The Cursed ones

Chapter seven

Vandal was stunned.

Delicious…

“Huh??”

He could feel his eye actively feeding on the Mawrot essence, growing stronger with every drop. Something that was meant to kill him was instead nourishing the entity inside his eye. In his mind, he saw it clearly: a black hole surrounded by swirling darkness.

Moreee…

The black hole vibrated greedily as it devoured the sickly goo that was supposed to rot Vandal from the inside out.

“Who are you?” Vandal asked the black hole, but received no reply.

“I guess I’ll take this opportunity to observe the changes in my body then.”

Vandal had no idea how he was even able to be here, in this strange inner space connected to his eye. But the moment he tried to visualize the inside of his body, a shocking scene appeared before him.

“My cells… they’re full of life. The rotten flesh is recovering automatically…”

Vandal felt a surge of ecstasy, yet his physical face remained calm and serene, as peaceful as a still lake, as if he were deep in sleep.

---

“That bastard finally passed out from the whipping I gave him,” Emeka muttered to himself, clearly amused.

He had flogged Vandal mercilessly while the boy struggled and bit his lips bloody to hold back his screams. That defiance had only pissed Emeka off more, so he had applied even greater force. Now Vandal’s back and torso looked like a human zebra, covered in raw, bloody stripes.

In his scattered memories, Vandal recalled stories of people with ocular resonance who gained special powers that set them apart from ordinary Echo warriors.

“But I’ve never heard of anyone with a sentient eye… or eyes of resonance. What kind of eye is this?”

Meanwhile, inside his inner vision, Vandal continued monitoring the rapid changes happening in his body.

Every time the Mawrot essence destroyed his tissues and organs, he felt every inch of the pain, the destruction happening within him, but the process repeated: the damaged parts recovered within moments, the pain reduced, then vanished, and the poison steadily diminished as it was absorbed into his eye.

---

The next morning, before sunrise, with a thick layer of fog blanketing the camp, the Seven Cloud Clan had assembled thirteen of their Echo warriors out of the twenty clan members present.

“Today we hunt down the fool who dared to take my son,” Kennedy declared solemnly, his bladed staff gripped tightly in his hand. He tapped the butt of the staff on the ground for emphasis.

“We are the Seven Cloud Clan. No debt goes unpaid!”

“No debt goes unpaid!” the warriors echoed in unison.

Satisfied, Kennedy turned and strode toward the prisoner area, anticipation burning in his eyes.

“By now that boy should have turned into a child-like berserker,” he thought, walking faster.

“Emeka! What’s the status?” he called out. “Did he nearly break his chains? That’s why I told you to double-bind him.”

But when he arrived, everything was calm.

Vandal appeared to be sleeping peacefully, even snoring softly. Emeka stood beside him, looking just as confused.

“Boss, I don’t know what’s happening,” Emeka said. “I thought he would go violent. I was ready to use every method to restrain him… but he hasn’t even tried to break the chains.”

“What? That’s not normal,” Kennedy muttered.

He studied Vandal’s face carefully. Instead of looking sickly and pale, the boy appeared healthy, with a rosy glow on his cheeks. He didn’t look like he was in any pain at all.

“Could it be that because he has so much resonance energy, it’s taking longer for my poison to take effect?” Kennedy wondered.

“I need to use him today…” he decided. “Emeka, go bring four more bowls of Mawrot essence. We’re increasing the dosage.”

“Yes, boss.”

Emeka returned quickly with four bowls of the thick, sticky liquid.

Kennedy tilted the first bowl and poured it straight into Vandal’s mouth.

*Damn it! This old wicked man really wants to poison me to death!* Vandal screamed internally, forced to continue pretending to be asleep while swallowing another mouthful of the vile liquid.

The liquid melted the lining of his organs. Every muscle twisted in decay. He gasped — the pain was so intense it felt like his intestines were being torn out of his body. The virulent poison attempted to reach his brain.

Once again, his eye went to work, greedily feasting on every drop of poison as it entered his bloodstream. Then it released a strange energy that healed him, restoring his damaged organs to full health, but at a slower pace this time, almost as if it was reluctant to keep healing him with its energy.

Kennedy waited, but still saw no changes.

“What is going on…” he growled, frowning deeply.

“I refuse to believe my unique poison has lost its potency,” Kennedy said in a low, dangerous voice.

He poured the third bowl down Vandal’s throat and watched it slide down.

This time Vandal turned pale. His body lost its vitality and green veins formed around his neck and arms.

“Aaaah! Ahhhhh!” Vandal screamed, struggling violently against his chains.

“Yesss, this is it,” Kennedy said with a triumphant smile.

But then, as quickly as the transformation started, it halted abruptly and Vandal’s body swiftly returned to normal. The veins vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Vandal came back to his senses and quickly pretended to collapse.

Kennedy’s smile lost its shine in that moment.

“What the hell is going on?!”

“Boss… maybe the poison has lost its—” Emeka began cautiously.

“Shut up!” Kennedy snapped coldly. “My poison is extremely dangerous and unique. Many people, even Echo warriors, have died from it. Would you like me to test it on you instead?”

Emeka fell silent immediately.

“I will check what’s going on myself,” Kennedy said.

*Oh no, what if he finds out what’s going on inside my body? He can’t find out, and my resistance is not as powerful as I thought. I nearly turned into a corpse a while ago,* Vandal thought. He wished he could break free and stop the old man from touching him, but it was too late.

Kennedy suddenly grabbed Vandal’s left arm and pressed his fingers firmly against his skin. A powerful wave of water-type Force Echo energy surged into Vandal’s veins. The energy circulated rapidly through his entire body before returning to Kennedy’s fingers.

Vandal felt overwhelmed. The sheer strength of Kennedy’s resonance energy made all his veins ache and burn.

“Hmmmm… this is impossible,” Kennedy frowned with clear doubt. His voice dropped to a whisper. “It cannot be. The Mawrot poison is still inside his body… yet there is still abundant resonance energy flowing through him. His gut and organs are completely healthy. He’s just a kid. He hasn’t even formed a proper resonance core yet. How can he possess such powerful resonance energy? He shouldn’t be sleeping peacefully right now…”

Kennedy’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Emeka… bring me another slave. Bring me that girl who tried to escape last time.”