"What the hell are you doing, mister?" Elinor asked, eyeing her unidentified ally’s bizarre actions.
They were literally standing in an ankle-high pool of blood, surrounded by a pile of corpses—yet somehow, his actions were unsettling enough to make both her and the fanatics pause.
Apex Ace glanced up, unfazed. "I’m collecting it so we can torture it together later," he lied smoothly.
In reality, he had no intention of sharing. He needed this one alive—long enough to extract the secrets of the Samsara Cult’s curse possession art or whatever trick they were using to recover the curse energy of higher-tier curse cores because of which their hosts were more sustainable and long-lasting. Instead of constantly hunting for new bodies, they could recycle their hosts’ curse cores after every battle.
And a trick like that was definitely worth figuring out. After all, every curse master struggled with curse energy recovery. Apex Ace knew he’d only get some gruesome curse arts from the Samsara Cult, but maybe his Toy Summons could repurpose them, using their universe’s knowledge. Like he did with the Body Reinforcement curse art, thanks to his Apex Earring’s Martial Master effect.
Elinor squinted, studying him. Something about the way he spoke, the way he moved—it was nagging at her, like a half-forgotten memory. Did she know him? No. She shook off the thought and refocused on her enemies—only to hear one of them suddenly bark out, "Youngest, what the hell are you waiting for?! Kill that bitch and the stickman already!"
"No!" The middle-aged man with a well-groomed beard among the four fanatics shouted. Before anyone could react, the pile of corpses lurched.
Dead hands shot out, grabbing the other three fanatics and yanking them into the mound of corpses before they could even scream.
Elinor’s blood ran cold. Without thinking, she lunged for Bartha’s corpse and retreated next to the stickman.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Apex Ace shouted, recoiling. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? Throw that thing away!"
He could understand that it had once been her friend—but did she not see the enemy just command a corpse to drag their allies into the pile?! That thing was a ticking time bomb! Who the hell knew what else the opponent could make it do?
"No. I’ll give her a proper burial—the one she deserves," Elinor said firmly, clutching Bartha’s corpse tighter. She knew their enemy could weaponize it. But it didn’t matter.
"You dumbass, that’s not your senior anymore—it’s a cursed corpse!" Apex Ace snapped, frustration lacing his voice. "Destroy it before it infects you!"
Was something wrong with her head? He couldn’t believe her stupidity and stubbornness. But at least now, he understood how the fanatics had managed to leave behind the corpses of the C.I.B. agents they’d killed. They hadn’t killed them using normal means, they’d killed them by turning them into Curse Corpses.
This meant that the "Youngest," the one the fanatics kept shouting orders at, must have the ability to transform curse users into cursed corpses.
"No," Elinor shot back, defiant. "Janice knows how to turn cursed corpses back into normal ones."
Apex Ace narrowed his eyes, realizing that instead of focusing on avenging Bartha, she was more concerned with saving her corpse for a funeral. So that her family could get closure and not be led to believe that she died so cruelly that her body evaporated.
Before Apex Ace could argue that though her idea was noble, it was dumb, a child’s voice rang out.
"Don’t worry, sister. You can keep your friend’s corpse. I promise I won’t use it... if you can help Death earn mine and my father’s souls."
Both Elinor and Apex Ace snapped their heads toward the sound.
A throne—made of corpses—slowly rose from the pile of corpses. A top it sat an eight- or nine-year-old girl, dressed in a perfectly clean red-and-white Catholic school uniform. At her side, standing like a devoted guardian, was the middle-aged man with the well-groomed beard.
If not for the grotesque throne she perched on—or the way she sat there, completely at ease, unbothered by the sight and stench of decay—Apex Ace would never have guessed that she was capable of such horror.
However, Apex Ace’s mind was elsewhere, racing with a new concern, ’How the hell had MindBug’s innate curse tool and Doctor Druid missed a sixth enemy—one that had been hiding right there, in the pile of corpses?’
But that wasn’t even the worst part. Doctor Druid’s voice echoed in his mind, laced with something close to disbelief, ’Master… she’s actually an eight-year-old curse slave.’
Apex Ace’s eyes widened as he blurted aloud in horror, "What the actual fuck?!"
The words left his mouth before he could stop them. His stomach twisted. Who in their right mind would be cruel enough to turn a kid into a curse slave?
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Up until now, he’d assumed the little girl before him was just another freak—like Evil Eyes. He had been fully prepared to kill her and move on. But now…Now, he was no longer sure.
He hadn’t signed up to kill an eight-year-old. Even though the obvious reasons to do so were glaring at him.
"What’s wrong?" Elinor asked, snapping to attention, startled by her Stickman ally’s sudden outburst.
"She’s actually an eight-year-old curse slave," Apex Ace muttered, still struggling to wrap his head around it.
Elinor went rigid listening to him. Her expression twisting in horror, she blurted out, "Shut your fucking mouth!"
She had seen the process of becoming a Curse Slave up close. A few of her mortal relatives had chosen that path, and it was gruesome. The transformation took years, pushing even the strongest adults to madness from the sheer, unrelenting agony.
And this girl before her had been put through that but she miraculously survived it—if she was eight now, that meant she had been forced into it when she was even younger. The thought alone made Elinor’s blood run cold as all of her eyes focused at the girl in terror realizing the horrors the world was capable of.