Serenity reduced the area inside his hardened sphere, crushing the curse. It was still fighting back, but its struggles were weakening. He tried to push it back out, but it resisted. Since it wasn’t spreading, he could take a moment to check on Jacob.

When Serenity opened his eyes, Jacob was on his hands and knees on the floor, breathing heavily. There seemed to be a small pool of blood in front of him, and Rissa knelt beside Jacob, concentrating.

Having Rissa on hand seemed to be a better decision than Serenity had expected. She was clearly healing the damage he’d done when he forced the curse out of Jacob. “How are you?”

“Sore,” Jacob admitted. “Other than that, I feel better than I have in years.”

“No matter how good you’re feeling, you are going straight to bed, where you are going to lie down and not move.” Rissa snarled. “I’m debating just taking you to the hospital. If I could figure out how to get them to give this the attention it deserves, I would take you. And if there’s any pain or you cough up any more blood, you’re going whether you want to or not. I can heal, but it’s a minor spell! It’s not intended for this!”

That didn’t sound good, but Jacob got to his feet with no problems. He took three steps towards the bedroom, then laughed. “Five minutes? It tells you you’ll have five minutes before your Tutorial?”

Serenity relaxed. Even if there was damage Rissa couldn’t heal, Jacob would be able to get help in the Tutorial. “Yeah. I know you won’t have been paying attention, but - when you get there, there’ll be a line for people who need medical attention. Get in there and tell them you’ve been partially healed but were coughing up blood, they’ll get someone to look at you. Ask for Blaze, if you have the chance. He’s good.”

Jacob nodded. “Blaze. Friend of yours?”

“Yeah. He’s a good man and a good friend.” Serenity debated saying more, but decided it wouldn’t help. “Rissa, can you tell him what it’s like as a student? I’m pretty sure my experience isn’t exactly normal.”

Rissa giggled.

As she described what to expect, Serenity moved his concentration back to the curse. The malevolent chunk of essence was still sitting in the shell he’d surrounded it with, trying to find a way out. It didn’t seem to be growing any weaker, so he wanted to try to destroy it instead of waiting.

Cutting it had cracked it earlier, but Serenity expected that would be slow; he needed to destroy its central structure. If it had been a single crystal like other cores, a sharp blow might have worked well, but this was an interconnected patchwork; he’d probably just break off a few pieces. Maybe crushing it would work better?

It was worth a try.

Serenity created an outer Essence shell as a safeguard in case the inner one broke, then started tightening down on the curse’s spellcore with the inner shell. He had to thicken it when it started warping, but shortly after that, the outer strands of the spellcore broke almost as one.

The entire ball immediately shrank noticeably. Serenity had to stop adding pressure for a moment to check it out; apparently there was an open area between the outer strands and an inner core that he hadn’t realized was there.

This was definitely a brute force method of spellbreaking, but as long as it worked, that was all Serenity cared about.

Well, it also had to be safe.

Safe-ish?

Serenity stared at the inner core. Unlike the outer layer, the inner core was the same sort of solid stone he’d seem as cores elsewhere. It also wasn’t glowing brightly.

No, instead of glowing it was a dark, almost greenish-black.

[Successfully destroying a god’s blessing has been Noticed]

Only the outer part was the blessing? Interesting. It looked almost like it had been specifically made to conceal the inner piece. That was what he truly needed to break. Simply crushing this probably wouldn’t work, but cracking it might. He needed something hard and something sharp.

It was too bad that he was still working on this inside his body; if it were outside, he might be able to use his ax.

Serenity tugged on the inner curse. He’d really prefer to work with it somewhere outside his body. This time, it moved, but it couldn’t get far before it ran into his flesh. He was going to have to damage himself to get it out, the same way it’d hurt him when it burrowed its way in.

Fine.

There were spells he could have used or he could have simply forced it out the same way it’d forced its way in, but it would be easier to heal a simple injury. It would be a pain to cut through his scales, so the best solution was to shift to human and-

Serenity stopped himself. The best solution was to shift to Void Sovereign. He’d probably need someone’s help to actually destroy the stone if he couldn’t shift back to do it, but Rissa could do that. He’d just have to make certain the curse didn’t shift with him the way his own core and crystal seed did.

When he looked up, Rissa was still explaining the Tutorial to Jacob. He waited; it couldn’t be much longer before Jacob vanished.

Rissa was still talking when Jacob disappeared.

“Rissa? I need a hand. Can you use my ax on something when I pull it out for you? I can put it on the table.”

Rissa looked at him, looked at the ax, looked at the table, then disappeared into the kitchen, only to emerge moments later with a cutting board. She set it on the table upside down.

She let him stare at it for a moment before explaining in a dry-as-dust tone that he knew meant she was trying not to laugh. “I’d rather have to replace a cutting board than a table.”

