Moriah frowned as he watched the scene unfold.
He lifted his hand, wanting to offer a prayer for the gnome, but stopped himself at the last second.
Li Wen, meanwhile, took a few steps back.
If she still had any mana left, she would have launched an attack—after all, striking an enemy during their transformation phase was just good strategy.
Zottes the gnome clutched the half-flayed piece of his face, tilted his head back, and shoved it into his mouth.
He wrung it like a wet rag, draining it of blood and fluid, then pressed his mangled face with both hands.
The pitiful wail in his throat gradually twisted into a bestial roar before devolving into harsh, animalistic panting.
When he lowered his hands, his once-cloudy eyes had become reptilian slits.
The flesh of his face writhed and pulsed, sprouting dense rows of sharp spikes, as if they had grown directly from the skull beneath.
“Shed skin, drink blood… careful. He’s a follower of Bloodlust,” Moriah warned.
Li Wen wasn’t surprised—she had already suspected as much.
After tearing the skin off his face, Zottes began ripping the rest of his body apart.
With each strip of flayed flesh, each blood-drenched cry of agony, his shriveled body swelled.
By the time all his skin had been shed, his figure—already a head taller than a human—had bloated to four or five meters tall.
His entire body was covered in scales of stone or bone, and with every beat of his heart came a sound like thunder.
Each scarlet scale had grown directly from his bloody flesh, giving him a grotesque crimson sheen.
His reptilian pupils contracted, locking directly onto Li Wen.
Then, Zottes charged.
His massive body moved with impossible speed, so fast that only afterimages remained in Li Wen’s vision.
The scent of blood blasted toward her.
Li Wen stood firm, gripping the Eye of the Transcendent, unmoved—until a sharp metallic clang rang out, and a figure was sent flying nearby.
It was Moriah.
Li Wen glanced at the crumpled knight with an unimpressed expression.
This is the Firstborn of the Temple?
Really?
“Such exquisite power, such intoxicating sweetness… Let me drain you all, one by one. Especially you, you hypocritical knight.”
Zottes licked his claws, his gaze flickering between Moriah and Li Wen.
As for the two wild mages, he didn’t even consider them worth noticing.
“You still have a choice, Zottes. Not all suffering is fate. Much of it stems from the choices we make. No matter what you’ve been through, if you turn back now, it’s not too late.”
The knight of the Temple stood once more, this time drawing his blade.
His eyes were firm as he faced the transformed gnome.
“What do you know? What do you know!?”
Zottes howled, blood swirling in his eyes as every cell in his body shrieked with fury.
“All of this is humanity’s sin! It’s your fault! And I—will wash it all away with your blood!”
“These corpses… were you doing?”
Moriah looked down at the lifeless bodies scattered around them.
“They were just greedy vermin, no different from you,” Zottes sneered.
“All I had to do was hint at the dungeon’s existence, and they came crawling to their deaths.
You can’t defeat the Great Blood. You’d be better off surrendering than struggling in vain.”
Moriah no longer responded.
Instead, he muttered a prayer over his longsword.
Crimson flames, as vivid as blood, coiled around the blade.
“The one who should surrender… is you.”
Zottes had had enough.
He’d planned to kill Li Wen first and deal with Moriah later, but since this knight was so insistent on interfering, he’d just take care of him now.
He could feel the Great Blood coursing through him, pulsing with life, hungering for something noble and sweet.
“This is—Blood Curse!”
As if showing off, Zottes bellowed the name of the spell.
Scarlet beams of light shot from his body, like countless blades, all targeting Moriah.
The Firstborn of the Temple didn’t flinch.
He didn’t even raise a defense as the crimson lights pierced him one after another.
Even through his knight’s armor, the blood spikes tore into him.
Blood poured from his wounds in an unrelenting stream.
One of the effects of the Blood Curse was ceaseless bleeding—until death.
Seeing Moriah hit, Zottes was certain of victory.
The knight might have seemed formidable, but he was no different from the rest of arrogant humanity.
What he didn’t know was that Zottes’s spell had been strengthened by the Great Blood, far surpassing an ordinary Blood Curse.
Just as Zottes imagined feasting on the knight’s sweet blood, a sharp pain erupted across his own body.
His rock-hard scales were suddenly pockmarked with bloody holes—holes that mirrored Moriah’s wounds exactly.
But unlike Zottes, the more injured Moriah became, the brighter his eyes burned, as if flames danced within them.
It was a divine spell from the Path of Sacrifice: Shared Fate.
Any wound suffered would be returned in full to the attacker.
On the other hand, it might be a desperate gambit.
But in the hands of a true Sacrificer…
“All who give of themselves… shall be blessed.”
A pure flame flickered in Moriah’s hand, and the wounds on his body vanished like smoke from a snuffed candle.
“All who commit evil… shall be punished!”
The flame in his hand blazed like a sun, becoming the only source of light in the darkness below.
Zottes felt a dire threat.
The Great Blood screamed warnings—if he didn’t evade, he would die.
Panicked, the gnome tried to retreat.
But the light was already upon him.
Li Wen shut her eyes, blinded by the brilliance.
When she opened them again, Zottes was gone from her field of vision.
Dead?
She immediately shook off the thought.
Looking up, she saw him—hanging upside down from the ceiling.
His bloodstained mouth stretched in a twisted grin as he raised his claw and slammed it against the stone above.
“Victory will be mine!”
The ceiling shattered under the force.
Rubble, blood-red fluid, and countless mangled corpses rained down.
In an instant, they were all engulfed in a sea of blood.
Zottes stood at its center.
Behind him loomed a massive, indescribable creature.
It had no limbs—just a bulbous, tumor-like body of crimson flesh.
Its surface was covered in scales like those on Zottes and the other monstrosities.
Sixteen mouths adorned its grotesque form, each lined with rows of vertical, razor-sharp teeth.
Blood-red fluid spilled constantly from its gaping jaws, releasing a disturbingly sweet scent.
Just looking at it made Li Wen feel as if her flesh would peel away, desperate to fuse with the abomination.
She rose from the sea of blood, eyes scanning the battlefield.
Even the tide of gore couldn’t hide the sheer number of corpses.
These must have been all the missing adventurers.
Moriah saw them too.
In his eyes was sorrow, pity—and guilt.
“Bear witness! To the fleshcrafted creation of the Great Blood!”
Now things have been interesting …