Depraved Noble: Forced To Live The Debaucherous Life Of An Evil Noble!-Chapter 500: She’s Just Hangry

But just as the trio were thinking of doing a coordinated attack since their own attacks were doing nothing, a voice came that really irritated them in this crucial moment.

From the distance, Xerath laughed.

"Fools! You can’t stop her now!" He wheezed, his voice hoarse but full of manic glee. "You don’t even understand what you’re fighting against!"

"You talk too much." Aisha gaze snapped to him, cold and sharp.

But Xerath didn’t stop. He dragged his broken body forward, blood dripping from his mouth as he raised a trembling finger toward Carmela.

"Do you see, you lot? Do you see what stands before you? That is no mere vampire anymore. That is a progenitor! The first blood reborn! The mother of all our kind!"

He coughed, but the madness in his eyes only burned brighter.

"The power you see now—it’s the strength of the original lineage, untainted by time. For centuries it lay dormant in her blood, weak, diluted...but now!"

"Now it has awakened to its true potential!"

"You mean you turned her into a monster." Julie glared at him, while thinking she really wanted to slice head off.

"A monster? No! A god!" Xerath laughed so hard it made his wounds open even more. "You call her a monster because your kind is too weak to comprehend divinity!"

"If this is divinity, I’ll pass!" Skadi, still fighting Carmela, shouted through gritted teeth. "I don’t want to act like a puppy who’s gone mad!"

She ducked under a slash that nearly took her head off.

Aisha then hurled a massive spike of stone toward Carmela’s flank, but the vampire raised her hand and caught it.

The stone splintered in her grip, crumbling like dry clay.

Seeing this, Skadi couldn’t help but let out a pitiful howl saying, "We’re not even hurting her! She’s just toying with us!"

"Of course you are! You’re mere insects!" Xerath’s laughter echoed again, jagged and broken. "Do you understand what stands before you? Even diluted, her bloodline alone made her formidable...but now that the ritual has unleashed the progenitor’s essence, she is untouchable!"

"You could bring an army, and it wouldn’t make a difference!"

Then, as if to mock them further, his voice took on a sickeningly cheerful tone.

"Although..." He tilted his head slightly, blood dripping from his grin. "There is one way to stop her."

Julie’s eyes flicked toward him, her blade still clashing against Carmela’s claws.

"What the hell do you mean?!"

Xerath chuckled low, savoring the moment.

"The ritual...it’s not complete. Her awakening was premature. The transformation is unstable—temporary. She’ll burn herself out eventually."

Aisha narrowed his eyes. "How long?"

"Oh...not long at all." Xerath said softly, his smile widening. "Just long enough to end all of you...and then to feed. Once she’s devoured ten thousand lives—once she’s drained enough blood to fill rivers—her body will stabilize, and she’ll ascend. Until then..."

He spread his arms wide, cackling madly as his words cut through the chaos.

"Until then, your world will drown in crimson! Villages, cities—entire kingdoms will fall beneath her hunger! And no one will stop her! Not you, not your warriors, not even your gods!"

He threw back his head and laughed, a deep sound that mixed pain with triumph before finally saying,

"So go ahead, little heroes! Fight her! Bleed for her! Every drop of blood you spill only makes her stronger!"

Hearing Xerath’s twisted words echo across the battlefield, the three women faltered.

None of them wanted to believe it, but what Xerath said made far too much sense.

All three of them had grown up hearing the same stories.

The old world.

The age before the mana thinned. The time when the air itself thrummed with energy, when the creatures and races of the land were titans compared to the pale shadows they had become today.

Dragons that could swallow mountains.

Elves who could bend forests to their will.

Vampires who ruled the night as living calamities.

They’d always thought those tales were exaggerations—romanticized, embellished legends of power that no one could possibly match.

But now...

Watching Carmela move was like watching those myths come to life.

Every shockwave of her blows ripped the ground apart.

Every movement sent tremors through the air.

The terrain around them had already turned into a cratered wasteland, torn apart by the sheer pressure of her presence.

The mountain Cassius had destroyed earlier seemed small in comparison to the havoc she was unleashing now.

And if not for the massive dome Aisha had conjured earlier to protect the children, every last one of them would have been vaporized by the shockwaves alone.

Even together they could barely hold her off.

And the worse part was she wasn’t even fighting seriously.

A single swipe from her claws split through Aisha’s barriers like paper. Julie’s blade left only faint scratches on her skin that healed before the next swing. Skadi’s punches, strong enough to shatter boulders, barely made her flinch.

And through it all, Carmela didn’t roar or curse or snarl.

She simply moved—cold, detached, driven by instinct, like something ancient and untamable had taken control of her body, which made them realise how dangerous of a situation they were in.

"We...We can’t keep this up." Julie panted, lowering her blade for a split second as she stumbled back beside Aisha. "We’re not even slowing her down!"

"She’s playing with us, Captain!" Skadi growled, frustration clear in her voice. "It’s like fighting a nightmare that knows you can’t wake up!"

"If this...If this is what they mean by a progenitor—" Julie started.

