After the battlefield was stripped to nothing but churned dirt and the copper tang of what I'd just consumed, I took a moment to breathe—really breathe. The haze of hunger had dulled into a satisfied hum, but my skin was tacky with drying blood, my thighs slick with mingled fluids, and the smell of it clung like a lover's kiss.
"Mmh… that's almost a shame. You wear carnage so well." Eva leaned back, licking her lips with slow satisfaction.
Ignoring her, I finished cleaning myself of all blood and fluids. Once I'd rid myself of the worst of the gore, I stood and stretched, rolling my shoulders.
"Everyone intact?" I asked, my gaze sweeping over Eva, Umbra, and the Wraiths. After all, we have survived an avalanche of infected monsters; it would be bad to be careless in our enemy's lair.
"Almost disappointingly so," she said with a smirk, her eyes fixed on my pussy again.
"Focus, Evangeline," I hissed, forcing her to meet my gaze instead of staring between my legs like she was plotting another 'meal'.
"Fine, fine," she said, waving a hand in mock surrender. "Business before pleasure. For now."
I couldn't help the little snort that escaped me. Even with blood still drying on her, even with the heaviness of our mission, Eva was Eva—insufferable and impossible and, much as I hated to admit it, exactly who I needed at my side.
Umbra snorted softly, nuzzling against my hip, as if to remind us both that he, too, was more than ready. Of course, he was slightly annoyed that Eva stole some of his favorite drink.
My succubus milk.
"Let's go," I said, voice pitched low. "We didn't come this far just to turn back with our tails between our legs."
"Lead on," Eva rolled her neck until it cracked, then flashed a grin. "My queen of gluttony."
I ignored the jab, took one last glance at the stripped battlefield, and strode out, my senses sharpened.
...
The deeper we went, the more the hive seemed to vomit lust-fucked-up zombie-like humans into our path.
More and more, lust-fucked-up zombie-like humans charged at us, but of course, we took them all down. I let out Umbra from my shadow so he could hunt some by himself... and he seemed more than happy.
Their shrieks tore through the corrupted air, guttural and broken, like the sound of metal grinding against bone. Their eyes glowed with feverish, unnatural light—pupils dilated, irises awash in the sickly pink of the Varul Queen's corruption. They stumbled on misshapen legs, crawling, sprinting, slamming through any obstacle to reach us.
There was nothing remotely human about their shambling, deformed forms anymore. They were like puppets pulled on tangled strings. Naked or half-clothed, their skin was torn in places, raw where teeth had ripped away flesh.
The stink of them hit first, heavy with sweat, rot, and just the sight of those faces, once beautiful in an unremarkable way, twisted in horrors as though they were caught midway through a scream. It was impossible not to feel horror at their slow, agonized transformations.
But beneath the terror, beneath the fury, lay a deep-seated sorrow.
"Hehehe," Eva giggled under her breath, spinning her claws once before darting forward. Shhkk! The first one lost his head before he could even reach me, his body collapsing into the churned dirt.
"I swear, the queen's minions get kinkier every time we fight them," Eva teased, yanking her claw free from another's chest. "I almost feel at home."
"Save your commentary," I growled, swinging my flail in a wide arc to knock a shrieking, bloody female human aside. I struck with brutal efficiency, the blunt force driving her into the ground so hard she actually burst, like a broken melon.
"And watch the ones that keep moving after they should be dead. These aren't normal thralls."
Eva only grinned wider, but her eyes sharpened with focus.
Umbra surged past us in a blur of shadow and muscle, his claws tearing furrows into the fleshy earth as he slammed into the nearest thrall. The impact snapped bone, the wet crunch drowned beneath the beast's strangled howl. He didn't let go—his jaws clamped down on its throat, ripping away flesh until there was nothing left to scream with.
The Wraiths slipped between us like living smoke, each pass burning through whatever scraps of life—or unlife—kept these things moving. Wherever they touched, skin blistered and peeled away, muscle sloughing off in steaming chunks.
Still, more came. Always more.
