Free Web NovelChapter 37: Chapter 37: Domain
The Alchemical Synthesis Forge was bathed in the harsh, rhythmic ringing of a heavy hammer striking an anvil.
Elara Valerius, her pale skin covered in soot and glowing with the residual heat of her Class Evolution, brought an enchanted iron hammer down onto a cooling slab of Void-Steel. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
With every strike, her Level 50 Abyssal Forge-Master aura flared, forcing the pitch-black, highly volatile liquid metal to submit to her absolute will.
Kaelen watched from the stone archway, his arms casually crossed over his broad chest. Beside him stood Seraphina and Lyriel, having just returned from their one-sided slaughter of the Crusade’s supply camp on the surface.
"It is incredibly stubborn, Master," Elara said, wiping a streak of ash from her brow. Her voice practically vibrated with manic, obsessive excitement. "Because this metal was born from the inverted holy core of an Arch-Inquisitor, it possesses a violent pseudo-sentience. It actively wants to consume magic."
"Then feed it, Elara," Kaelen commanded smoothly, his violet eyes glowing in the dim light of the forge.
Elara nodded. She stepped back and grabbed a massive, unrefined Aether crystal—looted directly from the Crusaders’ wagons—and smashed it directly into the center of the cooling blade.
The Void-Steel hissed violently. It greedily devoured the pure mana, aggressively expanding and locking into its final, devastating shape.
Elara lifted the weapon with trembling hands. It was a massive, two-handed greatsword, perfectly proportioned for the High Paladin.
The blade was a seamless, jagged shard of pure obsidian-black metal that passively absorbed all light around it. Along the central fuller, corrupted golden runes pulsed with a slow, heartbeat-like rhythm.
[Crafting Successful: ’Eclipse Breaker’ (Mythic-Tier Greatsword).] [Passive Effect: Devours Holy Wards on contact. Converts blocked magic into physical stamina for the wielder.]
"Seraphina," Kaelen called out, his deep voice cutting through the roar of the furnaces. "Claim your spoils."
The fallen golden-haired Paladin stepped forward, her heavy armored boots clicking against the stone. She knelt respectfully before Elara, holding out her hands to accept the massive weapon.
The exact moment Seraphina’s corrupted golden aura made contact with the hilt, the Eclipse Breaker roared to life. A violent shockwave of hyper-dense void mana erupted from the blade, instantly cracking the surrounding stone floor. Seraphina stood up, effortlessly swinging the heavy greatsword in a fluid, horizontal arc to test its balance.
The raw kinetic pressure of the swing cleanly sliced a nearby discarded platinum shield perfectly in half—without the blade even physically touching it.
"It is flawless, Master," Seraphina breathed, her corrupted golden eyes dilated with sheer bloodlust. "With this weapon, the Vanguard Knights of the capital are nothing but wet paper."
"Good," Kaelen smiled, a dark, predatory expression settling on his handsome features. "Because we are done waiting in the dark. Lyriel, prep the Brutes. It is time to bring the Core to the surface."
Meanwhile, three hundred miles away, the Grand Council Chamber in the capital city of Aethelgard was consumed by a suffocating, terrifying tension.
The Supreme Pontiff sat at the head of a massive circular table of polished white marble. His golden robes looked far too heavy for his frail, trembling frame. Surrounding him were the remaining pillars of the kingdom’s military and noble factions.
"High Inquisitor Malakor was an arrogant fool," Grand Marshall Gideon stated coldly, breaking the heavy silence. Gideon was a towering, heavily scarred veteran clad in thick mythril plate armor, boasting a terrifying Level 92 Aura. "He took three hundred elite knights into an unmapped subterranean labyrinth because he genuinely believed his faith made him invincible. Now, the Silver Crusade is effectively crippled, and our borders are entirely exposed."
"My father and uncle were murdered!" Cassius Valerius, the young, newly appointed Patriarch of House Valerius, slammed his fist violently onto the marble table. "Our siege drakes were slaughtered like pigs! The Heretic has stolen our bloodline’s monopoly and humiliated this entire kingdom! We must deploy the Royal Army and burn the Whispering Woods to the ground!"
"Burn it with what, boy?" Gideon shot back, his single good eye glaring at the young, inexperienced noble.
"Your family’s drakes are the only assets capable of large-scale incendiary strikes, and your foolish father lost half of your breeding stock in a dirt hole. The Heretic is not just a rogue mage. The divination arrays confirm he is a localized Dungeon Master. If we march an army blindly into his domain, he will just farm our soldiers for experience points."
The Pontiff raised a trembling hand, his holy aura flickering weakly, silencing the arguing men.
"The Grand Marshall speaks the absolute truth," the Pontiff wheezed. "A Dungeon Master grows exponentially by feeding on invaders. If we send the foot soldiers, we only hand him the means to evolve further. We must seal the Whispering Woods. We will build a massive perimeter of high-tier holy wards and slowly starve him out. He is bound to his Core; he cannot leave the forest."
"You propose we cower behind walls?" Cassius sneered in utter disbelief. "You want us to wait?"
Before the Pontiff could answer, the heavy oak doors of the Council Chamber violently burst open. A high-ranking Diviner stumbled into the room, his white robes ruined. His eyes were bleeding profusely from severe magical backlash.
"Your Holiness! Marshall Gideon!" the Diviner screamed, falling to his knees as he desperately clutched his burning, ruined eyes. "The arrays... the royal arrays are shattering!"
Gideon stood up instantly, his massive hand dropping to the hilt of his broadsword. "Report! What is shattering?"
"The Dungeon!" the Diviner sobbed, choking on his own blood. "It isn’t staying underground! The Heretic’s domain... it is aggressively expanding! The Whispering Woods have been completely consumed!"
Back at the epicenter of the Whispering Forest, the fundamental laws of reality were actively being overwritten by the Abyss.
Kaelen stood at the cavern entrance, the damp earth beneath his boots violently vibrating. Behind him, the massive, jagged Primordial Core had been physically carried up the sweeping staircase from the 10th Floor by a dozen newly spawned, Level 40 Abyssal Brutes.
The dark crystal was completely saturated, practically overflowing with the massive influx of EXP generated from the slaughter of the Silver Crusade.
"The Church honestly believes my power is tied to a hole in the ground," he whispered to himself, closing his eyes as he felt the intoxicating rush of his Level 65 mana pool syncing perfectly with the massive Core.
He raised his hands toward the dark, cloudy canopy of the forest.
"Domain," he commanded, his voice layered with the crushing, multi-tonal resonance of a true god. "The Obsidian Fortress."
[System Notification: Massive EXP Expenditure detected. Dungeon Domain is breaching the surface.]
[Territorial Override successful. The Whispering Forest are now designated as Floor 11.]
The earth violently quaked. The ancient, rotting oaks of the forest were suddenly and aggressively uprooted as massive, shifting walls of pure, hyper-dense obsidian erupted from the soil like jagged teeth.
The labyrinth didn’t just stay underground; it shot hundreds of feet into the air. Over the span of a few agonizing minutes, the natural forest was completely terraformed into a sprawling, terrifying fortress of shifting black glass and Abyssal architecture.
The sky directly above the woods turned a permanent, corrupted violet as the dense void mana completely choked out the sun.
He lowered his hands, standing at the precipice of his new, towering black battlements.
Lyriel melted flawlessly out of the shadows to his left, her daggers gleaming with fresh toxin. Seraphina stepped heavily to his right, resting the massive Eclipse Breaker effortlessly on her armored shoulder.
Elara stood directly behind him, watching the ultimate culmination of her Master’s power with breathless, obsessive reverence.
