Even for someone like Julian Thorne, who had seen his fair share of bizarre events, the sight that greeted him upon entering the sacrificial chamber was deeply unsettling.

The chamber was a grotesque tableau of horror. It was dark, damp, and filthy. Blood, viscera, and a strange purple mucus coated the floor and walls, giving the place the sickening ambiance of an abattoir. The air hung thick with the coppery tang of blood, stinging the nostrils.

At the center of the room, perched upon an altar, was a colossal, corpulent figure shrouded in an ominous black mist. Around her, Curse Cultists stood in vigil, each connected to her by a pulsating red beam of light. It was obvious they were in the midst of a sacrificial ritual.

The upper half of the figure was recognizably female, at least in the sense that the usual feminine features were present. But the face was utterly monstrous, a horrifying mosaic of compound eyes and razor-sharp mandibles. Her lower half was that of a gigantic spider.

As the three Curse Cultists shoved Julian and the young, chubby Alan into the chamber, the monstrous figure lifted her head. Her myriad compound eyes locked onto Julian, and he could practically feel the raw hunger radiating from her gaze. It was as if she was already savoring the taste of him.

Her mouth opened, revealing a dark chasm lined with rows of serrated teeth. As their eyes met, the hairs on the back of Julian's neck stood on end. This wasn't fear, but the primal response of an ordinary human in the presence of a being far beyond the natural order.

He recognized this creature. He never expected that the demon summoned by these Curse Cultists through The Book of Ithanway would be her… Marien, the Wandering Siren.

Marien was the first supernatural creature that Players encountered in Apocalypse. A low-level demon, and also a tragic figure in her own right.

According to the lore, Marien was once the beauty pageant queen of a small country east of the continent. Lured by the glamour of the big city, she came to Darkland, where her tragic fate began.

Like many such stories, the naive young woman was deceived by a scoundrel who abandoned her after squandering all her money. Penniless, she was forced into a life of prostitution. Five years later, the weary Marien found love again. She fell for a small-time street thug in Darkland, spending her savings to buy him a house and bearing him a lovely son.

But this second love, too, lasted less than a decade. Marien, no longer in her prime, could not hold onto her lover. As he became increasingly distant and neglectful, a panicked Marien sought out a dark sorcerer, attempting to use black magic to reclaim her youth.

Her attempt failed. The uncontrolled dark magic ravaged her appearance, twisting her features into a grotesque mask.

And so, on a rainy night, Marien was thrown out of her own home by her lover. Four cold words were all he left her: "Get lost, monster."

Utterly broken, Marien vanished into the rainy night. When she reappeared six months later, she had pledged herself to an ancient god, transforming into a spider-like monster. She brutally devoured her lover and son, turning her former home into a nest. Driven by insatiable hunger, she occasionally hunted humans, though it only served to further corrupt and twist her soul.

In the early stages of the game, Marien was infamous. She roamed Darkland, preying on countless novice Players. For Players under level 10, encountering this spider monster was a death sentence.

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Due to her "exquisite" appearance and her maw lined with two rows of sharp teeth, there were even some "brave" souls on the game forums who expressed "special thoughts" about her. But now, looking at the real Marien, Julian could only offer his respect to those brave individuals.

Lowering his head, avoiding Marien's gaze, Julian took a deep breath. If this creature was indeed Marien, then he might have a sliver of a chance. He knew her skills well, and newly born low-level demons often needed to devour a large amount of flesh and blood to replenish their strength. They were driven more by madness than reason, making them somewhat easier to deal with.

"Priest Niram, the sacrifices have been brought."

"Offer them to the Evil God. May the Evil God accept their souls, ma-do-ra-mo-ra-di-na…" a man in a black hood and black priestly robes intoned in a low voice.

"Ma-do-ra-mo-ra-di-na…" the leading cultist echoed, then forcefully shoved Julian towards Marien.

Julian stumbled forward, nearly close enough to dance cheek-to-cheek with Marien, close enough to smell the foul breath emanating from her gaping maw.

It stank.

Julian silently inhaled, and the ropes binding his hands and feet quietly fell away.

In the next instant, a finely crafted revolver materialized in his palm. He raised the gun, aimed at Marien, and pulled the trigger.

The trigger bar pushed the hammer back, the cylinder stop moved the ratchet, the cylinder rotated, the firing pin struck, hitting the primer, and the gunpowder ignited in the chamber, releasing a cloud of thick smoke. With a resounding bang, a golden bullet spun out of the barrel with tremendous force!

-253!

Everyone present was stunned into silence. All eyes turned to the altar. The next moment, the bullet, spinning rapidly, slammed into one of Marien's compound eyes, sending a spray of green blood into the air.

"Argh!"

Marien shrieked in pain, her eight legs thrashing on the ground. Her two scythe-like, twisted forelegs slashed towards Julian.

"Kill him! I want him torn to pieces, his flesh and blood sacrificed to the great True God Nyarlathotep!" The man in the black one-star priestly robe was the first to react, exploding in a furious rage.

"Yes, Priest Niram!"

From the edge of his vision, Julian saw several black-robed cultists wielding greatswords charge towards him. Priest Niram, having finished his part of the offering, stepped back and began chanting.

A sense of impending doom washed over Julian, but his mind remained calm. After firing the shot, he used his left hand to slap the revolver's hammer, the cylinder quietly rotating, reloading. Simultaneously, he pushed off the ground with his right foot and lunged to the front right.

Bang! Bang!

Basic Shooting Proficiency granted him exceptional accuracy. Even in mid-lunge, two consecutive shots struck Marien's compound eyes with pinpoint precision, releasing a spray of viscous green fluid.

This series of swift, decisive actions left the young, chubby Alan, who had been scared witless moments before, utterly dumbfounded.

In his eyes, the dimly lit room, filled with the stench of blood, was suffocating. A familiar figure in a black academic robe was firing as he lunged to the right, hitting his target repeatedly. As he landed, he narrowly avoided Marien's heavy, descending forelegs.

Boom! The ground cracked under the force of the blow.

Shadows danced, and the figure in black still didn't stop. Instead, he sprinted forward. Alan, who considered himself a rather skilled warrior, knew that a charge had a range of 25 yards. The figure in front of him clearly knew this as well, his movements perfectly timed to stay out of the charge's blind spot. Then, as he ran, the muzzle of his gun flashed again. Two more bullets screamed out, one finding the throat of a cultist with deadly accuracy, blood erupting in a crimson spray. The other bullet disrupted the black-robed priest's chanting, a nascent fireball still flickering on his right hand. The priest hastily hurled the incomplete spell at the figure, but it was dodged with another well-timed lunge, the fireball instead striking the onrushing Marien.

The fireball exploded on Marien's body. The figure landed in a crouch, his black robe flaring slightly.

"Awesome!" Alan's eyes lit up. He made a decision. If he survived this, this guy, no, this brother, no, once a brother, always a father, this father, he was determined to acknowledge.

But at that very moment, having lost three compound eyes and taken a fireball hit, Marien finally snapped. She took a deep breath, her abdomen beginning to swell.