April 17, 2020

  Mark stares as Hannah is being torn apart in front of him. The immense shock has paralyzed his body, forcing him to watch the bloodshed unfold. The cursed spirit is ripping her apart, tearing off her limbs, and splashing blood and flesh around as it enjoys its meal. Mark falls to his knees, the despair getting to him. He pants heavily and rapidly, hyperventilating. This has to just be a dream, right? There’s no way this could happen, right?

  Waldo finishes treating himself to a delightful meal and gets up, now staring down at Mark.

  “A pitiful sight… after the death of your comrades, instead of fighting back you fly away. I never would have imagined humans could fall so deep into despair. They must have been really special people to you… I must say, however, that she was quite a snack.”

  Waldo crouches down and stares into Mark’s eyes.

  “But really… the world isn’t forgiving. You won’t ever forgive me for this, but that’s normal. What else can you do about it? You can’t blame anyone else but yourself and others for what has happened. Because of the insolent human race, you destroyed this once beautiful world. The human race created me from their intense campaigns of war and destruction against each other. At the end of the day… you and your comrades perished because of your own futile powers. You simply weren’t made to survive this new world, and I’m making sure that stays true. You are all fuel for my desire, for my curiosity, for my entertainment. Don’t fret, perhaps in another life you may find yourself in a world without me.”

  Mark shivers in fear and trembles, staring at this unknown creature. What kind of living thing could possibly be so evil? What does he mean by all of this? Why does he even exist? What kind of hell gave birth to such an evil entity?!

  “W…w-what… what… a-are you…?”

  “I am the War Spirit. Born from the depths of the human fury with a mind to kill and fight. I am the harbinger of your annihilation.”

  Mark stares at this curse with wide eyes. Can such a thing even exist? If it continues to venture in the world, it’ll surely destroy everything and everyone in its path. Any survivors or countries that are barely scraping by will die at its hand. They’ll be gone, just like Samuel and Hannah. He can’t let that happen. He really can’t let that happen. What else is there to lose? Mark suddenly gets up and clutches Waldo’s collarbone.

  “You’re a damn monster. I will never let you get out of here. Not after everything that has just happened!”

  Waldo smiles deviously and laughs at this remark.

  “You’ve found it! You found your flare! Come on… you wish to kill me don’t you? You wish to make me suffer don’t you? You wish to avenge the fallen, eh?!”

  Suddenly, Waldo is punched square in the face and crashes into a tree, the force snapping the arbor in half. He quickly gathers himself back up with slight confusion.

  (Huh?)

  Mark pulls on the air and it begins to morph and change shape. Then, Mark lets go of the air and an intense wave of air pressure launches at Waldo. Waldo holds his arms up to guard the attack yet is still blown away. Waldo recovers and lands on the ground with an even more dangerous smile.

  “How interesting… your technique is the ability into build up or give things potential energy. Which in turn launches a blast of kinetic energy. That’s something you don’t see everyday.”

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  Mark appears behind Waldo and attempts to stab him with a thick tree branch. Waldo turns around and grabs the tree branch before Mark can stab it into his head. He snaps the tree branch in half with a chop and uppercuts Mark with a lot of force. He then punches Mark multiple times on his upper body and blasts him away with a shockwave. Even though Mark crashes into a boulder and coughs out blood, he gets back up after receiving such a beating, and his eyes are still full of such flare.

  “You’re not dead? That amount of power would have easily taken out your big friend earlier. You’re much stronger, I’ll give you that.”

  Waldo smiles and assumes a stance again that’s more of akin to a beast than a martial artist.

  “In that case… I’ll show you what I am truly capable of. Be proud, sorcerer.”

  In a flash, Waldo appears in front of Mark and throws a punch that is coated with shockwaves. It’s too fast for Mark to attempt to dodge, so he instead tries to block the punch. However, upon impact, Waldo’s punch breaks both of his arms and sends him crashing into the ground. Waldo then touches the ground with his palm and sends several shockwaves through the ground, all of them racing towards Mark. He lifts up his hand, pointing up, and the shockwaves erupt from the ground below Mark, creating substantial impact. Mark’s entire spinal cord and back structure are ripped apart. Waldo jumps up, grabs Mark mid air, and slams him into the ground.

