The silence echoed through the banana trees, only interrupted by the soft crunching of dead leaves on soil as Rudra walked on them. He had seen the cursed spirits hanging around for a good time and decided to finally do something about it. He had been preparing for some time and decided to use his school bag to carry it
The moonlight shone eerily, bating its breath to see what would happen. Rudra got to the 3 feet wall of the church and simply jumped over it to reach the church ground. The doors were shut close and the gold alloy cross of the church firmly locked in the separate storeroom. Not many robbers were prevalent in this are so there was no real security other than the lock and key.
However none of that mattered now. Rudra walked past all of that and looked down at the graveyard. It was a 6 meter drop from the church ground to the graveyard section. Luckily for the public there was a communal wash basin and beside that a set of stairs carved from rock to lead down to the graveyard
Rudra could see a horde of curses lying about. Some were laying on the tombs and the others were on the branches of the teak trees. The majority were shaped like a few insects and bugs. A few of them took on the shape of some irregular animalistic or beetle-like features. He could tell what kind of mix animals they were supposed to be but could not pinpoint the exact ones
Rudra shifted his weight and quietly made his way to the nearby lamppost and climbed it to get a better view. Rudra took of his bag and webbed up the bag to the post while leaving the top enough space to open the zipper. There were a few things that he carried, mainly to assist with his cursed techniques.
The first was 5 steel rods. This was mainly because he wanted some range and at the same time be able to poke or pierce and at the same time if needed throw it to make a distraction. He did not make any cursed weapon except for weak ones yet and to be honest it was very recently that he could flow his energy into external objects, primarily due to his cursed energy quantity and mastery being low. The ones that he did make for some reason could not properly host his cursed technique well enough.
He then had an Aruval (machete) that had been lying around the house. His dad had borrowed it from Mariamma when she insisted that this would be a good addition for regular tasks and if he wanted to dabble in agriculture later. Rudra had his doubts ever since he first saw the weapon as he could "feel" like it was different. He knew that this was a cursed weapon immediately. His cursed technique also allowed him to an extent "feel" other types of ce or different types of electromagnetic waves if he focused well enough. However, that came at a cost. The first time he tried acting on focusing on that feeling that he passed out immediately and was rushed to the hospital. Though this became useful later. He was able to pass his cursed energy through the machete, and it was able to host his cursed technique well enough. This was due to the instructions of the book and even then, it wasn't as efficient as he liked it as there was a slightly extra cost whenever he passed his cursed energy through it
For some reason Rudra could feel a small amount of cursed energy coming from the walls of the church too. He did not know why but he felt it had something to do with Mariamma.
Last but not least, he carried two plastic bottles filled with salt water. When poured over a cursed tool, the salt water enhanced its surface conductivity, allowing his cursed technique to flow more efficiently, thus increasing the overall output and impact.
He scouted a bit to understand which groups of cursed spirits to take out first. He estimated by the time he took out the first 3 or so it would then be the swarm against him. Unfortunately, this was not Assassins Creed where no one would notice the dead person, and neither was Rudra that well trained in the art of assassination. He dropped down to the church ground so that he could get better aim and more force in his throws but at the same time be higher than the spirits below
He saw 4 cursed spirits each representing some sort of large beetles. He quietly took out a steel rod and charged it up a bit with his cursed energy and threw it at the presumed head of the weakest one. Taken by complete surprise, its head split in two and it disintegrated. The other cursed spirits looked confused at this and were the victims the other rods piercing their skulls. However, the last one looked up and screamed just before it dies alerting the others
'Well at least I got one more than I originally predicted I guess'
The other cursed spirits looked first at the leftover rod and then looked up to see an hunched over Rudra sitting at the top of a lamppost. Rudra feeling awkwardly simply waved acknowledging them
"SKREEEEE!!!!!!" yelled out one bug before it the other cursed spirits started attacking.
