Maria was a little bummed out from being excluded from the game’s main content once again, but she had already gotten used to it by this point so she wasn’t whining or anything.
After watching what it was like on the Second Planet for a few days after Lizzy and her guildmates arrived on it, Maria continued playing her game doing what she normally did before, ruling her faction and conquering the nearby lands for her own.
Quite some time had passed since she enlisted Duchess Carmilla Bathory in her ranks and with her forces bolstered by hers, Maria’s conquest of the Blood Continent kicked into overdrive as they laid waste or recruited the surrounding vampire domains.
Maria didn’t forego recruiting any of the monster domains as well and she had completely taken over the Blood Rock Mountain Range after a long battle with the stubborn and unrelenting ogre tribes that wouldn’t submit to her rule.
With the entire mountain range in her hands, Maria’s army had many blood ogres in them and she enlisted all of the ogres into her faction’s army and some of the greater ones into her personal army.
All of the Vampires in the surrounding area of her faction were promptly conquered with her new forces while Duchess Bathory recruited or conquered the ones around her territory.
The Dire had started the largest war on the Blood Continent that any vampire has ever seen and finally, her movements attracted the eyes of the Blood Palace, especially since a Duchess of their own had sided with the new and budding faction that was trampling all over their authority.
Carmilla took care of things on that end so Maria focused on conquering her side of the continent and now, at least 30 percent or more of the Blood Continent had fallen under her rule.
Maria ruled her territory with an iron fist, not allowing any of the previous vampire nobles who weren't loyal to her to live and instead promoting the ones loyal to her and making them take their places as the new nobles of the territory.
She didn’t even hesitate to completely eradicate the vampire’s entire lineage, especially the ones that, continued to resist her until the end.
As for the ones that surrendered to her rule, she had Ash check whether their loyalties were with her or not before doing anything to them. For those that were found lying and only surrendering to preserve their lives, she killed them but let their families go.
Maria had learned something important during her ascension quest when she was going around destroying the planet and killing the NPCs. She didn’t need to treat every NPC as she would a real person. She could treat them as monsters if she needed to so that her conscience wouldn’t feel burdened when she dealt with them.
The game was real to her, and Maria wasn’t going to deny that. However, even in real life, there comes a time when people would need to make hard and unfavorable decisions.
As a Queen, she needed to be able to do that. So to keep herself from crumbling under the weight of the rather inhumane choices she had to make, Maria decided to treat the NPCs differently sometimes.
Of course, for those at her side and who were loyal to her, she would treat them like any other real-life person.
With 30 percent of the continent now in her grasp, Maria had total control of the Blood Continent’s eastern regions and a partial amount of the central regions. The Blood Palace was located in the central regions so she wouldn’t be able to conquer the entire continent without going through them first.
Her clash with the Vampire Lord would soon come but for now, Maria decided to consolidate her foundations and continue building her army and amassing forces within her territory.
The war against Vampire Lord Siegfried was going to be a bloody one. She expected to at least lose quite a bit of her forces. Carmilla had already planted many agents and spies in the western and central regions of the continent so Maria had quite a bit of information from those areas.
If the Vampire Lord did decide to make an early move against them, she would know of it right away. At the present state, however, Siegfried seemed to only be amassing forces from the central regions while still sending out orders to the vampire nobles in the western regions to rally with him.
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Of course, most of the couriers sending those commands were intercepted by Carmilla’s agents and promptly dealt with.
Maria didn’t want the western region to be aware of the Vampire Lord’s orders too quickly so she had Carmilla do this because if she didn’t, the western and central region vampires would be able to quickly rally together and it would mean that the war would start earlier than she had planned. She didn’t want that because, at the moment, she wasn’t ready just yet.
Maria still needed to build walls, further amass her forces, train her army, procure more supplies, establish roads for the supply line, and create more weapons, siege weapons, magic weapons, etc.
All of this needed time, money, and resources. At the moment, Maria was far from completing half of the quota for all of her objectives. Wars weren’t planned and won in a fortnight after all.
It should normally take years but Maria planned for the war to happen within half a year of in-game time or so. Obviously, she couldn’t hope for the Vampire Lord to wait for that long but at the very least, she wanted to buy as much time as she could.
She also wanted to get to level 100 before then so she could complete her class advancement quest and finish learning all of the Fallen Priestess class skills as well.
Maria had already completed 3 more of the skill book quests and acquired [Enfeeble], [Decrepify], and [Doom].
Skill Name: Enfeeble Level: 1 P. EXP: 0/2500 Rank: A Description: Curses the target with evil energy, reducing the target’s ATK and M.ATK by 20% MP Cost: 3000+(INT x 0.01) MP Cooldown: 10 minutes
Skill Name: Decrepify Level: 1 P. EXP: 0/2500 Rank: A Description: Causes the target to feel weakened using evil energy, decreasing the target’s DEF and M.DEF by 20% MP Cost: 4000+(INT x 0.01) MP Cooldown: 5 minutes
Skill Name: Doom Level: 1 P. EXP: 0/2500 Description: Inflicts the target with either [Confusion] or [Berserk] debuffs
Effect 1: If the target’s mind succumbs, [Confusion] is inflicted and the target will act in confusion for 30 seconds while taking 1000+(INT x 0.01) M.DMG every 2 seconds until the debuff is dispelled or wears off
Effect 2: If the target’s mind does not succumb, [Berserk] is inflicted, increasing the target’s ATK by 25% and decreasing all DMG taken by 10% for 30 seconds. During this time, the target’s vision will be impaired and they will view everyone as enemies MP Cost: 5000+(INT x 0.01) MP Cooldown: 10 minutes
In addition to the skills she acquired, Maria also obtained the souls of the 3 devils she faced inside the skill book dimensions that Death’s Incarnation took her too and just like before, Maria consumed all 3 of the devils’ souls. The first soul she absorbed was Greed’s soul from the [Dark Ray] skill book, and as for the new 3 skill books, she obtained Envy’s Soul, Lust’s soul, and Wrath’s Soul.
Each soul she consumed gave her an item and a unique ability, but after consuming all 3 of the new sin souls, Maria experienced some direct changes to her stats and appearances. Each soul added 50,000 Taint so all 3 equaled 150,000. Maria now had 253,090 Taint and she had breached the 200,000 mark.
When she had passed that mark, Maria’s body experienced another change. Previously, her Awakening from the Pureblood Bloodline gave her extended wings, paler skin, longer canines, and a more beautiful appearance. Her new Taint Value caused her hands to transform into devil-like claws. They were grotesque and unappealing, to say the least, but the transformation was able to be toggled on and off.
The claws enhanced her bare-handed attacks and since she now had the option to punch or claw at her enemies, Maria decided to take fighting lessons from Ash and in real life from a martial arts instructor she asked her father to hire for her.
It wouldn’t hurt her if she knew how to fight in real life and the game. Having more skills was always better than having none at all. Her family members grew a little bit worried that Maria was investing too much of her time and attention in the game, but since this was the first time in a long time that she was so heavily invested in something, they didn't say too much and only subtly expressed their concerns to her.
Maria was doing things she wouldn’t normally do just so she could stay ahead of the other players in UniTale, but since she was working so hard her family members, especially her father, still went ahead and supported her.