NOVEL NEXT Filler Arc – Dream Sequence: I Am the Curse, Part 1
Filler Arc – Dream Sequence: I Am the Curse, Part 1
The sky tore open like parchment soaked in fire.
No thunder. No wind. Just silence—as if the world had forgotten how to breathe.
Kael watched as silver moonlight peeled backward like a curtain, replaced by raw colorless void. In its place, jagged cracks of red mana webbed through the sky, pulsing like veins. The treehouse around him buckled. Not from impact—but from unreality. One moment he was in Emberleaf.
The next… the roof was gone.
The trees were gone.
The ground beneath him folded inward like wet paper, and suddenly Kael was falling—not down, but sideways—pulled into some invisible current that ignored all sense of gravity or space.
Rimuru spun beside him, her glow flickering wildly, her form warping as if stretched by something unseen.
"Hold on!" Kael shouted, but his voice bent as it left his throat—twisting like wind being strangled through a flute.
Then came the voices.
Not loud, not clear. But familiar.
"You shouldn't have survived."
"You let them die."
"You took our power. Then you forgot our names."
They came from everywhere and nowhere—echoes from a war he hadn't finished fighting.
Kael clenched his fists and tried to steady his breathing. "This is a dream," he told himself. "Just a dream."
[Lucid Stabilization Attempted… Failed.]
[Cognitive Pressure Rising.]
[External influence confirmed.]
He hit something—soft and solid all at once. Like landing on air that had hardened just enough to catch him. The world reshaped around his body like a slow ripple.
Kael opened his eyes.
He was standing now. Alone.
Beneath his boots was a smooth, endless floor of translucent stone—glowing faintly blue with hints of violet, like a lake frozen in mana. Above him? Nothing. No stars. No sky. Just an endless ceiling of mirrors, each reflecting not where he stood—but somewhere else.
Some of the mirrors were showing the battlefield. Others showed Emberleaf. One showed Zar'ghel dying. Another showed Kael… laughing.
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
Rimuru floated silently beside him now—fully restored in form, but utterly quiet. Her glow dimmed, and her surface shimmered with static.
Kael stared at the nearest mirror.
In it, he saw himself.
But older.
Tired.
And wearing a crown made of flame.
The reflection smirked at him.
And winked.
Kael stepped back. "Oh no."
[Welcome to Layer 2: Recursive Dream Core.]
[Exit Condition: Undefined.]
[Mental Load: Increasing.]
Kael looked up at the mirrored ceiling, then forward into the endless blue hallway ahead.
"…Fine," he muttered, jaw tightening. "Let's finish this."
Rimuru pulsed once, quietly.
And together, they walked deeper into the fracture.
The hall stretched on—impossibly long, perfectly symmetrical.
Kael's footsteps echoed across the mana-glass floor, each tap slightly delayed, like the world was struggling to keep up with time. The reflections in the mirrored ceiling above weren't mirrors anymore. They shifted constantly, like windows to moments Kael didn't remember living.
In one, he was kneeling—blood on his hands, surrounded by ash.
In another, he stood on a throne of obsidian, watching Emberleaf burn beneath him.
And in yet another… he wasn't there at all.
Kael didn't look up again after that.
Rimuru floated silently beside him, pulsing gently with uncertainty.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Cognitive strain rising.]
[Initiating Stabilization Protocol…]
[ERROR: External Override Detected.]
[Great Sage Unavailable.]
Kael stopped walking.
"What do you mean unavailable?"
No reply.
The hall vibrated once, subtly—like something deep below had just taken a breath.
Kael turned in place, slowly. The path behind him was gone. The stone floor faded seamlessly into black mist, swallowing any hope of retreat. Only forward remained.
[WARNING: Anchor Memory Unstable.]
[Lucid Layer 2 compromised.]
[Suggested Action: Confront the Source.]
Kael narrowed his eyes. "And where's that?"
This time, the system didn't respond with words.
