Night in the capital of Gimle was never truly hospitable to travelers from the north.
In a section of the palace’s western wing reserved for the House of Silver delegation, the air inside a certain chamber felt much colder than usual—not because of the winter weather, but due to the remnants of alien energy creeping behind the wooden walls.
Sir Raymond, the border knight renowned for his toughness and ferocity on the battlefield, suddenly jolted awake from his sleep with a gasping breath.
He blinked, feeling an extraordinarily intense burning sensation deep within his chest.
It felt as though thousands of invisible needles were forcing their way in, slowly tearing his respiratory organs from within.
Cough!
Sir Raymond coughed violently.
Dark, blackened fresh blood spurted from between his lips, staining the white blanket of his bed.
In the corner of the room, several other knight bodyguards still appeared to be asleep in a state of feigned paralysis, though their brows were furrowed with cold sweat and their breathing grew increasingly labored.
What kind of magic is this…?
Raymond thought, his consciousness beginning to blur.
Instead of reaching for his weapon, with the remnants of his remaining strength, Sir Raymond clenched both fists over the bed and released a wave of spirit observation aura throughout every corner of the room.
He attempted to scan every inch of the space to locate the source of the mana anomaly or the enemy’s magical traces.
Yet, there was nothing.
His perception wave detected nothing save for the cold, empty air.
The cursed talisman had been planted directly without using long-distance transmission, blending so seamlessly with the building’s structure and perfectly shielded from the knights’ scouting magic detection.
Without them realizing it, right beneath a pillar inside the room, the roots of the cursed talisman—a vile fusion of ancient demonic sigils and shamanic magic planted physically by Julian’s bodyguard the previous day—pulsed softly.
The talisman continuously channeled a lethal spiritual poison that eroded the physical endurance of the well-trained knights of the House of Silver without leaving behind a single trace of traceable energy.
Far from the lodging, concealed behind cold stone walls in the basement of the House of Vallière faction’s residence, an act of brutal ritual was reaching its climax.
Inside a completely pitch-black room, illuminated only by the greenish-red flames of a bronze bowl, an old shaman hooded in pitch-black robes sat cross-legged on the stone floor.
Before him, an emergency altar was littered with disgusting and taboo offerings the head of a black goat with white eyes, cups filled with fresh game blood that still reeked heavily of iron, a scattering of rotting withered flowers, and bone powder billowing poisonous smoke.
The shaman burned various types of incense smelling of carcasses and black frankincense, making the air in the room feel stifling and heavy.
His toothless mouth muttered in a hoarse, ancient demonic tongue, echoing and bouncing off the damp walls.
Every time he slashed his own palm with a 6-curved serpentine ritual dagger and let his blood drip onto the goat’s head, a gruesome smile formed beneath his hood.
At the end of the chant, his mind connected directly via an invisible spiritual bond straight to the northern knights’ lodging in the center of the city.
He could feel the throbbing pain, the gasping breaths, and the vomiting of blood from Sir Raymond’s body as it slowly withered under the influence of his demonic sigil curse.
In a separate room within the lodging, inside a warm cradle lined with thick animal fur, Aiden opened his clear eyes.
As a 40-year-old Pantheon veteran who had been through thousands of battlefields, his senses and intuition immediately screamed the moment he felt the unnatural, foreign energy wave creeping through the air.
Something is terribly wrong…
Aiden thought to himself, his tiny brow furrowed sharply as he felt the bone-chilling cold.
Though in this infant form he lacked the full capacity to read types of magic or accurately trace the origin of the curse, his combat instincts—honed over decades—instantly detected a real threat.
A filthy, dense murderous intent was enveloping the resting place of the northern knights.
The girl woke up and immediately sensed the strange, suddenly chilling atmosphere in the lodging.
“Aiden? What is it, sweetie?” she whispered anxiously, adjusting the blanket while hugging Aiden—who was a little over two years old—tightly to protect him from the cold.
Aiden looked up at his sister with a gaze far calmer than that of an average infant, then directed his eyes toward the wall of the adjacent room.
Even though he did not yet know for sure what kind of danger was approaching—while their mother, Freya, slept soundly in the master bedroom—one thing was certain: their enemies in the capital had begun to make their move, and the game had just begun.
Suddenly, the silence of the night in the lodging was broken by a heavy, gasping cough from the next room.
Cough!
Hearing the familiar sound of pain, Elena gasped.
Without wasting any time, she scooped Aiden into her embrace and ran out toward Sir Raymond’s resting chamber.
At the same time, the master bedroom door swung wide open.
Freya, their mother—a grand mage of Mage Circle 7—stepped out with sharp eyes that immediately scanned the mana fluctuations around them.
As soon as they set foot inside Sir Raymond’s room, the reek of blood and the scent of death instantly assailed their noses.
The border knight lay limp on the bed with traces of blackened blood at the corners of his lips, while his spirit observation aura appeared extinguished due to his fading consciousness.
On the rows of neat beds in the room, the other bodyguard knights appeared fast asleep in stiff postures, trapped under the influence of a thick silencing spell that locked their consciousness so they could not wake up despite the commotion nearby.
Seeing this, Freya stepped forward gracefully.
She raised her palm into the air, then chanted a high-tier holy spell.
