Free Web NovelChapter 9: 09: A Curse (3)
He understood the situation now. The Vardros family had fallen because the manager betrayed them from inside. He had helped enemies enter, killed or helped kill the head of the house, and now wanted to take Jenny as his wife while delivering Jake to whoever ordered the attack. It was a simple betrayal. Mortal betrayals were usually like that. Small greed, small ambition, ugly desire, and a lot of dead bodies.
Lucard felt no personal anger for House Vardros.
He was not truly their brother.
He was not truly their son.
He was the Blood God Lucard, a being who once looked down at universes like toys. These mortals were not his concern. Jenny and Jake belonged to the previous owner’s life, not his. Right now, he is weak. If he interfered and failed, he could die before his revenge even began. A god who had survived Null should not throw away his second life because of a dead boy’s emotions.
Lucard slowly stepped back.
"I have no business with them," he thought. "Let fate decide. I am weak right now. I cannot interfere."
The moment he decided to leave, pain struck his heart.
It was sudden and violent.
Lucard’s eyes widened, and his hand grabbed his chest. It felt as if something had wrapped around his heart and squeezed it with cruel fingers. Then a sharp needle-like pain stabbed into him from inside. His breath stopped for a moment. His knees almost bent. The pain was not normal. It was not from injury. It was not from poison. It came from the blood itself.
"What is this?" Lucard whispered through clenched teeth.
The answer rose from the body before his mind could search for it.
It was the previous owner’s feeling.
The attachment of the dead Lucard Vardros had not disappeared. It was buried in the blood, heart, and body. The old owner had been weak, humiliated, and useless in many ways, but his feelings for Jenny and Jake had been real. He had stayed behind to buy them time. He had died believing they might escape. That final wish had soaked into the blood of this body.
If Lucard left them to die now, the body would reject him.
Not fully. Not enough to kill him. But enough to make his heart hurt again and again. It was not a spell cast by someone else. It was not a curse placed by a mage. It was a blood curse born from the dying wish of the body’s true owner.
Lucard knew this kind of curse very well.
A heart curse of the blood.
It was rare, but not impossible. When a person died with strong enough attachment, hatred, love, or regret, and another soul entered the body before those emotions faded, the remaining blood could form a curse. The curse would force the new soul to face the old owner’s unfinished attachment. It could be ignored for a time, but the price would be pain, weakness, and rejection from the vessel.
Lucard’s face darkened.
"This brat," he muttered. "Even dead, you dare to bargain with me?"
The pain tightened again, as if the body was answering him.
Lucard’s expression became colder and colder. He wanted to laugh, but the pain in his chest was too irritating. He had fallen from godhood, lost his divinity, lost the Abyss artifact, been betrayed by his blood race, and reincarnated into a weak mortal body. Now this dead bastard boy had left him a heart curse too. If bad luck had a throne, Lucard was certain he had been invited to sit on it today.
He looked back toward the clearing.
Jenny stood in front of Jake, ready to die before letting Jeff touch her. Jake was crying but still asking for a blade. Peter was barely standing, yet he had not abandoned them. Jeff and the hired killers were getting ready to attack again.
Lucard exhaled slowly.
There was no way around it.
Until he reached godhood again, he could not simply erase this blood curse. He needed this body. If the body rejected him during battle, during escape, or during absorption, he could die because of one sudden heart pain. That would be too stupid. The Blood God dying because his borrowed heart had family feelings would be an insult so big that even the dead Fire God might laugh from whatever nothingness he had been erased into.
So he had to save them.
Not because he cared.
Not because he had become kind.
Not because he accepted them as family. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
He had to save them because this body demanded it, and because Lucard refused to be controlled by pain forever.
He tightened his grip around the dagger and looked at the five enemies carefully.
Jeff was not the biggest problem. He looked like a greedy coward with some basic training, but he did not carry himself like a strong fighter. The two axe wielder had strength, but his movements were heavy. The spear man had reached and would be dangerous if Lucard approached directly. The curved blade user moved lightly, probably the fastest among them. The mage was the true problem. Even a weak mage could be troublesome if allowed to cast from a distance.
Peter was injured, but he could still hold their attention for a little while.
Jenny and Jake were behind him. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Lucard was hidden.
That was enough.
A direct fight would be stupid. A hidden kill would be better.
Lucard touched the ground with his free hand and felt the blood around the clearing. There was blood on the dirt from Peter’s wounds, blood from dead guards nearby, blood on the weapons of the hired men, and blood inside every living body in front of him. His Blood Absorption was still weak, so he could not pull all their blood from a distance. But he could feel it. He could sense the rhythm of it, the warmth of it, the fear inside it.
His eyes moved to the corpse of a dead Vardros guard near the clearing. A short sword lay beside the body.
Lucard smiled faintly.
