The vengeful spirit left what remained of her clan behind and just… kept walking.
She had nowhere to go. No plan. Nothing in her head except an endless hunger for more shards, more pain, more pieces of broken souls. For weeks she drifted through the countryside like something the world had forgotten.
She moved through thick forests, over misty mountains, and along empty roads. Sometimes she'd just stop in the middle of a field for days, standing completely still while the black shards slowly circled her cracked porcelain body and the wind howled past.
She killed without thinking.
A woodcutter working alone. A quiet farming village. A group of traveling monks. A scouting party from some minor sorcerer clan. Every time she struck, more black shards ripped out of her victims and joined the storm swirling around her. She never waited around to watch them die. She just moved on, leaving silence and corpses behind her.
She crossed rivers. She climbed cliffs. She slept in ruined temples and damp caves. The burning rage inside her had cooled into something colder and emptier. She wasn't really hunting anymore. She was just… there. A monster with no home, no name, and no reason to stop.
Until one stormy night.
Rain hammered down hard and lightning split the sky. The spirit trudged through the downpour, her porcelain body faintly glowing with every flash of light. That's when she saw it — the Sando Clan estate, proud and well-lit, its high walls standing out against the storm.
She charged.
The gates exploded inward. Alarms rang out and sorcerers poured into the courtyard, cursed energy flaring.
"It's a curse! Defend the estate!"
The Sando Clan's technique was Sand Manipulation. They threw everything at her.
They turned the courtyard into a giant pit of quicksand. They spun razor-sharp cyclones of sand that carved deep grooves into her body. Their leader shouted orders from the steps of the main hall while others hurled sand spears and turned the rain itself into hard bullets.
The spirit staggered. Her porcelain cracked and sand ground into every gap. For a moment it looked like they might actually hold her back.
Their leader saw his chance. "Don't let up! Keep the pressure on!"
They doubled down — more pits, more cyclones, more bullets.
Then the spirit lurched backward, ripping herself free. She opened her jagged maw and hurled a freshly taken grudge shard into the middle of the clustered sorcerers.
The shard hit the ground and detonated.
A soul-rupture exploded outward. Black cracks tore through the air like shattering glass. The moment it hit them, more shards ripped out of their souls automatically.
She didn't wait. She detonated every new shard instantly.
The chain reaction was brutal. Explosion after explosion ripped through the courtyard. Sorcerers screamed as their bodies cracked open from the inside. The coordinated defense fell apart in seconds.
The Sando leader was the last one left.
He stood alone on the steps, sand swirling weakly around his hands, voice barely audible over the rain.
"…We fought for our home…"
The spirit slammed him into the ground and ended it.
When the storm finally passed, the estate was quiet.
Everyone in the Sando Clan was dead. The courtyard was a mess of sand, blood, and broken bodies. The whole compound now belonged to her.
The spirit climbed the steps of the main hall. At the far end sat an old, ornate throne.
She walked up to it, lowered her massive porcelain body onto the seat, and the moment she did, something inside her shifted.
A surge of cursed energy ran through her. Her huge, shapeless form started to shrink and compress. It became smaller. More human-shaped. Still clearly a monster, still grotesque, but now it actually looked like it had once been a woman.
For the first time since she died, her body was stable enough to speak.
A low, distorted voice scraped out of her jagged maw.
"…Mine…"
She raised one hand and stared at her new fingers. The shards around her hummed in response.
She wasn't just a wandering curse anymore.
She had claimed her first throne.
Weak curses started appearing from the shadows, small and twisted, drawn to her power. One tiny rat-like curse crawled across the floor and stopped at her feet.
She looked down at it… and didn't kill it.
The little thing quickly scurried into her shadow and hid.
That small act of mercy was the real beginning.
Her court was starting to form.