image [https://i.imgur.com/xcQhW8Y.jpg]

I pranced through the wreckage of the vampires’ keep, my steps light and merry—a stark contrast to the legless—and, I might add, dickless—gnome’s furious hand-slapping against the stone floor. His every move screamed of wrath, but I wasn’t about to let his sour mood rain on my parade. With a grin, I juggled a baseball-sized black orb, my carefree tosses a sharp foil to his frustration. Each time the orb thudded against the ground after a missed catch, a sharp intake of breath escaped him.

“Oops!” I flashed a mischievous smile.

“Aaaaah!” Olin cried out as the orb hit the stone floor with a loud crack.

“My bad,” I nearly sang out, scooping up the orb without bothering to check for any cracks or chips. With a soft chuckle, I tossed it again, effortlessly catching it while noting his wince. “Oh, how thoughtless of me,” I hummed sarcastically, the words dripping with faux concern. Tee-hee.

“Will you th-stop that?” the gnome gasped, his voice threading a hiss through the irritation.

“Stop what?” I asked, tossing the orb again, my eyes gleaming as I happily watched his eye twitch while I nearly missed catching it again.

“Th-that!”

“That?” I tilted my head, feigning confusion.

What? Accidents happen. It’s not my fault if I’ve got butterfingers... despite my reflexes being almost superhuman—okay, fine, I admit it. I’m not actually missing those catches; I’m intentionally letting it fall. But oh, the look of horror on his little undead gnome face every time I do it is absolutely priceless!

“You know exthactly—”

“I’ve got questions,” I interrupted him as I tossed the orb again. “Also, what’s with the lisp?”

“Lithp? What lithp?” he blinked, his confusion genuine.

“You sound like you’re part sna...ke,” I said, catching the orb and glancing down at it as my orange eyes widened.

“What ith it?”

“Oops,” was my only reply as I quickly started walking again.

“What ith it?!” he hissed.

“Nothing!” I called back as I continued on.

Um... Blake, did I remove the souls from the two phylacteries before putting Olin’s soul into one?

...Nope.

Umm, I think his soul is sharing the orb with the chimera’s snake-tail soul.

Whoops!

“What ith you do” Olin cried, his voice slashing through the air with a hiss.

Fucking hell!

“Nothing,” I smiled, perhaps a bit too awkwardly, if the panic widening in the gnome’s eyes was any indication.

“What ith you do!” he repeated.

“Ugh, enough,” I groaned.

I activated Stellar Void and tossed the phylactery into my chest cavity—or rather, into my dimension storage. As the black orb disappeared into the void within me, Olin’s body immediately crumbled. His arms gave out, and he fell flat onto his face with a hard thud... or it would have been a hard thud, except he looked like a toddler missing his lower half, so it really wasn’t that far of a fall.

Within the dark corridors of the ruined vampires’ keep, the utter silence was shattered by a loud slap as I facepalmed.

“Fucking great, Blake,” I complained. “I needed his help to find Aurelia! What? It’s not like I knew the connection between his soul and body would be severed when I tossed it into my hole,” I grumbled back. “Ugh, but that’s how I defeated the chimera, you dumbass!”

Still bitching at myself, I reached down and grabbed the lifeless corpse by the back of the neck, continuing down the corridor toward the keep’s portcullis. From what I could see, daylight—or something like it—filtered through in a haunting blue hue. Stepping out of the keep, gnome in hand, I paused and gazed skyward.

Above, the heavens were dominated by a colossal Jupiter-like planet that filled the entire sky, awash in hues of cyan interspersed with swirling, vibrant pink storms that churned visibly, like world-ending hurricanes at play. I stood there, jaw agape, for several long moments, transfixed.

My gaze roamed across the planet, catching sight of one large moon after another—some as large as three of Earth’s moons combined, commanding the sky, while others were more modest but no less captivating. Countless moons—I’m not exaggerating; there were thousands of them—peppered the expanse, each contributing to a tapestry of orbiting wonders.

Oh, and we’re not talking plain old-looking moons; I could see continents, some washed in green, others in browns, and blue oceans—well, except for that one over there; that ocean looked purple, but the rest that I could make out looked like Earth, if not for the continents being differently shaped.