It responded with footsteps.
Soft at first. Then louder. Closer. But not from in front of him—from everywhere.
Dozens of silhouettes stepped into existence across the mirrored ceiling above, walking upside down, mirrored perfectly to his own pacing. Each one took a step when he did. Each one turned when he turned.
Kael paused.
So did they.
His pulse began to race. "That's not creepy at all."
And then—one of them didn't move with him.
One silhouette stayed still, arms crossed.
Kael looked up.
The mirror directly above him flickered. The upside-down figure leaned closer to the glass, and Kael finally saw the face.
His own.
But older.
Palid. Sickly. Veins of glowing slime pulsed up the sides of its neck. Its irises weren't red—but black, rimmed in pale blue.
It was smiling.
"Hello again," it said—Kael's voice layered with dozens of others beneath it. "Still dreaming?"
Kael's lips pressed into a hard line. "Let me guess. You're what's interfering."
The reflection cocked its head. "Interfering? No. I'm just… waiting."
[Conscious Boundary Breached.]
[Dream merging with internal manifestation.]
The mirrored Kael lifted one hand and pressed it against the glass.
The real Kael tensed.
Rimuru shifted toward him protectively.
"Keep walking," Kael whispered to her. "We're not stopping now."
The distorted reflection mouthed something behind the glass—
Kael couldn't hear it.
But he could read it.
"You'll have to face me eventually."
Kael looked ahead, where the path narrowed into a flickering archway carved with rune-scratched bone.
He exhaled slowly.
"I know."
And stepped through.
The archway slammed shut behind him.
No sound. No tremble. Just... gone.
Kael turned, expecting to see the endless blue corridor again—but instead, there was a wall. Plain, wood-grained, slightly crooked.
A window beside it.
Moonlight poured through.
Kael blinked.
It was... his room. Again.
His real room.
The scroll shelf was back. So was the goblin sketch. The smell of old parchment and ink crept back into the air.
Rimuru hovered uncertainly beside him, tilting slightly in confusion.
Kael's breath caught.
"Wait… did I just loop?" he muttered, stepping slowly across the floor.
Everything looked right. Felt right.
He reached down, brushed the side of his bedroll.
Warm.
He opened the desk drawer.
Quills. A half-written list of Emberleaf repairs. His handwriting.
His eyes narrowed.
He stepped toward the window.
Outside: the Heartroot Tree. Emberleaf lanterns. Even Gobrin's hammock strung between two branches.
"It's real," he whispered.
But Rimuru pulsed once—sharply. A flicker of warning.
Kael froze.
Then he noticed it.
The moonlight.
It wasn't moving.
No shift in shadow. No wind in the leaves. No change in sky.
Like the world had hit pause.
He looked down at his hands.
They were glowing.
Not with magic—but with a spotlight.
Kael looked up.
The moon had an eye in it.
Not a crater.
A blinking, circular eye, black-pupiled and rimmed with pale blue mana.
"…Nope," Kael breathed, stepping back.
[WARNING: Anchor memory collapse in progress.]
[Emberleaf Projection Detected: Level 1 Corruption.]
[Disengaging illusion…]
Everything around him froze.
The goblin drawing dissolved first—like dust in water.
Then the window cracked.
Then the entire wall tore in half, splitting vertically like paper, revealing a black sky behind it streaked with red lightning and floating chunks of broken architecture.
Kael's breath turned cold in his lungs.
The floor warped beneath him—stretching into slime-colored tendrils.
Rimuru flared bright blue in alarm.
[Anchor destroyed.]
[Entering Transition: Hall of Echoes.]
Kael reached instinctively for Rimuru as the room peeled away, sucked into a spiraling funnel of mana and static.
He didn't scream.
He just clenched his jaw and muttered:
"I liked the goblin sketch, damn it."
Then the light devoured him whole.
The fall stopped without warning.