"Then I can only imagine how horrifying it would’ve been to live in the primordial age." Aisha finished for her, her voice trembling.

They realised in that moment that even if this state was temporary, it didn’t make the situation any less dire.

If she needed the blood of thousands—tens of thousands to stabilize herself...then this wasn’t just a battle.

It was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Julie swallowed hard, sweat dripping down her cheek. "If she leaves this area—"

"Entire cities will burn." Aisha finished grimly.

And that’s when they heard it.

A voice. Calm. Slightly intrigued. But with an edge of mischief that didn’t belong in a moment like this.

"Hold up." The voice said, almost lazily. "Would you just say...that as long as she brings enough blood—the blood of thousands of people—she’ll be able to calm down?"

Everyone froze.

Even Carmela paused mid-step, her head twitching slightly at the sound.

They turned—and of course, it was Cassius.

He was standing there with his hands behind his back, his expression halfway between confusion and genuine curiosity, though the faint smirk playing on his lips betrayed something else entirely.

Julie blinked, incredulous. "Cassius, what are you—"

"Shh." He lifted a finger, not even looking at her. His attention was fixed on Xerath. "Just clarifying something here, my dear baldy. You said that’s the condition, right?"

Xerath, panting and wheezing on the ground, blinked in surprise at Cassius’s tone.

"...What are you talking about, boy?"

"You know." Cassius gestured casually toward Carmela, who was still glowing ominously. "The whole ’bring enough blood and she’ll calm down’ thing. You said if she drinks enough, she’ll eventually stabilize. That’s what you said, right?"

Xerath blinked again, suspicion forming in his eyes.

"...Yes, that’s correct. Once she consumes enough life essence, enough blood to replenish the awakening energy, she will stabilize. But why—"

Cassius’s smirk widened slightly, though his tone stayed perfectly calm.

"And by ’enough blood,’ you mean...she needs the vitality of thousands. But hypothetically speaking..."

He tilted his head, feigning innocent curiosity.

"If she were to drink from one person whose blood contains the life force of hundreds—no, thousands, would that work just the same?"

There was a long pause.

Julie and Aisha both turned to him at once, understanding what he was trying to say but not making sense of it.

Xerath, too, seemed momentarily stunned, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. Then, narrowing his eyes, he said warily,

"I don’t know why you’re asking that, boy...but yes. In theory, that would be sufficient. Blood so potent, so full of life, would act as a powerful substitute. But—"

He chuckled darkly, waving a mangled hand dismissively.

"But such a thing is impossible. There is no living being whose blood is so dense with vitality that it equals that of thousands. Not even a dragon. Even if she drained a hundred of them, she would still crave more."

"So, no." His lips curled into a mocking grin, confident that his words would bring despair. "You can’t stop her. The progenitor’s hunger cannot be sated by any mortal life."

He expected Cassius to go pale, to falter, to show even a shred of fear.

Instead—

Cassius smiled.

Not a small, calm smile. But a wide, toothy grin that stretched from ear to ear, his eyes gleaming with delight.

"...Thank you." He said simply.

"What—?" Xerath blinked.

"Truly. Thank you, Xerath." Cassius clasped his hands together with mock sincerity. "You have no idea how helpful you’ve just been."

Aisha’s face twisted in confusion. "Cassius, what are you—"

He ignored her, as he was still smiling at Xerath, almost warmly before going on to say,

"You see, I was honestly hesitating to do anything drastic. I didn’t want to hurt Carmela. The whole gouging-my-eyes-out stunt earlier should’ve made it obvious—I’m not exactly a fan of harming women and would rather hurt myself, then do such a thing."

"But you?" His grin turned a little sharper. "You just reminded me there’s another way. One that doesn’t require breaking her bones or setting her on fire."

"Wh–What are you talking about?" Xerath demanded, his unease rising.

Cassius didn’t answer.

He simply began to walk past Julie, past Aisha, past Skadi and toward Carmela.

Each step was slow, as if the blood and destruction surrounding them didn’t exist.

"Cassius! What are you doing?!" Julie stared at him in disbelief. "You can’t just walk up to her like that—she’ll tear you apart!"

"Are you crazy?!" Aisha shouted. "I mean I already you have a loose screw in your head—but are you really going to just walk up to her?!"

Even Skadi, her voice trembling slightly, growled.

"Master! Don’t go!...I know that she has big breasts that you like, but it’s not worth it! The vampire lady is scary!"

But Cassius only turned his head back with a calm smile.

"Don’t worry, you guys...It’s all right." He said lightly. "What Carmela’s going through right now is just what everyone goes through when they’re starving."

They blinked in disbelief as he went on, voice casual as ever.

"She’s just really, really hungry—and when people get hungry, they get cranky, violent, maybe a little bitey."

His smile curved into something sharper.

"So, if someone were to feed her properly..." He tapped his own chest. "...like I’m about to, she’ll calm down and go right back to normal."

And with that, Cassius started walking straight toward Carmela like a man who had just solved the world’s simplest problem.