Selina's Story
From the moment she was born, she faced fearful gazes from everyone around her. The reason was simple. Her mother, carrying her in the womb, had been turning into a horrific monster due to the Swelling Fallbirth curse, yet she held on with sheer willpower. She carried the child for a full two months and ultimately gave birth to her.
Yes, Selina was essentially born from the Busung Eclipse Lord himself.
Seven years old.
Fortunately, discrimination against Selina, the cat beastkin born from the putrefaction curse, didn't last long. Like others, when she suffered wounds, the putrefaction demonic energy began to rise, and if she couldn't control it properly, she could turn into a monster in an instant—just like any other beastkin.
Eleven years old.
Still, she realized there were a few differences from other beastkin, perhaps because she was born from the curse's power. The biggest distinction was that, despite being a cat beastkin, Selina possessed strength surpassing most carnivorous beastkin.
At just eleven years old, she defeated the tiger beastkin representative in an arm-wrestling match. Her power was that immense. From that day on, she received official recognition from the leader and devoted herself to training.
Thirteen years old.
Her talent blossomed far more terrifyingly and swiftly than those around her had expected.
Thwack.
"Guhk!"
"…."
With a single basic self-defense technique, a massive wolf beastkin warrior tumbled across the training ground's dirt floor. Selina indifferently wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and quietly looked down at her fallen kin.
At just thirteen, she was already winning consecutive victories against Talian's renowned regular warriors.
Strength, speed, flexibility. Combined with the cat beastkin's innate reflexes and beastly instincts, her swordsmanship made trajectories nearly impossible to predict.
"A new warrior has appeared in Talian!!"
"The herbivores can hold their own too!!"
Cheers and praise poured from the surroundings, but instead of getting cocky, Selina silently began analyzing the next warrior to step up.
Eighteen years old.
Selina was finally deployed to the real, blood-soaked front lines. But the enemies she had to cut down weren't outsiders—they were kin fully consumed by the Swelling Fallbirth curse, turned into the Busung Lord's minions. In other words, monsters who had lost their reason.
"Grrr… guhk!"
"…."
Her silver shortsword mercilessly plunged into the chest of a bear beastkin she had been rolling and laughing with in the training grounds just yesterday. Facing the grotesque eyes of her kin—focus lost, spewing black mucus—Selina bit her lip hard.
There was no time to mourn the pitiful kin or dwell on the Busung Lord, the root of all this. She twisted her body immediately, slicing the throat of another monster lunging from behind.
Slash—!
In a single strike, blood sprayed and flesh burst. Each time that chilling sensation traveled up her arm, her stomach churned, but she never stopped moving.
Nineteen years old.
The war situation worsened horrifically with each passing day. Due to the brutal condition that the curse activated the moment one was wounded, frontline warriors turned into enemies with a single scratch, biting at their allies' throats.
Selina dashed madly across the battlefield, leveraging her beastly mobility, taking on the role of executioner—mercy-killing kin on the verge of the curse spreading through their entire bodies.
The blood of her dying kin clung to her fingers like an indelible brand that wouldn't wash away.
"Urp, uweeek!!"
Night after night, tormented by horrific nightmares, she dry-heaved in the corner of her tent. But at dawn, she gripped her twin swords with hollow eyes and walked back into the blood-soaked field.
Twenty-one years old.
Talian's outer defense lines began crumbling helplessly. Amid the ceaseless day-and-night bloodbaths, scars large and small accumulated on Selina's body. And each time, ominous, sticky demonic energy reliably rose from her wounds.
But her body, intertwined with the curse since birth, freakishly suppressed and controlled it on the razor's edge. The adults around her called it a miracle.
To her, it was merely a punishment forcing her to survive longer in this hell, stained with blood.
Thus, hacking through mountains of endless monsters without respite, Selina gradually erased her emotions.
Twenty-two years old.
On a day when only despair remained—that Talian itself would be wholly devoured by the curse—unbelievable rumors arrived from beyond the kingdom, like a lifeline from the heavens.
A human man calling himself the Hero, Kail, had begun his march to subjugate the Demon King, and he'd truly taken down one of the Seven Eclipse Lords.
That day, an emergency tribal council convened at Talian's heart, beneath the massive World Tree.
Selina stood quietly at the edge of the round table, clad in leather armor caked with blood and dirt.
"…Hoo."
Talian's leader and lion beastkin, Kardan, let out a deep sigh as he surveyed the representatives of each tribe seated in the council hall.
"It's already proven that our strength alone can't sever this horrific curse. If that human man can truly take the Demon King's head… it might be the only lifeline for our rotting Talian."
Kardan's golden eyes turned toward Selina, whose gaze had sunk into gloom.
"Selina."
"Yes."
