The Demon Queen's Royal Consort-Chapter 111 - Dungeon - XIX

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For the fourth time, the five of them watched hell repeat itself.

The reddish mist over the sludge rippled like a liquid nightmare, and the silence preceding the battle was no longer just familiar—it was ritualistic. Down below, on the far side of the colossal cavern, six new locusts emerged from the dungeon's shadows, their silhouettes etched by the ghostly light of the crystals. They were living weapons, forged by survival, and yet... they knew they marched to slaughter.

The group didn't watch in reverence, nor in shock. This time, their eyes weren't seeking understanding. They were ready to act.

Dorian clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking like grinding stones. Seraphine twirled her spear in slow, deliberate motions, rehearsing the balance between ferocity and precision.

Aeloria and Dália exchanged brief glances, synchronizing their breaths. Glenn stood silent, his gaze locked on the sludge, as if he could already see what lay beneath.

Then, the roar.

"GRUUUUUUUUUUUMMMM!"

The crocodile erupted from the acid waters with the violence of a millennial curse awakening. Its jaws split open like the gates of the underworld, spewing acid into the air. Every step shook the mountain's foundation as if the entire dungeon were on the verge of collapse. The locusts charged without hesitation, exploding into speed and fury—leaping, slashing, spinning.

The battlefield had been sealed. But today, the war would have two fronts.

On the far side of the sludge, hidden in the shadow of the opposing cliff, the real plan began.

"Our turn," Glenn murmured, activating his gravitational magic. His skin pulsed with a violet glow as streams of prana flickered around him in response. Aeloria and Dália closed their eyes, stretching their hands toward the crimson surface of the sludge.

At the cavern's center, the six locusts advanced in formation, like soldiers on a desperate march. Two led the charge with rapid strikes, serving as bait for the crocodile's devastating blows. A third hovered midair, hurling blades of compressed wind; another pair flanked the creature from behind, targeting its hind limbs with sequenced attacks. The last, larger than the rest, seemed to command the group with coordinated movements, dictating the assault's rhythm like a war maestro.

They were good. Far better than the initial swarms. But they were nowhere near the razor precision of the previous three.

Their blades ricocheted off the crocodile's carapace with metallic clangs. A few managed to pierce layers of flesh, carving steaming grooves that oozed black acid. But within seconds, the wounds began stitching themselves shut, weaving flesh over flesh like a cursed tapestry. The monster roared in fury, twisting its grotesque body and sweeping the field with its tail. Two locusts were hurled against the rocks with enough force to crush them like dry husks.

From the cliff's edge, Dália watched with clinical eyes, calculating between breaths.

"Three minutes, maybe a little more," she murmured. "This group won't last as long as they seem."

Aeloria nodded, her focus locked on the crocodile's reactions, not the fight itself. "Enough."

Glenn raised his right hand as if tearing through the air. The space before him fractured with magical energy. Silver spirals raced through the void, and a rift split open like a slash in black silk, pulsing with unstable spatial power.

"Let's go," he said, voice firm.

Dália and Aeloria stepped through first, one after the other.

The rift's light swallowed them, transporting them to the sludge's farthest edge—a narrow stretch of solid rock, barely two meters wide, where the acid's density was highest. Where not even the locusts dared tread.

The operation had begun.

Dália knelt first at the sludge's brink. She drew a deep breath.

The air seemed to recoil from her lungs. Her already porcelain-pale skin turned nearly translucent. Blue veins surged along her arms like living roots. Her eyes, usually gentle, burned with an unnatural crimson hue.

And then, she danced.

Her arms moved in fluid arcs, as if conducting a silent symphony in the void. The acid waters trembled, then rose—not violently, but obediently, as if bending to the inverted gravity of a new god. Slowly, the liquid began to part, cleaved by an impossible force.

But the task wasn't simple.

