The Countess blinked in confusion.
Once.
Twice.
Her perfect smile began to disappear.
"You... played me?" she whispered.
The thunderstorm in her blade and the disgust in her eyes spoke loud enough. But the cheeky girl still felt the need to add fuel to the fire. "Did you really think I felt respect for you? Have you even taken a look at yourself? You’re not even a pretty vampire noble anymore, just an ugly monster. When I look at you, all I feel is an immense desire to see you suffer."
Beside her, Aria’s words still echoed in the air like arrows fired straight into the Countess’s pride.
"Even when you were given the opportunity to cultivate the strength of your own... You couldn’t be bothered to put in the time."
It hit.
The amicable smile of hers completely disappeared.
And then the Countess erupted.
"I WILL NOT BE LECTURED BY MORTALS!"
The entire chamber shuddered as her voice rose, becoming distorted. It sounded as if several voices spoke at once through her vocal cords.
Her body spasmed, then bent backward unnaturally. In this moment, she looked akin to a marionette whose strings had been yanked.
Veins blackened with putrid corruption bulged beneath her pale skin, and the pulsating item in her chest began beating violently, no longer emitting a steady glow but a thundering drum of grotesque vitality.
Her jaw unhinged.
Literally.
It detached with a loud pop as her maw stretched far beyond anything human, and dark tendrils slithered from within her throat.
[Countess Veylin, The Glutton of Ruin – Level 30]
"You lived for a couple of decades, and you think you have the right to judge me? ME?!"
Her legs split at the knees, unraveling into centipede-like limbs that skittered along the marble floor. From her back, bloated sacs pulsed rhythmically. They were parasitic wombs swollen with blood and filth. They throbbed in anticipation, ready to burst.
"I was suffering long before your forefathers even crawled down from the trees!"
A system prompt chimed inside Kaiden’s mind, only for him. This time around, it was not the systemic interface at work that everyone had access to, but the Demonic Pornstar System making its voice heard.
[Sin Signature Detected: Gluttony]
[The Glutton of Ruin: Countess Veylin]
’My chance came instantly... How lucky,’ he muttered inwardly, remembering back to the third requirement to surpass the bottleneck.
Usually, the first bottleneck wasn’t a challenge that had to be pursued for months on end, having a tendency to be a simpler, faster requirement. Akin to an introductory phase, it was the first real hurdle every single awakened had to overcome, no matter the path they chose to get to this point.
But there was no time to celebrate.
The bloated sacs on Countess Veylin’s back ruptured with a sickening splrrrch, flinging blood and bile across the floor.
The birthing was instant. From within the ruptured flesh, spider-like monstrosities dropped to the ground, each one the size of a small dog. They had bone-jointed legs, bloated midsections, and too many eyes.
But they didn’t stay that size for long.
The moment they touched the floor, their bodies swelled with grotesque chitin snapping into place, limbs elongating with wet bursts. Muscles expanded unnaturally fast beneath the carapace until the things stood twice as tall as a man. Their fangs dripped with venom and viscera alike.
"Consume, my children!" the Countess shrieked from the bottom of her lungs. Her voice was laced with deranged euphoria, finally allowed to let loose after all the boring waiting.
However, much to everyone’s confusion, the spider-beasts didn’t charge at their group.
No, their goal was not for them.
They rushed straight toward the sides.
Toward the legion summons.
Toward the food on their backs.
Vaelira’s summoned retainers, who were hauling bags of precious supplies, food reserves, and rations, took on a defensive posture as the monsters descended. But they didn’t even have their spears and shields, having discarded the items to become proper mules.
Kaiden’s eyes widened as panic entered his chest as the realization dawned on him. "She’s trying to starve us!"
"Death by starvation," Vaelira spat. "Sadistic bitch."
"Block them!"
The frontline fighters surged.
Kaiden, Jack, and Leon charged the towering spawn before they could reach the rest of the summons. Even Nyx joined in, deciding to put her medium armor and defensive investments to good use.
Behind them, the casters lifted their hands in sync. Aria’s magic was already glowing silver, Bastet invoking a solar flare, and Vaelira channeling threads of magic to conjure new puppets.
They were just in time.
Kaiden swung first.
But then...
*Badump!*
The Countess drove her clawed fingers into the pulsing heart item in her chest.
*Badump!*
The heart flashed brilliant red, casting the entire chamber in a haze of crimson energy.
Veins of cursed light spread across the marble floor, infecting the ground beneath their feet with a new level of madness.
As soon as the spread reached them, the Hungering Curse rummaged through their bodies.
Kaiden staggered mid-swing, his grip faltering as pain bloomed from his gut to his brain. His vision doubled. Every inch of him screamed for food.
Jack dropped to one knee, groaning. He clutched his stomach as if he’d been stabbed. Saliva dripped from his open mouth.
Leon collapsed backward, seizing up violently.
Aria gasped and lost control of her [Lunar Arc], which in turn made the spell disperse in a tragic shimmer of broken moonlight.
Bastet’s solar glyph cracked. The magic misfired and fizzled into harmless heat.
Even Vaelira stumbled, making her summoned puppets collapse into bloodless husks as her control over them shattered before they could finish their summoning.
*CRASH!*
Kaiden took the full brunt of a spider’s charge, sent flying into a pillar as the beast rushed past him.
Nyx managed to cut a leg off one of the monsters, but the beast didn’t care. It barreled past her and devoured a crate whole, swallowing it and the retainer carrying it.
Within seconds, the food stockpile was gone.
"Ahahaha!"
The chamber rang with laughter. However, it was not just any laugh, but a shrill, manic cackle that scraped across their ears.
Countess Veylin twirled in the air with childlike delight, arms raised as if conducting a performance of suffering.
"Yes! That’s the look I wanted to see! That’s how I felt all my life!"