CHAPTER 328: THE MONSTER-I

In the chaos of the courtroom, no one anticipated what Iliza would do next.

No one expected that, in her desperation— despite not yet being sentenced— Iliza would reach into her robes and drink a potion that pulsed with a bright, unnatural purple glow.

The moment the light caught their eyes, dread swept across the room.

That color, so unnaturally vibrant, so violently luminescent, felt wrong. It wasn’t deadly, it was as if they were watching a monster that was soon about to be unleashed.

Arabella shot to her feet, her face draining of color. Her thoughts scrambled in panic, trying to place what she had just seen.

That potion. She had seen it before.

Her heart pounded as her mind raced back to a passage from Circe’s notes. In a worn, half-burnt grimoire, the witch had written of a potion she had only ever referred to as:

"The one that should never be created— under any purpose."

Circe never wrote its name. Never described its purpose. She didn’t even list the ingredients, just one warning.

But she had described its appearance: a radiant, almost neon purple glow.

And now, Iliza had just swallowed it.

Arabella’s eyes darted to the courtroom floor where Iliza had collapsed.

It was like watching a body reject death itself.

Iliza’s skin turned a sickly shade of blue, her veins darkening visibly beneath her skin. Her hands clawed at her throat, and an agonized wail burst from her lips— raw, inhuman, and piercing.

Her body convulsed, jerking and writhing as if she’d swallowed molten iron. The pain overtook reason. Screaming, she dug her nails into her neck, scratching deep, blood mixing with the blue.

Without thinking twice, Arabella snapped at Atlas and at the people around the room. Her voice broke as she yelled, "RUN! RUN FROM HERE! EVERYONE ESCAPE!"

Some of the vampires hesitated, unwilling to heed Arabella’s warning.

But the look on her face, ashen, wide eyed, almost stricken with terror, made a few falter. And then, as if a collective instinct kicked in, those who recognized the depth of danger began rushing toward the doors, shoving past each other to escape.

The others, still skeptical, froze in place, until the screaming stopped.

Iliza’s shriek, sharp enough moments ago to curdle blood, cut off with eerie finality. One second she was wailing as if death itself was tearing her apart, and the next— silence. Not a sob. Not a breath.

It was the kind of silence that didn’t soothe.

It warned.

Arabella stood still, her pulse thundering in her ears. She knew better. That potion didn’t grant death so mercifully.

Her eyes dropped to where Iliza lay sprawled on the stone floor, and her breath caught.

Iliza was still alive.

But something was changing.

It began in the quiet: a soft cracking beneath her skin, like branches snapping in a dark forest. Too faint for most to hear, but Cassius heard it. Arabella knew he did by the way his head tilted sharply, his body tensing beside her.

The cracking grew louder.

Iliza’s body twitched.

Then the horror truly began.

Her veins writhed beneath her flesh like black worms, squirming violently just under the surface. Her limbs swelled grotesquely. Her skin trembled as bones bent and contorted, twisting her joints at unnatural angles. Her jaw clenched, her spine arched, her hands spasmed uncontrollably against the floor.

Her body was rebuilding itself into something else, and not gently.

Her eyes, already streaming with tears, now bled freely. Crimson lines painted her cheeks as blood pooled in the whites of her eyes.

But she wasn’t dead.

"I... don’t want to die-"

A thunderous boom shook the floor, echoing through the courtroom.

Iliza’s body began to swell, slowly at first, then grotesquely fast. Inch by inch, she grew larger, her limbs expanding into thick, column like masses of distorted flesh. Her head twisted as her skull warped, stretching and bulging into something monstrous, something utterly unrecognizable.

Once a beautiful girl, now a horror beyond imagining.

Her skin turned a bluish pallor, the sickly hue of something long dead. Her eyes glowed faintly green, gleaming with something feral, something no longer human. Her arms and legs thickened like marble pillars, and her frame now dwarfed the courtroom itself. The ceiling pressed down against her misshapen head, warping the wooden beams above as her shoulders scraped the walls.

Arabella’s breath caught in her throat.

And still, the others stood frozen.

"I told you to run!" she snapped, her voice cracking like a whip through the paralysis of the room.

That broke the spell.

The stunned vampires jolted into motion, finally tearing their eyes from the nightmare that had once been Iliza. Panic surged through the crowd as they scrambled toward the exits in a frenzied stampede. Seeing this, Karnala took it upon herself to help others escape but Arabella didn’t wait to see if they had all make it.

She reached down, hiked up her skirt, and yanked off her heels, tossing them aside with a grim scowl. There was no way she was going to fight, let alone run, in those damned things.

Before she could move further, Atlas was at her side.

Without a word, he took her hand, steadying her with one strong arm. In a swift motion, he pulled her against him, her arms instinctively wrapping around his neck, as he leapt down from the second floor.

He landed on the stone floor below with the fluid grace of a panther, not even a whisper beneath his boots.

Then, gently, he set her down.

Cassius stood nearby, sword still sheathed but his gaze sharp.

For a brief moment, his eyes met Atlas’s.

Atlas offered a faint smile, knowing, almost teasing.

Cassius’s eyes run over her, studying whether she’s hurt before nodding, "Do you know what that is?"

Arabella shook her head as the rest of the vampires backed away. Queen Morgana and Minister Rueben, however, was nowhere to be found.

Arabella clicked her tongue and she began to wonder if those two had known the trick that Iliza was going to pull in desperation.

But... no. They seemed to be as surprised as them when they saw Iliza pulled that potion.

So that means whoever had created the potion had given it to Iliza, predicting that she was about to be cast aside as the black sheep.

"KILL IT!" One of the vampire minister yelled upon seeing Iliza and in that second that he screamed, the monstrous Iliza snapped her eyes toward him.

"I... s- said I d- don’t want to die!"

Then at that second she moved her large distorted arm, sweeping it across the court room.