The sludge's viscosity fought the opening. It was dense, fed by the melted remains of thousands of creatures. Shockwaves from the crocodile's strikes reverberated across the cavern, sending ripples that destabilized the surface. Each tremor warped the opening, threatening to force it shut. The stench of sulfur and rotting flesh thickened.

Aeloria stepped forward beside Dália.

Ice sprouted from her feet like crystalline thorns. Her face, too, had paled, her brows furrowed in extreme tension. Blue veins traced her skin, and her breath came in frozen clouds despite the hellish heat. She didn't dance like Dália—she carved her will into the world with absolute rigidity.

With every gesture, the tunnel's edges froze. Stalagmites of pure ice surged like pillars along the inner walls, stabilizing the passage and preventing collapse. The strain was evident: sweat beaded on her body, her altered veins bulged, her teeth clenched in a silent snarl. But there was no hesitation.

Every conquered meter of sludge was a victory.

Every second, an eternity stolen from death.

And above them, in the distance, the crocodile began to sense something was wrong.

The crocodile stopped.

It was sudden. A hesitation mid-carnage. As if some ancestral sixth sense had whispered into its rotten mind: 'Something is wrong.'

The sludge... its home, its prison, its altar... wasn't behaving as it should.

The liquid that had always nourished it now rippled with an alien will. The waves no longer danced with its roars but recoiled as if fearing something deeper. The anomaly was subtle—but to a beast that had dwelled there for countless ages, it was unmistakable.

And then, it snapped.

In a primal surge, it twisted its body in a grotesque spiral. Its tail split the air with a sonic howl. One locust was struck head-on and launched into the cavern's bone spires, its exoskeleton exploding like a ripe pomegranate on impact.

The second locust tried to retreat, but the crocodile was already upon it. Its maw gaped like an abyss of darkness. A black aura sucked in the surrounding air with brutal force. The warrior was yanked into the monstrous mouth like dust to the wind.

The sound that followed was dry... and final.

The third tried fleeing upward, but a barbed tongue—previously unseen—shot out like a harpoon, impaling it midair. It writhed for only a second before being dragged in.

On the cliff, Dorian gritted his teeth.

"They won't last thirty more seconds!"

Seraphine took a step forward, her eyes cold, calculating.

"Let's go."

Without another word, the two leaped.

Dorian fell like an avalanche. His reforged dungeon-armor gleamed a dark green under the cavern's putrid light. In one hand, his improvised shield—a reinforced locust carapace—stood firm as a living bulwark. In the other, his trusted sword hummed, its runes flaring crimson.

Across from him, Seraphine was a silver comet.

Her intricate armor unleashed living runes, and her spear materialized in her right hand with a sharp crack. In her left, the blade-arm of a dead locust reflected the cavern's spectral glow. She spun with lethal grace, ready to cut down even time itself.

The next instant, the crocodile's jaws gaped once more to devour the fourth locust with hellish suction.

The ground shattered under Dorian's feet, forming a crater like a spider's web. His prana surged, flooding his muscles, turning him into a blazing meteor racing across solid earth.

Before the crocodile could swallow its prey, Dorian struck from below like thunder. With a guttural cry, a pillar of earth launched him upward—and he slammed his shield into the beast's lower jaw.

"BOOOOOOOOOOM"

The melody of war echoed through the cavern. The impact sent shockwaves rippling outward.

The creature's jaws snapped shut mid-suction, its head wrenched back at an impossible angle. The locust was hurled aside by the recoil. freeweɓnøvel.com

The crocodile staggered, enraged but already healing.

And in that moment, Seraphine arrived.

Like lightning given form, she slid along its flank. The blade-arm severed one of its limbs with surgical precision, the dismembered appendage writhing on the ground.

She didn't stop. Her body pivoted, and her spear erupted into a tornado of pure wind. A narrow, lethal hurricane tore from its tip, colliding with the monster's torso and ripping away a chunk of its grotesque armor. Black blood geysered forth.

The crocodile howled.