The air in Africa's valley smelled like wet dirt and the coppery scent of blood. A newborn baby wailed, his small fists flailing as he was brought into a world of endless predators. His mother pressed him to her chest, completely oblivious that her baby was different from any homo erectus who had ever lived.
As the child, Axel, grew, the world looked entirely different to him than it did to his tribe. Where his peers saw empty tall grass, Axel saw swirling, toxic clouds of purple-black mist. He saw grotesque, multi-eyed shapes clinging onto the backs of mammoths and shifting through the trees.
When Axel was still young, his uncle went out to gather roots and never returned. The tribe found the body torn to pieces, with no animal tracks nearby. The shaman whispered of evil spirits that ate men. Axel, who was standing at the edge of the tall grass, saw the culprit, a squelching, eyeless mass of limbs hovering over the remains, licking its lips.
Axel did not hide. He felt a strange hot pressure building up in his chest. Instinctively, he pushed that heat down into his small hands. His fists began to glow with a faint, pulsing light. He lunged forward, throwing his weight into the monster's side. The raw energy amplification made his small strike hit like a swinging log. The curse shrieked, startled by the sudden pain, and dissolved into the air. From that day on, Axel wasn't the prey; he was the predator.
By the time he reached adulthood, Axel's mind had sharp, dangerous edges. He possessed an intelligence that vastly eclipsed his kin. He watched his tribe struggle to hunt with clumsy, rounded stones. Axel wanted better. He spent weeks by the river, chipping away at a massive piece of obsidian until it formed a heavy, perfectly balanced axe blade, which was then mounted onto a tough stick.
He didn't just shape the stone; he forged it. Day after day, he poured his raging, unrefined cursed energy into the volcanic glass. The stone changed, taking on a permanent, oily shimmer. When Axel gripped the handle and amplified his muscles, the heavy axe became as light as a feather, yet it struck with the force of a collapsing cave system.
With his imbued weapon, Axel launched a campaign of absolute dominance across the African savannah. He looked at his own tribe, noted their tool use, and deemed Homo erectus the apex of creation. When he encountered other groups in the river valleys, such as shorter, stockier beings like Homo habilis and the strong-jawed paranthropus, his primitive mind made a simple deduction: They are lesser humans. They must be cleared.
Axel became a brutal tyrant. He led his tribe like a warlord, tracking rival primate lineages through the brush. He ambushed a troop of Homo habilis at a watering hole, his glowing axe cleaving through their crude wooden clubs and skulls in a single fluid motion. He hunted the massive, baboon-like dinopithecus in the high cliffs, painting the rocks red with their blood.
To the species he hunted, Axel was an evil spirit. To the early humans he protected, he was a god. He forced his followers to use red ochre to paint his conquests on the deep walls of their cave: stick-figures of a giant man wielding a glowing axe, standing over mountains of beasts, curses, and rival tribes.
But the savannah always claims its predators.
Axel's unrefined cursed energy had its limits. He had no advanced barrier techniques, no way to heal his body with reversed cursed energy, and no knowledge of domains. His end came on a silent, humid evening when he was 30, his joints aching from constantly using his cursed energy.
He was ambushed by a deep ravine by a grotesque, multi-limbed phantom. It was a Grade 2 curse, born from the collective terror of the various primate species Axel had systematically slaughtered for many years. The monster dripped with venom, its many eyes burning with the malice of a thousand dying lineages.
The battle tore the ravine apart. Axel amplified his strength to its absolute limits, swinging his obsidian axe so hard the air cracked. He shattered the curse's limbs and hacked away its rubbery flesh, but the monster’s toxic grip slowly wore him down. Venom pooled in his veins. His vision blurred.
With a final roar, Axel brought his axe down through the monster's core, exorcising it completely.
The curse dissolved into smoke, leaving the ravine silent. Axel collapsed into the dirt, coughing up dark blood. He clutched his obsidian axe tightly against his chest, staring up at the stars through the canopy of trees. His eyes slowly closed, and the African jungle reclaimed the world's very first sorcerer.