The chill on Annán’s body gradually dissipated, his skin returning to its original color.
What remained was the courtyard, frozen in the rain, and the still burning Viscount’s mansion.
Watching Annán standing motionless, staring intently at Gerald’s corpse with an expressionless face, only the flickering of flas reflected... Salvatore couldn’t help but pat his shoulder.
"Are you alright, Tan Juan?"
Seeing Annán like this, Salvatore began to feel a bit regretful.
Though Tan Juan Geraint had imnse talent, he was after all just a child. And just as Bishop Daryl had said, this was not his hatred...
Perhaps, it should have been Salvatore who acted.
"...Hmm?"
Annán lifted his head, looking sowhat bewildered at Salvatore.
Then he quickly ca to his senses.
...Ah, forgot to change expressions.
Thinking too hard made the CPU usage too high, and the application called "Overlay Acting" might have stopped responding without knowing...
So Annán slightly shook his head, his face naturally revealing a slightly serious yet resolute and strong expression, "No, I’m fine.
"I was just thinking about sothing else... don’t worry about ."
This was indeed the truth.
He had just been thinking about why he was so amazing.
Probably.
"...Alright, then it’s fine."
Although he still felt sothing might be wrong, Salvatore also realized that Annán didn’t want him to pry and wisely stopped.
Basically, Tan Juan wanted to use this opportunity to toughen his own mind.
That’s how Salvatore saw it.
After all, the Geraint family was facing a catastrophe, and the overly weak could not survive.
He could tell that Annán was very kind, rational, selfless, and upheld justice—but for a qualified noble, this was not a favorable character trait. Nor could it rescue him from catastrophe.
...But that didn’t matter.
Salvatore thought to himself.
Because he was the chosen child of this generation’s Black Tower.
All power in this world cos from curses. The Wizard’s Tower is no exception.
In fact, every Wizard’s Tower is a top-tier cursed object.
They are the most loyal cursed objects, as well as the most capricious.
Because the Wizard’s Towers have almost no cost, they only require the Tower Master to stay within the tower, providing the Tower Master with an endless lifespan... The Tower Master’s age would be locked to that year.
It is both a blessing and an imprisonnt.
—But a Wizard’s Tower will only obey a wizard who possess the greatest aptitude in a certain talent.
This ans that once a more powerful wizard enters the tower, the ownership would shift, and the previous Tower Master would be imdiately released. The more powerful wizard would beco the new Tower Master.
So Tower Masters exiled or even killed young wizards with talent to gain a false immortality. But many more Tower Masters desperately hoped soone could save them, to give them back their freedom...
The latter scenario gives rise to the "Tower’s Child." In the case of Heath Tower of Black, the full title of the Child of Black Tower is actually "Zedi Black Tower’s First Successor."
The lineage of Heath Tower of Black is of the transformation school, and Salvatore is the one with the greatest talent in the transformation school, more talented than the Tower Master of his ti. This ant that in the future, he might have a chance to beco a more powerful transformation wizard than the Tower Master... and at that ti, he would have to follow the contract and take over, releasing the forr Master of the Black Tower.
As an added part of the contract, after Salvatore advanced to silver, he would begin to enjoy lofty privileges. The higher his rank, the greater the privileges.
By then, protecting a son of an Earl would be a simple matter—
Even the King would definitely not attempt to offend the Master of the Black Tower.
Transformation wizards are the best at large-scale warfare. The Kingdom of Noah relies on these transformation wizards to defend against invasions from enemy nations... let alone the issue of internal security after offending these powerful wizards.
Transformation wizards are not as straightforward and decisive as the destruction wizards who simply target what’s wrong. But they could potentially cause a major incident at any ti...
Salvatore had already made up his mind.
As the price for taking the cursed objects and the Curse Binding, he would imdiately bring a group of elite wizards to Frostwater Harbor after advancing to silver, officially becoming the Child of the Black Tower, to protect his naive and kind friend...
Thinking this, he felt much less guilty about making Tan Juan kill soone.
"According to the agreent, I’m going to absorb his Curse Binding..." Salvatore said softly, stepping forward, "Rember to assist ."
"Okay."
Annán responded crisply.
Though he didn’t know exactly how to assist, for now, it was better to agree.
Salvatore stretched out his right hand and placed it on Gerald’s corpse.
At the edge of his palm, a blood-red fla ignited silently, quickly lting Annán’s ice.
Annán watched and suddenly noticed sothing was amiss.
...No, it seed not to be lting.
Under those strange flas, the ice was transford into black dust, hence disintegrating the frozen state.
The black smoke seed similar to a transformation created by Benjamin at so stage, yet it skipped a part of the process...
