104. Tales of the Gods ⑥ – The Nameless Curse God Stirring in the Ocean Depths

* * *

In the deep, deep ocean depths where even light cannot reach.

Drifting aimlessly with the currents, it awoke after 10 years, undulating its innumerable tentacles.

Ten years.

A considerable length of time for humans, yet a mere fleeting instant for this entity who had already spent an incomprehensible expanse of years in this world.

All for the sake of a singular purpose.

(…………?)

Upon awakening after a decade’s slumber, it immediately sensed an anomaly.

The soul it had been so carefully grasping with its tentacles had vanished.

Had it been inadvertently dropped while sleeping?

No, that was an utter impossibility – something that had never once occurred since its inception.

Unthinkable.

It was considerably shaken.

Regardless of where that soul ventured or which human it reincarnated into, its tentacles should have remained bound, endlessly cursing and tormenting.

Inviting misfortune, neither allowing life nor death, subjecting that soul to eternal suffering.

That was the very reason for its creation, its sole directive, its entire existence.

And yet, the targeted soul had disappeared.

(…………? …………? …………?)

Bewildered and confused, it immediately extended its tentacles across the entire world, searching for that soul.

These tentacles were the embodiment of curses themselves.

Invisible to human eyes, they scoured every corner of the world, yet the sought-after soul remained elusive.

Impossible.

This couldn’t be happening.

This defied comprehension.

That soul was special.

Fated to continuously reincarnate into different humans, transitioning immediately upon death to the next human vessel.

All to ensure the curse’s perpetuity.

Confining it to the prison of a human body, inflicting everlasting torment.

And yet, it was gone.

The targeted soul had vanished completely.

As though excised from this very world.

(………..)

It pondered.

Contemplated endlessly.

What it should do from this point onward.

Pondered.

Thought and thought, but reached no conclusion.

How it should proceed henceforth.

For despite possessing a divine essence, its sole function had been to curse that singular soul, nothing more.

Its very existence had been for that singular purpose alone.

Thus, with that one soul’s disappearance, it no longer knew what it should do.

Such a scenario had never been accounted for at the time of its creation.

(………..)

No matter how much it contemplated, no solution presented itself.

The only certainty it arrived at was the futility of further contemplation itself.

Having reached that conclusion, it decided to return to slumber once more.

If its ordained duty was to endlessly curse that soul, then with that soul’s absence, it had no purpose.

All it could do was sleep.

Retracting the tentacles it had extended across the entire world, it allowed itself to drift aimlessly with the currents back to the deep, deep ocean depths – the area humans called the Japan Trench – where it resumed its profound slumber.