Chapter 312

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Chapter 312: The Unshakeable Shadow

In the afternoon, Jesse stood at the entrance of Cathedral Square, and could faintly see the high walls of Stormwind Keep at the end of the street ahead.

Even though he was feeling a bit unwell, compared to the patients coming from Duskwood, he felt almost lively.

But the faint smell of death coming from the corpses just couldn’t be dispersed.

Even when the priest purified it with Holy Light, the smell would only temporarily fade away, then return subtly after a while.

Initially, Jesse thought he just didn’t cleanse it properly, but now he felt something was not quite right.

Looking sideways at the still-repairing spire of the Cathedral of Light, under the clear sky with faint white clouds, despite the clean air and cool temperature, Jesse had just been promised by Master Andromath to be promoted to apprentice mage.

Although he should have been feeling great, he couldn’t shake off a sense of unease, even the discovery of his increasing height seemed peculiar.

A dreadful suspicion slowly crept into his mind.

Is he going to become a corpse?

When Teron Gorefiend took over his body, he also pushed his own soul out of his body. Although he ultimately won, he was still heavily affected, right? So now it is… me taking over myself?

Jesse turned around and squatted by the river to splash water on his face vigorously, trying to suppress his increasingly absurd speculations.

He shook his hand, smelled the newly changed clothes, made sure there was no strange smell left by Molofeel, and then headed towards Cathedral Square.

As usual, he arrived at the church beside the priests treating corpse poison and infections downstairs, and as soon as he got here, he could smell a familiar corpse odor, mostly coming from the patients themselves.

But the smell on him was somewhat different from this corpse odor.

Jesse could feel that the smell on him was not just the scent of decaying corpses.

As a few patients entered the house, Jesse subconsciously wanted to avoid them, not because he was worried about catching their diseases, but because he was afraid of passing on his own strange problems to them.

In any case, his vague sense of foreboding was getting worse.

"I remember you, mage," a young priest said. "Still no improvement?"

"I’m not sure if it’s getting better. It’s a bit better than before, but I still feel it might come back…" Jesse said. "And I feel like my issue might be different from other patients. Could it be a rare illness other than corpse poison?"

The young priest leaned in to smell Jesse and shook his head. "It’s not very clear. Shall I try purifying you again, and then check on you next time? Any improvement is good. If you’re worried, I can find a more experienced priest to help you."

"I still want to be more careful, monk. I’m sorry," Jesse said.

"Don’t worry, sir," the priest said. "Coming from the Wizard’s Sanctum, you might be more sensitive to possible evil magic than us. I only joined the church after the Orc War, so there’s much I still don’t know."

With that, he exchanged some words with the other priests nearby and went back through the door behind.

Jesse frowned as he thought about his encounter with the ghost of Teron Gorefiend, and then remembered the spirits he encountered in the ruins of Thaurissan, wondering if he might have picked up something strange elsewhere.

As he pondered, a balding middle-aged priest approached.

"Welcome to the Cathedral of Light, mage. My students have told me you’ve encountered some rare troubles. I’m not sure if I can help, but I’ll try."

Jesse saw his hair and felt much calmer instantly.

"I got this strange illness last month, priest. At first, there was a weird smell of decay coming from my body all the time, no matter how much I washed. I also often felt weak, had trouble sleeping at night, and would have nightmares. I’ve consulted priests a few times before for purification, and it would only work for a while before the strange smell slowly returned, albeit fainter. But I still feel something is not right, it feels more like some kind of magic." The priest listened to Jesse’s statement, his expression turning serious.

"Does this issue affect your daily life? Like walking, working, or your studies, spellcasting, and such?"

"It occasionally does, but not much," Jesse admitted. "I am worried it might be a chronic disease that is hard to get rid of. Is it possible that I have a severe necromantic infection that I am completely unaware of?"

"How should I address you, mage?" the priest said. "I am Glenn Fadin, you can call me Friar Fadin. Please come with me this way, I believe your issue may be more complicated than you think."

"Jesse Seso."

Jesse said, but in his mind, he wondered what could be more complicated than he imagined.

He felt like he was turning into a corpse soon, what could be more complicated than that?

Friar Fadin brought Jesse to a side door at the staircase, opened the door, brewed two cups of herbal tea, and handed one to Jesse, saying, "Try this."

Jesse took a sip of the tea. It looked strong, but he couldn’t taste anything.

"This is a special flower tea, Mr. Seso," Fadin said. "You can’t taste its flavor, right? Based on your description, the faint smell of decay around you, and your reaction to this tea, I think you might be cursed, rather than just sick or poisoned by the undead."

"Cursed?" Jesse asked, putting down his tea. "What curse?"

Fadin sat opposite Jesse and said, "Can you honestly tell me if you encountered or touched something unusual, or had an accident before encountering this problem? Because it’s been a long time since I’ve come across a case like yours!"

Hearing this, Jesse realized that the priest was quite skilled.

"I was involved in a battle against a Death Knight, a very strong Death Knight, even though he was already desperate… but still very fierce."

"As I suspected, I can tell what kind of problem you’ve encountered," Friar Fadin said, looking into Jesse’s eyes.

Jesse lifted his head upon hearing this.

The priest said, "I was also present when the Alliance’s army fought against the invading Horde on the continent of Lordaeron, Mr. Seso."

"The tribe was defeated in the Battle of Hillsbrad and went to the Hinterlands to gather Amani Troll reinforcements. The Dwarf Wildhammer fought against the Orc legion there, and our army needed to defend the Hillsbrad line to prevent the tribe from counterattacking. But we also could not ignore the struggle of the dwarfs at Aerie Peak."