One moment Kael was spiraling through ink-black wind and shredding light—the next, he stood still.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Balanced perfectly.
Not a breath short. Not a heartbeat off.
The world around him had changed again.
Gone was Emberleaf, gone the crumbling dream. Instead, he stood at the mouth of a hallway that stretched infinitely forward. The floor beneath his boots was polished obsidian, so clear it mirrored the ceiling above. The ceiling, however, was not made of stone.
It was made of mirrors.
Each one rectangular and tall, like full-length panes of glass suspended upside down. They didn't reflect where Kael stood—they reflected other places. Other versions.
Kael took a slow, cautious step forward. The floor echoed louder than it should have. Rimuru hovered a little lower now, close to his hip, her light dim but steady.
[Mental integrity under observation.]
[Conscious boundary thinning.]
Kael glanced up.
In the first mirror, he saw a Kael dressed in armor—not his light battle gear, but full black-and-gold plated regalia. This version sat on a throne with chains wrapped around his arms and fire burning behind his eyes.
He looked bored.
He looked powerful.
And he looked completely alone.
Kael moved to the next.
This mirror showed him as a wanderer—no kingdom, no crown. Just a ragged cloak and cracked goggles. He was walking through a storm of ash, dragging something behind him—a chain, maybe. A broken sword.
The third mirror showed Kael as a child. Maybe five. Younger than he'd ever seen himself. In that one, he was curled up alone in the middle of a massive banquet hall. Plates shattered around him. No one else was there. The food had rotted. The lights were flickering.
Kael reached toward that one—but Rimuru pulsed sharply.
He stepped back.
"…Okay. Not touching the trauma mirror."
The hallway pulsed once, like the space around him was amused.
He walked on.
Each mirror along the path grew more distorted. Kaels with stitched mouths. Kaels with burning wings. Kaels laughing over graves. Kaels made entirely of slime.
And then—
He stopped.
One mirror didn't show him at all.
Just a throne room. Tall. Crimson. Slime veins pulsing up the walls like arteries. At the center sat something that might have been Kael, but its body was warped. Its head tilted too far. Its smile didn't end where a mouth should. A crown floated inches above its scalp, made entirely of shifting mana and dark red mist.
Kael felt his stomach turn.
That version didn't look at the camera like the others.
It looked directly at him.
Even Rimuru backed away.
[Echo Detected: Major Anomaly.]
[Designation: Kael the Cursed.]
The mirror pulsed.
And then cracked.
One fracture. Then another. Then a hundred.
Kael took a step back, but it was too late. The glass shattered outward, shards flying toward him in slow-motion, each one reflecting a different nightmare.
He didn't dodge.
He couldn't.
The mirror burst—and Kael was pulled inside.
Glass became wind.
Then mist.
Then breath—wet, hot, and pulsing against Kael's skin like the exhale of some vast, unseen beast.
He landed hard.
Not on floorboards or polished mana-stone. This was something… different. The ground beneath his boots flexed as if he were standing on stretched skin over hollow bone. It pulsed every few seconds—thump... thump... thump—like a heartbeat not his own.
Kael looked down.
The surface was organic. Not truly flesh, but a fluid mimicry of it—interlaced with thick red veins of mana and bioluminescent threads of muted blue. Pools of liquid light formed in the cracks between slabs, and they moved—not flowed, but shifted—as if trying to decide where to go.
Rimuru hovered low, rotating once in place before moving to Kael's side. Her usual smooth glide felt slower here, like the air itself resisted her. Her glow flickered slightly.
"…Yeah," Kael muttered, watching his breath fog unnaturally in front of him, "this isn't real. But it wants to be."
[ENVIRONMENT: Subconscious Construct – Core Layer Breach]
[Stability: Collapsing]
[Manifestation Level: Increasing]
"Great," Kael said, dragging a hand down his face. "So even my own brain is falling apart."