Glancing around, I noted the absence of a sun, yet the planet itself cast a surreal blue glow, bathing everything in an otherworldly light.

“Holy shit,” I finally breathed out.

Pulling my gaze down, I noticed the remnants of the siege within a forest—not the lush green kind, but more like the eerie Sleepy Hollow variety. It was painfully clear that the vampires had been utterly decimated, with corpses littering the ground everywhere I looked. A few were even impaled upon the tops of trees—don’t ask me how they got all the way up there. I took a step and pulled back when my foot landed on a large wooden stick, and suddenly, it hit me. I got an idea. An awful idea. I got a wonderful, awful idea.

A few minutes later, I watched as Olin’s eyes slowly crept open, blinking a few times as if waking from a deep sleep, before finally settling on me.

“Eh, what happened?” he groaned.

“Um, turns out I can’t keep your phylactery within my dimensional storage without severing the connection between your soul and that... head,” I said, barely concealing a smile.

“You have a dimensional—wait, what do you mean, head?” Olin tried to glance down—well, attempted to, but his head wasn’t moving. “Why can’t I move?” he squeaked in panic.

“Hey! Your lisp is gone,” I chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

“Why can’t I move my head—in fact, why can’t I feel my body!”

“Um, because you don’t have a body,” I smiled again.

“What!”

I stared at Olin as I held the magic staff that had been lying on the ground, now adorned with his head at the tip as though it were a magical, albeit fleshy, skull. He was glaring at me with seething anger.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I added. “You had no legs. You should really be thanking me.”

“Thank you? I’m a fucking head on a stick!” Olin screamed.

“Yeaaah, but now you don’t have to worry about walking,” I happily nodded. “Oh, and look... oh, right, you can’t. Well, at the bottom of the staff, I replaced the magical crystal thingy with your phylactery.” I smiled as I gave the bottom of the staff a couple of good thumps on the ground, eliciting a few shrieks from Olin.

“Stop that! That’s my soul you’re playing with, you—you gooey bitch!”

“Gooey, what?” I asked, my tone cold and threatening. Before Olin could stammer out a reply, I cut him off, “Let’s get something straight. I need your help to find Aurelia. I don’t care about you or what happens to you. That said, if you help me, I... might hand you over to her to fix, but until then, you’re at my mercy, and I’m not big on mercy.”

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“I—I understand,” Olin said, his voice wavering as though he were frantically nodding like a good, submissive bobblehead—if, you know, he could actually nod, considering the whole head-on-a-stick situation.

“Good,” I said cheerfully. “Anywho, why did the army leave all the vampire corpses lying about? Aren’t they worried about the undead?” I asked the undead lich head.

“It’s difficult to bring back the dead if they were slain by holy weapons. It would take a necromancer on par with a Champion,” Olin explained. “Typically, they would burn the bodies, but I imagine they didn’t want to linger and deal with that if they took Aurelia prisoner. She’s too powerful to be kept confined without a full garrison overseeing her, especially since Lord Demidicus got away.”

“Huh… So, which way to this Eastern-Witch?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Elsternwick,” Olin corrected, earning a flat stare from me. He cleared his throat, “Straight ahead.”

Um, but he doesn’t have a throat.

Semantics—shut up!

With a happy little hum, I started walking, and walking, oh, and more walking, until at last, Elsternwick! It was actually a cinch to find. I mean, there was a literal trail laid out clear as day as though an entire army had marched right through it—which I suppose was probably exactly what had happened—leading right through the forest. Olin and I approached the forest’s edge, spotting an encampment outside the village’s walls.

My little dark heart sank at the sight of vampires bared naked and impaled upon wooden spikes, Vlad the Impaler-style. The once-fearsome creatures of the night were reduced to squirming in agonizing pain. Their skin bubbled, blackened, and blistered as their piercing screams of torture echoed through the air, met with jeers and laughter from the holy knights who occasionally stepped up to cast Holy upon them. If these roasting vampires weren’t supposed to be my allies, I might have been tempted to take a bite or two. Ah, who was I kidding? I had no allies.

