The moment Grant heard “banquet hall,” his newly raised guard dropped again.
He looked at the other two.
“What do you think? There might be something valuable in there.”
Rowan licked his lips.
“It does sound like one of the dungeon’s main areas.”
Mina frowned.
“I don’t know. There’s something strange about this NPC…”
Isolde’s eyes immediately filled with tears. She looked hurt by the accusation, but too frightened to defend herself.
“If you don’t trust me… you can stay here.”
The moment she finished speaking, the scattered bones inside the storeroom shifted.
A severed hand crawled across the floor, its bony fingers slowly curling around the threshold.
Mina went pale.
Isolde recoiled as if she had been frightened too.
“They… they seem to be putting themselves back together.”
“We can’t stay here forever,” Mina shouted. “Let’s head to the banquet hall.”
Grant clenched his jaw.
“Lead the way.”
Isolde secretly rejoiced.
She moved to the front and quickened her pace.
Whenever she passed a candlestick, her fingertips brushed the wall so lightly that no one noticed.
Several hair-thin Soul Threads slipped through the cracks between the stones and silently traveled toward the banquet hall.
She really was leading them there.
She hadn’t lied, either.
Once the Night Fog descended, the banquet hall truly was the safest place in Sylvain Castle.
The monster inside didn’t need to roam the halls.
It only needed to sit and wait for dinner to be served.
At the end of the corridor, a pair of black doors slowly opened.
The heavy stench of blood rolled out to meet them.
Inside, a crimson tablecloth covered a long dining table. Silverware had been arranged neatly beside each place setting, and candles flickered throughout the room.
Faceless servants stood behind rows of empty chairs.
At the head of the table, a massive silhouette of flesh slowly raised its head.
Valen’s cloudy eyes settled on the three players.
A twisted smile spread across his deformed face.
“Welcome to my banquet. This evening’s guests look particularly fresh.”
All three players froze.
System warnings flooded their vision.
[You have entered the Boss Domain, Valen’s Bloody Banquet.]
[Name, Duke Valen Sylvain]
[Primary Class Path, Dark Path]
[Class, Corruptor]
[Secondary Class Path, None]
[Health, 500]
[Mana, 90]
[Defense, 100]
[Agility, 20]
[Strength, 60]
[Intelligence, 90]
[Escape routes have been sealed.]
[Blood Banquet Marks activated.]
Grant spun around, his face deathly pale.
“You said this place was safe!”
Isolde stood beside the doors with both hands clutching her skirt. Her expression remained frail and innocent.
“I’m sorry, brave hero. I didn’t know the evil duke would be here…”
Grant flew into a rage.
“Bullshit! You’ve been playing us this whole time!”
Isolde gently shook her head. Her voice remained as soft and polished as a scripted line of dialogue.
“I only brought you here because you asked me to. Instead of blaming me, perhaps you should start fighting.”
As soon as she finished speaking, her fingertips moved.
She silently activated [Soulbinding Thread], wrapping it around Valen in the center of the banquet hall.
She needed the players to keep fighting.
Before they died, they could at least make themselves useful.
The moment the Soul Threads pulled tight, Valen’s massive body jerked to a halt.
Notifications appeared before all three players.
[Duke Valen is suffering from abnormal conditions.]
[Current Conditions, Unstable Grafts, Decay Rejection, Restrained by Blood Banquet Array Lines.]
[Black Salt Soul Threads have triggered additional restraint.]
[Final Movement Restriction, 1.5 seconds.]
Grant stared at the message.
“What was that? Who used the crowd-control skill?”
Terrified by what stood before him, Rowan drew his bow.
“Who cares? Attack!”
Mina recovered first. She raised her staff with a near scream.
“Purifying Light!”
White light crashed into Valen.
Thick black smoke immediately rose from the surface of his rotting flesh.
[Duke Valen has suffered Radiant Burning.]
[Additional Effect triggered, Decay Protection reduced by 1%.]
Mina nearly blacked out.
The boss’s defense was absurdly high.
Grant gritted his teeth and charged, raising his iron axe overhead.
“Heavy Cleave!”
The blade sank into Valen’s side, but only cut through one layer of rotten flesh.