  “Oh… you’ve died. What a shame…”

  Waldo grabs Mark by the head and rips it off. It stares at the head for a bit, wiggling the organs and nerves around, before taking a bite and dribbling it around. Once Waldo has his fun, he crushes the head under his boot. Perhaps it could have been better, but it wasn’t totally plain. That girl tasted better, though. Now devoid of entertain at the moment, Waldo walks out of the dark, dead forest.

  After Waldo’s fight in the forest, he begins to wander around New Mexico for other people. To no one’s surprise, he never found any sign of life anywhere. He came across several small towns and they were all the same. Each town was ruined beyond repair, a mere fragment of the past. Debris was scattered everywhere and it practically smelled of pollution. Waldo would look around each town and all of its houses and buildings. None of them were in one piece and corpses lined the streets. Some of the corpses didn’t even look human anymore because of the radiation.

  (Mass amounts of destruction everywhere… all man created. They know nothing but violence and war. Their developments are just to kill each other. To set them right, you must face them with an equal and opposing purpose.)

  With such a desire to fight but a world where there is no one to fight, how does that work? There must be someone, something, anything that is out there. There has to be. Waldo doesn’t believe that there is no one in this world that he can’t fight. And so, Waldo continues to persistently wander around and around. Every single corner of the city, he checks and inspects, but to no avail. The frustration builds up and it starts to boil. Suddenly, he comes to a revelation.

  “The surface is turning toxic and harmful for the humans and other creatures. If they wish to survive, they would have to vacate the surface. This mean that there should be humans underground or above the sky. With the help of cursed techniques, that might not be entirely impossible. Hm… where to start?”

  Since Waldo doesn’t have any leads, he decides to give the surface one last chance. Using his shockwaves at full power, Waldo takes to the air. Traveling at Mach 1.5, he flies around in the sky and scouts the ground from a bird’s viewpoint. Of course, there’s nothing but barren land and dead vegetation for many meters. There’s hardly any plants or fauna that are alive. After Waldo flies for about 24 minutes, he suddenly senses a presence nearby. This is a single presence, but it’s more profound than anything it’s felt so far. The cursed energy level is also high. Waldo locks on it and changes his course, now flying towards this new presence.

  In the distance, there is another small city. This one is especially ruined and looks even more depressing than the others that Waldo has seen. Waldo can see limbs of humans, skeletons, rivers of debris, and toxic substances. This city certainly has something lurking within it. Its atmosphere and pressure are much different than the other cities Waldo has ventured through. Once he is within proximity, be begins to fly lower and enter the city. Waldo lands, and immediately senses that something is amiss. The ground has a different sensation and texture. It’s as if it were contaminated and mutated. The buildings, in addition to already being ruined, were either rusted, corroded, or melted away. This isn’t the work of natural phenomena or from the radiation.

  As Waldo continues to walk around, he periodically sees humans pinned to the ground or walls, practically turned into bags of meat and flesh. They look even more unsightly than slimy cocoons. However, this sort of environment doesn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, Waldo feels rather comfortable and at ease in such a situation. This means that whatever is lurking in this place has an interesting technique and perhaps they might even be another curse. Also, they must be quite strong to pull off these kinds of stunts.

  Waldo turns the corner into the city plaza. There, he sees a giant, lanky, and fleshy humanoid figure sitting on a pile of stones. The figure slowly turns around, revealing the most grotesque face imaginable spewing toxic foam from its mouth.

  “You are quite the disgusting one. Fitting for a curse.”

  “(Angry gargling noises)”

  “I did not manage to understand anything of what you said just now.”

  The grotesque figure, which Waldo identifies as a cursed spirit, limps up from its pile of stones and gargles furiously. It seems agitated by something. However, Waldo stands there with its arms crossed, watching the curse choke on its toxic foam and mocks it.

  “Perhaps you should try this liquid the humans call “mouthwash.” Your cursed energy is repulsive to be around.”

  The grotesque cursed spirit suddenly makes torrents of horrendous water condense into several points and fire at Waldo. Waldo cancels out the beams of water with its shockwaves.

  “So, it’ll be like that, eh? I was thinking the exact same thing, you repulsive sack of waste.”