With a curt reply, she dropped to one knee.
"I have a special mission for you."
Rising from his seat, Kardan extended a scroll to her with a stern expression.
"Take all the information we've gathered on this so-called Hero and head deep into the Mist Forest. Seek out the Great Prophet, who has guided Talian through countless prophecies for centuries, and bring back the answer: whether this man can truly be our salvation."
"…Understood."
And so, for the kin who had died before her. To save the kin who would continue dying. Selina headed into the Mist Forest, at the heart of the putrefaction curse.
…Perhaps if she had taken the Great Prophet's advice even a little more seriously, interpreted it differently.
A slightly different future might have awaited.
That regret haunted her now.
Slash—!
Slash!!
"Kraaaagh!!"
"Save me… save me!! It hurts so much!!!"
Two days of advancing amid the screams of countless kin. Selina finally reached the deepest part of the Mist Forest—the holiest space in Talian, where even putrefaction couldn't encroach, the origin of the mists.
"Haa… haa……."
Having run without rest for two days, her breath came in gasps, but she caught it briefly and then carefully parted the entrance flap of the Great Prophet's tent, stepping inside.
The tent was thick with incense. A head-spinning, potent herbal scent utterly unlike the damp outer mist. Beyond the hazy smoke, a gaunt silhouette crouched on the floor.
The Great Prophet, who had been Talian's steadfast guide for centuries.
Yet, proving those centuries, his condition was far from normal. His eyes, long blind, held only milky pupils, and his bony hands clutched white bone fragments.
Selina swallowed dryly and stepped forward cautiously.
"Great Prophet. By the chieftain's order…."
"The false light."
Before Selina could even pull out the parchment with Kardan's information from her bosom, the Great Prophet scattered the bone shards on the floor, his unfocused eyes staring into the void.
"The false light steps toward the abyss. Whether that light devours the darkness or is devoured by it—only the Creation God knows."
"…."
The rotten roots of putrefaction coiled deep underground… A fleeting shallow warmth can scorch the leaves, but can false flames truly reduce even those roots to ash?
Remember. The day the false one falls from the dais, losing everything.
That marks the end of the fated tale, and only then will the heavens write the story of forging the true agent… Only the true one will reap the remnants left by the false and bestow the pure white miracle upon the decayed land.
"…."
Selina's heart sank with a thud. The leaves could be scorched, but the roots were uncertain. The man might sever the curse—or it might end in vain hope.
Whether that human alone could end Swelling Fallbirth—everything was uncertain.
As hope and despair teetered on a tightrope with each prophetic word, the Great Prophet's blind pupils fixed precisely on her.
Selina's mind raced. She vaguely grasped what he meant.
The man who called himself the Hero but whose true status was unconfirmed. It had to be about Kail.
But whether he could truly kill the Demon King, or die a dog's death midway—it was ambiguous.
"Then, our Talian's curse…."
To Selina's desperate question, the prophet's voice echoed through the tent.
Thud.
After his final words, the Great Prophet's head lolled limply. Foam trickled from the lips of the prophet, collapsed as if utterly exhausted.
Selina rushed over, checking his condition. Fortunately, he had merely fallen into a deep sleep.
She carefully laid him on the nearby cloth, then sat blankly, staring into space.
The Great Prophet's cryptic whispers churned her mind endlessly.
It was all an uncertain gamble. A shallow hope that the false Hero might subjugate the Busung Lord and lift the curse.
So she accepted the tribal council's decision, joined Kail's journey, and when he felled the Busung Lord, Selina rejoiced sincerely.
Believing the false flame had finally wrought a miracle.
But the Swelling Fallbirth curse didn't vanish. The leaves burned, but the roots continued gnawing at Talian.
In that bitter despair and frustration of a shattered dream, one day a Holy Kingdom cardinal made covert contact.
'The day the false hero falls, the true agent will bestow the pure white miracle.'
Only then did Selina complete the prophecy's final piece.
The Harennes Holy Kingdom, channeling the Creation God's voice for centuries. And their suddenly proclaimed Saintess.
She was the true agent, the pure white miracle of the prophecy.
The conclusion was clear. The only way to lift Talian's curse was, as foretold, to thoroughly topple the false Hero Kail from his dais and receive salvation from the Creation God's true agent—the Saintess.
She fully understood what she must ultimately choose, what vile, nauseating act she had to commit to save her kin.
"Haa… haha… ha…."
The day the cardinal left, Selina clutched her face with both hands, letting out mad, hollow laughter like a lunatic.
Hot tears streamed between her fingers, soaking the floor.
The fact that her fate, and that selfless man's fate, would be woven with horrific betrayal and deception.
For the sole conviction of saving her kin.
She resolved to forsake her humanity and walk the traitor's path.