Chapter 76: The Father of Curses: Gradually Losing Sanity
Chapter 76: The Father of Curses: Gradually Losing Sanity
Chapter 76 The Father of Cursed Nightmares: Sanity Crumbling
After the English teacher died countless times, the mysterious silver-white snake scale finally shattered completely, turning into a small handful of pearly powder that scattered in the blood-scented wind.
Deprived of the protection of mystical power, the English teacher met its end.
Under the twisting black curses, its head, limbs, and torso were torn apart, scattered across the ground.
Since the monster’s anatomy differed from that of humans, among the bloody mess on the floor, one could find three hearts, two stomachs, and a brain completely unlike a human’s.
After all, these monsters were born to kill, and their brains had evolved to suit their predatory nature, developing visual and olfactory regions more acute than humans'.
The wire-thin "black threads" extended toward these scattered organs, weaving through them with eerie flexibility. The nauseating squelch of flesh being probed and searched filled the air.
After a long while, the Father of Cursed Nightmares muttered, bewildered:
‘How… how is it possible to find nothing?’
It had assumed that however carefully "Fate" concealed its power or split its consciousness, inserting fragments of itself into the shells of dungeon monsters, there would inevitably be traces left behind.
For instance, faint traces of the Fate Domain’s power, mutated snake scales growing inside the body, or tiny serpents coiled within the brain…
Such changes were unavoidable—like a colossal mountain that could never be entirely hidden by a wisp of cloud.
Yet, the Father of Cursed Nightmares’ thorough search revealed no flaws whatsoever.
Aside from the scale that had vanished earlier, the remaining flesh and organs were entirely products of cursed power, creations the Father had personally animated—that should have been completely loyal to Him.
…But how could this be?
The "black threads" hovering in the air froze, as if gradually freezing by some creeping terror, their movements growing sluggish.
The Father of Cursed Nightmares thought, disbelieving—had "Fate," silent for so long, truly honed its methods to such a subtle and undetectable degree that even He couldn’t detect its fragments?
But even the Conspiracy Domain, specializing in concealment and deception, shouldn’t be capable of manipulating or replacing another deity’s creations without leaving a single trace!
This meant that perhaps "Fate’s" fragments and traps were already scattered throughout the Father’s domain, and He couldn’t detect them…
The feeling was akin to a human suspecting that a loved one had been replaced by something unknown, yet no one else could perceive the anomaly. The sole aware individual, distrusted by all, would be forced to coexist with the unknown, gradually crumbling under the strain of doubt and fear…
The more the Father of Cursed Nightmares pondered it, the more unnerved He became.
He almost questioned His past self—
Why had He been so confident in provoking that ruthless and powerful new god?
The "black threads" swayed listlessly, their movements subdued for a while, but the Father didn’t wallow in regret for long.
The mere thought of "Fate’s" fragments infesting everywhere made Him too agitated to remain still, as if flames were scorching His tendrils.
So He didn’t even bother reassuming His usual human form as the school principal, instead rushing out in a frenzy, His tide of dark threads surging swiftly downstairs.
It happened to be break time.
As soon as the Father entered the teaching area, the lively chatter and laughter of student NPCs surrounded Him on all sides.
The familiar scene calmed His tension slightly.
Thankfully, for now, all seemed normal…
Wait—was it really normal?
On reflection, the Father grew uncertain again.
His paranoia made every living thing seem like a potential fragment of "Fate"…
He didn’t dare consider whether these children might already be victims of the enemy.
After hesitating, the Father decided to check the teachers’ office on the sixth floor first—the teacher NPCs were His most capable and trusted lieutenants, far stronger than ordinary students.
Surely they couldn’t have been eliminated so swiftly and silently?
Moreover, the sixth floor harbored His closest aide—the dean of discipline, whose body was covered in eyes and could spot any irregularity. The Father still trusted it somewhat, so His first instinct was to seek it out and discuss countermeasures.