'Ok now I got to manage this swarm of shit'
The bug swarmed him from all sides. Rudra shot a web back to the top the lamppost and pulled himself up. He then used his webs to collect the rods and shoot them individually at the spirits. Unfortunately, that did not last long as one of the spirits with a pincer at its top snapped the pole
As he felt the post fall, Rudra immediately threw the left-over rod at it before taking out his Aruval. He opened one of the bottles and quickly poured some of the water on it before keeping it back. He charged the blade with his cursed technique before jumping down and swing it against a slightly larger bug, killing it
'Ok so my vantage point is gone. That is fine. Just got to make sure these things don't make too much damage to the church'
Rudra jumped on the church wall and ran to the top. The bugs immediately tried to follow him but he had no intention of becoming a sitting duck. He spun a good amount of webbing with one end of it attached to the handle of the machete and then jumped back down. He landed back in the middle with the spirits trying to swarm him again. However this time he had a different game plan.
With a sharp pivot, he spun, the web-tethered blade slicing arcs through the air like a deadly pendulum. Propelled by angular momentum and the force of the spin, the blade tore through the leading edge of the weaker horde. The slightly stronger ones however where able to sustain some major damage and come a bit forward before again getting attacked by the twirling blade.
However, once the weaker ones died out the stronger ones used the corpses of the weaker ones just before disintegration as defence. As a result, the blade started slowing down and Rudra decided it wasn't worth the effort to continue.
He pulled the machete back into his hand and the blade shone with electric sparks running all over it.
'Ok back to square one now. Time to start hacking away.'
He moved his head to the left, guided by his spider-sense, just as a claw swept past from behind. He turned his head back to see his attacker was a cat shaped curse the size of a large dog growling at him.
'Man, who the hell is scared of cats? Afraid that they would get teeny weeny scratches on their delicate arm?'
As if in response the curse unsheathed its claws which broke into the stone slabs below.
'Ok shit, I take that back'
The cat lunged towards him and Rudra immediately swung the machete against it. Sparks flew as the nails screeched against metal. Unfortunately for the cursed spirit, Rudra's cursed technique kicked in perfectly in sync with sparks and paralyzed its arm. Rudra pressed his advantage and tried going for the head by trying to carve through the arm. However, the cat simply shifted its momentum and leaned out of the way causing its arm to be severed. The now three-legged cursed spirit limped towards the other cursed spirits as it took its place against Rudra
Rudra felt his spider sense blare before he felt a long slimy tongue wrap around his heel, pulling him down and causing him to drop his weapon on the floor. It blared again when he was on the ground, and he simply rolled away. The place where his head was now sported small cracks as he saw a stinger bee the size of a small dog standing above it. Rudra grabbed the long tongue and whipped it against the bee. The frog that had been on the other side of the tongue crashed against the large bee which caused it to crash against the church wall instantly killing it
Rudra swung the frog around like a flail, smashing it into the other curses until it died from repeated blunt-force impact. Another long tongue came striking at him from behind which tried to grab his wrist. However, Rudra knew about it due to his spider-senses and simply dodged. He caught the tongue mid-air and swooped down to pick up the machete while at the same time pulling the owner of the tongue, a lizard, in one go. He swung the machete upwards as the curse flew closer and split it in half
He felt a sudden headache as his spider-sense blared in his head. Heeding it he simply jumped as high as he could towards the wall and pushed of the wall in a backflip Barely a heartbeat later, a massive weight slammed into the spot where he had just stood, shattering the lower section of the wall. Rudra landed in a crouch, eyes narrowing as he traced the trail of destruction from the broken steps the curse had climbed to the deep gouge it had torn into the wall.
He saw the back of a cursed spirit in the shape of a boar about the size of an Ambassador car slowly trying to turn back. However, while he was distracted by this sight the previous cat cursed spirit, now with its arm regenerated with ce, barrelled into him while slashing with its claws into his flesh. Rudra screamed as he fell headfirst into the church, a few metres behind the boar. Soon his spider sense screamed again as he shot a web towards the side and pulled himself away, narrowly missing being impaled by the boar's tusk. The cat now suffered the barrage of the boar but unluckily the boar stopped before it could do some extreme damage to it
Now laying on his back he got a good look at the boar. It was large but weird. It had a tusk about half a meter long protruding from just above its snout. Its drool swept the ground as it's one eye on the forehead looked for its prey. It seemed more so on what a child would imagine a boar with rhinoceroses' horn than actual boar anatomy
"You know, I really hope the church has some good insurance."
