Free Web NovelChapter 33: Chapter 33: Arrogant Movements
The Whispering Forest were no longer whispering; they were screaming.
The cold perpetual twilight of the forest had been violently eradicated by the blinding, oppressive light of the Silver Crusade. Three full battalions of Vanguard Knights—nearly a thousand heavily warded soldiers—marched in flawless, disciplined formation through the ancient trees.
Their heavy iron-shod boots crushed the damp moss, and their glowing broadswords burned the morning mist away into dry, choking steam.
Above the marching army, the sky was completely dominated by the Dragon-Blood lineage. Dozens of massive, armored siege drakes soared just below the clouds, their leathery wings beating with the force of a hurricane.
At the absolute forefront of the vanguard rode High Inquisitor Malakor. He was mounted atop a pure white celestial stag, his pristine white and gold robes practically glowing with Level 88 holy mana.
Beside him rode Lord Arric Valerius, the current Patriarch of House Valerius. Arric was a brutally scarred, broad-shouldered man clad in deep crimson drake-scale armor, riding a massive, terrifyingly mutated black wyvern that snapped its jaws at the shadows.
"The divination arrays tracked the heretical surge to this exact coordinate," Malakor stated, his voice completely devoid of emotion, though the air around him simmered with destructive heat.
Lord Arric spat onto the forest floor, his grip tightening around the heavy chains of his wyvern’s reins. "Commander Viego was my own brother. A veteran of the Northern Crusades. To be slaughtered in some damp forest by a filthy slum-dwelling Heretic... it is an insult to the Valerius bloodline. When we find him, I will feed him to my beasts piece by piece."
"You will do no such thing, Lord Arric," Malakor replied coldly, his piercing blue eyes locking onto a specific cluster of rotting oak trees ahead. "His soul belongs to the Goddess for purification. You are merely here to break his walls."
A squad of High Diviners, frail men wearing heavy sensory blindfolds, scurried forward. They cast a wide net of golden tracking magic over the muddy ground. Within seconds, the spell violently reacted. The golden light struck an invisible, hyper-dense barrier of dark energy perfectly concealed between two massive boulders.
The illusion violently shattered, revealing a gaping, suffocatingly dark cavern entrance leading straight down into the earth. The sheer, oppressive weight of the void mana bleeding out of the cave was enough to make the lesser knights in the rear ranks physically stumble.
"A Dungeon entrance," Lord Arric sneered, his wyvern roaring a challenge into the darkness. "The Heretic plays at being a Dungeon Master. He thinks a few layers of dirt and stone can protect him from a full-scale siege."
"The Light shall leave no shadows behind," Malakor declared, raising his golden staff high into the air. "Vanguard! Advance! Break their defenses and slaughter everything that breathes the dark! House Valerius, deploy your lesser drakes into the tunnels!"
With a deafening, fanatical roar, the front lines of the Silver Crusade charged into the cavern. Three hundred Platinum-rank knights, accompanied by ten heavily armored subterranean drakes, poured down the grand, sweeping obsidian staircase that Kaelen had carved from the bedrock.
They expected to find a few traps. They expected to find a panicked Heretic hiding in a dirt hole. ƒrēewebnovel.com
Instead, they stepped into Floor Nine: The Obsidian Labyrinth.
The moment the last drake crossed the threshold at the bottom of the stairs, the architecture of the Dungeon violently reacted to the invasion.
The massive polished obsidian walls suddenly shifted with the grinding roar of tectonic plates. The staircase behind them sealed itself completely, cutting off the first wave from the rest of the Crusade on the surface.
"Form up! Shield wall!" a Vanguard Captain roared, his voice echoing endlessly down the twisting, jagged black corridors. "Light your blades! Do not let the darkness blind you!"
But the holy fire of their broadswords barely penetrated the gloom. The hyper-dense void mana of the 9th Floor acted as a physical dampener, suffocating their light to a mere few feet. The temperature plummeted to freezing, and a thick, unnatural silence fell over the maze.
Then, the shadows came alive.
From the absolute darkness of the ceiling, a Level 30 Shadow-Stalker dropped silently onto the back of a Vanguard Knight. The beast was a terrifying amalgamation of pure void mana and razor-sharp obsidian claws, resembling a massive, starving panther.
It didn’t aim for the heavy, wyvern-bone reinforced chest plate. It aimed for the gaps.
