The First Curse.

Neo woke up feeling as if his entire brain had been sautéed. He shuddered at the memory of the pain he had just experienced.

It was an unpleasant experience he wanted to forget quickly, but his mind couldn't focus on anything else except the strange chamber and the purple strand of energy.

Neo was confused. Was all of that a dream? It felt too real to be one. He placed a hand on his chin, contemplating deeply.

If it wasn't a dream, did he really get transported to that mythical place? Where was it exactly? Who were the mysterious entities behind the voices he heard? And what on earth was that prophecy?!

'Convergence of guardians, emergence of demons, birth of a calamity?'

It all sounded absurd to Neo.

He spent the next few minutes thinking deeply about the experience when his eyes suddenly widened.

He looked at his left hand softly stroking his cheek. He stared at his long, lanky legs crossed over each other. He stared at his singular ab and pancake pecs...

He was healed.

There wasn't a single injury on his body. His entire body was fine. Not to mention, there was that weightless feeling again...

Neo calmed down and truly sensed his body, before facepalming. He was a fool to think the pain in his chest needed to be carefully sensed. If it was there, it would have been loud and clear!

That could only mean...

There really was no chest pain?!

Neo felt such joy that he almost fainted! He couldn't believe he was finally free of the immense agony he had been subjected to for the past eighteen years.

His joy was short-lived, however, as he suddenly felt a very frightening sensation of suffocation consume him. His eyes glazed over before he could make sense of the situation, and he entered a trance.

His face was frozen in the foolish, smiling expression he had before entering the trance, making him look extremely comical.

Silence descended upon the cliff as Neo went completely still.

The trance was short-lived, lasting only five seconds. Neo regained consciousness and began laughing.

His laughter echoed through the night, carried far by the winds atop the cliff. It was a bitter kind of laughter, the kind only crazed gamblers who had lost everything, including their very organs, would make.

Neo laughed and laughed until water leaked from his eyes. Whether those were tears of laughter or sorrow remained unknown, as Neo's expression still bore a wide smile.

'The curse of bad luck, huh?'

Neo realised his bad luck was truly bad. In fact, it was rotten.

In the trance, he became aware that he had become something different. Whatever it was called, he had no idea. All he knew was that he had six abilities sealed within him, with the price to unseal each one being the activation of one of three curses or three blessings placed on him.

Long story short, Neo activated the first curse...

Bad luck...

What would the life of someone cursed with bad luck be like?

Tripping dozens of times a day?

Facing disasters on every mission?

'Accidentally' encountering dangerous beasts even in the weakest of zones?

There wasn't even any point in talking about gambling. It was a sure loss, guaranteed every time.

Whatever it was, it was bound to be bad. And Neo wasn't interested in finding out.

He took a deep breath of the early morning breeze... It was chilly and smelled of piss.

Neo had decided.

Gradually, he rose from the hard cliff ground. The wind caressed his warm buttocks like a loving mother as he moved to the edge of the cliff.

Neo looked out far and sighed.

The view from the edge of EagleBeak Cliff was stunning. One could clearly see most of Teras City. The night view was particularly enchanting, but Neo wasn't here for that; his business was downwards.

'Looks quite far,' he thought, staring down at the barren grassland beneath the mountain edge.

Neo was going to commit seppuku. He was going to end the pitiful existence that was his life and fall to his death. He refused to let his fate be decided by others.

It was his life! He was supposed to be in control of it!

Alas, without sufficient strength, that was only a fool's dream.

The already harrowing journey of gaining such strength would become exponentially more harrowing when one was cursed with bad luck.

'Why did it have to be me?'

Neo felt like his life story was too extreme.

Am I the protagonist of a demented bastard's first novel?

If so, fuck him! May his readers donate some money for hi—wait, what?

Neo realised he couldn't argue with the author of his life. He wasn't the one writing the script. What he could do was commit hara-kiri.

'Goodbye, Mary. I'm going to miss you.'

Neo said his farewell to his best friend and prepared to dive. He had closed his eyes as he reached the edge, finding it too daunting to look down from such a vantage point.

'If reincarnation exists, I hope I get reincarnated with a harem system...'

Just as Neo was about to leap off the edge of EagleBeak Cliff, a purple rune mysteriously appeared on his forehead, stinging slightly. The next thing he knew, he was sent flying back like a puppet on strings.

Neo was shocked, then furious.

His own body acted against his will and leapt backwards! His own body couldn't even obey his command!

Like a deranged person, Neo rose and dashed madly to the edge of the cliff once again, willing his body to jump over and beyond to the afterlife, but...

Once again, his body halted abruptly and flew back of its own accord!

'What's this? I can't even commit suicide?' Neo thought, falling to his knees. His eyes grew moist, and tears began to fall once more.

He felt completely useless. Today had been the absolute worst day of his life. Why was the universe so cruel to him?

He couldn't even take his own life; his fate was too cruel to be fair!

Neo gradually calmed down, and the tears in his eyes dried up. His face gradually morphed from one of sadness and despair to one of anger and madness.

"This is the last time I will ever cry again. This is also the last time I will ever take the easy way out and back down. The universe wants a challenge, right? Then it's got it. I will defy all odds and grow strong enough to decide my own fate! I will destroy the bastards who dared to place curses on me! I won't stop until they beg me for mercy!"

Neo's words felt like a decree from the gods themselves, so much so that there was a loud sound of acknowledgement.

He had farted...

Crack!

Just as his words fell, a loud cracking sound pierced out from Neo's chest.

Neo's eyes widened in shock and pain before he lost consciousness once more.

His naked body fell in a star shape as a purple light began to glow from his right chest area.

Something had been released into Neo's body. Something primal and ancient. Something terrifying.

The forbidden had been unleashed.