The Strongest Curse Master

Chapter 477: Who Am I?

In a dark back alley, a small girl in a worn-out, sleeveless linen frock—stained with blood and grime—slowly walked barefoot along the wall, using it for support. She looked too tired and hungry to care about the filth coating the bricks, the puddles of piss and vomit on the ground, or the trash scattered everywhere. The distant noise of a busy crowd and the bright streetlights at the end of the alley were the only things pushing her forward.

She had no idea where she was or how she had ended up here. All she remembered was waking up in a pile of garbage with no memory of who she was, a menacing pain throughout her body, a throat dry as dust, and a stomach twisting with hunger.

Just as she reached the mouth of the alley and was about to call for help, a sharp chorus of mewling and shrill cries caught her attention. She turned and spotted a tiny kitten, barely a few weeks old—its eyes still sealed shut—squealing helplessly as a fat rat dragged it toward the shadows behind a mound of trash.

The girl’s eyes widened as she looked toward the busy crowd. Not a single person stopped at the sound of the kitten’s desperate cries. She watched several of them glance briefly into the alley—at the kitten, at the rat, and even at her—before turning away and continuing on without a second thought.

The words she had been about to shout for help died in her throat. She closed her mouth, clenched her jaw, and gathered what little strength she had left. Then, with a burst of resolve, she lunged toward the rat and kicked at it. Startled by the sudden threat, the fat creature released its prize and scurried into the nearest hiding place.

With the danger gone, the girl gently scooped the tiny kitten into her arms. Holding it close, she stepped out of the alley and into the flow of people, walking tall and steady despite her exhaustion showing no weakness. Wrapped in her frail embrace, the kitten soon fell silent, its frightened cries fading into soft, fragile stillness.

As the girl approached the crowd, people immediately pulled back, parting to avoid the blood and grime smeared across her tiny frame. They gave her a wide berth, afraid she might brush against them and stain their clean clothes. She paid no attention to their stares or sharp breaths of shock. She simply kept walking, cradling the kitten against her chest, until her eyes settled on a fruit peddler.

She stopped in front of the stall, scattering the customers, who backed away in disgust. The old peddler’s face twisted with anger. He barked at her to leave, voice sharp and unforgiving. She ignored him. Instead, she reached out with steady hands, lifted a bright red fruit from the pile, and took a bite—swallowing the chunk whole, barely chewing.

The peddler erupted in fury. Snatching up a switch carved from a tree branch, he struck her across the head. The girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t raise an arm or try to run. She simply kept eating, calm and expressionless, as if the blow had never landed.

The stick cracked against her skull, breaking open an old wound. Fresh blood streamed down her face, startling the peddler into silence and draining the color from his cheeks. But the girl didn’t react to the pain. She only continued eating the fruit in her hands, slow and steady, as if nothing else in the world mattered.

The peddler, shaken by the sight of blood running down her face, hurriedly grabbed a few more fruits and shoved them into her hands, urging her to leave. But the girl didn’t budge. Instead, she tried to return the fruits, raising her other hand to point at the kitten curled against her chest, and asked for milk.

The peddler’s expression twisted even further when he looked at the tiny, blind creature in her arms. Disgust rippled across his face. He snapped at her to get away from his stall. The girl dropped the fruits at his feet and raised her voice, demanding a single word with surprising force:

"Milk."

The stubborn fire in her eyes screaming at him, either kill us or feed us, made the peddler freeze. He muttered curses under his breath, gathered his fruits into a cloth bundle, deciding to pack up and move elsewhere. Without a backward glance, he stormed off through the crowd.

The girl watched him leave and instinctively took a step after him—but a wave of weakness washed over her. Her legs trembled, her head swayed. She sank down, picking up the fallen fruits one by one before sitting against a nearby wall where fewer people passed.

People glanced at her as they walked by—some with pity, others with unease—but not one of them stopped. And so she sat there, clutching the kitten close, alone in a sea of strangers.

Leaning against the wall, the girl’s eyelids grew heavy. Her mind blurred as her exhausted body finally began to give out. She wanted to check on the kitten, to eat the fruits in her lap, but even lifting a finger felt impossible. Her strength had drained away completely.

Just as her consciousness began to slip, a gentle yet deep voice reached her—steady, warm, and reassuring.

"Young lady, would you do me the honor of becoming my disciple?"

Summoning the very last flicker of strength, she lifted her head to see the speaker. Her gaze met a pair of eyes unlike any she’d seen since waking amidst the trash heap. They held no pity, no disgust. Instead, they held respect and a quiet willingness to truly get to know her.

For the first time she could remember, she allowed herself to plead, voice trembling and faint:

"Milk... please~"

And with those words, her consciousness finally slipped away.

...

Under the cover of the night, hidden among the gray clouds, a slender silver board hovered silently in the sky. Upon it stood a toned, middle-aged woman with warm caramel-beige skin, staring intently at a distant, solitary star. She was so immersed in her focus that the world around her seemed to fade away.

Her aura suddenly swelled—surging from ocean-tier to sky-tier—as she finally grasped the elusive latent curse-sensing art she had been pursuing for what felt like a lifetime.

At that moment, a barrage of colossal missiles streaked toward her, jolting her out of her profound state. She narrowed her eyes just as the projectiles halted mid-air. Only then did she realize they weren’t missiles at all, but massive sarcophagus-shaped vessels. A heartbeat later, they dropped toward the estate she had been assigned to protect.

Before she could react, another enormous sarcophagus-like vessel—this one with mechanical limbs—burst through the clouds. It was fleeing from a swarm of monstrous silhouettes, the decayed remnants of what looked like gigantic pterosaurs.

What truly froze her breath, however, was the figure standing atop the largest of those pterosaur-like curse corpses: a naked eight-year-old child, planted firmly on its nape, leading the entire undead flock with terrifying composure.

Delores was stunned. With her newly awakened curse senses, everything became painfully clear: five void-tier curse masters were crashing Mr. Bridie’s funeral, tearing through the protective array covering the estate, while their little goth princess unleashed terror across the heavens with an entire fleet of massive pterosaur-like curse corpses.

She had only stepped away for a brief moment—just long enough to awaken her latent curse senses and seize the breakthrough she had been stuck on for a good while now. She finally felt her bottleneck loosen... and by the time she returned to awareness, everything had spiraled into chaos.

The estate was in ruins.

The Lander house was nowhere to be found, as though it had been erased from existence, wiped clean off the map, and their orchards were nothing but blazing fields of ash.

She had no idea how she was supposed to face the kid—assuming he was even still alive.