He felt a burning sting on his back as he got up. He looked back to see blood pooling on the carpet floor. His eyes stung of tears threatening to drip from the pain
"You know what? Chuck the church, I might need it more"
The boar charged again towards Rudra with the cat following suit. Rudra simply shot a web above and pulled with both hands to land on the ceiling. He crawled about searching for his machete as the boar roared in indignation. He shot a web to retrieve his weapon as his spider sense warned him of danger once again. Something slashed him right in the middle of the previous injury, but he ignored the dripping blood and his screams of pain as he twisted midair to catch his weapon in his right hand and land on one of the ceiling fans that groaned against his weight
He looked around below at the peach-coloured carpets with a single strip of red that ran down the middle of the church. At the entrance of the church on the red strip stood a five-foot curse that resembled the trunk of a rotting banana tree with lines of small tendrils of Betel Vine growing on it like a symbiote. Behind it were the beautifully crafted wooden doors that was laid to waste. One strand of its tendrils was stuck on the ceiling where Rudra had crawled and was beginning to break free. Rudra shot a loose web at it only to be reminded that once his webbing left his grip the cursed energy flow to it stops
He dodged another tendril and dropped five meters to the church floor. The boar thundered toward him, tusks lowered, while the cat leapt for his left arm. Rudra jumped clean over the charging beast and landed on its back with both feet. In the same breath, he turned his body and brought down a sharp axe kick, catching the cat mid-air and slamming it headfirst into the floor
"Hah, finally looking at those karate videos online paid off"
Rudra clutched his machete and cut right at the eye of the boar. The boar screamed in pain and shook vigorously to throw him off. Rudra retrieved his weapon from its head and jumped off as another tendril shot towards him from his side. He immediately shot towards the downed cat trying to kill it before getting interrupted by another tendril strike. He blocked it with the machete and his feet moved back scraping the ground as he fought to stay up. Rudra retreated to the wall trying to gather his thoughts and plan his next line of attack.
'Hmm well my eyes feel droopy now and my throat is a bit dry. I am losing too much darn blood every time I try to move. My cursed energy will only last me a few sparks more of my technique and that definitely won't be able to even faze that boar even with the machete'
Rudra considered his options as his eyes swept across the sanctuary, where the Madbaha stood elevated and solemn, cloaked in rich red drapery. Three heavy curtains marked the sacred trinity of its sections, each adorned with small golden stars aligned in orderly constellations. At the centre of the largest curtain gleamed a golden cross nestled between a pair of yellow palm leaves, encased in a green oval with a gold border. The Qestroma (the platform just before the Madbaha) mirrored the reverence of the altar with its own vivid red cloth cascading down a simple wooden table that bore a few sacred books. Flanking this were two modest wooden chairs and fitted storage cupboards tucked neatly to the sides
His eyes wandered above to the white ceiling and the chandelier that hung down from it and got an idea.
"All right. Time to make my first binding vows"
"I vow to not use my cursed technique except for once in this entirety of the rest of the fight except for a single attack. In return the single attack will get the power of six times my normal power of my cursed technique output and I will also get a boost in cursed energy reserves considering the risk I will be taking"
He immediately felt a slight increase in cursed energy reserves while at the same time feeling a lot of his cursed energy held back to power the final attack. Right now, he effectively had lesser cursed energy than when he made the vow
'That is fair. If it can go according to plan it should go fine'
He was interrupted by the cat that somehow got the boar to follow it towards him. It was a smart move for sure.
However, that was within his expectations
The cat dodged left just before the boar was going to hit Rudra. Unfortunately for it Rudra predicted this and jumped in perfect sync with it while the boar crashed into the wall. Rudra's hard black eyes stared right into the soul of the cat's wide eyes that stretched in surprise. Rudra's right arm swung in a perfect arc as it sliced the cat's head clean of its body. Rudra used his left hand to palm the floor and convert his momentum into a flip as his spider sense warned him of another tendril shooting at him
'Now for the second part of the plan.'