Thus, the "black threads" twisted the doorknob, slid into the office like a shifting storm cloud.
Inside, the curtains were drawn open, sunlight flooded the spotless windows. All the teachers sat properly at their desks, showing no abnormalities—if anything, the scene was unnervingly calm.
The Father extended a single black thread, draping it over the dean’s shoulder—the one closest to the door—and said, ‘I’ve detected the intruder’s presence. You—’
His words abruptly cut short as the dean moved.
The woman covered in eyes wrenched her head unnaturally—not a normal sideways turn, but a complete backward bend, nearly rotating a hundred and eighty degrees until her spine audibly snapped.
The Father, still in close proximity, heard the sickening cracks of bone displacement and fracture.
*Crunch… crunch…*
Finally, the dean’s head drooped like a broken toy, swaying limply against her back.
She stared up at the Father, countless black-and-white eyes fixed on Him, her lips stretching ear-to-ear in a grotesque grin. Inside her mouth, her tongue and palate were also lined with dense clusters of eyes, their vacant pupils reflecting the frozen black threads in the air.
Her posture was eerie, yet her tone remained gentle, as deferential as ever:
"Very, very, very happy to serve you…"
At this moment, even the Father—a god of malice—found the scene unsettling.
He instantly retracted the thread from the dean’s shoulder, simultaneously splitting countless tendrils to probe the other teachers—
Some rose as usual, smiling at Him, only for their heads to *thud* to the ground the moment they bowed;
Others remained motionless no matter how He called, their eyes locked onto Him with strange amusement, even as His panicked, furious threads tore their bodies apart—their fallen eyeballs still staring His way;
Worse yet, some conversed with Him naturally, their thoughts seemingly intact—until the Father, relieved to find at least one normal follower, watched in horror as clusters of snake scales began sprouting like moss from the teacher’s throat…
In an instant, the black threads erupted.
Whether driven by rage or indescribable terror, they lashed wildly through the office like a storm, reducing the room to ruins.
Wooden splinters from desks, shards of glass, and the mangled remains of the teachers littered the floor.
The Father hovered over the wreckage, calming Himself briefly before extending threads again to meticulously inspect the teachers’ remains.
This time, He found a few silver snake scales—even a couple of stunted, lifeless serpents.
At last, He had proof of "Fate’s" presence.
Yet He still couldn’t relax, His nerves still taut. The English teacher—who had barged into the principal’s office without a single trace of "Fate’s" tampering—had become the Father’s deepest obsession.
From then on, the Curse-Father hardly dared to trust any of his followers or let his guard down around any living being that appeared before him—
"FATE" might not be here, but the Curse-Father would suspect everything he saw as part of "FATE."
It was as if the shadow of the silver Predator would never fade, forever clinging to the Curse-Father like a persistent specter.
"Aaaaaah—"
At the ends of countless inky filaments, tiny mouths lined with jagged teeth sprouted, all screeching in horrible harmony.
Though the Curse-Father had no true head to speak of, he now felt what humans would call a "headache."
Just as he had entered, he burst out of the office and into the hallway.
The children in the corridor had, at some point, ceased their chatter, plunging the entire school building into an unsettling silence.
The students stood shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, forming neat rows of living barricades of flesh that filled the broad hallway.
"Principal..."
The children curled their lips, their eyes glinting with metallic, predatory light that filled the Curse-Father with abject fear.
In unison, their childish voices trilled, "Greetings to the principal—"
"Hide-and-seek, let's play hide-and-seek."
"Why not guess... where are we all?"
The Curse-Father paused for a moment before his black tendrils lashed out even more wildly.
Under the dual pressures of the unknown and the fear of being hunted, his rationality—just as Yi Fengchu had intended—gradually thinned and crumbled like a fragile sheet of ice on a winter river, shattering at the slightest touch.
The Curse-Father felt his consciousness blur for a moment. When he regained awareness, the entire school had been reduced to ruins by his own hand.
Only the shrill broadcast echoed like black crows circling over the wreckage, reverberating throughout the dungeon-realm.
