I was the most famous paparazzi in Hollywood. No celebrity ever escaped my lens. I had reached the peak of my profession, feared and hated in equal measure.
Bang.
A fist landed on my face, blurring my already fading consciousness. Above me, the face of Rick—or Richard—the famous Hollywood actor, hovered.
His handsome face was stained with anger, a strange expression on the always-smiling actor.
I was pinned to the hard floor by one of his bodyguards, while another sat on my waist with a greedy expression on his face.
"How dare you destroy my career?" he scowled. "Let me show you the feeling of having your private time leaked onto the internet."
He motioned to the man above my waist. The man started to pull his T-shirt up, revealing his charcoal skin to the air.
I heard the clicks of my own camera and grimaced.
"Damn it… the shutter sounded wrong. There's no battery. Don't you dare break it; that thing costs a fortune."
It had taken me almost ten years of slaving away my youth to buy one. With 20k resolution video quality and a global shutter, it clicked perfect pictures even in a dark room.
The raw video output at massive bitrates helped me capture even the slightest changes in the expressions of celebrities.
Although its durability was military-grade, I handled it like a fragile piece of glass.
Now, watching these idiots handle it roughly, my heart felt like it was going to explode.
"What! You bitch, you're still thinking about the camera when you're about to become a whore?"
Bang.
Another slap landed on my face. Ugh. That hurt. I glared at the slapper fiercely.
"Nig—"
Bang.
Another slap. I heard a clicking sound, not from the camera, of course. The face of the man who slapped me changed color. He became pale. Shouldn't that expression be on my face?
Wait. Why were no words coming out, even though their lips suggested they were screaming?
Ah. It's my ears. It seems like I've become deaf. But why is my sight slowly losing clarity if my ears were what stopped functioning?
Did I become blind, too?
No. It feels more like…
Like what?
Like…
Who am I?
Oh.
"I'm going to die."
"Sure, you are going to die." A hard voice sounded ahead of me.
My sight and hearing returned to me as my senses locked onto the woman sitting on a throne opposite me. She had long hair that seemed to change colors as she breathed.
In her hand, a huge staff topped with a skeleton head was supported against the ground. Her face was old and wrinkled, with visible marks of sword slashes.
I gasped. Not because I was scared of this woman, but rather because I knew this woman.
"Malta Vasta Astra."
"How dare you call your grandmother by name?"
Another voice snapped my attention to the left. There stood a man with the same wrinkled skin as the woman on the throne, though he looked a lot younger.
"Lucas Vasta Astra."
"Younger sister. Are you taking attendance?"
I turned to my right, where a woman stood with half of her face wrinkled, while the other half looked breathtaking.
"Jenny Vasta Astra."
I knew all of them. How could I not? After all, they were the third-rate villains of my favourite manhwa, Blood-Slaking Hero. Just like countless third-rate villains, they all had minor roles in the manhwa.
Practically, one would forget such villains.
But the reason I remembered them clearly was that they had another identity: the grandmother, older brother, and older sister of Vivienna Vasta Astra, the main antagonist and the mother of the protagonist of the manhwa.
I involuntarily shivered. So, not only did I die, but I also transmigrated as the villainess of my favourite manhwa.
And this villainess was the most hated character, not only in this manhwa but among all the characters of other manhwas too.
I knew this scene. It was the opening scene of the story.
The villainess was betrothed to the Demon King, but before the wedding, she became pregnant with a baby. No one knew who dared to cuck the Demon King; even the villainess had no idea how she became pregnant.
Anyway, the Demon King was furious—not at the villainess, of course, but at the baby and its unknown father.
So, after annulling the marriage, he ordered her to abort the baby or give up her kingdom to him in the hopes of luring the adulterer out.
As per the actual flow of the manhwa, the power-hungry princess would try to abort the child, but stops because of an unknown seal forcing her to give birth to the baby. Yet, she would abandon the infant into the Abyss.
She should have simply killed the infant, but perhaps to spit in the face of the Demon King and the unknown father, she decided to send the child to the most notorious place in the world: the Abyss, where nightmare monsters walked free.
That child was the protagonist of the manhwa.
Contrary to everyone's belief, the baby survived. He was protected by the shield he was born with, survived among the nightmarish monsters, and finally came out of the Abyss searching for his mother, hoping for the motherly love he had seen the monsters give their babies.
However, what awaited him after coming out was horror beyond the imagination of humankind. Rather than being submerged in motherly love, he was boiled in cauldrons by her as she tried to find the secret of his shield.
The shield protected him from death, but it couldn't stop his suffering. For thirteen gruelling years, from the age of seven, he suffered immense torture, yet he hoped that one day his mother would love him.
But that never happened.
Slowly, his hope was boiled away by her, and finally, she completely broke him, making his only wish to get revenge.
Then, the sudden war of the Blood Clan with the demons helped him escape, and so began the story of a traumatized hero seeking revenge on his mother with the help of his Ring Spirit.
The story hadn't ended, but I could already guess its ending: the protagonist killing the villainess. With the protagonist's cheats, even without the Ring Spirit, she was not his opponent.
During the time I read about his suffering, I had cried entire nights and cursed the villainess with countless bad words. Now, I had become the same villainess I had cursed multiple times. Irony.
I stared down at my slightly bulging belly. Placing a hand there, I could feel a soft heartbeat. A smile involuntarily reached my mouth.
I wondered if I was smiling because my favourite protagonist was in my womb, or if it was simply the instinct of a mother.
"Vivienne, if you don't want to expose the father of the bastard in your womb, abort it to quench the anger of the Demon King."
I raised my head to glare at the grandmother of the villainess. Her eyes contracted upon seeing my anger. I fucking don't care.
"What did you say?" I hissed.
"How dare you talk to Grandma—"
I snapped my head toward the older brother of the villainess. He simply sealed his mouth shut, shivering. Shadows inside the room started to move as the atmospheric temperature dropped several degrees.
My shadow army was on the move, waiting for my command. Everyone in the room stiffened.
"Vivi. I was saying…"
"No need to say anything further. I'm not going to hurt my son, and I won't allow anyone to even think about that."
"You—"
"Malta." My voice hardened as I gazed at the grandmother of the villainess. She was one of the reasons the protagonist suffered a lot in the manhwa.
My feelings towards her were worse than even towards the villainess herself.
"Tell that cuck of a Demon King, I, Vivienne of the Shadows, dare him to try and take my kingdom. I swear to the heavens, my shadows will claim every fucking clown he thinks highly of."
Without waiting for their reply, I turned around and left, stopping only when a sound rang in my skull.
'Ding.'
[Congratulations. You have awakened a new class: Paparazzi.]
[Skill 1: Ban]
[Ban: Issue a single command to suppress one property of your opponent.]
[Hint: You may command the opponent to decrease their speed.]
'What!'
The original villainess was a Shadow Mage. So why was my class different?
And why did I feel like the heartbeat in my womb increased a bit? It felt like the embryo of my son was excited inside.