"I vow to give up my machete for the rest of the fight. In return let my webbing retain the amount of cursed energy I put in it for 3 minutes"
Rudra simply ignored the dazed boar and ran towards the banana trunk looking curse. It shot out a few tendrils which Rudra dodged. In response he started running around the plant webbing its tendrils to the floor and the walls. He dodged one tendril and webbed it to the floor. He got hit with another but rolled with the force an immediately webbed it to the ground.
Four tendrils came at him the same time. Rudra webbed the first while dodging the second. He moved his head away to the left as the third one cut his right eyelid. Rudra simply swallowed the scream and rolled to avoid the fourth tendril. He then webbed both of them against the ground. He checked his wound by putting some cursed energy to see how deep the cut was. Luckily it was a shallow cut. It would be healed in a few hours with little residue of a scar due to his innate healing ability.
He repeated this until the curse was completely immobilized.
"Do you know what you biggest weakness is?" Rudra asked as he closed his right eye and looked at the cursed spirit.
"It is simple. I have 0 clue where you got those tendrils from because you are technically a banana tree. Guess must have been the fear of Betel Vine plants causing fungal rot to the banana tree. Well either way it doesn't matter" Rudra rambled on deviating from topic before coughing and coming back
"When the tendrils are taken out of the way all you have is a weak stump. Something that even a regular man can break with a bit of effort"
"But you see. I have no intention of killing you myself." Rudra went closer and whispered
"I will leave the honour to your friend"
The cursed spirit did not understand a single word he said. Yet it understood that it might die soon and struggled to escape with all it's might. However, it was useless. Rudra's webs could already hold up large chunks of broken walls together. And now with his new vow, he had effectively turned his webs into another cursed tool. The most interesting part? He only needed to put a small amount of cursed energy into the webs. The natural strength of the web would do the rest of the work
Rudra shifted his focus to the boar being the plant. He shot a web right at the injured and blinded eye making it roar in pain and turn its body to where it came from. Rudra simply shot a web to the roof and stayed there while the boar charged. Its horn pierced through the fleshy cursed sprit as it screamed in agony. The boar looked confused at first, but it quickly realized what it had done. However, by then it was too late. It had already killed its friend and had also been trapped in the webbing. Fortunately for it the strength of web was weakening as its strands were subject to the time limit
However, Rudra did not panic. He simply crawled over to the chandelier and started webbing parts of it while leaving some metal parts out. Rudra covered his fist with his remaining available punched the tiles on the roof a few times and broke some tiles to make the connection between the chandelier and the roof became loose.
The boar was finally free from the webbing and now was carefully listening for any clues that could help it while its eye was slowly regenerating.
"Hey big guy over here" said Rudra as he jumped to the floor
The boar roared in rage as it bellowed towards him in fury.
3
"Wait not yet"
2
"OK got to shoot webs at the base of the chandelier"
1
"Jump"
Rudra jumped and pulled the webs down and brought the chandelier on top of the boar. It screamed in agony as the nose of the chandelier hit its eye. It wailed in agony against the floor in pain and tired. Unfortunately for it Rudra immediately webbed it to the ground leaving it now way to escape.
"Ok now come timing"
Rudra looked at his machete and shot a web at it. He pulled it towards his hands and felt his second vow break as his fingers curled across the handle. The boar was free of the webbing but it was still in a bit of shock. Rudra seized the opportunity and used his first binding vow to channel his power through the cursed tool.
The boars body exploded, and its purple blood sprayed on the walls. Rudra felt the cursed tool snap in two and looked at the weapon sadly as it had served him well. Rudra walked outside the church through the broken wall
He looked at the teak trees outside and saw a few curses slinking away.
'Man I am too tired and weak to deal with it today. Maybe some other time'
Rudra looked up as he saw some storm clouds come close
'Well hope that gives and excuse of an accident due to lightning or something'
Rudra sighed and turned his face away
'If not, well I don't know what to do'
Rudra left unaware of the chain reaction this one action would take
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Later that night the church burned in the storm. The carpet set ablaze and the only two lampposts broken at the entrance of the broken wall and doors. The people surrounded it in the morning wondering what could have caused this destruction.