The black swordsman spoke with us, no name given, nor any excessing information. Apparently he and his group are from a faction called Reapers… yes, Reapers like followers of the Eternal Reaper and they are fed with those cultists, misbehaving in their lord's name. Shortly said, they will help us to erase the cult.

  Soon, the cult’s army was absolutely decimated, leaving no one alive and while our army is being treated by angel healers, the elite group, in which, for some reason, I’m included too, is going to finish this cult's existence.

  There is a sealed center, or core, of the citadel - the last unconquered place. We are standing right in front of its main door, it’s massive.

  “To crack its seal will take our ritualists some time… Not an expert, but I would say a long time. We can’t afford that. Do you have any way to crack it?” I turn for help to the black swordsman.

  He does not answer, but the mage from the trio steps forward. He place his hand onto the seal and… nothing? No, around his hand placed on the seal starts forming little cracks and soon, the seal is all cracked up a few meters around his hand. He pushes forward… and the seal starts to crumble.

  The black swordsman halfway turns to me. “We won’t need your ritualists.”

  His words frustrate me but I control myself, and not let the frustration appear on my face.

  The beast guy with a huge hammer steps forward. At the same time the now fully healed King did the same. There’s a short side-eye stare down after which King backs down, letting the Reaper’s colossan open the door.

  He, in one strong push, smash the door open, unveiling a big rounded room with pillars all around, a huge ritual circle in the middle and above the circle a big red and black pulsing sphere.

  Behind the sphere, on the other side of the ritual circle than we are, is standing a person - guy. He got a long monk-like robe in black, with red design. Also, he is bald with a fully tattooed skull.

  “It took you less time than I expected, my fellow masters were quite strong, especially together and their disciples weren’t half bad either…”

  “ …Oh, you found some new friends, I see. That’s the reason you were faster, I guess. Maybe you could introduce them to me?... No? Nevermind, I don’t actually care.”

  For a second, we all stand there in shock, then the Reapers, together with King, dash forward to crush the, who we suppose he is, founder.

  They’re quick, and though the founder isn’t quicker, it takes him just one step to get into the ritual circle.

  All the weapons aimed at him are stopped by a barrier appearing at the line of the ritual circle.

  “Ahahahhahah- You really thought it would be that easy to kill me? How amusing. What would you even do after killing me? Just the thought of you trying to destroy our curse, our child, is making me laugh. You can’t kill it! Ahhahahahahhah”

  His hysterical babbling is making all of us nervous, but there is no escape to it.

  Divine Seraph, together with the Reapers mage, starts working on the barrier around the sphere. I call our ritual specialists - mostly manaborns, to help… perhaps their joint efforts will help speed up the process. We are playing for every second now.

  But the founder of the cult did not ,and not shut up.

  “Our child, The System of Dawn, will consume you and everyone else in the name of our lord - the almighty God of Death! It’s so powerful! Witness the birth of he System of dawn, the birth of a new era!”

  With these words, he pulls out a dagger from his cowl and with a last hysterical laugh, thrust it into his chest, right into heart.

  The sphere reacts instantly, pulling his corpse towards itself. It consumes, not distinguishing between meat, clothes, or dagger - it consumes them all.

  With his sacrifice, the sphere begins to come “alive” consuming the ritual circle and even the barrier.

  That’s when a shadow of fear appears on the mistress's face. “I-It’s alive. It’s conscious a-and… intelligent?”

  “What do you mean, intelligent?!” Black swordsman nearly screams at her.

  For the first time the Reapers mage speak up. “Curses can’t be intelligent. It may have some intent but that’s all, anything more is impossible.”

  “No, this one is at least semi-intelligent, its intelligence is somehow twisted, but it still… thinks? It also has a soul, all messed up, yet stable. I can feel it with my powers, but I don’t understand it. How is this possible?!”

  Lot of races have some born “abilities” or traits, for instance, we colosseans got a thick skin and very dense muscles, manaborns have born connection to mana and runes. Angels are divided in mostly four sections, if we count myths and fairy tales, there are six of them.

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  The most common ones does have white wings, those are common people, then there are grey winged - warriors of the angels born with some fighting talent, the crimson winged are called witches, they are the mages of the angels and the last ones are angels with platinum wings - the most rare known, those got a supporting powers such as healing and boosting others from backline, that’s the current mistress of the angels, the one called Divine Seraph, because she is the only platinum winged angel known.

  No matter the colour of their wings, all of them have the power to give blessings, though they don’t do it often. I heard that it’s for them like to donate a kidney - they lose, not exactly power, but some life force, if it makes sense. They obviously doesn’t share those details.

  But I’ve never known they can actually feel souls.

  One of the manaborn ritualists shout at me in panic from his working position. “We are not able to dispose it, it will kill us all!

