Michael couldn’t visualize much in the Living Soul’s mindspace, but the few things he saw were enough for him.
Michael initially thought he was mistaken, but he realized it was reality. The faint glimmers that outlined the spark of life looked like his brother. They outlined Daniel Fang.
Michael felt like charging at his brother to embrace him tightly, but the tiger towering before the spark of life obstructed his path. The tiger was three times taller than the spark of life and seemed to expand slowly. However, it didn’t look like a monster. If anything, the Tiger looked like a mixture of an image, an absolute monster, and an existence created from comprised darkness.
Small bits of white-glowing stripes dotted the massive tiger, but most parts were shrouded in darkness. The darkness surged outward and expanded as Danny’s spark of life was consumed.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. He kicked the ground and propelled toward the massive tiger. Extraction tendrils burst out all over Michael’s body. They grew thicker and thicker until each extraction tendril was thicker than Michael’s waist. Michael knew that he would have never been able to control the power of True Extraction now that it was focused on a single point, but the mighty roar of the thing sealed within Michael seemed to aid him.
For the first time since Michael manifested Cursed Seals, it didn’t feel like they were trying to take control of him. It was almost like the Cursed Seals tried to grant him as much power as needed to defeat their common foe.
Michael didn’t care about the reason. What mattered was that he had complete control of the Cursed Seals at this moment.
The extraction tendrils whipped at the massive tiger and instantly coiled around its legs, neck, maw, and torso. Of course, the enormous tiger didn’t even think about staying idle while under attack. The darkness shrouding the massive tiger expanded explosively. The extraction tendrils were just about to be torn into shreds when the light in the mindscape was swallowed. The extraction tendrils exuded the only glimmer left in the mindscape.
Michael swallowed hard when he sensed that something eerily powerful enveloped the mindscape. However, instead of backing off or waiting to see what would happen, Michael believed that the eerie power belonged to his mother.
‘It’s her weird-ass magic circle. Calm down!’ Michael screamed at himself inwardly before pushing forward.
The Extraction tendril’s glimmers alongside Spirit Eyes’ ability to see in the dark and to see energies in every environment were all Michael needed to tell that his mother’s eerie power restrained the darkness shrouding the massive tiger. The extraction tendrils invaded the massive tiger’s body only for a massive presence to emerge out of nowhere.
The World Serpent surged out of Michael’s back and invaded the Miniature Coffin Keychain. Evalynn’s power already weakened and further restrained the Massive tiger, but the World Serpent’s presence was needed to push the tiger to the ground.
It was pinned to the ground, allowing Michael to focus on True Extraction.
The extraction of the Curse could finally start.
The thick Extraction Tendrils invaded the massive Tiger’s body. Michael didn’t extract the Curse mindlessly. Once they anchored somewhere inside the curse, he spread the Extraction tendrils into hundreds of tiny roots and branches to search for the links between the Living Soul and the Curse.
Neither the Living Soul nor the Curse was bound to a mortal body, and there was no Soultrait connecting the Curse with the Living Soul. Therefore, the crucial connection between the two parties turned out to be the spark of life, just as Michael and his mother had suspected.
Michael could remove the other threads and darkness tendrils that connected the Curse to the Living Soul, but he felt some resistance when he tried to sever the Curse’s connection to the spark of life.
But the resistance diminished as the other connections were severed. Michael removed them one by one until only the link to the spark of life remained. At this point, Michael could channel his power into a single point. The massive Extraction tendrils surged toward the final link and extracted it fragment by fragment. The connecting link resisted for a long time. It felt like hours must have passed, but it could have been minutes as well. Michael only knew that he couldn’t have come this far without the support of his Curse, the World Serpent, and…his mother.
He dismissed the thoughts that flashed through his mind and focused on the Curse. The final link connecting the Curse to the spark of life was severed.
The Curse was extracted and expelled from the Miniature Coffin Keychain. .
Michael was pulled out of the Living Soul’s mindscape a quarter of a second after the Cursed vanished. He found himself in his mother’s room, where wisps of darkness congregated. The pressure in his mother’s room was several times more intense. The darkness wisps that were about to form into a tiger were the culprits.
Evalynn was already on the move. A dozen Cursed Seals manifested all over her body. They released ominous mist, which restricted the curse from manifesting. The Curse was not in favor of this treatment. It released a terrifying roar and fought desperately against the restrictions. The circle underneath it cracked near-instantly. It would break soon. There was not much time.
Michael grit his teeth, a wave of emotions and desires sweeping through his entire body.
“I really don’t know if I can trust you…but go for it, guys…devour it!!”
The instant he gave his permission, his skin burst open. His shirt was torn apart by countless golden tendrils that burst out of the Cursed Seals. They shimmered brightly as they coiled around the Curse to restrict its movements while invading and consuming it slowly.
Simultaneously, Michael’s back cracked. It felt like his shoulder blades were shattered as something massive formed. His back burst open, releasing a fountain of blood as the gigantic head of a golden-eyed serpent shot out.
The World Serpent, a portion of its presence, to be precise, burst out of Michael’s back. It lunged toward the Curse over Michael’s head and opened its maw wide. The Essence’s head grew suddenly right before reaching the Curse…and it swallowed it.
The World Serpent’s essence snapped back into Michael’s body alongside the shimmering extraction tendrils. Meanwhile, the Curse was no more.
No. That was not true either.
Michael couldn’t tell what happened, but he recognized the Curse was dead. The World Serpent and the being inside Michael merely changed the battlefield. They released the Curse on their homeground, tore it apart when the opportunity arose, and consumed it.
He couldn’t tell whether the Curse managed to fight back or was ruthlessly torn apart, unable to resist. However, he sensed that something altered when the being inside him and the World Serpent consumed the Curse.
The first thing he noticed was that his back didn’t hurt anymore. He also stopped bleeding. But the Cursed Seals were still active…and more were being unleashed…
As the two beings inside Michael consumed the Curse, the shackles restraining the fifth Cursed Seal were tore into shreds. The fifth Cursed Seal was smaller than the rest, but it was being nourished. Something nourished it until it was as big as the other Cursed Seals.
After that, Michael gained access to a second Serpent Seal. However, it was not like the World Serpent granted Michael access to it on its own. It felt like something about his connection with the World Serpent changed. It didn’t feel like the being behind the Cursed Seals, but it was getting closer.
In the first place, Michael’s connection with the World Serpent wasn’t the only thing that altered after they consumed the Curse. Michael’s relationship with his Curse had changed as well.
It was more intense than it used to be but also more amiable. Michael could tell that the Cursed Seals were still trying to overwhelm him and dominate his body to take control. However, Michael’s understanding of the Cursed Seals and the being behind the seals augmented considerably.
His augmented understanding made it easier to control the Cursed Seals.
But did Michael want to control the Cursed Seals…or the being sealed inside him?
**
[A/N: He devoured the Curse…and acquired access to the second Serpent Seal, breaking down the shackles that restrained the fifth Cursed Seal. Will Michael be fine, or will that come back biting at him?]
.