"However, during that time, terrible ghosts started appearing in the camps, castles, or towers, using dark magic and their icy claws to kill sleeping soldiers. Every night we would lose a dozen or even dozens of young people. This was a heavy blow to the morale of the soldiers who had just experienced the horror of the Hillsbrad battle and seriously disrupted our plans to support our dwarf allies from the west."

"At first, many soldiers lost their minds because of this, becoming so afraid that they preferred to be captured as deserters and face death or imprisonment rather than sleep in the camps."

"Lord Garithos of the Silver Hand urgently investigated these events with us priests and ultimately uncovered Teron Gorefiend’s plot. We suspected that he realized in the final stages of the Hillsbrad battle that the tribe might not be able to continue advancing westward, so he secretly cursed our soldiers with the Death Knights."

"This was a very malicious curse that would not have any immediate effect on the soldiers for a long time, making them appear healthy. But once the priest thought you were all right and believed you could return to the other soldiers, at some point your health would suddenly deteriorate. Then, this curse would kill you in one sleep. It would then transform your soul into an angry evil spirit, spreading fear throughout the entire army."

"We called it the ‘Deathmantle’."

This curse reminded Jesse of a battle mechanic from a game with the Teron Gorefiend team fight.

Gorefiend would randomly curse a player to die after a few tens of seconds, turning their body into a pile of skeletal constructs attacking their teammates.

Of course, while this power Gorefiend had was regained after a series of quests in the Outland, Deathmantle directly drove people’s souls to madness and slaughter, with the time not as sudden as thirty seconds, but a long and uncertain wait to allow the cursed individual to create greater panic when returning to the calm crowd.

At that moment, he remembered what Teron Gorefiend had said before his soul was finally extinguished.

It turns out that the curse was not just empty words, but very real.

So, this potentially lethal curse had been affecting him for almost half a month?

No wonder the young priests couldn’t detect it, even under the watchful eyes of the Paladins from the Silver Hand.

The monk continued, "After a long investigation, we have identified the characteristics of soldiers cursed in this way. The most noticeable are the undetectable putrid smell that cannot be dispelled, frequent abnormal nightmares, and loss of smell for certain specific plants."

"Only the most sensitive mages and powerful spellbreakers among the High Elves can detect that smell, others are often too distracted by various situations to make a judgment. For example, if a soldier has just defeated an undead creature summoned by a Death Knight, everyone would think the smell on him is from the undead creature, and the nightmares could be attributed to the trauma from the battle."

"Therefore, the more courageous a soldier is, the more dangerous it is. This terrible curse has caused significant obstacles for us in pursuing our mission in the coming weeks or even months."

"It has been three years since the Battle of Silverblade, sir, no one could have foreseen encountering this problem again."

After speaking, the monk sighed deeply.

Maybe because he was mentally prepared, or because Jesse felt from the beginning that Teron Gorefiend wouldn’t treat him well. So he wasn’t too surprised or panicked.

"So, how long does it usually take from being cursed to dying?" he asked.

The monk explained, "Some young warriors with weaker willpower only last a few days, while for others… it’s hard to say. It could be weeks or even months. That’s why even when Khaz Modan was liberated, the armies of Lordaeron were still facing this issue. Later, The Silver Hand Knights discovered that using the power of the Holy Light could treat and delay the onset, but until now the entire Alliance hasn’t found a proper way to completely cure it."

"Most of those cursed have already died. Some, after long-term care, also become mentally unstable from months or even years of fear. Some choose to end their own lives, especially those heroic fighters who can’t bear the thought of one day becoming evil spirits attacking innocent people."

"What?" Jesse asked, "So, Friar, if I die before the curse fully takes over, my soul won’t turn into an evil spirit?"

The monk nodded, saying, "That should be the case. The curse will be lifted."

This surprised Jesse, as in the game, if someone is hit by Deathmantle, their body would immediately transform into a skeletal construct and start attacking nearby players.

Unless for the sake of gameplay and dungeon difficulty, after Teron Gorefiend in the Black Temple pledged allegiance to Illidan Stormrage, he became much more powerful than when he was in Dalaran.

"But there’s no need to worry about this now, Mr. Seso," Friar Fadin said, "You can try to endure as much as you can because your condition doesn’t seem too severe. After all, there are very few cases of unexplained recovery, and regardless of any magic, curse, or witchery, it’s never a guaranteed success. Also, the church has been seeking ways to heal the damage caused by Death Knights, and this curse is one of them. For now, you can go to the Mage Quarter to seek a master to try dispelling it. The church can help delay its progression as much as possible."

"But I hope you can come to the Cathedral of Light every week to check on your progress. We need to keep an eye on you since we are in Stormwind. I don’t want to say this, but we need to prepare for the worst."

"I understand, Friar. Can mages remove this curse?" Jesse asked.

"Some mages can, some cannot," the Friar replied. "It may depend on the strength of the one who cast the curse. Have you tried seeking help from a mage before?"

"I thought I was poisoned, or…" Jesse frowned. "Anyway, thank you, Friar. I will go to the Mage Quarter to ask around."

Friar Fadin nodded, placing his hand on Jesse’s shoulder and silently prayed. Jesse was too preoccupied to listen to his prayer, his mind a mess.

Luckily, perhaps because Teron Gorefiend’s curse was weaker in his soul form or because his mind was greatly suppressed, the Deathmantle he cast did not progress as quickly as Friar Fadin had described.

But still, Deathmantle ultimately led to death. He couldn’t rely solely on luck for that slim chance of natural recovery.

You win this time. I hope your soul is devoured by countless Felhunters! I wish a more tragic fate upon you than Gul’dan! I curse you!

Teron Gorefiend’s furious roar echoed in his mind, accompanied by the scorching of the Holy Light growing clearer.