Then he shrugged and said, "It is your choice. We can go the long, but expensive route, or the cheap, but short route."
After getting the explanation for why the duration of the curse would cost money, he understood why the death cultivator had said that he would need to pay more, so he had no need to complain anymore.
What he had to do now was to decide how long he wanted the curse to last. In order to decide, he asked, saying, "I need the curse to be running before I can find the person I want, right?"
The death cultivator nodded and said, "Right."
This answer helped Skarg decide. He immediately said, "Then go ahead and take however long you need."
So the death cultivator said, "Understood."
Then he went over to light the black candle. He used another Metac for this job, not some ordinary matchstick.
The Metac that he used was the Death Flame Metac. This was why the flame on the black candle was white. It was white, sickly, and pale flame from which the faces of ghosts in agony could be seen from time to time.
As the white ghostly flame burned the human hair wick, the black wax that made up the bulk of the candle began to melt. But the wax didn’t melt down the candlestick or pool at the bottom. The wax simply evaporated into the air.
This lack of a visible trail of melted wax made it difficult to tell if the wax was actually melting. However, a close look at the candle would reveal that it was becoming shorter by the moment.
There were also the screams of slaves coming from everywhere on the farm. The slaves were falling to the ground in pain as a white, ghostly flame burned their bodies. This signified that the curse was working.
The white death flame spread all over the world to everyone directly related to the corpses that had been buried in the mass grave. Not everyone related to the corpses was burned, though. Only their closest relatives were attacked by the curse.
As the white fire burned the slaves, their bodies melted like wax and turned into sludge. They writhed all over the floor and screamed in pain. But shouting did nothing to help them.
It was as if they were the ones being burned on the white Curse Altar. By the time the white flame was done with them, what was left behind were pristine white bones.
Over time, more and more slaves succumbed to the curse. This created a feedback to the original black candle that strengthened the death flame burning on top of it.
The white flame became bigger and thicker. It was turning from intangible fire into something thick and tangible like white wool. This also made the screaming ghostly faces in the flame clearer and more permanent. All of these signs indicated that the curse was getting stronger.
As the curse got stronger, it began to affect stronger people related to the corpse. Skarg couldn’t tell if the curse was affecting Loki wherever Loki was, but he was sure that it was affecting him.
He didn’t want to believe it at first. He thought that it was just a slight bout of itching.
But the itching got worse, and a white flame appeared all over his body. At this point, he couldn’t deny that he had been affected by the curse.
So he shouted in anger at the death cultivator, saying, "What happened? Are you trying to kill me?"
The death cultivator rolled his eyes and said, "What do you mean by ’what happened?’ Isn’t it clear that you are related to one of the bodies that was buried here?"
Then he said with indignation, "I should be the one asking the questions here. I should ask how come you’re related to the people buried here?"
He was indignant, but he didn’t dare to waste time talking. He quickly went over to Skarg to remove the curse from him in order to avoid the suspicion that he was trying to kill Skarg.
He placed his hand on Skarg’s body and let the Curse Worm come out through the palm of his hand. The Curse Worm split his palm to create an opening for it peek out from. Then it began sucking the white flames from Skarg’s body.
As he did this, the death cultivator said, "Didn’t I warn you that this could implicate your family? This kind of widespread curse is not a good idea. We can curse someone we never intended to curse this way."
"Are you sure that there is no one else in your family somewhere else? If they are, you should check up on them as soon as possible to make sure that the curse didn’t reach them."
Skarg shook his head and said, "There is no one else. This is all of us."
"As for why the curse affected me, it is not important. Just remove this curse from me."
The reason the curse affected him is that some female slaves whom he raped when he was young were buried here. They were killed when it was discovered that they were pregnant with his child. Then their bodies were dumped here.
He doesn’t want to say why the curse affected him because he truly doesn’t think it is important, not because he is ashamed to say it. In fact, he has forgotten about it because the event was so unremarkable to him.
If the curse hadn’t affected him, he wouldn’t have remembered that he impregnated some slaves a long time ago. Those slaves and their unborn children would have remained a forgotten and fleeting past.
Since he didn’t want to say why the curse affected him, the death cultivator didn’t ask. He only continued to do his work diligently, not nosing around in matters that he wasn’t paid to concern himself with.
Due to his diligence, the white flame on Skarg’s body quickly receded until it became faint. This caused the pain in his body to reduce considerably, too.
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A/N: Please, don’t forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets. Thank you.