THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR-Chapter 391: THE VAMPIRE ROT KNIGHT

The Mistress of Whispers, her burning sun-eyes fixed on David, made no grand proclamation, no theatrical flourish. Her denial of dialogue was absolute, her judgment final. With a calm, almost serene motion, she raised a hand, her slender fingers tracing a delicate line across her palm. No tool, no blade, only the sharpened edge of a fingernail, honed by millennia of arcane practice.

A thin, perfectly straight crimson line appeared on her skin, welling up with a single, perfectly spherical drop of blood. It gleamed, a bead of condensed power, impossibly vivid against her pale flesh.

The droplet detached itself, falling with a whisper-soft splash into the black ritual basin. The surface of the inky liquid, which had until then seemed utterly inert, rippled violently. Not a gentle ripple, but an immediate, explosive surge.

From that singular drop, a column of crimson energy, impossibly brilliant and terrifyingly potent, erupted upwards. It shot through the dark throne room like a spear of concentrated malice, tearing through the oppressive shadows, piercing the unseen ceiling of her realm.

The air shrieked, rent by the sheer force of its ascent, and the very foundations of the domain trembled with a low, resonant groan. The column of light was a beacon of forbidden power, a raw artery of magic connecting the ritual basin to the very fabric of this terrifying dimension.

From the heart of this column, where the crimson energy pulsed most intensely, the black altar began to churn. It wasn't a physical movement, but a grotesque internal shift, as if the stone itself was giving birth. Dark ichor, thick and viscous, the color of solidified nightmares, began to seep from its depths.

It oozed, it pulsed, it crawled. A shape, vaguely humanoid yet horrifyingly unnatural, began to emerge, pulling itself forth from the depths of the black altar with agonizing slowness. It was covered head to toe in the glistening, writhing ichor, its form indistinct beneath the sticky, pulsating shroud. It moved with a sickening, grotesque crawl, dragging itself upwards, leaving trails of the foul, cloying substance that seemed to absorb the light around it.

As it slowly, painfully, rose from the depths, the ichor began to peel away. Not flaking, but curling back like diseased skin, revealing the nightmare beneath. It slid off in thick, viscous sheets, dripping back into the black basin with wet, sucking sounds. Each revelation was a fresh wave of horror, unveiling a creature that was a grotesque masterpiece of the Mistress's dark art.

The ichor finally peeled away completely, sloughing off the newly formed entity to reveal its true, terrifying visage. It was a monstrous fusion, a blasphemous union of vampire elegance and ghoul savagery, twisted into something far more dangerous than either. Its body was encased in what appeared to be organic armor – not forged steel, but bone and sinew that had been grown, hardened, and fused into a protective carapace.

It was dark, almost black, with glints of dark crimson where muscle pulsed beneath the unnatural shell. This living armor curved and flowed, mimicking the lines of a knight's plate, yet it possessed a predatory, almost reptilian texture. Along its limbs, particularly its forearms and shins, grotesque blue cores pulsed with a sickly, internal light, like corrupted veins throbbing with dark mana. They seemed to radiate a cold, malevolent energy, mirroring the ancient runes of the cosmic gate.

Its head was crowned by a horned helm, not crafted metal, but bone that had grown into a sharp, intimidating crest, framing a face that was skeletal yet imbued with a perverse, aristocratic menace. From behind this helm, a cascade of whip-like crimson hair, impossibly long and unnaturally vibrant, snaked downwards, alive with a faint, malevolent energy that seemed to crackle in the air.

Its hands ended in wickedly sharp talons, long and curved like predatory birds' claws, ready to rend flesh and bone with casual ease. Its posture was low, coiled, brimming with a predatory poise that hinted at terrifying speed. And in its glowing, blood-red eyes, behind the veneer of dark nobility, was a monstrous, insatiable hunger that radiated outwards like a physical force.

The creature's chest swelled, its organic armor groaning with the effort, and then it emitted a deep, guttural roar. The sound was not merely loud; it was a concussion of pure power, vibrating through the very starlight-hardened floor.

The black altar, the columns, even the distant archway of watchers, visibly shuddered under the sheer force of its bellow. It was a primal scream of awakened hunger, of ancient, unleashed malice.

In the wake of its roar, the air in the throne room seemed to thicken, becoming heavy and oppressive. The sweet, cloying stench of death, mingling with something metallic and sickeningly sweet – the aroma of insatiable hunger – permeated the space, clinging to their robes, filling their lungs with its putrid promise. This was the Vampire Rot Knight, a creature born of forbidden magic and pure malevolence, a living embodiment of the Mistress's utter contempt for her trespassers.

Just as the Vampire Rot Knight solidified its terrifying presence, radiating an aura of lethal hunger, a sudden, almost jarring anomaly materialized before David.

In the oppressive gloom, a rectangular blue interface flickered into existence, hovering in the air. It was transparent, ethereal, yet undeniably there, its edges glitching faintly like a faulty projection. It hummed with a low, barely perceptible frequency, a familiar, yet long-absent hum.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

Side Quest Initiated — Defeat the Summoned Vampire Rot Knight and earn the Rebellious Witch's Trust.

Reward: Restore Host's Ability | System Update

Failure: Death.

David stared at the floating blue screen, a flicker of something almost akin to annoyance crossing his otherwise serene features. The smirk, however, remained. "Finally," he muttered, the words carrying a surprising degree of casual irritation. "This damn system is back. Figures it shows up just when it smells loot."

Just when things get interesting, too, he thought, a faint, almost imperceptible scoff echoing in the silent corridors of his mind. He recalled, with a distant, almost detached frustration, the last time the System had made its unwelcome presence felt.

A chaotic, desperate survival scenario in a forgotten dimension, where the glitch had forced him to devour vast swathes of his own accumulated skills, his very essence, just to survive. It had been brutal, messy, and fundamentally inconvenient. The irony wasn't lost on him: a system designed to aid him, yet it had stripped him bare when he needed it most.

He hadn't missed its sudden, cryptic notifications. But 'Restore Host's Ability'… that was a tantalizing prospect. It implied that the vast reserves he had consumed, the knowledge and power that had been forcefully put into dormancy, could be reclaimed. The System Update, too, hinted at new capabilities, new toys for his grand design.