Not again.
He didn’t want to feel pain anymore; pain from seeing his loved ones pass away, and even pain from seeing himself wither away like a dying flower.
He no longer sought death. Lucien’s life was turning out to be entertaining, and thus, the demon’s mysterious words struck fear deep into his heart.
"Learn from my words? He said."
"Good boy? What is up with this guy?" Lucien muttered, sprinting off to the location of the first victim of the curse.
For a commoner, his memory and intelligence were oddly maxed out. His eidetic memory permitted him to pinpoint the exact location of the individual he had locked on to. He had already visualized the entire terrain: boundaries, highlands, and buildings.
"Ok, time to use it again. I can’t let it get out of control this time." Lucien shut his eyes and called out the Demon’s name.
Following it was the thick aura that he had slowly grown accustomed to. "Ok, that’s enough," he said, trying to stop the flow of the ominous energy in him, but he seemed to have no control over it.
Eventually, the aura dissipated, and he approached a small town, the position of the victim engraved in his memory.
Before him was a small bear parlor with a small wooden gate that stood at its entrance, although it served little to no purpose. Lucien barged into the parlor, the stench of concentrated alcohol immediately hitting his nose.
The bar gave off Wild West vibes as the bartender, who happened to be the bar owner, stood at an enclosed end of the building, a small shirt tucked into his right arm as he poured a drink into a fine glass cup with his left.
’It’s him. I’m certain that was the disturbance I felt,’ Lucien thought, his heart rate ramping up the more he stared.
He hadn’t fought a cursed individual before. After all, all of them were either ill or dead, but this one felt just as healthy as he was.
"Something’s off," Lucien mumbled, retreating outside the bar. He needed some time to recollect and analyze the situation.
"What if he’s just as strong as me?" He paused, rubbing his palm on his chin. "No, he was most likely cursed by a member of the Dark Triad, and they don’t particularly seem like they prefer life over death."
As Lucien kept pondering, a shocking thought revealed itself to him. "Since Wrath exists, does that mean other demons besides the Dark Triad are roaming in the world of the living as well?"
Lucien stood up, determined to face the bartender and lift the curse. He tilted his head and left the confines of one of the abandoned buildings he had run to.
"Hi there, it seems you’re new here. A... commoner?" A voice whispered behind him. It felt so uncanny that it sent chills down Lucien’s spine. Lucien flinched, hesitant to face the source of the voice.
"What is this... malevolence?" he thought, his heart racing as he froze in place.
"Wr—," Lucien was immediately cut off as he tried calling the demon’s name.
"Whoa there. What were you trying to do? How about you visit my bar and I’ll serve you a drink or two. It’s on the house, don’t worry," the voice continued.
Lucien finally mustered the courage to turn around, and there he was: the bartender. He was awfully fast and stealthy to be an ordinary bartender.
Something was off, but Lucien still couldn’t find out what it was.
’How did this old man know what I was about to call? Perhaps my second proposition was correct, and there are more demons here.’
Lucien reluctantly followed the bartender back to his bar, trying not to engage in any physical confrontations with the man.
As they walked, the man kept smiling weirdly, occasionally looking at Lucien and sending an even larger smile. Lucien didn’t know how to respond, so he just looked away.
"What if he curses me with his smile? Who knows what he’s capable of," Lucien muttered, keeping his distance from the bartender.
"Young man, did you say anything?" The bartender asked, his head turning abruptly while his grey medium-length hair responded by covering his vision.
Lucien was startled and flinched, throwing himself away from the bartender. "No, no. You must be hearing things," Lucien replied, aware that the bartender probably heard him.
They eventually entered the bar, and the man went to his corner of the building, inviting Lucien to sit directly in front of him.
"So how’s life been treating you?" The old man said, bending to pick up a few mixtures in a hidden cabinet. He poured the wine and a white powder into the glass before sliding it over the table to Lucien.
"You’re old enough for a drink, right?" The man added, lifting a separate cup and chugging down the alcohol as though he’d been parched for a long time.
"Men your age don’t usually drink this much alcohol," Lucien replied, lifting the cup up and into his mouth.
’What was that fine powder he mixed into my drink? Was that his attempt at lacing it with a poisonous drug? Because that was pretty obvious,’ Lucien thought, the glass already midway into the air.
He looked at the bartender, and the man smiled back in his usual weird grin as he popped open another bottle and began drinking.
The glass touched Lucien’s lips, the bartender’s mouth widened, and time stopped.
Lucien rolled his eyes, unable to move his body. Everything around him seemed to be frozen in place as if time itself had stopped.
It was then that two words echoed around him in the voice of the demon that cursed him.
[Foolish...]
[Boy]
Time resumed, and the glass cup shattered; the laced liquid inside it blasted away to the bartender’s face. Lucien began levitating, the ominous aura from the demon within him spreading faster than ever.
The red and black robe from his initial awakening returned, cloaking Lucien in a grand style while his shoes simply decayed into nothingness.
"What... is this?" Lucien said, looking at his hands and body. The people drinking in the bar immediately began passing out like flies. Some ran but collapsed at the entrance.
But the bartender was different. He stood at the counter unfazed, locking his gaze on Lucien.
"I wanted you to die a painful death; I really did." The bartender unbuckled his sleeve, his partially closed eyes abruptly widening. "But it seems like your resistance has matched you with death itself."
A mysterious energy erupted from within the bartender. His body began mutating. Spikes sprouted from his spine, his face transforming into a mess with two deep black eyes and an unnaturally long tongue with saliva dripping from every inch of it.
The skin at his jaw tore, allowing his mouth to be widened even more, showcasing his numerous teeth through the tiny pieces of skin that still held the lower half of his mouth to the rest of his face.
"What a gruesome creature. I knew he wasn’t an ordinary man," Lucien stated, floating a few inches away from the man.