Chapter 512: The Curse Within
Imperial Camp…
Late that moonlit night, most soldiers had already fallen asleep, preparing to march out again soon.
Despite the camp’s massive size, it remained eerily quiet. The only sources of light were scattered campfires. The only ones awake were the unlucky soldiers assigned to patrol duty, in case something unexpected occurred.
Deep within the camp, there was a simple cell ..
A temporary prison, holding one specific individual.
The man whose name had become the talk of every mouth.
He was the hero of the war, and because of that, no one dared overstep their bounds with him.
Since being locked up in that cell, he had only spoken to a few high-ranking officers who came by occasionally to question him—hoping to understand his motives.
Lord Starlight’s behavior had baffled many.
No one could say for certain whether he was a hero… or a monster.
The answer remained unclear.
But so far, he had remained quiet ..
And that, at least, had given them some comfort.
Which is why only a single guard had been assigned to watch over him.
And even that guard… had dozed off that night.
It was a calm, silent night.
But inside that prison cell… things were anything but peaceful.
There, in that dark and desolate space—his violet Aura blazed violently, crackling with bursts of purple lightning.
Frey, eyes shut tight, was doing everything he could to suppress it.
But the longer he tried, the worse it got.
His power raged .. shattering the floor beneath him and obliterating everything nearby.
Realizing he was still losing control despite all his efforts, Frey clenched his teeth in fury.
“What the hell is happening to this cursed body?!”
A thick black substance began to creep beneath his skin. His eyes glowed with violent intensity, and his Aura looked ready to explode at any second.
Beside his ears, strange voices began to whisper .. demanding he return what he had taken from them.
“Return it. It belongs to me.”
“Return it.”
“Give it back.”
Forced to endure the violent surge of his power, the crushing headache from trying to suppress it ..
And now those eerie voices whispering right beside his ear ..
Frey finally snapped.
Veins bulged like writhing worms across his body as he let out a furious roar so loud, the guard outside jolted awake in panic.
“Give it back?! The only thing I’ll give you is my dick!”
The moment his furious scream shook the cell, the guard burst in ..finally reacting to the chaos.
“What the hell is going on in—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Frey knocked him out cold with a single strike.
His power was now completely out of control.
He had no choice but to move.
“If my Aura explodes here… they’ll all die.”
Frey’s Aura wasn’t a joke…
It was the only stat of his that had reached SSS rank.
It was impossible to predict the destructive range of such an overwhelming force.
That’s why he gathered his strength into his legs ..
And leapt, blasting through the roof and soaring away from the camp as far as possible.
His steps were so fast, they were nearly invisible to the naked eye.
But his surging Aura betrayed his position ..
He looked like a violet meteor tearing through the sky, destroying everything in his path.
Crackling lightning danced around him like serpents escaping their den…
Frey barely kept it under control ..
Until he finally collapsed in a distant mountainous region.
Unconsciously, he had crossed dozens of kilometers away from the camp.
Now lying among the jagged rocks and towering peaks, his Aura erupted with even greater fury, destroying everything around him.
The whispers grew louder by the second.
The black substance crawling beneath his skin burned like molten lava injected straight into his veins.
He no longer had the mental strength to even open his system ..
His entire focus was devoted to holding back the madness.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Collapsed to the ground, consumed by chaos ..
Frey had become a violet sun lighting up the entire mountain range.
“As if dealing with all those bastard enemies wasn’t enough…
Now I have to fight myself too?!”
He rose again—his body glowing relentlessly.
Frey took a deep breath, pulling out Nameless’s mask and placing it over his face.
“I didn’t come all this way just to be messed with like this.”
And the moment he put it on ..
It was as if a spell had been cast over him.
His mind stilled.
Like a raging sea whose waves had been crushed by force,
He returned to stillness. To focus.
Opening both arms wide ..
He embraced his power once more, and dragged it back in by force.
“Just who do you think I am?”
Resisting the pain.
Confronting whatever had invaded his body ..
Frey’s power ignited with even greater fury.
It was a breathtaking display of raw might.
The very strength he had spent years building…
Even if it tried to escape, it could never defy him.
“Don’t think for even a second that you’ll bring me down that easily.”
Bit by bit, the frenzy subsided… and Frey finally began to regain control.
He had demonstrated incredible growth and composure ..staying centered even in the face of the unknown, even when his own body threatened to betray him. He neither panicked nor lost his grip for a moment.
It took him a full hour to stabilize, but in the end… he collapsed onto the cold ground, gasping for air.
“Finally… that cursed voice is gone.”
The damn thing had tormented him until the very end .so much that Frey had been tempted to rip out his ears just to make it stop.
But the screaming had echoed inside his mind… so there was no escape.
Sitting on the frozen earth with his knees pulled close, Frey let out an irritated sigh.
“What kind of disaster landed on my head this time…?”
It had come out of nowhere ..no warnings, no signs.
This was the first time his own body had refused to obey him.
He cast a glance at the very body he’d shattered and rebuilt over and over again—until it had become this.
A body forged like steel to perfection… the vessel that made him something beyond human.
And now it wanted to betray him?
Frey was confused, and in hopes of dispelling that ignorance ..of finding some clue to this new dilemma ..there was only one thing he could turn to: the system that had been with him since the beginning.
He was about to open the interface when he froze ..hand suspended mid-air—as a voice he hadn’t expected to hear again anytime soon interrupted.
“Seems my intervention wasn’t necessary after all. You handled it better than I expected.”
That cold, cryptic voice ..the one that had haunted Frey’s nightmares.
Despite his sharpened senses, Frey hadn’t felt his presence at all.
Lowering his hand slowly, Frey narrowed his violet eyes and turned toward the figure who had appeared here, among the mountain’s desolation.
Leaning casually against one of the massive boulders, wearing his tattered black cloak, the man hadn’t changed at all.
Only his eyes… those radiant, piercing blue eyes—like lamps piercing through the darkness—shone through his obscured features.
Blue eyes that now reflected their glow against Frey’s violet ones.
Frey stood up, facing him directly.
“As usual, you only show up when you feel like it.”