My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 802: Chapter 803: Kindness Is Cheap

A black tide of shades filled the tunnel as they forced their way into the deep cavern, their bodies sliding over stone and squeezing through cracks as they swarmed. They tore into the stillborns in coordinated bursts, clawed hands ripping and dragging the creatures down as they advanced.

Damon’s astral form drifted among them like a ghost carried by a storm. He glanced toward Matia. She met his eyes and pulled out a staff, planting its base firmly into the ground in front of him.

He stepped forward. His astral form reached out, the faint outline of a hand brushing the shaft of the staff. The moment contact was made, the weapon responded. All the devastating power it had stored since the last time he used it surged outward through his soul.

The entire cavern shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling. A deafening boom erupted as black destructive flames shot forward, rolling through the chamber like a tidal wave of annihilation.

The screams of the stillborn were swallowed by roaring blasts as the cavern walls cracked and collapsed inward. Rubble crashed down into the inferno, the flames licking across every surface and killing everything they touched.

[You have slain Stillborn]

[You have slain Stillborn]

…

[You have gained Charm: Womb of Healing]

The chimes echoed through the cavern as the destruction finally settled. Damon floated through the remnants of the blast, watching the black residue dissipate. He had even gained a charm, unsurprising since Ashborn had done most of the killing, granting him a massive collection of attribute points.

He looked at the scorched crater of what had once been the chamber.

“Hmmm. That was way better than I thought it’d be.”

His calm voice carried over the ruins while his shades surged deeper into the cavern, slipping between shattered stone pillars and tearing apart the remaining stillborns.

The collapsed rubble sealed off the tunnels, trapping anyone outside and forcing the survivors inside to face the shades alone.

Which left only the Mother of Stillbirths.

“This was easier than I thought.” Lazarak muttered from atop a fallen slab of ceiling, crouching to study the carnage beneath him.

Damon’s gaze drifted toward the cavern’s center.

“Yes. It seems after so much hardship, fortune has smiled on me again. Happens sometimes, I guess.”

He walked past burned corpses, stepping neatly around the twitching ones still locked in combat with shades. Their limbs flailed helplessly as the shadows dragged them into darkness.

Lazarak kept pace beside him while Matia led the way. Damon saw no reason for his astral form to remain exposed, so he slipped back into the body of the Mirror Seraph with practiced ease.

His borrowed fingers closed around the sword’s hilt. He rolled his shoulder once, testing the body, and continued walking. The nonchalance of the action made the possession seem more routine than putting on a coat.

As Damon neared the center of the cavern, his expression tightened. This one area remained untouched by flame.

The smell hit first, thick and rotten. It carried the stench of a birthing chamber left to rot for years, layered with old blood and spoiled fluids.

He lifted his head. Viscous sludge pooled across the floor. Weak, newly formed stillborns writhed in the muck, their tiny limbs spasming as they wailed. They looked like newborns only in the vaguest sense, hideously distorted and trembling.

Lazarak’s face darkened. He extended his hand slowly.

“Sleep. It will be over soon.”

The stillborns sagged instantly, their crushed cries fading into silence. Damon glanced at him.

“It would be easier to kill them, you know.”

Lazarak nodded, voice quiet.

“I know, but it costs me nothing to be kind.”

Damon sighed.

“Then kindness must be cheap.”

He shifted his gaze to the deeper shadows ahead. Something was there. He felt her eyes before he saw her. The hostility pressing from those depths was thick and cold, hiding a sharp intelligence far beyond the simple stillborns.

“Come out. Your death is long overdue.”

His voice echoed sharply across the cavern. Slowly, a shape pushed itself into view. Damon’s lip curled as he took in her form.

A gigantic malformed fetus stood there, towering over them. Six arms hung from its swollen body. Pale skin stretched thin over bulging flesh, pink veins pulsing faintly.

Umbilical cords dangled like tendrils, dragging trails through the filth. Thousands of tiny eyes embedded in her flesh blinked moistly.

Each one carried a soul she had devoured, all of them crying with the wails of unseen infants. Mouths along her belly whispered broken prayers from mothers who had never heard their babies cry.

This was the Mother of Stillbirths.

Damon listened as the phantom voices of countless women rose around him. Each one prayed, begged, cried for their lost children.

“The gods are cruel. And if they are not, then they are too weak to do anything.”

He muttered it absently. Lazarak lowered his head. He knew the truth of it. Lesser gods were selfish. Gods like himself who were kind were too weak to matter.

Damon hadn’t said it to cut him. He had simply answered the voices, nothing more.

“You have killed my children. Why?” Her infantile voice cracked like a newborn trying to speak.

“They’re ugly.” Damon said calmly. Yes, he had killed them. No, it was not noble. But he had long stopped wasting guilt on things he chose to do.

He raised his sword.

“And you’re next.”

The Mother of Stillbirths trembled. Her fetus-like shell split open. Amniotic fluid spilled across the stone, and malformed stillborns plopped out, wailing as they slapped against the ground.

Damon felt a cold wave of disgust. This was not birth. It was a mockery of life as an idea, an abomination pretending to be creation.

“I know all children that are born. I do not know you.” The Mother whispered, her flesh shivering. “You should not exist. You come to me, the Queen Mother, wearing flesh that is stolen.”

Damon barely reacted. She was stalling. He could feel the stillborns trying to overwhelm the shades in the tunnels. It would not matter. He would kill her before they succeeded.

“Enough of your meager attempts at stalling. I’m not killing you for the greater good. You’re ugly, so die.”

Damon surged forward, sword sweeping in a brutal crescent as he struck at the Warden of the Fourth Trial.