Before, when he was told about the effigy, he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t know if Skarg really had it or was trying to deceive. He only knew that effigies were made by death cultivators and could be used to curse him, but he didn’t know how it worked.
But even if it was real and Skarg had it, this didn’t change the fact that he didn’t know how to advance to rank 5. This was why he decided to kill the messenger.
Now that his arm had begun to rot while he was still alive, he became willing to say anything to Skarg as long as it would stop Skarg from using more of the power of the effigy.
His eyes glinted sharply as he said, "Surely, he won’t want another person to know the information, so I can ask to meet him face-to-face. As long as I get close to him, I will kill him."
Meanwhile, his left arm has rotted to the bone. The bone is still metallic, but aside from this, he couldn’t recognize that the arm attached to him used to be the strong, buff arm that he used to kill many enemies.
The black scab was still all over his arm, so his corpse arm was also black and shriveled. But as bad as things were, it only got worse from there.
Instead of stopping after corroding one arm, the black scab continued to spread all over his body. This was because it was a curse as well as a poison.
Since it was a poison, it spread quickly from Loki’s arm to his shoulder and finally to his neck. This time, Loki began to panic. He began using every Metac in his possession, but none of them worked.
What he should have done was to cut off the arm as soon as the black scab appeared. If he had done so, the curse wouldn’t have spread all over his body.
Skarg didn’t expect that the simple injury that he inflicted on Loki would get any worse because he expected Loki to cut off the arm. After all, Loki was supposed to be the full reincarnation of a rank 5 cultivator, and he had told Loki that the curse would come from an effigy.
He didn’t expect that Loki would be ignorant about how effigies worked, which was why he sent a messenger to get Loki’s new response after this attack. So it was unfortunate for the two of them that Loki was ignorant of how effigies work.
In no time, the black scab spread throughout Loki’s blood and all over his body. His armor did nothing to block it, so it encountered no resistance on its way throughout his body.
At first, Loki was able to stand and curse Skarg. But when the black scab got into his lungs, he was cut off from the air that he needed to shout, curse, and breathe.
He fell to the ground, choking while his body shrank and mummified around his mind. The pain was excruciating to say the least. He felt as if he was being burned alive.
The pain got worse when the curse reached his brain. His entire world became one of pain and only pain. He lost every sensation and could only touch, taste, smell, hear, and see pain.
He couldn’t do anything in that state. He couldn’t talk, move, hear, or see. He was blind, deaf, and mute. The only thing he could do was feel pain. It was an experience worse than death.
He was sure that his current situation was worse than death because he had died many times. Even if he didn’t have any experience with death, the fact that he was longing for death right now was enough to confirm which was better.
His mind screamed for a while. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to live after that because his lungs and heart had already given way before the black scan began to corrode his brain.
So the sweet release of death saved him from enduring more pain. His consciousness detached from his body and was taken into the River of Time by Fenrir.
As soon as he became free, he screamed, saying, "Fuck Skarg."
He was truly very angry with the way that he died. He felt that he had been cheated with the way that he died, so he was angry at everything and everyone in the world.
He was so angry that he shouted at the top of his non-existent lungs. Unfortunately for him, there was no one to hear him in the River of Time.
The lack of an audience to his anger cooled him down somewhat, but he still ranted, saying, "What kind of death is that? I didn’t even get any chance to resist. Cursing people should be illegal."
"It is one thing for him to kill my family. It is not right, but apparently, that isn’t good enough for him. He has to use their corpse against me, too. That is just unfair."
After ranting for a long time, he calmed down a lot. So he had the presence of mind to think about the problem and how to solve it.
He said to himself, "I must find a way to deal with that curse. I can’t allow him to continue using it against me, or I’m screwed."
For the remaining time that he spent in the River of Time, he thought about many things to do to deal with the curse. At the end of the trip upstream, he came up with two solutions. The two of them are passive and active defenses that could solve the problem of the curse.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that he is not certain if either of the plans will be successful.
He could only shrug and say, "I can only try, I guess. It is just unfortunate that I won’t have the power to kill Skarg yet. If I could kill him early on, I wouldn’t have to worry about the curse so much."