Instantly, a massive golden-white magic circle materialized and spun in her palm, radiating a warm glow of light that slowly swept across every corner of the room to neutralize the silencing spell binding the soldiers.
Nevertheless, the curse and silencing spell cast by the shaman possessed an exceedingly powerful grip.
Freya had to maintain her concentration strictly; it took about five full minutes for the holy magic circle to truly erode and shatter the dark magic’s influence from the knights’ minds.
Once those five minutes passed and the golden glow dimmed, the knights finally jolted awake from their respective beds.
They blinked with ragged breaths and heads still feeling quite dizzy.
However, panic immediately crept in once their consciousness fully recovered.
The knights stared in horror as they found their commander, Sir Raymond—who occupied the main bed in the barracks—lying weak with black blood smeared across his chin and blanket.
”Commander?!” shouted one of the knights with a trembling voice full of worry, attempting to spring up from his bed, though their bodies still felt quite weak from the lingering effects of the curse poison.
Freya immediately approached with decisive movements, wasting no time.
She refocused her attention, placing her palm directly over Sir Raymond’s chest to chant a high-tier scanning spell.
A warm golden light enveloped the knight’s body, piercing through layers of muscle down to his internal organs.
Within seconds, Freya’s eyes narrowed sharply, radiating restrained anger.
”This is no ordinary poison…” Freya whispered coldly, channeling Grade 7 healing mana waves to stem the rate of damage to Raymond’s organs.
“This is a talisman curse—a vile fusion of ancient demonic sigils and shamanic ritual magic planted directly into the foundations of this building.”
Hearing her mother’s words, Aiden in Elena’s embrace narrowed his small eyes.
So my guess was right…
the enemy has planted that curse right under our noses.
Freya swept her gaze across the room with a furrowed brow. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Although she was a brilliant Circle 7 mage skilled in healing and mana purification, the demonic sigil-based curse magic and shamanic rituals tightly hidden within the building’s wooden structure possessed complex camouflage methods.
Without specialized tracking tools or inquisitorial expertise from the church, she could not detect the exact coordinate point where the talisman was hidden without destroying the entire structure of the building.
”Damn it…” Freya muttered softly.
She needed a specialist who understood dark artifacts and heretical traces.
Without wasting any time, Freya turned toward the two border knights who had just recovered from the silencing spell.
”You two, listen closely to my orders,” Freya spoke in an absolute tone that left no room for argument.
“Find a Holy Inquisitor this very night. Bring him here to help us track down this cursed talisman point and figure out how to destroy it.”
”Understood, Lady Freya!” the two knights exclaimed in unison.
Though their bodies were still somewhat stiff, they wasted no time; the two border knights commanded by Freya donned their battle cloaks and slipped out into the freezing night of the capital of Gimle.
Their destination was clear the Main Cathedral of the Goddess of Light, one of the holy sites in the city that at least maintained ties with the inquisitors.
However, finding a secret inquisitor in the vast capital in the middle of the night was no simple task.
As soon as they arrived at the towering, majestic cathedral gates, trouble immediately arose.
The church guards, standing rigidly in white armor, barred them from entering.
”The cathedral is closed to the public during curfew.
Return when the sun rises unless you carry an emergency decree from high-ranking nobility,” the guard stated in a flat tone.
Even after the House of Silver emblem was shown, the cathedral guard remained unyielding behind the sturdy gates.
The border knight nearly lost his patience, until he leaned forward and whispered a crucial piece of intelligence that instantly altered the atmosphere: a “cursed talisman attack,” a vile creation by a shaman combining ancient demonic sigils to incapacitate their commander.
Hearing those words, the remaining traces of doubt vanished from the old priest’s eyes.
His face tightened stiffly, realizing that the problem brought by these northern envoys was not merely a political dispute or ordinary noble business, but rather a pure heretical threat falling under the shadow jurisdiction of the church.
Inside one of the cathedral rooms illuminated solely by the dim glow of candles, the air suddenly turned bone-chillingly cold.
The old priest swiftly closed the heavy wooden door tightly so that the commotion from outside was completely muffled, then turned to gaze at the two northern knights with sharp, probing eyes.
”Tell me in detail what you encountered at your lodging,” the priest commanded in a whispered yet sharp tone.
Without wasting any time, the first knight recounted the chilling events of that night.
“Our commander, Sir Raymond, suddenly woke up and vomited thick, blackened blood. Meanwhile, all the bodyguard knights were trapped in a silencing spell that locked their consciousness, leaving them fast asleep and helpless despite the chaos around them. Lady Freya immediately detected a foreign energy anomaly, and from our investigation, the curse originates from a cursed talisman hidden secretly within the building’s structure.”
The old priest listened intently, his expression hardening further with every mention of a shaman and demonic sigils.
Once the explanation concluded, he wasted no time.
He strode quickly toward the corner of the room, tapped a specially patterned stone wall three times, and whispered instructions to a young priest standing guard near the secret altar.
”Go to the third-level basement.
Tell the Holy Inquisitor that heretical stains and demonic thorns have clawed at the House of Silver in the capital,” the priest whispered with emphasis.
“Tell him, the prey he has been hunting has left a trail of blood.”
The young priest nodded rigidly without a sound, then hurried down the hidden spiral staircase penetrating deeper into the bowels of the earth toward the resting quarters of the members of the God-Punishing Troops.