The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 153 - 154: Fairy Core

The myths were old. Older than stone, older than the kingdoms that now ruled over broken continents. They were whispered in burnt languages and scrawled into cave walls with the blood of those who dared to remember. The times when the first Lawmakers roamed the realm of mortals.

Fairies—those shimmering beings who once danced in the light of the Yggdrasil Tree, circling its vast trunk like living constellations. Beings of light, of laughter, of music so bright that even time itself slowed to hear them.

But the world had changed.

The Tree fell.

The Dark Continent consumed the roots.

And the fairies—pure in mana, bodies radiant with sevenfold the magic of a master mage—became prey. Hunted. Dissected. Sacrificed.

Not just by humans.

By all races—elves, dwarves, beastfolk. Everyone but the demons.

The demons, oddly enough, had looked upon the fairies with a strange kind of reverence... or was it fear?

Then the curse came.

And the world paid its price.

Their final act—those last, weeping fairies—wasn’t war.

It was surrender.

Surrender to become vengeance.

Their bodies became cores—crystalline, glowing with irresistible mana, luring even the most cautious mages to their doom.

One touch, and the plague began.

Not a simple death. Not disease.

But ’unmaking’.

The body unraveled from within—bones turning to steam, memories breaking apart mid-thought, souls screaming as they were rewritten, fragmented, scattered like dust across ruined cities.

Demons vanished into their realm, sealing the gates behind them.

The rest of the world suffered. The first Lawmakers came, held the plague of the fairies. And they did so, some of them getting infected, and some of them reaching deaths grasp, containing the plague before it wiped out all living beings.

And it was forbidden—utterly, absolutely forbidden—to speak of fairies ever again.

Even naming them aloud was considered tempting fate.

Atlas had never believed in the myth. Not fully. Not until now.

Because he was watching it unfold.

His Truth Eyes locked onto the distance, where the last remnants of the Prime he’d slaughtered had landed. A thin, crimson smoke was curling from the corpse—glowing, pulsating like a living breath.

"...We need to go. NOW!" Atlas barked, panic erupting into his voice like fire through dry leaves.

He scooped up Claire and Kury, one in each arm, without waiting for consent. Commander Denish, still half-conscious, was slung over his back like a sack of stone. His boots dug into the blood-muddied ground, launching him forward in a blur of raw mana.

Behind them, that same crimson haze began to ’spread’.

’What the fuck is that?’ Atlas thought, his breath tight in his chest. ’Gas attack? Is this some last-ditch trap?’

His body twitched. Something squelched beneath his heel.

He looked down.

Just a faint smear of red. Barely visible. But it smoked—subtly. A thin tendril curling up from the edge of his boot, like incense from a cursed altar.

His pulse spiked.

Then—

[WARNING: DNA-SHATTERING VIRUS DETECTED]

The voice wasn’t external. It echoed inside his skull—his system’s internal mana diagnostics flaring with crimson glyphs. His body shook slightly as defensive wards tried and failed to identify the intruder.

Atlas froze for a fraction of a second, his muscles twitching.

’...Shit. Is this his blood? Some infected mana?’

He clenched his jaw. Tried to wipe the boot against a rock mid-run. The smear stuck like oil—seeping, not just sitting.

[ANALYZING...]

[FAIRY CORE DETECTED. CURSE OF THE EXTINCTED FAIRIES.]

[HOST IS INFECTED.]

Atlas’s mind staggered.

His step faltered.

’No... no no no no—’

He shook his head hard, tried to silence the inner voice.

He’d heard of cursed enchantments. He’d endured soul-burns, mana-fractures, even near-death under dragon venom. But this—this wasn’t pain.

This was wrong. The way a smile looked wrong on a corpse. The way music sounded when played backward.

Inside him, the magic screamed.

Kury stirred in his grip. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Atlas... what’s happening?"

His throat dried.

"Nothing. Hold on."

But Claire heard it too. The panic in his voice. The tremor behind the strength.

She looked down at his boot. Saw the smoke.

Her eyes widened. "That’s... is that what I think—"

"Don’t say it," he cut her off, voice sharp. "Don’t."

They burst through the treeline. The clearing ahead opened up—Denish’s emergency camp just visible on the cliffside. Soldiers stirred. Mages raised their heads.

But something behind them had already started to howl.

Not a beast.

Not wind.

It was like a thousand voices in reverse—screaming, but not from mouths. From bones. From the air itself.

"Drop a flare!" Atlas shouted.

Claire fired a blinding blue spell into the sky.

Kury clutched him tighter. "Atlas... your hand. It’s shaking."

He looked down.

She was right.

The veins along his fingers were glowing, pulsing an unnatural red, like cracks in a dam about to burst.

A memory surfaced—unbidden.

In the game, there was something related to this, a bacteria or a virus, he remembered little. Where a mage and his expirements failed, spreading world wide pandemic.

’....that was during the third ark, where Lara made a deal with a demon queen, as she withheld the relic of laws which held this plague before.’

His jaw locked.

They reached the command tent. Medical mages rushed forward. Aurora appeared out of the gloom like a shadow uncoiling.

"What the hell happened—?"

"Don’t touch me," Atlas snapped, setting Kury down gently.

The healer froze.

"What—"

"I said don’t—" but his voice cracked.

Then he dropped to one knee.

His back arched. A deep, ancient pressure surged through his body, like something trying to rewrite his blood. freёwebnoѵel.com

Claire knelt beside him. "Atlas, talk to me."

He turned slowly, his Truth Eyes blazing with full power—orange swirling with green, but now laced with red fractures.

"...It’s ...the fairy curse...," he muttered. "The myth. The curse. It’s real....."

Claire’s lips parted. Then closed. She didn’t need to ask. The answer was etched into every trembling line of his face.

The healer, wide-eyed, finally found her voice. Those forbidden words, which the church only taught for a dark reminder.

"No. No, that’s impossible. Those cores were destroyed—sealed in the Arcane Laws—"

Atlas looked up at her. "....Believe it, don’t Believe it....it’s right here."

Silence dropped like a blade.

[Host’s Body is reaching its limit...]

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