The sky above him twisted—a dome of crimson light swirling overhead like a sea of molten blood. There were no clouds. Only shapes. Imprints. Silhouettes of battlefields long gone and people long lost, stretched and warped like memories half-erased. Emberleaf's Heartroot Tree blinked into view, then vanished. Zar'ghel's dying growl echoed faintly, then was replaced by the soft laugh of a goblin child he didn't recognize.
Kael turned slowly, taking in the terrain.
Pillars of memory—literal chunks of stone carved from his past—jutted from the floor in every direction. A cracked training blade embedded in black glass. A glowing sigil from the Flame Mirror ritual. A bloodstained helmet from the dungeon's second floor. The longer he stared at them, the more they flickered, changing slightly. A sword became a quill. A helmet became a crown.
They were his moments.
Twisting. Blending. Bleeding.
And ahead—up a spiraling staircase made of hardened slime tendrils—stood the only path forward.
The tendrils weren't still. They pulsed. Some shivered. One twitched.
Kael grit his teeth and started climbing.
The steps gave slightly under his boots with every movement, like stepping across the ribs of a sleeping god.
And then, the voices began again.
"You let them die."
"You absorbed me for strength. Did you even ask?"
"You liked it. You loved it."
"Predator doesn't take. It keeps."
Kael tried to shut them out.
He failed.
Each step echoed with images—flashes—not just memories, but feelings. Raw, unprocessed guilt and power clashed in his gut. He saw his own hands burning through armor. He saw Rimuru merging with him, trembling as her form fused deeper. He saw Emberleaf behind him—smaller. Distant. Forgotten.
"Stop," he whispered.
The steps didn't stop.
The next vision hit harder: Gobchi cheering as he named a goblin. Then flickering—replaced by that same goblin vaporizing beneath a spell Kael redirected during the last siege.
Another step: Nanari laughing with her arms crossed.
Another: His mother's voice, saying, "You don't have to carry everything."
Another: Kael, smiling wide—too wide—with blood on his teeth.
Rimuru dimmed behind him, a silent ripple in the chaos.
"I didn't forget," Kael said. "I remember all of them."
The staircase ended abruptly.
Before him stood a door.
Not ancient. Not magical. Not some floating gateway or glowing portal.
Just a weather-worn, wooden door.
Like the kind a poor family might build into the side of a shack.
Except it was bleeding.
Slowly. Viscously. A thin line of blue-red slime leaked from the cracks, pooling beneath it. And carved across the wood—deep, jagged, erratic—was a name:
KAEL
And it was still being written.
Slime tendrils extended from the floor, carving the name deeper with each passing second, over and over, until it gouged through the surface.
He stepped closer.
The mana in the air was thick now. It clung to his throat, sticky and electric. Rimuru drifted to his shoulder, still silent.
The door… breathed.
And behind it, he heard something massive inhale—slowly, as if rousing from a long sleep.
Kael raised his hand.
Paused.
And didn't knock.
The door creaked open on its own.
A long corridor of red light stretched inward.
And at the end, seated in a throne grown from pulsing slime and chained mana—
—was him.
Or something that wore his face.
Kael didn't move.
The thing on the throne looked up.
And smiled.
The chamber was a tomb of silence.
A silence that breathed.
Every wall pulsed like it was alive, like it was listening, waiting for Kael to speak—or break.
He walked cautiously across the vast, circular floor, boots pressing down on slime-slicked stone that throbbed faintly underfoot. His steps made no sound. Only the subtle hum of ambient mana filled the air, vibrating just beneath the edge of perception.
Rimuru floated beside him, dimmer than ever. Her glow struggled to stay even. She didn't pulse. Didn't spin. Just drifted. As if she was holding her breath too.
Kael swallowed and looked ahead.
At the end of the chamber, seated atop a jagged mound of black crystal and oozing mana, was the throne.
And in it… sat him.
Or what was left of him.
Kael the Cursed.