The beast’s claws sank effortlessly into the unarmored back of the knight’s knee, severing his tendons in a single, brutal swipe. As the man fell with a scream, three more Shadow-Stalkers melted out of the obsidian walls, dragging him violently into the darkness before his comrades could even swing their swords.
"Ambush! Above us!"
The corridor erupted into absolute chaos. Dozens of Shadow-Stalkers poured from the shifting walls. They didn’t fight with honor; they fought with the ruthless, programmed efficiency of Kaelen’s Dungeon. They struck, bled their targets, and immediately melted back into the solid stone.
"Unleash the drakes!" a Valerius beast-tamer commanded, cracking a flaming whip against the thick scales of his mount.
The subterranean drake opened its massive jaws, unleashing a torrent of scorching liquid fire down the narrow corridor to flush out the beasts. But the Labyrinth was designed to be a geographic nightmare. The fire bounced wildly off the angled, shifting obsidian walls, ricocheting directly back into the Crusade’s own ranks.
Knights screamed as their own siege weapon cooked them alive inside their heavy armor. The drake, panicked by the confined space and the shifting walls that kept shrinking its path, began to thrash violently, crushing three Vanguard squires beneath its massive tail.
[Floor 9 Intruder Killed (Level 42). +4,500 EXP.] |
[Floor 9 Intruder Killed (Level 45). +5,100 EXP.]
[Party Kill: Subterranean Drake (Level 50). +12,000 EXP.]
Deep below the slaughter, on the 10th Floor of the Sanctuary, Kaelen sat leisurely upon a massive throne carved from pure, jagged obsidian.
The heavy intoxicating violet light of the Primordial Core illuminated his handsome, dominant features. Projected in the air before him was a massive, translucent holographic map of the 9th Floor. Hundreds of glowing red dots—the invading Crusaders—were trapped inside the shifting maze, slowly but surely winking out of existence one by one.
Elara Valerius was seated comfortably on the armrest of his throne, her slender legs crossed. She leaned heavily against his broad shoulder, her emerald eyes watching the holographic slaughter of her former family’s troops with deep, vindictive satisfaction.
"The drakes are panicking, Master," Elara noted smoothly, tracing a pale finger along the glowing red cluster on the map. "In an open field, a Valerius drake is a weapon of mass destruction. But trapped in a ten-foot-wide shifting corridor? They are just massive, fleshy targets blocking their own soldiers’ escape routes."
"Your tactical judgment is perfect, Elara," he praised, his deep voice rumbling against her side. He casually opened his system interface, watching the steady, passive stream of experience points perfectly flowing directly into his Abyssal Core.
He didn’t even have to lift a finger. The Dungeon was farming them.
"The Shadow-Stalkers are only Level 30," he analyzed, his glowing violet eyes tracking a group of knights desperately trying to heal their wounded. "They lack the raw stats to instantly pierce the Platinum holy wards. But the sheer volume of attacks is draining the knights’ mana reserves perfectly. They are burning through their healing potions just to survive the first hour."
Standing perfectly at attention at the base of the throne, Seraphina gripped the hilt of her massive void-pulsing broadsword. Her corrupted golden eyes were completely focused on the only descending staircase that connected Floor Nine to their Sanctuary.
"The weak will die in the Labyrinth," she stated, her voice layered with cold, military pragmatism. "But High Inquisitor Malakor and Lord Arric possess the raw power to eventually smash through the shifting walls. They will carve a path through the obsidian with brute force. It is only a matter of time before the true elites break through."
"Let them break through," he commanded, a dark, wicked smirk slowly spreading across his face. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
He stood up from the obsidian throne, his Level 61 aura flaring with terrifying, god-like density. The sheer pressure in the cavern caused the nearby Abyssal furnaces to roar violently.
"The Labyrinth was never meant to kill Malakor. It was meant to completely strip away his arrogance," he declared, his voice echoing off the smooth stone walls of his empire. "By the time he and his surviving elites reach this floor, their mana will be depleted, their armor will be fractured, and their faith will be thoroughly shaken."
Lyriel materialized from the shadows directly beside Seraphina, her pristine, poison-coated daggers spinning effortlessly in her hands. "And we will be waiting, Master."
He looked down at his three generals. The High Paladin, the Assassin, and the Alchemist. Through their deeply established Mana-Binding, he could feel their absolute loyalty and their shared, unadulterated bloodlust.
"Hold the choke point at the base of the stairs," he ordered, his violet eyes flashing with the promise of utter destruction. "When the Crusaders finally step into our Sanctuary... leave nothing but ash."
