He decreed a new order: a culture of lust, sanctified under the crown. He preached that through unrestrained pleasure, the lost numbers would be replenished. Procreation was no longer a private duty but a public virtue, woven into festivals, rituals, and the daily lives of his people. What began as desperation soon grew into doctrine.

And Erik's orders did not stop there. He turned to his mages, demanding arcane solutions to hasten this resurgence. They answered with concoctions and enchantments potions that magnified beauty, heightened desire, and sharpened the body's performance beyond natural limits. These gifts, when distributed among the people, only deepened the corruption, for each enhancement of beauty and lust brought them closer to the cursed spirits lurking just beyond the veil.

Now, it was no kingdom at all only a forbidden realm, a place of beauty too dangerous to behold, where cursed spirits multiplied and thrived, and where the line between mortal and cursed being blurred until it vanished entirely.

At first, King Erik's decrees bore the weight of a great leader, and many believed he had found a way to restore what was lost. Though there was hesitation at the beginning, repulsion even, his authority and charisma smoothed over the cracks. The idea of taking multiple partners was seen as a taboo, an affront to long-held traditions of fidelity, family honor, and sacred vows. Yet Erik framed it not as indulgence, but as duty. This is not for pleasure, but for survival, he declared. This is for the future of humanity kingdom.

And slowly, the people bent to that vision. What had been unthinkable became tolerable, then acceptable, then celebrated. Men taking multiple wives was justified as strength of lineage; women taking multiple partners was reframed as devotion to the kingdom's recovery. In time, both sexes seemed to reach a silent agreement, this was for the greater good.

The results appeared undeniable. Within a few short years, the number of children born swelled. Villages rang with the laughter of the young again, and the empty homes once abandoned after the war were filled anew. To ensure the health of both mother and child, the Humanity Kingdom began to venerate Mahu, goddess of the moon and motherhood, with fervor unlike any other realm. Shrines to her were raised in every town square, her name whispered in every household, her blessings sought for every birth. She became the heart of their faith and their hope.

For a time, the kingdom seemed to be healing. The losses of the war no longer hung as heavily, replaced by visions of renewal. When the vision began to take placem outsiders believed this was the beginning, the return of the humanity kingdom to power.

But ambition is a restless seed.

Erik, satisfied with the success of his first great project, began to cast his eyes toward a new vision, one far grander, more dangerous, and perhaps born not of necessity but of desire. He spoke less of replenishing numbers and more of shaping a new humanity, greater than any before. He saw his kingdom not just as a people to be restored, but as clay to be reshaped in his image.

And while his focus drifted toward this second, greater project, the system he had built, the fragile balance between duty and indulgence began to crack. Without his strict oversight and the discipline of those who once watched closely, the culture of lust slipped from a structured duty into unchecked excess. What had been for survival became for pleasure. What had been a necessity became addiction.

Finally, when Erik emerged from his lab and beheld the state of his kingdom, he expected some faults and damages which he was ready to handle. Instead, what he found disarmed him "A kingdom of lust and desire"

To his own surprise, he was not angered by the desolate order of things, the indulgence in lust, the warped beauty of cursed flesh, the decadence woven into daily life.

Instead, he felt at peace.

For the first time in his long reign, his people were bearable to look at. More than bearable, they were pleasing, even captivating. The cursed spirits had shaped their forms, refining them, sculpting them in ways that mirrored the perfection Erik had once sought out. They lacked the elven blood he had dreamed of bestowing, but even so, what stood before him filled him with joy.

Something he had labored toward in solitude was now half-completed by another's hand, by the work of curses, by the shadow of Ikenga, the origin god.

So, Erik descended from his palace for the first time in years. He walked openly among his people, not as a king but as a figure rediscovering his realm. And they welcomed him. They smiled with lips too perfect, bowed with bodies sculpted by unnatural allure, and their eyes shimmering with both reverence and desire looked upon him as the monarch who had led them to this new existence.

Weeks passed, and Erik let himself become absorbed in the rhythm of this strange rebirth. He took in the sights, the songs, the dances, and the festivals that sprang like wildfire in every town and court. The kingdom no longer wept for its past nor feared its future; it celebrated the present, endlessly and without restraint. Parties bloomed like flowers in the night, filling halls and streets alike with revelry, and Erik, for the first time in decades, let himself indulge.

The wine flowed. The music throbbed. Beauty surrounded him in every direction, beauty born of corruption, yet more alluring than anything he had ever known. And the king, who once locked himself away chasing an impossible dream, now stood in the center of it all, basking in the half-completed vision that the curses had gifted to him.

For Erik, it no longer mattered whether this beauty came from his blood or from Ikenga's curse. It was enough. More than enough.

But as the weeks turned into months, the glow of indulgence began to dim or rather, Erik's eyes, once dazzled, began to sharpen again. The beauty remained, the parties continued, and the lustful mirth carried on as though it would never end. Yet beneath the glittering surface, Erik noticed something crucial.

He had never minded the lustful anch changed nature of his people after all, it was the very thing that had made them bearable to his elven eyes. But Erik had always believed that there was a time for everything: a time for joy, a time for work, a time for revelry, and a time for seriousness. To his growing dismay, he saw that his people no longer recognized such divisions.

They were ruled entirely by lust and desire.

It was not simply their custom, it was their entire existence. Festivals had become endless, duties forgotten, and responsibility mocked. The court itself, once the heart of order and decision, had withered into little more than a stage for excess. When Erik called a council, only a handful even appeared, and of those few, not one came with seriousness in their eyes. They arrived in silks and jewels, whispering of feasts and lovers, eagerly expecting the king to announce yet another orgiastic celebration.

Their disappointment was sharp when Erik instead spoke of politics, of alliances, of neighboring kingdoms watching them with wary eyes. Some yawned openly; others left in disgust, as though betrayed that their king had wasted their time with "dry matters."

It was like a bucket of cold water poured over Erik's head. The haze of satisfaction that had dulled his judgment evaporated in an instant, leaving him face-to-face with the stark reality of what his kingdom had become.

He saw now that his people were not merely indulging in lust, they were enslaved to it. They could no longer stop, no longer balance joy with duty, no longer see beyond their own hunger. They were lost, hollowed out, shadows of humanity wearing beautiful skins shaped by cursed spirits.

And as Erik's sight cleared, so too did his awareness of the danger around him. Beyond his borders, other kingdoms had already turned their backs on Humanity. Rumors of the cursed spreading were growing louder, and watchful eyes in the shadows were waiting for the right moment to strike.

Not all of the Humanity Kingdom had yet been swallowed by lust. There were still many who remained untouched, still living as ordinary men and women, clinging desperately to fragments of normalcy. But their numbers were dwindling fast. For one of the greatest dangers of cursed spirits was not just their strength, but the way their very presence distorted the world around them.

A cursed spirit was a plague made flesh.

Left unchecked, one could rot a village within a single day. In weeks, an entire town would collapse into madness, as the curse seeped into the air itself, warping minds and hearts until nothing remained but indulgence in the sin it embodied. In this case, lust. The cursed beings of lust were not content with their own corruption. They spread it, twisted it, until the ground itself seemed to breathe temptation and the people could think of nothing but their hunger.

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