Because by the time the first claw scraped against the stone, Bastet had made her move.
Her mana flared with terrifying intensity. Sunlight burst from her form like a solar flare. The dungeon’s cold gloom was banished in a blink.
"You taint this world with your mere existence!"
Bastet roared.
A literal roar: [Solar Roar].
A pulse of divine fury erupted from her throat, a shockwave of blazing sound and light that staggered the vampire and vaporized the dark mist pooling at its feet. Its call was cut short. The walls trembled from the impact.
"[Curse of Noon]," she hissed, raising one clawed finger.
A glowing mark flared on the vampire’s chest, burning through velvet and dead flesh. It tried to move, but its limbs had begun to tremble.
Bastet walked closer with disgust carved into every motion of her steps. Then she raised both hands and formed a radiant sigil in the air.
"[Anathema Ray]!"
A concentrated beam of solar punishment erupted from her palms, blinding in its brightness. It pierced the vampire through the chest, sizzling through bone and sinew. The creature didn’t even have time to scream again before the radiant energy burned it from the inside out.
It collapsed in a heap of blackened ash.
Bastet looked outright vindicated.
"Damn... That was badass," Luna whistled.
"Yeah! Good job, Bastet!" Aria chirped, liveliness returning to her cheeks.
"Our resident racist felinid never disappoints," Nyx chuckled.
And just like that, Bastet’s sheer hatred for the undead and overwhelming display had brought the Valkyries out of their troublesome thoughts.
The group began to move again with careful steps, pushing deeper into the corridor beyond, wary of whatever the dungeon had waiting next.
But then...
"Wait."
It was Aria.
The silver-haired beauty hadn’t budged from her place near the scorched remains. Her eyes were narrowed, fixated on the rapidly disintegrating corpse pile. What little remained of the vampire was collapsing into flakes of black dust, the last vestiges of its cursed existence fading away.
Disintegration was the fate of all non-boss type monsters in the dungeons. They’d respawn soon.
"There’s something wrong with this..."
Kaiden paused and turned. "What do you mean?"
"There’s... a bulge," she said, walking forward and crouching near the center of the ash pile. She pointed at what looked like a half-melted ribcage, charred black. "The bones are warping around something. That doesn’t make sense biologically, even for undead."
Carefully, she peeled back a curled plate of brittle rib and brushed away the soot.
Something gleamed inside.
A dense red shape, roughly the size of a brick, was nestled within the vampire’s chest cavity. It hadn’t been touched by the fire.
A blood-sealed object.
A journal.
Even after all that radiant damage, it remained intact. The pages were thick and pulsing, protected by magic. Sigils lined the edges, subtle and dormant now, but unmistakably vampiric.
Aria carefully lifted it.
"This might be part of the puzzle!"

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