I was only here for the dungeon core—yes, that’s me lying to myself again. I didn’t understand why Aurelia had such a hold over me. Nonetheless, I was relieved that Aurelia wasn’t among the impaled. Still, the thought of her suffering sent my tar-black blood blazing with rage as I gazed into the camp, desperate to find her.

“What’s your plan?” Olin squeaked.

I smirked at the head on a stick and replied, “I don’t have one.”

“WH—” He started to yell before my hand clapped over his mouth.

The little prick launched into a muffled tirade, but honestly, who had the time or the patience for that? So, with a flex of my tits, I opened my dimensional storage and unceremoniously dumped him, the stick he was glued to, and his oh-so-precious phylactery into the abyss.

Sighing in relief at the sudden silence—well, apart from the ongoing vampire rave and their Holy Knight fan club—I couldn’t help but let a wickedly dark smile creep across my face as my body started doing its best Wicked Witch impression, melting into a gooey mess. As I splattered onto the ground, shrinking in size, I couldn’t help but wonder where all my extra mass was going. I mean, I’d eaten enough corpses to rival an elephant and a half. But, as usual, when pesky questions like that popped up, my go-to answer fluttered back—magic, duh!

Once I’d shrunk down to what one might generously call a baby spiderling—okay, fine, I looked more like a Great Dane smooshed into a pancake—I slithered off in a mad, undignified slush toward the military encampment.

As a large moon passed overhead, the sky was painted in dark blue and pink hues, casting the knights’ encampment into a labyrinth of haunting shadows. The camp was massive, nearly four times the size of the village, and being near so many knights gathered in one spot was a bit unnerving. Not because I was scared—fuck that—but because I was hungry again. I really should have taken the time to feast on all those vampire corpses lying around earlier.

How the fuck am I going to pull this off?

As my slime form slithered forward, I couldn’t help but gawk at the wild mix of knights in the encampment. Half were clad in pristine white and gold plate mail, epitomizing the stereotypical holier-than-thou knights. But the other half... oh boy, hold onto your hats! They strutted about like barbarians on a runway, sporting outfits that made He-Man, Conan, and lingerie models seem as if they were dressed for Sunday mass. Chainmail bikinis and thongs adorned everyone, turning the place into a bizarre blend of a raunchy cosplay event and an S&M party. It was a spectacle that left me both amused and utterly bewildered.

Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s going on here?

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m seeing—but damn, look at her ass!

While mentally catcalling a few of the sights, my attention was snagged by boisterous laughter. “Hey there, Gimona! How did your patrol go?”

I froze, my gooiness halting as that name echoed like a cruel mantra in my ears, a funeral hymn. Wartie’s horrified face flashed in my thoughts, embedding that name deeper into my already enraged psyche. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t care that the little shit had died; no, I was still pissed someone else had done it. Was this a Black Pudding trait?

“Ah, sure ye haven’t heard? There was a cave-in down in the deep roads. All patrols’ve been halted. Nobody’s gettin’ through there,” Gimona responded.

“HA!” a barbarian-looking woman laughed.

Gimona went on, “What’s goin’ on with that vampire wench, eh?”

“Many of us, myself included, offered to spike the bitch, but the General refused. He’s treating her like some fucking VIP prisoner, last I heard, intent on handing her over to the empire for interrogation. A bunch of bullshit if you ask me! We should strap the bitch down and let the boys impale her!”

Gimona let out a hearty laugh that filled the camp. “Ha! If that little vamp is off to the empire, she’ll be wishin’ the General and his lads had finished it! Did they drain the lass, at least? Vamps can be real beasts if they’re not. Ye know!”

“Ha! Last I heard, she’s bone dry!” replied the female barbarian.

Aurelia first, murdering after!

“It’s a shame Galen headed out earlier this morning. Thankfully, we’re getting two other Champions tomorrow,” a knight said.

