Chapter 125: Come Consequence of Death

Chapter 125: Come Consequence of Death

The gleaming satisfaction of evolutions did sustain me for a while, but I was far too busy to really revel in it. A shame, because I was ever so excited for the reaper's cap, but the imminent threat of a Gold merrily sauntering his way into my dungeon after escaping with five floors worth of secrets took just a scale more priority. Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

That was the weight and work of it, unfortunately.

I darted overhead, scattering points of awareness in my wake like stars; healing mana coiled through the ambient air, crackling over the Skylands in forked points of lightning that both healed and thoroughly shocked anyone they brushed. Back in the Stone Jungle, Seros hissed at Syalia's corpse, slitted pupils narrowed and gravitas pouring off his scales like rising tides. Our connection thrummed with his hunger, at the first true hunt he'd had in a long time that had been just a deception, just a fruitless battle against someone who hadn't been in their proper fighting mind.

He was a champion, my first Named, and this was not a battle he was happy to have won.

She was Gold, I murmured, at least a balm over the blasphemy. A good reward of mana.

Seros' thoughts simmered like boiling water. He did not, apparently, see it the same way.

What a little sycophant. He wanted to get stronger, which means he needed greater ambient mana and larger prey to sate his fill, and then he was pissed that he didn't get to fight the same level of invaders he had before. As if he would be happy clawing miserable little Bronzes to death and potentially chipping a fang.

He needed to go work through his frustrations in a battle with the sea serpent. He had grown from fledgling to juvenile, a true monster in the third room of the Hungering Reefs; his attacks cleaved stone from walls and he regularly devoured roughwater sharks to satiate his hunger, and all those within my halls knew to fear him. His battles with Seros were legendary.

In another world, Seros had fought with the sarco, a training companion of similar size.

But he was dead, and now she was dead, and the Underlake was missing its monarch.

Ghasavlk would pay with blood and consequence for killing her and taking her corpse; I knew I needed to make a new one, to fill the void left behind by the end of the apex, but there was a biting urge of melancholy that roiled in my core.

Two sarcos had I had, and both had died. Neither had even been in glorious battle, in victories that came with their sacrifice; the first had killed the dryadic fighter, but the other had needed to be killed by Seros. Ghasavlk and Syalia had killed her without more than minor injuriesand she'd been so clever. Her thoughts had been full of some melody deep in her mind, a Song she spoke of with great reverence and wonder. A call to magic more than might, something that her evolution would have given her in spades.

It would have.

If she hadn't died.

To be a dungeon was to be one of death. Dozens upon dozens of invaders had entered my halls, and many of them hadn't left. I had relished in their demise, in the mana I had won from it; I didn't care about them, and frankly I refused to. They had made the choice to come seek treasure with a garotte around their necks.

Well. I had given it a home, and then Veresai had killed them all. She was a true delight, at times.

The spined lizard would fit well on this floor, though.

I gathered all of the mana I'd had before Syalia, since I certainly wasn't using the Gold-attuned points for this; only around twenty, but I wove together a group of four just to seed the population.

They were a touch too bright, the majority of their scales being a gold-brown instead of the deep grey of the basalt, but clustered over their backs were black-white spines that bristled and shivered at every movement. They blinked at each other, forked blue tongues flicking out. Their tails flicked.

In the distance, a scorch hound howled, and immediately they scattered.

Little hooked claws wrapped around the lips of basalt pillars and pulled them up, tails lashing as they raneven with gold scales they blended into the darkness almost immediately, lost to the smog and the smoke. Already I could feel them weaken in the acrid environment, little lungs struggling under the grey, but these were common creatures not yet evolvedmy ambient mana flooded through them, powerful and endless. Their little channels thrummed with mana, adapting to this new land, healing what damage the smoke caused.

This batch may not survive, considering the other predators here had already gotten quite on their way to perfecting their hunting style, but already I could see the dreamspines launched from towering pillars of basalt, striking from shadows unseen and unheard. There would be nothing that would stop them if they got powerful enough.

And in my dungeon, the potential was all there.

But for now, those four skittered off to distant corners of the basalt lands, finding the algae pools and carrion left by the scorch hounds, carving out a home amidst the chaos. When I regenerated more mana, I would create more, to pour them into the nooks and crannies to serve as smaller prey for the scorpions that were not quite fast enough to kill either the scorch hounds or bounding deer.

But with that, I rocked back, settling in my core with its golden lettering. I peered out, awareness flickering through my various floors, tracing the path that Ghasavlk had taken out of my dungeon. It had taken him and Syalia hours to go through my dungeon, even with him stealing paths from Veresai's mind, and in under a day another adventuring party would be coming through.

It would never end, I feared. And I would not dieI refused to die, not againbut a Gold had escaped. Escaped not just alive but newly bolstered with knowledge, with very uncomfortable information about my floorsI didn't know all he had learned, but it was clearly something, and that was without what he'd brought in himself. Something about Chosen, he'd said, rather than Named; and about sensing draconic powers and Kriya, deep within Veresai's den. So.

All things considered, not particularly desirable.

But I was alive, and Syalia was dead, and new evolutions bloomed under my powerand there was still a void in the Underlake, still an emptiness of death, still a dearth of victories. I would not allow it to stand.

My gaze slid up, past the floor I was working on, to one that had so recently been tested. Been tested, and held strong.

The Jungle Labyrinth had certainly shown its strength. Perhaps it was time it received its just reward.