Chapter 607: The Curse Of A Blessing
“You see, Lady Charlotte, I was blessed before I was even born.”
Marcus’s voice had changed. The manic energy was still there, lurking beneath the surface, but now it was tempered by something else.
Something that sounded almost like weariness.
“My mother was the heiress to a weapons empire, one of the largest manufacturers during the war.”
“My father was an S-class blessed, famous throughout the lands for his valor against the Eternal Queen’s forces.”
“They met during the middle years of the war, fell in love amidst the chaos of battle, and married just as peace was being declared. I was conceived in the afterglow of victory.”
“The ultimate symbol of hope for a new era when the Battle Angels had just emerged.”
He stared into the flames.
“You see, from the moment I drew my first breath, I had everything.”
“Riches beyond imagination.”
“Power inherited from both sides of my family.”
“Parents who adored me with an intensity that bordered on worship.”
“A household staff dedicated to fulfilling my every whim. The finest education money could buy. The best tutors. The most prestigious opportunities.”
He laughed—a hollow, bitter sound.
“I was also their only child, you see. Their precious miracle. Because of that whatever I asked for, I received. Whatever I wanted, appeared before me.”
“I never had to struggle for anything. I never had to work for anything. I never had to want for anything, because the wanting and the having happened simultaneously.”
“And then, at age five, I awakened my blessing.”
His eyes grew distant, lost in memory.
“I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. One moment I was a normal child, and the next I could summon lightning from my fingertips.”
A faint blue spark danced across his knuckles, crackling softly in the dim light before vanishing into thin air.
“My parents were overjoyed. There were celebrations that lasted for days. Dignitaries and officials came from across the realm to pay their respects.”
“Everyone wanted to forge connections with the family that had produced an S-class Blessed. My parents’ influence, already vast, expanded beyond anything they had imagined.”
“And me? I was treated like a god!” He turns and started walking around her chair, his head tilting back toward the vaulted ceiling of the library.
“A living deity in the body of a child. Everything I had experienced before—all the spoiling, all the adoration, all the luxury—it multiplied hundredfold!”
“I couldn’t walk down the street without people asking for my autograph. I couldn’t attend a single event without being swarmed by admirers.”
“Girls threw themselves at me before I even understood what that meant.”
He shook his head slowly like it was all a headache.
“Even in school, I was the most popular student by default. Not because of my personality. Not because of my achievements. Simply because of who I was.”
“The boy with the S-Class blessing.”
“The son of Hero.”
“The golden child destined for greatness.”
“I didn’t have to earn anyone’s respect. I didn’t have to prove myself. It was all just…given to me.”
He stepped back into her line of sight, leaning against the edge of a heavy reading desk
“By the time I reached adulthood, I had slept with more women than I could count.”
“I had accumulated wealth that would last a hundred lifetimes.”
“I had fans across the realm who screamed my name and hung posters of my face on their walls.”
“I was strong. I was handsome. I was loved. I was everything a man could possibly want to be.”
He turned to face Charlotte, and his expression was almost…confused. As if he genuinely couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.
“And it was the most boring existence imaginable.”
—
“Do you know what it’s like to have everything, Lady Charlotte?”
Marcus asked lightly like he knew she could understand his problems.
But Charlotte didn’t respond, so he began to pace again, his footsteps echoing in the silent library.
“Not to earn everything. Not to work for it, struggle for it, sacrifice for it. Just to have it. From the very beginning with no effort. No challenge. No sense of acplishment whatsoever.”
He gave a quiet chuckle beneath his breath.
There wasn’t an ounce of arrogance in it.
Only exhaustion.
“A normal person’s life is a series of goals, you see. Small victories and large ones.”
“They study to get good grades. They work to earn money. They exercise to build a body. They court a woman to win her heart.”
“Every achievement is meaningful because they achieved it. Every joy is sweet because it was preceded by effort.”
“…None of that existed for me.”