I peered around the corner of a tent, easily spotting the dwarf as she lost herself in laughter and ale among a gaggle of knights, her five o’clock shadowed jawline on full display. My eyes continued to roam the crowd, searching for the rest of the dwarf’s companions. No sight of the wizard… Still, my true prize was the one approaching a tent—Anlyth, the elf bitch who killed Wartie, arm in arm with a burly, bald, caramel-skinned man built like a seasoned blacksmith or a rampaging linebacker.

There’s Anlyth, but who’s the man she’s clinging to?

Aurelia first, murdering after!

She might be held in a tent at the center of the encampment.

There’s also a chance she’s in a secure location inside Elsternwick.

But I doubt that shithole village has a secure enough location to hold her.

It can’t be worse than a tent...

…

Ugh, I was right, and I knew it, but I never listen to anyone’s advice, my own included.

To the center of the camp, I shall go!

…

I resumed my unseen slinking through the camp, pausing only momentarily to eavesdrop on the conversation. The deepening shadows cast by the lunar shadow veiled my movements as the planet’s glow barely grazed the treetops, casting the remainder of the camp into dusky shades of black and gray. Around me, the knights reveled in their victory, drowning in drink and jubilation. They danced and pranced around the flickering campfires, their laughter forming a stark chorus against the faint, haunting cries of impaled vampires that dwindled with the fading light. The scene was surreal, an eerie dance of celebration amidst profound suffering.

As I slipped into the central portion of the encampment, I found rows of steel cages strung about, like those in a dog kennel. Yet, they were all crammed with crying and sobbing people of various races I couldn’t identify. Worse, not a single person within those cages appeared to be from the vampire keep—fortress—base—ruins… lair? Something or other!

I didn’t see anyone who might have belonged among the vampires. These prisoners were different... realization dawned on me as I noticed a few of their distinct features—they were beastkin!

Witnessing their suffering and the shattering of their hopes and lives under such a cruel fate wasn’t particularly heart-wrenching for me. However, a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of pity stirred within me for a single child among them—the first true child I had encountered. Her once-white fluffy bunny ears drooped pathetically, coated in dirt that merged with her grim, tear-streaked face as she huddled in the corner of her cage, infested with shit, bugs, and maggots.

Since reincarnating into this twisted reality I now call home, I’ve never cared much for others. In my eyes, everyone was food to me, preferably decomposing flesh and intestines, but people were food. Well, except for a particular vampire who’s somehow caught my deep fascination and longing, it was almost like love at first sight, if such a thing were real. No, I knew what it was. I was in lust, like some naïve lovestruck girl. A memory of lifeless eyes flickered in the back of my mind, but I shook that memory away. All that aside, what I bore witness to now was wrong—a child, caged like a fucking animal!

Oh, look, a tent over there!

Amidst the pitiful wails and cries of those caged, a massive tent reminiscent of a Renaissance Fair dominated the scene, guarded by six knights and six savages—nudists, well, barbarians, to be exact. All thoughts of my outrage disappeared as I happily squirmed my way to a tent that appeared to be the central location within the encampment.

Honestly, why are they dressed like that?

“Well—shit!” I gurgled out from my puddle.

I desperately needed an opening, a way past them, to reach Aurelia. But to my dismay, there was none. These individuals were devoted and unwavering in their duty, unlike their fellow soldiers, who drowned themselves in booze while reveling in their conquest.

Ugh! I need a distraction that won’t wake up the whole drunken camp.

Hmm… Is there a munitions or weapons tent like the ones in Earth’s militaries? Imagine the fireworks from a magic depot going up!

Didn’t I just say I don’t want to alert everyone?!

Yeah, but hear me out. They’re plastered to the gills right now. It just might slip under the radar! I’ll make it look like an accident.

My inner monologue was off the rails with an entertaining, potentially idiotic idea.

...Okay, but when has anything I’ve planned ever gone smoothly?

How much do I want to bet that the tent I’m trying to get into is the munitions tent and Aurelia is inside the village walls?

Shiiit… I’m not taking that bet.

Look in the village first?

I nodded a blob of goop I had formed just for that motion as I muttered to myself, “Look in the village first. Also, stop talking to yourself; I sound like a crazy bitch. Fuck off!”