Serenity knew it was better not to say anything. She always had a follow-on joke planned when she took on that tone of voice, and it was usually at his expense. Serenity set the ax on the table next to her, then shifted, concentrating on the encased curse.

It fell to the table exactly where he aimed it, landing on the cutting board. Rissa brought the ax down on it; the ax sliced through both layers of protection, hit the stone in the middle, and bounced.

Serenity slid between Rissa and the stone to protect her, but nothing happened. After a moment, he started to relax.

[Destroying a hidden deific curse has been Noticed]

As the notification appeared, the world around Serenity vanished.

A drop of darkness floated in a cage of both essence and mana. Magic touched it and swirled it, spoke to it. It thinned and developed a green hue as it crystallized.

The magic that touched it was entirely mana-based, but somehow it encouraged the darkness of hate to take root in essence.

Forever shall you impair her and her line. The sore at the heart of the gift I cannot take back. Betrayal shall be met with betrayal forever; the sons she took from me shall bring her no pleasure. Weakness and doubt shall plague them, and knowledge shall only blind.

The whispering continued, and the drop grew slowly. Drip by drip and word by word until it was the size of a small pebble.

So slip into the gift and make it a home, twist it to do my bidding and bring misery to the one who made me miserable. My gift of light and warmth spurned shall see her burn in darkness alone!

Serenity saw a few golden threads wrap around the dark stone, then he knew it was traveling. It landed in a dark place illuminated by a bright stone, but when it touched the bright stone, the stone cracked and crumbled, becoming more bright threads to wrap around the hidden threat.

Time passed. The stone and its concealing shroud split many times without diminishing, staying in Serenity’s view while the new stone receded into the distance. Eventually, Serenity’s viewpoint followed the new stone.

Soon after that, the concealing shroud shredded and the stone cracked, evaporating into nothing.

Another voice spoke. It sounded familiar, but Serenity did not know why. It almost sounded like his father’s voice, which made no sense at all. “This is the second stone you have destroyed. Be careful if you destroy more, for the one who made this still lives and watches over the descendants of the one he hates. He will tolerate these two, but there are others he will not accept. There is a way to destroy them all at once, but it is not as simple as what you did here. That will certainly draw his attention, so be ready.”

Jacob’s living room reappeared around Serenity; Rissa still stood behind him. She seemed unhurt. He doubted she’d seen the vision, either, since she didn’t seem as puzzled as he was. While Serenity was still gathering his bearings and thinking about what just happened, Jacob reappeared.

It only made sense; the Tutorial didn’t take long. If anything, it emphasized how quickly they’d handled the cursed stone.

Jacob looked good. He was a bit more tanned and distinctly more fit. His clothing wasn’t in good shape, though; even though he was wearing the clothes the Tutorial provided, it was clear that regular fighting and limited washing facilities weren’t good for even sturdy clothing.

The only weapon he carried was a knife in a sheath on his belt. Serenity guessed he’d probably gone for some sort of magical or crafting Path, because a warrior would have more equipment.

Serenity started to ask how it had gone with the mind-noise before realizing that Rissa was the only person he could talk to in this form.

“It went fine. Well enough, at least. I practiced as much as I could but I’m not very good at it yet. I can tell when someone’s thinking at me, but I can’t block it yet.” Jacob answered Serenity’s unvoiced question. “If you happen to be able to put that shield up again, I’d like it. It’s a lot louder here.”

Serenity shifted back to his human shape, then put the shield around Jacob’s mind. He had enough mana available to hold it for a few hours; it’d be fine at least until Denise returned, and even if it wasn’t, he was certain he could find a dungeon to reach a ley line. “While you were gone, we took care of the remaining bits of the curse. I ended up with a very strange warning; it sounds like I need to figure out a way to lift it from multiple people at once before I try again.”

“There are more people with the curse? We need to do something about it; I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on.” Jacob looked a little ill as he said that.

“Are you okay? You did get healed, right?” Rissa’s voice was sharp with worry.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Jacob rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced toward Serenity then away again. “I, ah, may have told Blaze what you did. I think he wants to talk to you.”

Serenity doubted this would be the last time Blaze would scold him; it certainly wasn’t the first. Maybe Blaze would have some ideas on how to handle the rest of the curses? They had to be on Red and Phoebe, unless… “Rissa, do you have any relatives other than Red and your mother?”

“I have a cousin, I think. She’s not a seer; I think she’s a mage of some sort. Why?” Rissa had relaxed when Jacob admitted he’d seen a healer, but she tensed up again.

“I’m just wondering who else is cursed. It doesn’t seem to be as bad on women, but that probably just means it’s sneakier.” Serenity didn’t believe that the whatever-it-was could truly be helpful if it had such hate at its center.