The corrupted version of himself was slouched lazily, almost mockingly, like a predator waiting for a mouse to step into the trap. His eyes were Kael's—but sunken and pale, rimmed in blue. His mouth hung in a slight, amused smile that didn't reach those eyes.
No crown. No armor. No aura.
Just dread.
Pure and simple.
Kael didn't speak.
He looked away from the throne.
That's when he saw them.
The walls.
They weren't made of stone. Not really.
The walls surrounding the chamber were membranes, thin like stretched skin, and across their translucent surfaces flickered hundreds of memory panes—living projections of his past. His victories. His failures. His survivors.
And… his victims.
Each pane glowed faintly. Each showed a moment frozen in time.
A goblin with tears in his eyes as Kael named him.
A panther cub nuzzling Zar'ghel's body in the rain.
A young mage—barely older than Kael—looking up at him before dissolving in blue light during the Predator rampage.
Each memory played in silence.
But the silence hurt.
Kael stepped closer to one.
It was the moment he gave Nana her first spell scroll.
She looked so proud.
He smiled.
Then the scene rewound. Fast. Violently.
It froze again. Same girl. But now she was screaming, her face twisted in fear as fire tore through the sky. As if someone else had worn her moment and repainted it with ruin.
Kael turned from the screen and found another—one showing Emberleaf's festival. Laughter. Games. The log wrestling ring. Rimuru bouncing on a picnic table.
It shattered.
Blue glass sprayed into the air and dissolved into mist.
One by one, the memory walls around him began to change. The scenes became less real—less grounded.
More blended.
More... wrong.
A goblin celebrating a name began to rot mid-smile.
A Raveni beastkin embracing Kael flickered and warped—replaced by an enemy commander being absorbed.
The memories merged with the people he'd consumed.
And the voices began.
Whispers at first.
"I thought I mattered."
"You said I was different."
"You smiled when you killed me."
Kael turned in a slow circle.
The voices had no source.
They were everywhere.
"You took our names. Then you made them tools."
"You let the pain become power."
"You loved being feared."
"You fed the hunger inside you. And you called it leadership."
He clenched his fists, trembling.
"No," he said. "That's not what I—"
"You. Let. Me. Die."
The entire chamber echoed with those words.
Rimuru pulsed once—desperate, afraid.
Kael turned sharply to the throne.
The corrupted version of him was standing now. Still smiling.
But its body was wrong. It wasn't solid. Slime and shadow rippled along its arms, which were too long, too fluid. Veins of glowing red energy pulsed beneath translucent skin. Its mouth stretched wider than a human mouth should. Its eyes twitched in different directions.
It was everything Kael had feared becoming.
It was what Predator could turn him into.
What Wrath wanted him to be.
Kael stared at it, breathing heavy.
And then he whispered, "I didn't forget them."
The voice came from the cursed Kael—but layered. His voice atop the others.
"You didn't honor them."
Kael's pulse hammered in his ears.
"I never asked for this power."
"And yet… you took it."
Kael didn't deny it.
He just stepped forward.
The memory walls behind him shattered, one by one—echoes of names and moments and regrets crumbling into dust.
Kael's voice came low, rough.
"…You want me to say I'm a monster?"
The cursed figure cocked its head, mockingly.
"No."
"I want you to admit you liked it."
Kael froze.
Then—
"I did."
Rimuru flickered in shock.
Kael kept going.
"I did like it. I liked saving people. I liked stopping threats. I liked winning. I liked not being helpless anymore."
He raised his voice.
"But I hated what it cost. And I hate that I can't go back and change any of it."
Silence fell.
And then—
[Emotional Load Surpassed: Catharsis Detected]
[New Core Sync Thread Created]
[Resonance Approaching Threshold]
The cursed Kael's smile faded.
His body twitched.
And cracked.
Kael pointed at him.
"I know what you are now. You're not just my guilt. You're what happens when I forget why I started."
He lowered his hand.
"I'm not afraid of you."
