Chapter 448: Interference and Choices

[Source Devouring Constitution activated!

Purifying Source.... ]

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Belladonna smirked as she saw the familiar notification pop up, as her constitution got to work. With the revelation that the undead, at least the non-naturally spawning ones, were also Fell-Spawn, she had a feeling that this would work.

Her previous theory was that it was Blood and Shadow, but it seemed that it also included any Fell-Spawn in the mix too. That was going to be good, especially if more of them came hunting for her.

She glanced away from the screen, looking around the area as her constitution did its thing. Hopefully the ability it gave her was something good but it wasn’t important right now as she still had to clear the-

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[Error!]

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What?

Belladonna’s eyes whipped back to the screen, as she read over it a thousand more times. The single word was like a stab in the gut.

Just as the knife was starting to twist itself inside of her, the message changed.

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[Bloodline Legacy has interfered with the purification process.

A legacy mutation has occurred.

Processing... Processing.... Processing...

Purification has been completed! Legacy Mutation Registered.]

[Please select a benefit to gain from this source.]

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Choose? She had never had to choose before. It had always just given her some ability that the owner of the source had.

However a choice was interesting. Since it was called a Legacy Mutation, perhaps it had to do with the origin of the Fell-Spawn.

Their ’Legacy’ was that their abilities came from slaughtering the same Goddess, with divergent paths between them. So perhaps this was a collision between the paths, or even a new path beginning to form.

The only way to know for sure was to consume more Fell-Spawn from the other ’paths’.

Before she could get too distracted by the possibilities, Belladonna quickly looked back to the screen and read over the options it was presenting her with.

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[Please select a benefit to gain from this source;]

[Skill - Nightmare Swarm]

[Skill - Lesser Summon Kin]

[Skill - Brood Matriarch]

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The choices didn’t give her much information to go on, just the names and what she could glean from the Sources Origin, aka the Plague Lord.

[Nightmare Swarm] was most likely the ability he had used to escape death, the ability to turn himself into a small swarm of insects. It was the ability Belladonna had expected to get, but it wasn’t exactly the best fit for her.

Sure a death escape skill was good, but she already had one. Besides it had a glaring vulnerability, one that she had personally exploited to get into this situation, which her current escape skill did not have.

So while it could be good, this skill was not her immediate choice.

[Brood Matriarch] sounded far too close to a Brood Hive for Belladonna’s liking. Just the thought of being a walking hive for some kind of disgusting insect swarm, letting them fester inside of her until they were ready to use.

It was positively repulsive.

There was a possibility that that wasn’t what the skill would be, but it was a possibility that she was definitely not going to stake her body on.

That left [Lesser Summon Kin]. The fact that it was titled ’Lesser’ didn’t sound too appealing, but it did have some allure.

For one, ’Kin’ made it sound like she would be summoning something closer to herself rather than the insects that the Plague Lord commanded. Whether it would be other Fell-Spawn, or something more close to her own sub-race was difficult to tell. Not to mention how the summoning would function.

It was a lot of unknowns, but it also had a strange draw to her. Even if it was a ’Lesser’ version of something, that hinted that there could be a normal version or even a ’Greater’ summoning skill. Skills could definitely be upgraded, she had seen that herself, so this was like an investment opportunity.

Besides, even if it was stuck at ’Lesser’ this city cleaning mission had shown Belladonna one of her biggest downfalls, not just personally but in terms of their guild as a whole.

Numbers. They were a terribly small group, that could barely be called a guild, and in this upcoming event they would be facing guilds or guild alliances that could rival small armies. No matter how strong they were, enough Ants could whittle down an Elephant. Whatever an Elephant was.

Whilst her Golems were a good starting point, they needed a touch more work. But even if she perfected them, there was nothing wrong with adding more numbers to her solo party.

If Revenant could spawn an army, why couldn’t she? Between this, her Golems and her Fox friend, she would be like a boss all of her own, and the Baroness would have even more subjects.

With that in mind, Belladonna selected the third option, as she screen changed in-front of her.

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[Benefit Selected!]

[Lesser Summon Kin - The Fell-Spawn have spread their cursed blood far and wide. Twisting it, mutating it, mixing it with that of the innocent and diluting it in an attempt to rid it of the curse.

While few of their feeble attempts have worked, it has spawned a multitude of new beings that these cursed creatures call family.

Summon your kin, let them fight by your side and serve under your rule. Amount of kin summoned and level of blood purity will vary with mana expended.

Specific kin may be summoned by name.]

[Bonus Benefit Acquired!

Deathless Fortitude - You are significantly more difficult to kill. That which should be fatal to normal mortals is that which you can do without. But with your departure further from the shackles of mortality, comes a departure from the humanity you once bore.

You may survive with significant damage to your organs. Only through the failure or complete destruction of multiple crucial organs will you finally succumb to death.

Resistance to Hollonite and other Blessed material has been reduced.]

Belladonna read over the notification slowly, drinking in all of the information so that Aki would have every single word in the Library, should she need to parse the texts for secrets later.

She could already feel the change in her body as the [Deathless Fortitude] took over. It was strange, as if the well oiled machine that was her body, with everything working together in unity, had simply split up.

The parts divided into seperate camps that, whilst they worked together, did not depend or require each other. It was as if her body was no longer one body, but multiple wearing one singular skin suit.

It was simultaneously reassuring in its safety while also painfully lonely, despite the ’increase’ in numbers. It left her feeling strangely... empty.

Taking a deep breath, Belladonna shook the thought from her mind, and turned to her new skill.