Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 83: Weakness Is A Sin [3]

Chapter 83 – Weakness Is A Sin [3]

Graveyard of Monsters –

It had been days since Inara had been transported here by The Will—days of doing nothing but walking aimlessly through this bleak, desolate place.

All around her were tombstones. No trees, no signs of life, no sounds—nothing.

It looked like there wasn’t a single beast inhabiting this realm.

Only her... and the tombs.

It should have been good news. It should have ant she could leave this place without trouble. But after walking for days without spotting a single sign of an exit—and even more importantly...

"I don’t want to get out of this place without changing," Inara muttered to herself as she walked.

She couldn’t accept leaving here the sa. She had to burn every ounce of weakness from her soul, or she’d rather die here, forgotten among the stones.

"There’s nothing here except these graves... so that ans, if I have to find sothing to get stronger, it has to be with them," she concluded aloud, suddenly stopping in place.

No more wasting ti.

She raised her head and scanned the area carefully.

Her eyes stopped on a small, unassuming tombstone that was emitting a faint gray light.

Quietly, cautiously, she approached it, taking care not to get too close to any of the other stones until she was standing just an inch from the glowing one.

Ouhhhh...!

She inhaled deeply, steeling herself.

Then—

BAAM!

She kicked the tombstone, hard and without hesitation, bracing herself for whatever might co next.

But nothing happened.

She frowned, caught off guard by the complete lack of response.

She tried again—another kick, then another—but still, nothing. She changed tactics, placing her palm gently against the stone. Still nothing.

She tested everything she could think of. She even tried checking for hidden chanisms, but none of it worked.

After wasting more than half an hour, Inara finally pulled back.

She stared at the tombstone with growing annoyance before clicking her tongue and turning away.

After that first attempt, Inara grew bolder.

She began interacting with every tombstone she ca across—touching, kicking, tapping, even cursing, and in one strange mont, kissing a particularly ornate one.

All in the desperate hope of finding sothing.

But hours passed, and nothing happened.

Not a single thing.

And with each minute that slipped away without a reaction, her frustration only deepened.

So, she did sothing her mother had always warned her to stop doing.

She started cursing.

Heavily.

"Fucking useless tombstones! You can’t even do a simple damn job of being a challenge!"

"Useless things, just here to look cool and imposing! But you ain’t shit!"

"Do you hear ?! You fucking ain’t shit!"

She unleashed everything she had. Her mouth produced the most despicable strings of profanity she could muster, using every vulgar word in her vocabulary, all aid at a bunch of silent stones that, truthfully, had done nothing to her.

Or maybe... that was the problem.

After venting her frustration, Inara finally sat on the ground, her back leaning against a tall, rough tombstone covered in tiny, sharp, almost invisible spikes. The tombstone was odd—if one looked closely, one could see carvings of countless monsters, from the lowest sli to the highest hydra, all bowing to an invisible figure.

But Inara didn’t notice any of that.

She just sighed and rested her head against the surface, trying to calm her mind and collect herself before continuing her strange, exhausting search.

But the mont her head touched the stone—

A sharp spike pricked her.

Pain flared as she imdiately recoiled.

"What the...?" she muttered, spinning around and staring at a small droplet of blood now sared on the stone’s surface.

Her blood.

"The f—"

She didn’t even have ti to finish cursing before the tombstone erupted in a brilliant, blinding glow.

She instinctively took a step back—only to find that there was no ground beneath her foot.

Before she could react—

Inara fell.

The earth beneath her sealed up just as she disappeared, returning to its lifeless, tomb-filled state.

...

Thud.

Inara hit the ground hard, landing on her ass with a grunt.

She cursed again and looked up, only to see a glowing panel appear before her eyes:

{You have stepped into the Legacy Grave of Echidna, The Mother of Monsters.}

{You are qualified.}

{Clear the trials of The Mother of Monsters and be her heir, or fail... and beco one of her monsters.}

{Your fate is in your hands now, Inara Serpentine.}

Inara stood, her eyes scanning the space.

There was nothing around her but pure darkness.

Then, suddenly, a voice echoed all around her, seeping into her mind and ears at once—a voice that was deeply feminine, primordial, and feral.

"First Trial: Rejection."

Imdiately, Inara’s body convulsed.

Her form began to... mutate.

Disgusting. Chaotic. Monstrous.

"ARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!"

A guttural scream tore from her throat—only to be abruptly cut off as her face twisted, morphing into a grotesque amalgamation of tentacles and worms.

And that was only the beginning.

Her entire body twisted again, this ti sprouting scaled arms with razor-sharp claws—so growing from her back, so from her shoulders, even so... from her eyes.

The sight was horrifying.

Inara’s form was changing from one grotesque shape to another, as if she were becoming the sum total of dozens of different monsters all at once—and without warning.

Her mind began to crack.

She didn’t know what was happening.

She didn’t even know what she was supposed to do.

All she had was the title of the trial.

Rejection.

’Of... w-what?’ Inara wondered through the agony, her thoughts barely coherent as her body continued to shift.

She fought with everything she had to retain her original form—to resist being consud by the chaos, by the mutations overtaking her.

But she didn’t understand what she was supposed to reject.

What kind of rejection was this?

What did she need to do to succeed?

She didn’t know.

She might have had an idea—if she knew what it truly ant to be the Mother of Monsters.

But she didn’t.

So, all she could do was struggle. Struggle not to fall apart. Struggle to remain whole. Struggle to survive.

’Maybe... maybe that’s what rejection ans’, she thought, her teeth gritted in pain.

To reject all these changes. To deny the pull of monstrosity. To stay whole.

’W-Weakness... is... a sin...!’

Inara repeated that mantra like a lifeline as her body twisted once more—this ti into so horrific mix between a jellyfish and a Minotaur.

She kept repeating it—over and over—desperately trying to remind herself why she was here...

And what she wanted to beco.

And just like that...

Inara’s suffering continued.

—End of Chapter 83—