And the floor beneath them began to shift.
Veins throbbed.
Chains rattled.
The throne exploded into fragments of hardened slime.
And Kael, eyes steady, whispered:
"Let's end this."
The floor trembled—not violently, but with purpose. With intention.
Not a quake.
A summoning.
Kael froze in place, eyes narrowing as tendrils of slime coiled upward around the remains of the shattered throne. The chamber around him began to unravel—walls curling inward, memory fragments breaking apart like glass beneath ocean waves. The crimson dome above quivered, dimmed, then flared back to life, stained by jagged arcs of mana lightning that forked across its surface like veins of a dying god.
And then the floor rose.
A wide circle beneath Kael's feet lifted from the broken chamber, pulled upward on a twisting column of living slime. It wasn't fast. It wasn't chaotic. It was deliberate. Ritualistic.
Kael didn't resist.
He stood on the slowly elevating platform, watching as tendrils reached out from the spiral column, latching onto the wreckage below and absorbing it—memories, images, voices. They disappeared into the structure as if being fed into something alive.
And then he saw it.
The Tower.
The platform wasn't just rising—it was joining something larger: a massive spiraling structure, formed of coiled tendrils, slabs of chained memory, and translucent sections filled with drifting visions. The whole thing arched high into the sky, piercing the crimson dome above.
Kael wasn't ascending to battle.
He was ascending into his own mind.
[WARNING: Core Ascension Detected]
[Layer 2 Anchor Severed]
[You are approaching the Source.]
A staircase began to form along the edge of the platform—slabs of hardened slime and blood-veined stone curving around the tower like ribs. Each one glowed faintly underfoot as Kael stepped onto them.
Rimuru followed silently.
He climbed.
For every step he took, a piece of his past floated into view along the walls of the tower—flickering like projected memories etched into magic. The images hovered in perfect detail, too clear, too vivid.
—His mother's hand stroking his hair the night before the assessment.
—The first time he saw Rimuru bounce out of a tree and land in a goblin stewpot.
—Zar'ghel's body going still beneath the silver moon.
—Kael's own hand reaching out toward a group of goblins huddled around a fire.
For a second, his foot faltered.
The memory shifted.
The goblins looked up—and vanished.
Replaced by flickering enemy soldiers screaming as Predator consumed them in blue fire.
Kael looked away, lips tight.
"I remember," he whispered.
Another step.
The stairs hissed under his weight.
Another memory played.
His own face—young, hopeful—saying, "I want to build something better."
The memory responded by shattering, falling upward into the air like broken glass being pulled toward heaven.
The climb continued.
The deeper Kael went, the heavier the air became. Not in pressure—but in weight. Emotional weight. As if every mistake he'd made pressed itself into the gravity of this place.
Even Rimuru dimmed beside him.
"You don't have to do this," she pulsed softly into his mind. Not a voice. A feeling.
Kael shook his head.
"I do."
The stairs ended.
He stood on a wide stone disc at the summit of the tower. It overlooked a void—a space beyond dreams. Beyond memory. The dome above had thinned, revealing a swirling sky of black ink and starlight dripping sideways.
And at the center of the platform—
Cursed Kael.
No throne this time.
Just him.
Standing in silence.
No armor. No cloak. Just a half-body of warped flesh and shifting slime. His form glitched slightly, limbs stretching then retracting, shadows coiling beneath his feet like living tar.
But his eyes…
His eyes were calm.
Too calm.
"You made it," he said, Kael's voice echoing back with layers of others beneath it—whispers of everyone he'd ever consumed.
Kael stepped onto the final platform, feet steady. Rimuru rose with him, flaring briefly with resolve.
"I know what you are now," Kael said. "You're not just guilt. You're what happens when I stop giving a damn."
The Cursed version smiled.
"Wrong. I'm what happens when you finally stop lying to yourself."
Chains burst from the platform's edges, snapping into place like anchors.