He heard himself screaming curses—
'This dungeon forbids all intruders—violators will die!'
'This dungeon contains no serpentine creatures—violators will die!'
'This dungeon permits no worship, contact, or summoning of any God—violators will die!!'
The broadcast droned on, sweeping through the entire dungeon.
Xiao Luo, still mid-flight, heard the commotion.
Even though she had put some distance between herself and the school, the thunderous collapse had shaken the earth like an earthquake.
No matter what she heard, she dared not look back, forcing her trembling legs forward step by step in a frantic flight.
The snake-child had now grown to the size of a one-year-old baby, too large to fit in the black satchel. So Xiao Luo clutched the Holy Infant in her arms, mimicking the posture of holding a child.
It wasn’t too strenuous—compared to a normal baby, the divine snake-child was lighter, its scaled lower half cold and smooth, like a weightless drift of snow.
What truly weighed on Xiao Luo was the terror in her heart and the fear of the dungeon’s violent warping transformations.
She ran and ran until the entrance of the residential building finally appeared in the distance.
Before she could even sigh in relief, she noticed the announcement fixtures on either side of the street begin to warp—repeating the shrill curses while twisting into long, black, worm-like tendrils.
No...
Not just the announcement fixtures.
Xiao Luo glanced back and gasped, immediately speeding up without another look.
Behind her, the roads, streetlights, shrubs—everything—contorted and mutated into countless frenzied black "tendrils"!
Dark and filthy, these tendrils seemed coated in a slick, oily mucus. Just one glance filled Xiao Luo with a sense of mortal terror.
They writhed wildly in the air before some, as if with eyes of their own, began surging toward her.
A vast, inexorable tide of darkness.
Several times, Xiao Luo felt the ground beneath her dissolve into those squirming tendrils, making her stumble, or heard the whip-crack of something lashing through the air behind her.
It was as if a titanic claw were reaching out to grab her—the sheer force of its movement alone enough to stir a storm.
Fortunately, though the snake-child in her arms slept with closed eyes, its consciousness detached, it still offered instinctive warding in moments of crisis.
The sky turned a blood-darkened crimson, as if the God above wept blood. Behind Xiao Luo, most of the dungeon world collapsed into seething masses of "black tendrils"—she had no choice but to stumble blindly onward, with no retreat.
In her panic, Xiao Luo chose to believe: the light of FATE would guide her path.
At last, panting heavily, she crossed the threshold of the residential building. The snake-child in her arms suddenly murmured in dreamlike tones:
"Tell me... what would a coward choose first when faced with fear?"
Xiao Luo, still gasping for breath, couldn’t answer—but the snake-child didn’t seem to need one.
Still with closed eyes, its pale, delicate baby face broke into a beatific smile as it whispered:
"Of course... to flee. To escape this place, this world that no longer feels safe to Him."
Yi Fengchu leveraged two weaknesses: first, the Curse-Father’s momentary blindness to the extent of his infiltration;
Second, the Curse-Father’s ingrained paranoia and cowardice.
Had the Curse-Father been bolder and calmer, he might have quickly pierced Yi Fengchu’s ruse—
That Yi Fengchu was engaged in pure deception, replacing worthless creatures to create the illusion of limitless numbers and an unraveling dungeon-realm, hammering him with fear.
In truth, as long as the dungeon’s barriers held and the Curse-Father could overcome his nature and keep his wits, he could have chosen to remain hidden within the dungeon.
This was, after all, his domain. No matter how many manifestations Yi Fengchu infiltrated, he could never defeat the Curse-Father in his true form with mere scattered fragments.
But alas...
The Curse-Father was fated to paranoia, doomed to amplify Yi Fengchu’s menace in his own mind.
—And when the Curse-Father willingly abandoned this dungeon, fleeing down what he believed to be an illusion of escape...
He would come face-to-face with Yi Fengchu’s full might, patiently waiting beyond the dungeon all along.