The severed head of Cameron Gal tumbled onto the blood-soaked floorboards with a heavy, wet thud. I leaned over the edge of the mattress, my movements mechanical and devoid of hesitation. Reaching down, I grabbed the green hair and channeled my mana into the golden band on my finger.
The head vanished instantly into the weightless void of my Spatial Inventory Ring. A mental diagnostic grid flashed across my vision, confirming the precise internal physics of the item storage:
[Inventory Ring 19.5 kg/25kg]
[Fire-Resistant Crimson Trench Coat: 4.5 kg]
[Leech's Hollow Mask (Bone-Plated): 2.0 kg]
[Tactical Leather Purse: 7 kg]
Contents: 1x Bible, 1x Flask of High-Grade Holy Water, 3x Charcoal Notepads & Pencils, 5x Remaining Silver Pieces.
[Standard Dress: 1.5 kg]
[Death Chant Tommy gun: 5kg]
[Cameron's Head: 5kg]
It was infinitely more secure than a standard burlap bag, which would have leaked trailing evidence across the stone floors. With the shotgun still gripped tightly in my right hand, the total carrying weight of my active arsenal was safely contained within the spatial dimension.
Standing nude amidst the gore of the master bedroom, I summoned the rest of my signature gear from the pocket dimension. In a flurry of deep red fabric, my fire-resistant Crimson Trench Coat materialized, draping over my shoulders and completely concealing the bare skin marked by the encounter. I pulled the heavy straps tight across my chest, securing the ammunition pouches before reaching for the final piece: the bone-plated Leech's Hollow Mask. I pressed the cold, calcified surface against my face, the arcane seals locking into place over my features.
I deliberately chose to maintain Vanessa Katt's physical shell for the upcoming breach. My analytical brain calculated the biological consequences of reverting too early: if I snapped back into my true form right now, the pristine cellular structure restored would instantly collapse back into my baseline state. I would lose the functionality of my left arm, my tongue would revert to a scarred, mute stump, and my right eye would go entirely dark. The human disguise was a tactical armor keeping me at peak physical performance; I would only shed it and deploy my massive, translucent blood wings when the time came to take to the sky and escape the gorge entirely.
I stepped over the pooling blood on the rug, my boots heavy against the stone. With a single, high-impact vanguard kick, I shattered the locking mechanism of the heavy ironwood doors, sending them slamming outward into the corridor.
The alarms across Rebelbub Castle were screaming in a chaotic, overlapping din. The hallways were flooding with S-rank vanguard mages and battle-hardened Immoral Knights scrambling to respond to the Luminous Knights breaching the outer perimeter. They were expecting a unified command from their green-haired leader. Instead, they were about to face the Crimson Phantom, operating from the very heart of their command tier. With my gear secured and the father of my unborn child locked away in my ring, I advanced into the corridor to systematically eliminate every single knight in the fortress.
I racked the shotgun, the metallic clack-clack of a fresh shell sliding into the chamber echoing coldly over the blaring castle sirens.
Turning the corner into the primary staging corridor, I spotted my first target: Victor Katt.
The sheer irritation at his character vibrated through my mind. He was the most uselessly overprotective brother I had ever encountered… fierce when it came to posturing with his mace, yet entirely spineless when military hierarchy was involved. He had stood right there on the threshold, witnessing his own sister being used, completely unbothered that she had just been impregnated, all because his supreme commander outranked him. Because of his blind obedience, I was now burdened with carrying a child of my own.
Victor was currently standing in the center of the intersection, frantically shouting orders to a squad of heavy vanguard mages.
"Get the western barrier up! Don't let the Bureau's Luminous Knights breach the inner gate!"
As the heavy tread of my boots approached, he spun around. His crimson eyes blinked in absolute confusion as they locked onto my silhouette. He didn't see his sister; he saw a figure clad in a fire-resistant crimson trench coat and a terrifying, bone-plated Leech's Hollow Mask, still holding Vanessa's physical stature.
"Hey, Vanessa? Are you finished playing with Cameron? What... what kind of clothes are you wearing? Where did you get that gear?" Victor stammered, his hand dropping to his heavy combat mace.
I didn't waste a single syllable on an answer.
Without a shred of hesitation, I raised the barrel of the Death Chant shotgun, aiming it squarely at the center of his face. Before his elite vanguard reflexes could trigger his Fear Manipulation aura, I pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
At point-blank range, the kinetic slug tore through his skull instantly. Victor's head exploded in a violent shower of bone fragments and dark crimson mist, his headless body crashing heavily against the stone wall before slumping onto the floorboards. The overprotective captain was dead before his mace could even clear its leather loop.
The sudden, deafening blast echoed violently down the narrow stone hallway. The surrounding guards and vanguard mages froze, their conversations cutting off instantly as Victor's blood splattered across their armor. They stared in absolute horror at the decapitated corpse of their captain, then slowly raised their eyes to the masked, crimson-coated figure standing over him.
"Intruder! The Commander's room! Secure the corridor! Kill her!" one of the heavy knights screamed, drawing his broadsword.
The illusion was entirely shattered, the alarms grew louder, and the remaining Immoral Knights drew their weapons, completely surrounding me in the narrow passage.
With a dozen swords and mana staves drawing down on my position, I spun on my heel, my crimson trench coat flaring behind me as I dove into the adjacent intersecting hallway, taking hard cover behind the thick volcanic stone walls. A hail of elemental spells and kinetic crossbow bolts shattered against the corner edge, spraying stone dust and sparks into the air.
I immediately phased the Death Chant shotgun back into the dimensional void of my Inventory Ring. In the exact same motion, my fingers gripped the cold steel of a heavy Death Chant Tommy Gun, pulling it into the physical world.
The moment my shapeshifted hands wrapped around the foregrip, the weapon's arcane core reacted to my monstrous lineage. It pulsed with a violent, glowing crimson aura, the internal chamber instantly converting standard ammunition into lethal, condensed blood bullets.
I didn't give them a chance to organize a breach. I swung out from behind the stone corner, bracing the stock against my shoulder, and leveled the barrel directly at the tightly packed bottleneck of knights rushing down the corridor.
Before squeezing the trigger, I channeled my innate mana pool into the firing mechanism, imbuing the incoming volley with a specialized Defense Reduction Attribute.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The Tommy gun roared, spitting a relentless stream of glowing crimson tracers into the narrow hallway. The blood bullets struck the frontline chargers with devastating kinetic and arcane force. The defense reduction worked flawlessly… the moment the bullets made contact with the heavy, enchanted dark-iron plates of the Immoral Knights' armor, the metal structure groaned, decayed, and shattered completely into useless shards.
The high-velocity rounds tore right through the compromised defenses, shredding the soft tissue beneath. Three heavy knights in the front row dropped instantly, their bodies riddled with blood-burning entry wounds as they collapsed into the pooling gore on the floorboards.
The remaining squad members stumbled over the fresh corpses, their advance completely halted by the sheer armor-shattering output of the weapon. The corridor was quickly turning into a meat grinder, and the Crimson Phantom was just getting warmed up.