A second later, sticky tendrils of new flesh wrapped tightly around the axe head.
The 1.5-second restraint quickly ended.
Valen slowly turned his head. The smile gradually vanished from his swollen face.
“You dare lay your hands on my perfect body?”
Valen tore free of the Soul Threads.
His enormous corpse tail swept across the room.
Grant didn’t even have time to pull his axe free.
The tail sent him flying into the long table. Silver platters, wineglasses, and chunks of rotting meat crashed across the floor.
[Player Grant Vale’s Health decreased by 10%.]
[Corruption Level increased to 5%.]
Pain darkened Grant’s vision.
“What kind of damn beginner dungeon is this? Are the developers brain-dead?”
Isolde remained in the shadows beside the doors, watching the path of every skill they used.
Grant was a Guardian. Combined with his equipment bonuses, he could withstand most of Valen’s attacks.
Mina’s Purifying Light was effective against decay, but it consumed mana quickly.
Rowan’s Weakness Mark could briefly reveal the Silver Core, but the effect didn’t last long enough.
In her previous life, they had treated her like a disposable tool.
Now it was her turn to see how useful her tools really were.
They had better not die too quickly.
Otherwise, how was she supposed to deliver the final blow and tear these pieces of trash apart with her own hands?
Rowan raised his bow and fired three arrows in rapid succession.
“Weakness Mark!”
Pale gray light settled over Valen, rapidly scanning his head, chest, and abdomen before stopping near the third vertebra of his spine.
A silver-white glow appeared for only an instant before the black mist surging through Valen’s body swallowed it again.
“His back!” Rowan shouted. “The weak point is on his back!”
Valen’s head snapped toward him.
“You dare pry into my perfection?”
The air suddenly turned thick and foul.
Dozens of seams split open across Valen’s back.
A mass of corpse-white hands burst out. Their black, hooked nails reached for Rowan from every direction.
Rowan scrambled across the floor in terror.
“Help me! Someone help me!”
At the last possible moment, Mina activated [Class Skill, Holy Shield, Beginner] and blocked the strike for him.
A pale golden barrier formed in front of Rowan, but the corpse hands immediately tore cracks across its surface.
Mina quickly cast another skill to restore his condition.
A screen flickered before Isolde’s eyes.
[You observed the skill, Holy Shield.]
[Analysis failed.]
[You observed the skill, Blessing.]
[Analysis failed.]
[Reason, Target skills are class-bound and do not use universal spell structures.]
Class-bound skills were different from universal spells.
A low-level spell like Purifying Light could be analyzed as long as she understood the flow of its light element and the structure of its incantation.
Holy Shield, however, belonged to the Holy Guardian branch.
Its true foundation wasn’t the incantation, but the class identity itself.
Without access to that class branch, even the highest Intelligence stat wouldn’t allow her to reproduce it.
Isolde clicked her tongue.
This world might be chaotic, but its underlying rules were surprisingly strict.
Her gaze returned to Mina’s Purifying Light, and she focused.
[You observed the skill, Purifying Light.]
[Analysis Progress, 67%.]
[Purifying Light Proficiency increased.]
[Purifying Light, Beginner to Intermediate.]
Mina had no idea she was providing Isolde with a free lesson.
She continued healing and supporting her teammates while shouting in despair.
“How are we supposed to beat this thing?”
Before she had even finished, one of Valen’s long arms of rotting flesh came crashing toward her.
Mina’s face went white.
She had no time to dodge.
Isolde frowned impatiently.
She hated Mina, but couldn’t allow her to die yet.
The three players needed to work together and wear Valen down until Isolde could make her move.
Her hidden fingers curled.
A silver thread beneath the carpet silently pulled taut and swept across the weakest seam in Valen’s limb.
His attack shifted by a single inch.
That inch was enough.
Instead of being impaled, Mina managed to roll aside. The arm grazed her thigh before smashing into the floor, scattering shards of stone.
Valen finally sensed that something was wrong.
His massive body slowly coiled in on itself.
The swollen face looked past the three players and toward the entrance of the banquet hall.
For the first time, suspicion appeared in his cloudy eyes.
“My daughter, are you helping them?”