A massive glyph lit up across the floor—red and blue, cracked and flickering.
[DUALITY LOCK ENGAGED]
[INITIATING MIND-TO-MIND COMBAT: SELF VS SELF]
Kael felt the power surge through his body—not hostile, not burning. It welcomed him. Responded to him.
Slime Link Mode was there.
Waiting.
Not demanding rage.
But offering control.
Kael opened his hand. Rimuru floated into his palm.
They didn't need to speak.
They had done this before.
He inhaled—and activated the link.
Blue mana spiraled around his limbs.
His skin shimmered.
His eyes lit with deep resolve, not fury.
His cursed self extended one long, warped hand—cracking his neck, smiling wider.
"I hope you brought more than pretty words."
Kael crouched low.
"Let's find out."
And the tower shook with the first step of war.
The moment their feet moved, the tower reacted.
Kael lunged forward—his body flaring with radiant blue as Slime Link Mode activated fully. Mana traced through his arms like lightning down rivers, fluid and fast, turning muscle to magic and motion to instinct.
Across the arena, Cursed Kael moved with mirrored intent—but wrong. His body dragged, stretched like melted wax, then snapped into place with jarring precision. One moment, he slid like water. The next, he blinked through space in a skip of corrupted time.
Their first strikes collided mid-air.
Kael's arm morphed mid-punch—his fist transforming into a hardened slime spike. It clashed with Cursed Kael's limb, which had shifted into a jagged blade wrapped in chain-veined ooze.
A shockwave burst across the platform.
Runes flared. Chains cracked.
The platform rippled like a drumhead struck too hard.
Kael backflipped, skidding across the surface, and re-stabilized.
His opponent didn't land. He slithered—body flattening, then rising upright like a serpent made of mana and memory.
"You fight like you want to win," Cursed Kael hissed, "but all I see is someone trying not to lose again."
Kael didn't respond. He dashed in again—left hand morphing into a shield of hardened blue gel, right forming a short blade of condensed mana. Slashes came quick, relentless.
Strike. Block. Morph. Pivot. Strike again.
Every move precise.
Cursed Kael adapted.
He countered with unnatural grace—his limbs shifting into tendrils, claws, whips. Where Kael's movement was human refined by magic, his reflection was pure chaos tamed by hate.
Blades clashed, again and again, echoing like thunder on steel.
But Kael wasn't just fighting to overpower.
He was watching.
Studying.
With every clash, every deflection, he read the patterns. The way Cursed Kael recoiled when Rimuru pulsed. The way his corrupted body flickered whenever Kael called on a memory.
A flash of Zar'ghel's voice.
A name whispered by a goblin long gone.
A laugh from Nanari.
Each time—hesitation.
Cursed Kael snarled, his arm melting into a serpentine coil and lunging for Kael's throat.
Kael ducked, spun, and let the memory play.
"I name you—Gobri."
Cursed Kael's limb faltered mid-strike.
Kael took the opening.
He drove his palm forward, and Rimuru surged with him—blue light lancing into the cursed body. The feedback was instant.
Cursed Kael screamed, his voice unraveling into a chorus of everyone Kael had absorbed.
"We are not yours—!"
Kael's voice thundered back:
"No. You're mine to remember. Not control. Not erase."
Rimuru glowed hot in his hand, resonating fully.
[Mana Sync Achieved – Memory Pulse Ready]
Kael slammed his palm into the ground.
The arena erupted in a wave of pure memory.
Not destruction—connection.
The names. The faces. The moments.
They poured outward in rings of white-blue light, slamming into the cursed form, forcing it back—its body fracturing, leaking slime that bled not just mana, but emotion.
Kael didn't press the attack.
He just stood.
Face calm.
Eyes steady.
Breathing controlled.
Cursed Kael collapsed to one knee, steaming, twitching, spasming.
For the first time… afraid.
Kael spoke quietly.
"Next round… we talk."