  “It has too much of the cultists' intent, they sacrificed too many of them to the curse. It is too strong for us to destroy it… but maybe, just maybe, we could change its intent.” Divine Seraph looks at us and lowers her voice. “By sacrificing ourselves to the curse.”

  Everyone stops and looks at her in a mixture of despair, fear, but also determination to save the universe.

  Still, there’s a question to be asked. It looks like I’ll have to be the one who puts it.

  “Isn’t there any other option?”

  The response is sad, her voice is shaking.

  “I don’t see any.”

  By the looks of others working on the curse, I can say that no one has any other idea. Only the Divine Seraph is giving us some hope.

  Her shoulders straighten and with determined expression, give us even more hope.

  “I will use my blessing on the curse, but normal blessing will not make any difference. I’ll sacrifice my whole life to the blessing, in hope that it will change something.”

  She smiles a little.

  “It was pleasure to meet you all”

  Then she starts walking towards the sphere, her wings glowing as she, I suppose, gives it her life in the form of a blessing.

  I turn around and walk off the room. Whole army spreads there, waiting for my orders… but I don’t have any.

  I stand in front of the soldiers. One of the magicborns amplify my voice with magic, I nod to him thankfully.

  “Soldiers, we killed all the cultists, but we didn’t win. We may not even be able to win.” At this point, the whole army looks at me with pure confusion.

  “In the room behind me, there’s a very strong curse that cultists made to kill everyone who doesn’t share their beliefs… And we are not able to dispose of it.”

  I pause for a few seconds, letting soldiers absorb it.

  “Our death is inevitable, but we can choose how we die. We are currently unable to undo the curse, but perhaps we can change its intent and potentially avoid the curse killing everyone.”

  “The Divine Seraph, mistress of the angels, already sacrificed her life to bless the curse with her powers”

  After this news, all the angels in the army crumple.

  “That’s the only possible way to save the universe - by sacrificing ourselves and changing the curse's intent. You die in both scenarios, so choose your death wisely, no one will judge you, but me personally… I wanna know that my death will be for something.”

  ***

  Just a small number of soldiers decided to stay away from the curse, others chose to sacrifice themselves in hope that it will change its intent enough to stop the curse from killing all creatures in the universe.

  But not everyone took it well. The Reapers, together with the King, refused to sacrifice themselves without a fight. They attacked the curse together… and were devoured.

  Millions of soldiers have been devoured, one would assume that it could be enough… it was not.

  The sphere started to rotate unimaginably fast and then, when it reached its top speed, the curse was released.

  All the sacrificed soldiers couldn’t change the intention of it, they made it worse. Now, it not only devoured every non-believer, but everyone - people, beasts and even planets.

  Well… not exactly everyone - the strong ones survived, some of them just nearly, some with difficulty and some… didn’t even have to try.

  ***

  POV: The Eternal Reaper

  A surge of power blew over me with enormous killing intent.

  “Hmh… I suppose most of the mortals are dead by now. I bet they were doing some maniacal bullshits again… they alway do though.”

  But this time it had to be something really crazy - it was so strong, that being on a weaker planet, it would be dead.

  “Heh, crazy mortals”

  It’s not like it matters to me, I still have some meditating to do.

  ***

  The System of Dawn, now reduced only to The System, after the mass destruction of the universe - its destruction fueled more with every planet devoured, now digesting all the energy it has absorbed.

  It can’t be called a mere curse anymore - it’s more. The amount of devoured people, animals, monsters and planets and all the energy it got from them forced it into long lasting hibernation, changing and evolving there.

  No one in the area stayed alive, and no one will get to that galaxy for at least a few millennia…

  In that time, The System will grow and soon bring a new era to the world - exactly as the former cultist promised.

  ***

  A few millennia later

  SYSTEM INTEGRATION

  I dash out away from the place I’ve been meditating at, ready to fight whatever interrupted me.

  A similar wave of power, like the one that occurred not that long ago, blew over me, leaving the whole word in purple tint with ancient runic words written in the very fabric of reality itself.

  I’ve never seen anything like that.

  Every meter of reality is filled with old ass runes, rewriting and appropriating the laws of reality… it’s scary to see it happening - it shouldn’t be possible, yet it’s happening.

  SYSTEM INFORMATION

  Welcome to the system controlled universe. You have been recognized as a higher form of life, your knowledge will be borrowed for better functionality of The System.

  “The fuck you mean by that?! ARE YOU GONNA BE MESSING WITH MY HEAD??!!”

  SYSTEM MESSAGE

  Your knowledge will be borrowed for better functionality of The System, same way as knowledge of other higher beings.

  At this point, I just stand there with a wide-eyed expression on my face, blankly looking at the message floating in my vision.

  SYSTEM MESSAGE

  Your status will be determined later, after proper calculations and comparisons are done. There is not enough information gathered to give you a proper reading yet.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  “Hmm… I have to give it, that this System seems like it might be fun.”

  A grin appears on my face as I imagine that good fights are in the future again - what could be better than that?