Chapter 8: The Growing Hunger

The dull throb in Aria’s bones had transformed into a relentless storm. It pulsed beneath her skin like wildfire, scorching and demanding. The curse she carried no longer whispered its need for pain — it roared.

Her mana swirled in her veins, thick and heavy, an insatiable beast clawing to be fed. Each day, the hunger grew sharper, louder, more desperate. The longer she fed it, the more it demanded in return.

She had learned the cruel truth: the curse was a double-edged blade. It granted her power, but it also chained her to an endless cycle of suffering. If the pain she inflicted didn’t increase, the backlash tore into her own flesh and bone, sharper and more merciless each time.

Aria sat motionless at the edge of an abandoned rooftop, the city’s distant lights flickering beneath her like stars swallowed in a sea of darkness. Her hands, still faintly glowing with mana, trembled—not with fatigue, but with the raw, feral need clawing inside her.

“Enough scraps,” she muttered to herself, voice brittle as ice. “It’s time for a feast.”

Ren watched her from the shadows, concern lining his face. The quiet room felt colder, emptier, as if the very air shrank away from her growing hunger.

“You’re pushing yourself too far,” he said softly, stepping closer.

Aria’s eyes didn’t leave the horizon. “There is no ‘too far.’ There’s only survival.”

Her voice was sharp, cutting through the silence like a blade. She rose slowly, chains rattling faintly around her wrists — a cruel reminder of the curse’s hold.

The muscles in her jaw twitched, but she didn’t allow weakness to show.

“This hunger… it’s not just growing,” she said, voice low and steady. “It’s evolving. The curse demands more, and scraps won’t be enough to feed it anymore.”

Ren’s gaze searched hers. “What are you going to do?”

She turned to face him fully now, eyes blazing with cold determination. “I’m planning something bigger. A cage not for one, or ten, but for hundreds. The entire city will scream, and I will feed.”

That night, she stood in the darkness of her domain, the black void that twisted and shifted with her will.

“Divide,” she whispered, the word heavy on her tongue.

The world shattered, and the Black Cage rose—a vast labyrinth of shadow and iron chains suspended in endless darkness. The air crackled with tension and raw mana.

Aria’s fingers moved like a maestro’s, weaving cruel runes of binding and pain. Chains snaked out, looping and twisting, locking themselves into place with deadly precision.

The cage was no longer a simple prison. It was a cathedral of torment.

She summoned instruments of agony—razor-sharp blades that gleamed with cruel intent, pincers that could crush bone, needles glowing faintly with wicked, unnatural light. Each tool hovered silently, waiting to be wielded.

Her mana surged, a burning inferno beneath her skin.

Pain was power. Power was survival.

She would starve the curse no longer.

Ren stood silently beside her, watching the growing web of suffering materialize from her will.

“You think you can control it?” he asked quietly.

Aria’s lips curled into a harsh smile.

“Control is a luxury I cannot afford,” she replied coldly. “This hunger is infinite. It is the only constant I have.”

She clenched her fists, the veins in her arms pulsing with mana. The backlash was already beginning—aches flared in her joints, and sharp stabs of pain shot through her ribs.

“This curse is a blade,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “If I don’t wield it, it will kill me.”

Ren nodded, understanding the harsh truth in her words.

“No weakness.”

“No mercy.”

She turned away from him, already lost in her dark plans.

The city below would soon burn with pain—and she would be its cruel queen.