He shoulders slouched, as if displaying an invisible burden.
“Money? I had more than I could ever spend. It was meaningless. Just numbers on a screen.”
“Power? Everyone did whatever I said without hesitation. They were like dogs—obedient, fawning, utterly predictable.”
“Women? They threw themselves at me before I even opened my mouth. There was no chase. No seduction. No satisfaction.”
“Just…bodies. Endless, interchangeable bodies.”
He stopped pacing and stared at Charlotte with an intensity that made her skin crawl.
“Everything that should have brought me joy felt empty. Everything that should have excited me felt bland. It was like being served the most elaborate feast imaginable, every single day, until even the finest delicacies tasted like ash in my mouth.”
Charlotte thought of her own life.
The way everyone had always given her whatever she wanted.
The way her blessing had smoothed every path, opened every door, bent every will to her desires.
She thought of Mika’s words: You just do whatever you want without thinking about the consequences.
She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.
Meanwhile, Marcus continued to talk about his own self-inflicted despair.
“I was twenty-three years old, and I had already pleted life. There was nowhere left to go. Nothing left to achieve. No mountain left to climb. I was at the peak, looking down at a world that had given me everything and asked nothing in return.”
“And I felt…nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Charlotte watched him, her fear momentarily eclipsed by a strange, unwilling fascination.
She had never met anyone like this before.
Someone who had been given everything and found it hollow. Someone whose blessings had bee a curse.
“I was sinking into a depression so deep I thought I might drown in it. Which is absurd, isn’t it?”
He chuckled like he was drunk.
“A man who has everything, depressed? But that was the truth.”
“When you’ve tasted every pleasure a thousand times, pleasure itself bees meaningless.”
“When you’ve heard every pliment in every possible variation, praise bees noise. When you’ve never experienced a single moment of genuine hardship, happiness loses all definition.”
He paused, and his lips curved into a smile—not the manic grin of before, but something more honest.
“And then I discovered something new.”
—
“The first time I killed someone innocent…”
Marcus said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.
“It was an experiment. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.”
He stared into the paintings on the wall, lost in memory.
“I was on a mission. A routine dungeon rescue—some college students who had been accidentally transported into a monster-infested realm. I cleared the monsters easily and found the students.”
He laughed—a short, bitter sound.
“They thanked me. Praised me. Told me I was their Hero. And as I stood there, listening to the same words I’d heard a thousand times before, I felt…nothing.”
“Just the same crushing boredom.”
“The same hollow emptiness.”
“The same sense that everything in my life was gray and meaningless and utterly devoid of substance.”
His eyes flickered.
“And then I thought: what if I did something different? Something I’d never done before? Something that would actually make me feel something?”
Charlotte’s stomach turned to ice.
“So, I raised my hand. Called forth a sphere of lightning. And…I pushed it toward them.”
He mimed the gesture, his fingers tracing the path of the imaginary orb.
“They didn’t even try to run. Why would they? I was Marcus Williams! The Hero who had just saved their lives! They trusted me pletely.”
“Even as the electricity crackled toward them, they looked at me with confusion rather than fear.”
“They thought I was helping them. They thought there must be some explanation.”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“They died thinking I was still their Hero.”
The room was silent except for the crackling of the fire and the distant, mournful strains of the record player.
“When it was over.” Marcus continued with a new fervor in his tone. “When the last body had turned to ash, I stood there in the silence and I felt…alive.”
“For the first time in years. For the first time in my entire existence. I felt truly, genuinely alive!”
He turned to face Charlotte, and his eyes were burning.
“The thrill of it! The danger! The knowledge that I had done something so terrible, so unforgivable, that if anyone ever found out, my entire life would be destroyed. It was intoxicating!”
He licked his lips in a disgusting manner.
“It was better than money! Better than fame! Better than sex! Better than anything I had ever experienced!”
“Hehe. And no one suspected a thing.” He added, his gentle smile returning. “When I emerged from the portal and told them the students had died before I could save them, they believed me.”
