Chapter 198: Bizarre Usually Spells Danger
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Chapter 198: Bizarre Usually Spells Danger
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She just needed the power to do so and now that it's in her hands, how can she let it go? How can she let this opportunity slip by? She absolutely wouldn't.
She made her wish, overlooking the possible consequences, disregarding the strangeness of such a tool and how it can exist.
Most importantly, how can anything such as this artifact come so easy?
People don't just go out looking for stones but find gold let alone if one isn't looking for stones in the first place.
Well, it's possible but extremely unlikely it can be said to be negligible. So the question remains, is this a blessing of a gift or is it something else?
The little girl didn't question nor speculate such a thing at all for the fire of vengeance was deluding her reasoning.
The opportunity for revenge came, so she grasped it and resolved to punish the tribe's people with the same suffering they inflicted upon her.
A punishment she could never forget for the scar on her back forbids such a thing from ever happening.
The burn scar that was caused by one of the people she loathes just as much as she hates the scar itself but she didn't hate the burning fire because it's her salvation.
She decided long ago that eventually, she will burn the whole tribe down to the ground leaving none alive.
It's so easy to create a monster. One just has to cause trauma so impactful it will haunt the victim for eternity, unable to escape its clutches.
The memory of that ordeal will mold what they will be, and in this case, it conceived a monster.
A monster that didn't shy away from unleashing its fury and hatred upon the world as she uttered the cold words that couldn't hide the deep burning resentment she holds within.
"I crave to have the deep and blazing fire under my command, forever subservient to me."
Those chilling words were spoken as she stared at the aged corroded lump of metal in her hands.
The artifact didn't seem to have stood the test of time as that deep dark brown rust managed to decompose several parts of it causing it to look irregular.
It looks like a broken down moon whose parts were disintegrated by time, leaving only a shadow of its former self, otherwise, the artifact is quite plain.
However, to a kid like her friend, it's too interesting. The only ones that can make metallic things in their tribe are the blacksmiths but he never saw anything like it. A bizarre shape that makes it look useless in his point of view but those signs of its age and ancientness is what attracted him and got him to take a second look at it.
He couldn't bring it back to his home. He was afraid either his parents will take it away from him or the other tribe's people will steal it away just because of his scarlet eyes.
So he had this routine where he hides the artifact back in its place after playing with it and trying to see if there is anything special about it.
However, even with how frail it looks, he found it impossible to break, nothing seemed to have even a silver of effect on it.
The damaged and rusty artifact remained strong only driving his curiosity to soar.
Until one fateful day. He was holding the artifact in his hand lost in rumination until he muttered a wish of his.
"I wish I'm strong enough to protect those who I cherish. I wish I can be strong enough to save my family from the hell we live in." The boy murmured to himself in pure sadness.
His wish came true for only a few minutes after, he noticed a change in himself.
He noticed his skin turning a bit red as he felt a sense of great power within himself, akin to a carp jumping above the sea only to become a dragon and fly high into the sky by complete accident.
He felt like he could do anything. With a step of his, the ground beneath him could shatter, a single breath of his could extinguish even the raging fire deep in hell.
At least, that's the illusion he felt and to a certain extent, he saw that it's just that, an illusion.
However, there is something that he clearly felt and sensed, something he knows it's reality.
His sense of smell, his vision, his hearing, and his every sense were magnified to an astonishing degree.
His mind was in shock due to what's happening because he never felt such a thing ever in his life, he was scared yet excited at the same time.
Something interesting about the cursed ones is the fact that in their early stage, especially, the tribe's first leader's direct descendants always had their eyes shining scarlet.
They were unable to control it at all and it remained as such for their whole lives but as generations come to be and passed, that changed.
Until the cursed ones didn't really look that cursed, most of the time, their eyes had a normal color different from that shady scarlet and devilish color.
That mostly applied to children as they were all born with normal eyes and in the first few years of their life, that remained the same.
Until it didn't anymore. the more they grew, the more that devilish scarlet dominated their eyes and then all there was and will ever be is that scarlet color they hated so much.
Just like all the adults who all have that shining scarlet in their eyes all the time, which is strange, to say the least.
That also brings several questions to be asked. Why is that? This is the most essential of questions.
Is it something natural? Unlikely. Yasuo who was in deep rumination as he was going through her memories had a viable hypothesis.
'The most likely reason is probably the simplest one, their emotions and the existence of the kurta clan only goes to prove that.
The abuse they go through and all the traumas they can never forget cause such phenomena to happen.
Similarly, the kurta clan can trigger the scarlet eyes if a strong emotional impact was produced, just like how Kurapica can trigger it whenever he wants by simply thinking of the kurta massacre.
I, on the other hand, all I had to do is think of my research, specifically, the most impactful moments where I was so happy and excited that my emotions almost went out of hand. And that's how I used to activate my scarlet eyes until recently where my control reaches such a level I can simply control the scarlet eyes to appear, they however didn't have that luxury.'
After a while of contemplation, Yasuo continued surfing through the old granny's dark memories while noting another interesting thing.
While under the scarlet condition, the cursed ones did indeed have an increase in their physical strength but it appears to be minuscule in comparison to Kurapicas and the other kurta clans' members.
Not just that, it appears to be too small even for the adults when comparing them to the other known scarlet eyes holders.
'Perhaps, as time passed, the scarlet eyes continued to evolve and become stronger as well as more efficient.'
Thought Yasuo with his eyes glittering as he dived deeper into her memories and watched as the boy excitedly went to visit the girl and hid nothing from her... Naive indeed.
His kindness and trust weren't reciprocated in the least. His personality was vastly different from hers leading to different thought processes.
Despite his hatred towards the tribe's people, he had never desired to kill anyone. He just wanted to protect those he cherishes.
In comparison, the girl cared for none and wanted to extinguish the lives of every one of the tribe.
She dearly desired to see the tribe burned to the ground and that's exactly what she did.
She started by studying her ability a bit and making more wishes to no avail, nothing seemed to happen anymore but the two kids noticed a change in the artifact.
They noticed that when they made the wish, the rust that was already consuming the artifact spread even more and almost instantly consumed the whole thing.
On top of that, even more parts of the rusty metallic ball decomposed leaving nothing but a mere shadow of its former self.
A ball, it was no more. All that was left is what looks like a half-moon-shaped rusty object.
The boy noticed first then followed by the girl as she made her wish but they could no longer make a wish as if one wish is the limit for each person.
So the girl hid the artifact from even the boy and buried it deep into the ground before placing some security measures using her ability.
She did that only after studying her ability to a satisfying degree and knew how it operates, driving her to regret making the wish so thoughtlessly for her hatred blinded her.
Nevertheless, she was satisfied with her ability but she was planning on making use of the artifact to become even stronger, perhaps by using other people to make wishes for her.
Her ability can't create fire from nowhere, there needs to be fire for her to control it and it needs to be within a certain distance from her and only then can she commanded it.
Perhaps the ability will become much stronger but at that point in time, she had to do with only commanding fire about 100 meters from her.
That was more than enough as she ignited a small negligible fire in the extensive expanse of the forest and commanded it to spread towards the tribe.
The wildfire raging with hatred roared and shone blazingly in the middle of the darkest of nighest.
A magnificent spectacle is what it was to the frenzied girl but to the people of the tribe, it was as if the devil had unleashed his wrath and rained endless hellfire on them, leaving them in despair and pure terror.
Their fright and hopelessness only served to make her laugh more and more... Louder and louder, franticly so.
She laughed and laughed, perhaps she laughed too much for hints of craziness quickly overshadowed her face, leaving but a shadow of her former self. A familiar sentence... Isn't it?