"In this world, there are endless paths to the future. Uncountable opportunities could bring a person happiness, satisfaction, and eternal joy."
"These are the hidden possibilities in this world, and the one that people follow is often wrong. Allow me, Lucien Mango, to sacrifice my sacred objects to allow this young man to once again be spared from the choice of endless possibilities." Lucien softly chanted the curse under his breath, causing the blurry image of Yoze to solidify until he could see every detail.
As soon as he noticed that he could see Yoze's entire body with picture-clear clarity, he quickly dumped all his crystal energy into the marbled green clock before letting go. As soon as he let go, a strange humming sound came from all his sacred objects as they reached resonance with one another.
The humming had a strange quality that made it seem fake, like an illusion. Yet as the humming grew louder, Lucien could hear his own distorted voice hidden inside the loud humming sound.
Just as he was getting used to the sound of his own twisted voice, the humming suddenly was cut short as his sacred objects all simultaneously silently combusted into large black flames. There was no sound of a crackling fire or the smell of burning wood; it was as if the black flames didn't exist in the same plane.
The black flame quickly and easily ate away at his sacred objects as if they were made of paper. Leaving nothing behind but the tiny bits of black ash that were created regardless of the material being burned.
"Two minutes."
Noticing the speed at which his sacred objects were burning, Lucien accurately guessed he had only two minutes before his sacred objects would completely be burned into ash, and his curse would end. Understanding that he didn't have much time, he focused on the image of Yoze, which was now surrounded by black gas.
The black gas was blacker than the night sky as it absorbed all of the colors in Yoze's image. As the black gas absorbed all of Yoze's colors, it grew larger and blacker as if it was evolving into a black hole or becoming an ever-expanding black void.
In less than 30 seconds, all the color on Yoze's body was eaten up by the black gas that had become a large black cloud that hovered above Yoze's head. Even though this was only an image inside his head, and he had seen such a thing several times before, Lucien still felt his heart tighten as he could feel the immense power of the cursed cloud.
Knowing he didn't have much time left, Lucien used his imagination to shape the cursed cloud into a giant book. Even though he tried his best to fill out all the details of the book, he saw that the book's details remained blurry, as if it was purposely obstructing its own details.
With the book now formed, countless thin black pages popped in between the book's cover. The number of pages inside the book seemed endless, but that was none of Lucien's concerns. He instead focused on the countless small words being quickly written into the book using colorful ink.
Out of hundreds of thousands of pages, tens of thousands of different possibilities that Yoze could have chosen in the past, present, and future were continually written down at an ever-increasing speed. With urgency in his heart, Lucien didn't bother to look through most of the book and swiftly settled on three possibilities that would affect Yoze at this moment.
"The curse of choice is nothing but an illusion. The first possibility is that Yoze never chooses to become a martial artist. The second possibility is that he chooses not to slaughter Justice Town and instead runs away. The third possibility is that he chooses to become the student of Lucien Mango."
"There is one possibility from the past, present, and future, but which one should I apply using the curse?" Lucien clutched his head with his hands as he endured the pain coming from his brain.
Even though he had reached the level of a Cursed Witch, performing a curse-level spell was too much for the human body to handle for very long. Whether it was the witch's target or the witch themselves, they needed to be very careful throughout the whole process, or else it might result in them dying a horrible death.
As someone who had only become a Cursed Witch a decade ago, he could hold this curse for over two minutes and even choose which possibility would become true. Unfortunately, even though there were endless opportunities written in the book, not a single one of them was the possibility of Yoze dying.
Even though he found it strange, Lucien could only chalk it up to the fact that, as a demon, Yoze was so powerful that the possibility of him dying in the past or the near future was zero. Thus, it wasn't written in the book at this point. With a time limit of only two minutes and more than half of that time has passed, the book of possibilities didn't show any signs of slowing down and continued to accelerate with time.
"If I knew of his past better, I could choose the most beneficial possibility for me. But without this information, I can only play the safe option."
"The first possibility is not bad since I noticed that he has practiced martial arts and even is using it in battle. But as a demon losing his martial arts skills wouldn't do much harm."
"Without it, he would still be strong enough to slaughter everyone in the town and devour our spiritual energy within seconds." Quickly detecting the flaws of choosing the first option, Lucien focused on the next one.
"This possibility is by far the safest for us. As long as he runs away and doesn't kill anyone, this is the best thing to happen for the entire town. But...knowing that evil demon's personality after this battle, it will be too anxious and impatient for results."
"I don't know if I will be able to continue to stop it from eating the town. It's cruel that the safest choice is riddled with danger." Lucien sighed as he helplessly turned toward the last option.
This was something he accidentally discovered in the vast sea of possibilities and selected without thinking too much. He didn't think he would be forced to take this option since he didn't know what would happen to him and the town if he was forced to take a demon as a student.
What made his heart tighten was that since this possibility involved him, he would also be affected by the curse. Once the possibility is set, it can't be changed by anyone. As for what would happen, how and why this demon would choose to become his student, he didn't know. And he couldn't predict what would happen to him and the town after this possibility was resolved.
Would they prosper and finally be able to get rid of the Slug devil, or would they just have another dangerous demon breathing down their backs, waiting to strike?
With no other choice, Lucien selected the third possibility and watched as the cursed book exploded back into endless black gas that entered the image of Yoze. In seconds the image regained all of its colors and seemed to be on the verge of breaking into reality.
"Ahhh!"
Suddenly, a sharp pain ran across Lucien's brain as he screamed from the intense pain. Feeling the sensation of thousands of ants gnawing at his brain caused Lucien's eyes to turn bloodshot and blood to run down his nose.
"I can't afford to lose consciousness now. If I do, there is no guarantee that I will wake up tomorrow morning." Trembling from the pain, Lucien reached into his robe and pulled out a glass bottle that held a blue shimmering liquid.
Seeing this strange liquid, Lucien felt his nerves slightly relax as he knew he could endure the pain and stay awake. Unfortunately, just as he twisted open the bottle cap and was about to take a drink, the chandler in the room fell from the ceiling.
The loud sound of glass scattering shocked him, causing a temporary delay in his drinking of the shimmering liquid. This small delay was soon followed up with a sudden increase in pain as the number of ants eating his brain quadrupled in the very instance.
With this strange series of accidents, Lucien was helpless to find that his vision was rapidly being consumed by darkness. Just as he was about to go be consumed, the realistic image of Yoze in his mind gently smiled before opening his blood-red mouth filled with shark teeth.
As Lucien's body collapsed on the carpeted floor, the marble green clock, the wooden crying snake statue, and the bag of screaming ghost marbles all silently turned into ash. Leaving the only clue that happened that day was a circle of black ash and an unconscious Lucien.
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