“They even went as far as to fort me.” He shook his head at their stupidity. “They pat me on the back. Told me it wasn’t my fault and I had done my best.”
“And I stood there, accepting their sympathy, while the ashes of my victims still clung to my clothes.”
He laughed, a cold, hollow sound that echoed off the bookshelves.
“It really wasn’t my fault. I had murdered twelve people in cold blood, and the world was forting me for my loss.”
“So, from that day forward, I was addicted.”
—
“The killings became my secret pleasure.” Marcus said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality. “My hidden vice. The one thing in my life that was truly mine—not given to me by birthright or blessing, but taken through my own initiative.”
“I was careful at first.” He spoke like a snivelling rat. “I only killed during missions, when deaths could be explained away as tragic accidents.”
“A civilian caught in the crossfire. A victim who couldn’t be saved in time.”
“And every time, the authorities believed me. Every time, they praised my efforts and mourned the losses I had supposedly tried to prevent!”
“But careful killing wasn’t enough.” He deeply frowned. “It was too boring. Too restrained. I wanted more! I wanted to kill whenever the urge struck me—not just when a convenient mission provided cover.”
“So I started taking victims from the streets.” His vile smile returned.
“Someone walking alone at night. A homeless person no one would miss. A tourist who wouldn’t be reported missing for days.”
I would drag them into alleys, into abandoned buildings, into any dark corner where we wouldn’t be seen. And then I would kill them.”
A menacing glint appeared in his eyes.
“Slowly. Creatively. In ways that made their final moments a symphony of terror.”
“I discovered that I had quite the imagination when it came to inflicting pain.”
Charlotte felt bile rising in her throat. She wanted to look away, to close her eyes, to block out his words. But she couldn’t. She was transfixed, trapped in the horror of his confession.
“But there was a problem.” Marcus continued with irritation. “My blessing made me conspicuous. An S-Class lightning wielder is always under scrutiny.”
“There are organizations, mittees, oversight boards that monitor the activities of powerful Blessed, which were all set up by your Aunt, Lady Nadia.”
“They track our movements. They investigate unusual incidents. They look for patterns.”
“And you know…I came very close to being caught several times.”
He scoffed in frustration before slyly adding,
“But the thrill of those near-misses was exquisite—walking the edge of a cliff, knowing that one misstep would send me plummeting into oblivion—but it was also exhausting.”
He frowned as he leaned against the metal chair.
“Eventually, someone would connect the dots. Someone smart enough to tie their own two shoes would realize that all those ‘accidental’ deaths had one thing in mon: me.”
“And then, just as I was wondering how to solve this problem, the universe answered!”
He pressed his hand to his chest, his expression one of genuine wonder.
“My second blessing awakened! The Devil’s Playground! An entire domain where I could do anything I wanted, to anyone I wanted, and no one in the outside world would ever know!”
“No evidence. No witnesses. No forensic traces. Just…playtime. Endless, glorious playtime!”
He let out a laugh that seemed utterly out of place in this chamber of horrors.
“It was as if God himself had looked down at me and said, ‘Marcus, my son, you’re doing excellent work. Here’s a gift to help you continue.’ The heavens themselves approved of my mission.”
“In that moment, I realised I was truly blessed to by the protagonist of the world!”
Charlotte’s face drained of color.
Until now, she had believed she was facing nothing more than a psychopathic killer, but she now realized the truth was far more horrifying.
Marcus wasn’t merely insane—he was utterly delusional!
He genuinely believed that the blessings every person in the world longed for were cruel curses inflicted upon him.
And worse still, he saw the monstrous power he had awakened not as a descent into darkness, but as God’s reward for his actions.
The sheer narcissism of believing himself to be the chosen child of the heavens, sent uncontrollable shivers racing down her spine.
Illustrations have been posted in the ment section…Check them out!
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Illustrations have been posted in the ment section…Check them out!
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