Chapter 390: Curse Anchor

‘Curse anchor?’ Ace repeated in confusion, as it was a new term for him, as he continued to use shadow folding to avoid Ava.

‘Think of it like the Lich’s phylactery in games. This is why my talisman considers her innate curse tool as a living entity, and also why her body can display the curse ability of her innate curse tool,’ Emi explained using the terms her Master would more likely to understand without her having to go into too much detail.

‘Fuck, there are Lichs in the ‘World of Curses?” Ace asked in fear, because all the Lich he had fought in the game were boss-level characters at minimum. He wondered if the same was true in reality. If yes, he would pray never to run into one.

‘No master, there aren’t. At least not the ones you are thinking of,’ Emi immediately regretted her choice. Trying to take a shortcut, she now opened a whole new can of worms.

…

“Do you not feel pain?” Lyra asked, as she cut Sonia’s hands for the hundredth time.

Having diced Sonia in every way possible with the intent to immobilize her without killing her, she had long learned and experienced Sonia’s incredible recovery abilities along with insane stamina and tolerance for pain. If not for her being able to share the curse energy of her Cursed incarnations, Lyra wouldn’t have lasted this long.

“I have mastered the art of working through the pain by my fifth birth,” Sonia answered with a deep voice, using her body to figure out the interval before Lyra could use the Knockback skill again. After a lot of thinking, this was the genius idea she had thought of.

“Seriously, that’s sad,” Lyra remarked as if pitying Sonia for a rough childhood, though in her mind, she was impressed by Sonia’s boastful words and was pondering whether she should use them in her comic.

“No! I have high pain tolerance, still it hurts,” Sonia revealed, taking offense to Lyra’s half-assed pity. Yes, she did not have a regular childhood, but she loved the one she had. She wouldn’t change it or trade it for anything else.

“So, why don’t you stop and come back later with a better curse tool or weapon? I will fight you as long as you promise to leave my brother and family alone,” Lyra said, trying a different approach to calm Sonia down. She had no idea what grudge Sonia and Ace had. All of her other attempts to persuade the latter failed.

Lyra did not believe, for once, that her baby bro was capable of cold-heartedly killing hundreds of people as Sonia claimed. She believed there was a misunderstanding between them. After all, Sonia seemed like a reasonable gal.

“Keep your ideas to yourself,” Sonia lashed out at Lyra, as her claws clashed with the latter’s swords nonstop, causing sparks to fly.

“Where did your siblings learn to fight? I thought you guys grew up in a regular family,” Sonia couldn’t help but ask, unable to find any opening to land even a small scratch on Lyra before she knocks her back again.

Sonia had come to realize that for someone who grew up in an average, median-income household, the Lander siblings were very well-versed in combat as if they were honing their combat skills since birth. Otherwise, considering their age, especially Ace’s age, one couldn’t achieve the level of mastery and expertise in combat like the Lander siblings displayed.

She had done her research on the two and found that both siblings had a history of being bullied. She couldn’t come to fathom why someone so skilled in the art of combat would let themselves be bullied by those weaker than them. It did not make sense unless they were not this skilled in combat arts before their awakening ceremony.

However, based on her understanding of the awakening ceremony, she also knew that though it could turn a bum into a curse master, it couldn’t turn the same bum into a combat genius overnight. It was unheard of.

Still, Sonia, who had seen her share of cartoons and movies, couldn’t help but wonder if there was something special about the Lander bloodline. Undergoing the awakening ceremony not only made them curse masters but also combat masters.

Sonia wouldn’t give this a thought this much attention if not for a movie that she had watched not too long ago. In that movie, a bullied boy who was forced to jump off the five-story-tall school terrace not only survived the fall with a concussion but also became a genius overnight. The movie talked about the savant syndrome.

Now, Sonia wondered if the Lander bloodline had the combat savant gene, which activated during their awakening ceremony. That would explain how Lyra, who would get frightened by wall crawlers, was now overwhelming her, who was trained in the art of killing since she could remember, in a combat.

A savant gene seemed like a ridiculous afterthought, but what was happening right now was also equally unbelievable. Sonia was getting her ass hand to her by someone who hadn’t held a blade before today.

Sonia wasn’t the only one who was having a difficult time; Lyra was too. She was beginning to feel that the longer she fought with Sonia, the stronger and faster the latter became. As a result, she has been using knock-back more frequently than at the beginning of the fight. Sonia was already very strong. If she were to get stronger, Lyra was worried she would have to summon her Curse tool spirit cursed incarnations to continue the fight for her.

If Lyra knew Sonia was only using partial transformation and still had full transformation, she would begin to panic, wondering if two cursed incarnations were enough to handle a fully transformed Sonia.

As for why Sonia hadn’t fully transformed? She was too proud to use it against a newborn curse user, and afraid that it would be very shameful if she failed to defeat Lyra even after using her full transformation.