The Hero was, by definition, a heroic person. Someone who took on challenges that everyone else shied away from, someone moved not by victory but by beliefs, sometimes even to the point of putting their own life on the line. That, or an idol burdened with unconditionally protecting people from external enemies.
Long ago, the Hero used to be the symbol of justice who had eradicated the demons, humanity’s bitter enemy. The greatest human alive, blessed by God above all others and acknowledged even by the Holy Church. Or, in the eyes of those who knew of the Old Rulers’ existence, the pitiable product of embedding the aspect of dragons into a human subject.
To this world, however, mention of the title of Hero invariably brought to mind the great savior who had saved the world in the Kuzuifabra. Equipped with the god regalia that God had bestowed upon her, she had struck down not only humanity’s greatest enemy, Demon Lord Alshunna, but also Lunvemt Nachtfelia, the Evil Dragon who had dared bare her fangs at God. With Elven Queen Aina’noa and Divine Beast Sydonay at her side and absolute strength at her hands, she had pulled the world back from the brink of utter destruction.
The full name of that character, the protagonist of the Kuzuifabra, was Kuon Cris Clan. However, no one alive knew that name, as it had been a long time since anyone had read the original version of the account, and transcribed copies that included it were extremely few in number. At most, there were a few historians who specialized in ancient manuscripts who might have heard of “Hero Kuon.”
However, though her name may have been forgotten, the feats that had earned her the title of Hero remained. The fact that she had saved the world with her courage and strength would continue being spoken of as long as humanity remained, never to be forgotten.
Unfortunately, this much-celebrated Hero, purportedly blessed by God, was cursed. Needless to say, no one knew why she was cursed, when it had happened, or who had condemned her to that fate. In fact, only a tiny handful of people even knew that she was cursed. Sol was one of them, but even he did not know anything beyond having seen “the Cursed Hero” as one of the cards that had been available for choosing when he first used Summoning.
She remained out there to this day—not bound, not held captive, not rendered vacant, and not robbed of life, but burdened with a curse that ate away at her day in and day out, without end. And now, a thousand years later, she was coming to. Though she had been reduced to a husk of her former self, lost the god regalia that God had given her, and lost her human form, she stirred in accordance with her directive to eliminate the enemies of this world—those from beyond with the potential to bring about its end. Perhaps it could be said that this directive was the very first curse that had been placed on her.
However, she remembered who—what—it was that had left her in this state, and it drove her mad. Completely forgetting her role as protector, she cursed everything connected to that which ate away at her, becoming a living curse that sought to destroy everything she faced.
Blighted and broken, the Hero now sought to destroy the world that she had once put her life on the line to protect.
Not just this world...
All worlds.
✦ ✦ ✦
Near the top of the shattered Tower, much higher than even the stratosphere, was a giant spherical space. It was an anachronistic anomaly that looked over the planet from high up, with monitors covering every inch of its interior.
At the moment, this space was filled with cacophonous warning sirens. The large crystal that housed the deployed Ward IX stood empty, but the twelve others still held Ward I through to Ward XIII in suspension, and they were currently flashing with intense magical lights as geometric patterns raced across their surfaces. Concurrently, red text in an ancient language blinked insistently on the countless monitors in midair, displaying lines like “Warning,” “Intruder Detected,” “Elimination Failed,” and “Emergency Activation.” The Tower was so alarmed by what was happening that it was trying to wake up all the Wards in a hurry, skipping all steps in the activation sequence that it could.
However, it was too late. The control mechanism and power core in the middle of the circle of large crystals marked “I” through “XIII” in red exploded, and a figure stepped inside. It was the human Hero, carrying a magic weapon that could defeat dragons and equipped with a shield and armor that could block even the Demon Lord’s attacks. Splashes of blood from all races covered her from head to toe, her equipment was corroded and rotting, and her originally beautiful features were eternally contorted like those of a zombie. Everything about her screamed wrongness.
The lines of light that had once connected her to her god regalia, that supreme armament made from the Augoeides of a real dragon, now trailed behind her like torn and fully rotted intestines. They greedily drew in outer mana from all around, feeding her ever more destructive power.
This was the Cursed Hero.
With a single swing of her bare hand, all the crystals were pulverized. As a result, the mana pumping into them to wake up their residents lost directionality and exploded in a large chain reaction. This explosion enveloped the parts of the upper floors that had survived the assault of Lunvemt Nachtfelia the Evil Dragon and remained functional, blowing most of it to pieces. With that, a large portion of the Tower that Sol had set as his final objective was gone.
Having come loose, the massive pieces of rubble succumbed to the pull of gravity and began plunging toward the surface, breaking apart further on the way. Before long, they would crash into the Principality of Amnesphia below, including the Holy City of Adrateio, and erase it from the map.
The culprit for all this destruction, Kuon Cris Clan, threw herself into the void of space. She howled like a beast, but in the absence of sound, it looked like she was wailing. It was at this moment that the Cursed Hero, one of the monsters Sol was supposed to bring into his service, was unleashed upon this world, masterless and out to bring ruin to all.
Thus ends the Wards arc.