While Annan was lost in thought, Salvatore quickly lted the ice, revealing Gerald’s left hand.
Annan also watched with full concentration, intending to see how Salvatore would absorb the Curse Binding.
Salvatore reached out to pick out the bronze necklace from his collar, held it in his left hand, and placed his right hand on Gerald’s silver ring, murmuring:
"I hereby establish a Curse Binding—
"I shall inherit the oath you made, bear the curse you carried..."
After speaking, he closed his eyes and his lips moved slightly.
This was probably to guard against any players who had yet to leave.
Suddenly, the silver ring began to emit strange smoke with a hissing sound.
The silver-gray smoke stead in the rain, quickly turning into black, eel-like strands in the air, and continuously burrowed into Salvatore’s right hand. Visible black lines rose under his skin, moving like worms beneath the surface, and flowed into his left arm.
Then, they seeped out from the skin again and slowly entered the necklace in the form of silver-gray smoke.
Afterward, Salvatore suddenly released the silver ring as if electrocuted, shaking his right hand nervously in the air.
Annan noticed that the two fingers of his right hand which touched the ring had turned black and blue. They swelled as if they had been smashed with a hamr and even seed ready to bleed externally.
"Destroy him, Tan Juan!"
Salvatore imdiately shouted, "Don’t touch it with your hands!"
Without hesitation, Annan raised his bone-carving knife and chopped down.
His first cut cleanly severed the silver ring along with the finger at an angle.
The remains of the silver ring suddenly expanded and burst, emitting strange gray-black smoke, which enveloped Gerald’s corpse.
His flesh, clothing, and the ice layer outside were quickly corroded away, leaving behind nothing but a white skeleton in the blink of an eye.
"What is this?"
"This is the Curse Binding he established when advancing to silver, which neither you nor I can absorb. This isn’t sothing we can resolve."
Salvatore’s tone was surprisingly relaxed, "Don’t worry about it, just let it turn into a nightmare on its own. The difficulty of breaking it shouldn’t be too great... After all, I have already absorbed half of the curse.
"While I’m not sure what Gerald’s obsession was, I guess... it might require defeating a fully prepared Gerald in a dream. Look how frustrated he died. If it were , I would definitely resent this after death.
"—Of course, you don’t need to worry about what happens after it turns into a nightmare. This isn’t Frostwater Harbor, there’s a senior bishop stationed here, and such an incomplete curse will soon be purified. It won’t be allowed to spread."
"...There’s no rush."
Annan was struck by a thought and shook his head without saying much. He just focused on watching the nightmare take form before his eyes.
His first reaction was:
"Huh, it seems like there’s a new dungeon for the players to tackle..."
Then Annan quickly realized that this dungeon would probably be purified by Bishop Daryl soon. It wouldn’t last nearly as long as the one in Frostwater Harbor.
So regrettably, it could only appear as a ti-limited event...
If the players could clear it, that would be for the best—he could use admin privileges to view the players’ perspectives, thereby observing what happened inside the dungeon. Moreover, he had recently been considering whether to open up the live streaming feature... He could start with a test on the forums.
Even if the players couldn’t clear it, it wouldn’t matter.
After all, in a sense, erosion was a kind of pay-to-win aspect for the players. It equated directly to "Annan’s favor," and if they died too much, he could also reclaim the excess favor.
—And the endless stream of deaths could also extend the dungeon’s existence.
Apart from Bishop Daryl possibly being confused and wondering why the nightmare couldn’t be purified, it was a good thing for Annan.
After he had collected enough information from the players’ pioneering efforts, he could step in himself and reap a harvest of levels and experience!
Suddenly, Annan saw the skeleton that Gerald had turned into move slightly, struggling and shivering, stretching its head towards Annan as best it could.
Even though it was in a fantastical world, this eerie sight still startled the players, and Salvatore too.
Annan was half a beat late but then showed an expression of being scared.
—No way, where did that co from?
I almost didn’t catch it...
"An... nan..."
From the white skull’s throat, a vague and airy voice erged.
The sound was so indistinct and wheezy that others would probably have thought it to be aningless growls.
Only Annan realized that it was calling for him:
"An—nan—"
Then, as it stood up, it began to crumble from the knees, disintegrating to dust in an instant, and broke into pieces on the ground.
It was as though it had been decaying for a very long ti.
Amid the ordinary shattered bones that lost all traces of the curse, a hamr lay intact, slanted on the ground.
"This is what it looks like when a nightmare is born."
Salvatore sighed, sowhat lancholic.
He whispered, "Although the conditions for entering aren’t clear yet... without a doubt, a nightmare has been born.
"The nightmare that belongs to... Gerald."
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