number.
A deep bellow echoed through the space as something said, "Hmm... I see. Kaiser Dune. A worthy vessel. Very well, I shall allow you this victory and let you live."
Before Kaiser could blink, he found himself standing on the Curse's head, which had been mysteriously detached from its body. The headless body soon began to wither to nothing.
Still shaken and stupefied, Kaiser turned to see Flynn dispelling a fiery arrow of light. That was what the latter had planned to use in the exorcism. He and Henry Sage had their eyes dilated, their lips quivering as they were at a loss for words.
Heavily confused and perturbed by the sudden change of things, Kaiser glanced at his body to see that he was completely unscathed.
From the look of things, he had somehow exorcised the curse. But how? He only lost consciousness for a few seconds.
What were those eyes he saw in the void? What was that voice? Did that thing kill the curse through him?
He had so many questions spiralling in his head. It was as though he would go mad if he didn't get immediate answers to them.
He checked himself out once more, folding and unfurling his hands. He took a glance at the sky, which was now clear and bright. The barrier had been broken.
Returning his gaze to the two surviving Sentinels up ahead, he couldn't help but ask, "What in the world just happened?"