One hurled itself at me with an animal shriek, its limbs flailing, fingers hooked into claws by the swelling of bone beneath the skin. I sidestepped and caught it by the skull. With one twist, the head came off, spine still attached, and I flung it into the path of two more charging from the side. They stumbled over it, giving Eva the perfect opening to slice them in half with a single sweeping arc.
"Too slow!" she called, laughter spilling out bright and cruel. Her tail lashed like an irritated whip. "Try sending interesting ones next time, Aza."
"Fuck off," I shot back at her while mauling more of these poor, mindless humans.
These humans... I need to stop calling them infected. They were far beyond that term. Infected implies they have a chance, but these people were either long gone or twisted so far into sin and madness that they couldn't even tell friend from foe. They were dead. Maybe they weren't, but soon they would be.
'Their deaths will be quick, at least.'
I cut another one down, my flail smashing through its ribcage with a wet, hollow crack. The thing didn't even flinch as its chest collapsed in on itself—it just kept reaching for me with shattered arms until my hell chains coiled up its body and tore it apart like wet paper.
I wonder how long they've been stuck in this hellish place, locked away from any hope for freedom, death, or peace.
Whoever did this… was going to fucking pay.
By the time the swarm began to thin, we reached yet another fleshy, massive hall. However, this one was different. Not the hall, but what's inside it.
"Yup, this is the queen."
I don't need to be smart to recognize that what was before me was the Varul Queen. She was... Hmm, how can I describe it? Oh right, like a snail. A massive pink snail with twenty eyes and tentacles all over her back. A slick sheen of slime coated her undulating flesh. Segments of her swollen, worm-like body were embedded in the fleshy walls. My guess was that she was laying the eggs that the fleshy tentacles plant inside the infected humans.
Again, the smell hit me first—overpowering, cloying, a blend of rotting perfume and the faint tang of fresh meat that burned the back of my throat. Her many eyes swiveled in different directions, each one dilating and contracting independently, some fixing on me, others on Eva, others on nothing at all. The tentacles—long, fleshy cords lined with circular maws and tiny hook-like barbs—writhed lazily in the air, tasting our scent.
"Disgusting…" I muttered under my breath, my grip tightening on my weapon.
"Hmm," Eva tilted her head, lips curling into a wicked grin. "I dunno, Aza. She's got a certain… obscene charm. Kinda like you."
"..." I gave her a flat look. "If I end up looking like that, put me down."
"For a fuck?" she instantly twisted my words. "Sure, I'll enjoy it."
"Kill me, you pervert," I amended, letting the flail hang loosely from one hand.
"Aww..." Eva's lower lip pushed out in an exaggerated pout, like I'd stolen her candy. "Not even an enslaved princess? That could be fun. We can be consorts and do all sorts of degenerate—mph!"
I stopped Eva in her horny path before the scene devolved into some unbirth shit, no matter how sexy the idea was. Instead, I refocused on the Varul Queen, or more specifically, what was infused on her back.
It was subtle at first, almost hidden under the shifting curtain of slime and writhing tentacles — but once I focused, the shape became obvious. A humanoid form, fused directly into the Queen's upper carapace. Its skin was corpse-white with the faint bluish veins of the freshly dead… or the undead.
The face was sunken, lips pulled back to reveal elongated fangs. Its eyes glowed faint crimson, barely open, yet somehow aware.
"A vampire," I muttered, my jaw tightening. It had to be.
"Where?" Eva tilted her head, one claw idly twirling as she followed my gaze.
"Lesser rank, by the look of it, the bottom of the vampire food chain.... ohhh~ I get it now." She smiled like she'd just solved a dirty riddle. "She's using it to call for the ghouls."
"Indeed," I nodded once, already putting a plan together that involved some intense, unbirth feeding. Yes, I will shove that vampire into my pussy with a nice and powerful unbirth push. If I could devour one of its skills, I'd be happy.
"Eva. I forgot to ask," I suddenly remembered something and turned to the purple-haired succubus. "What kind of skill was it that you needed to fuck the shit out of me so badly?"
"Oh.... yeah, I didn't tell you about it," she looked away, averting my gaze. "It's an AOE charm."
"... "
"I'll fucking kill you, bitch."