Chapter 153 Collapsed [Hiatus]



The Lava Salamander was more than twenty meters long and six meters tall. Its scales were not even visible due to the lava that covered the Lava Salamander's entire body. Even its pitch-black eyes were mostly covered by the molten lava.

'Its bigger than expected. Did it eat or consume a treasure, or are monsters also able to use the Arcane System?' Liam wondered. He had been suspicious about that before, but seeing the Lava Salamander, he felt that less intelligent beings such as monsters were also able to use the Arcane System to increase their stats, and possibly enhance their Bloodline.

It was also possible that he was wrong and that the Lava Salamander consumed some treasure to increase its strength, but he knew what treasures had manifested and grown in the valley. These vast pieces of information were branded in his mind and he wouldn't forget them that easily.

'Looks like it was a good decision to install more traps and create elemental weapons,' He thought, glancing over to Claire, who smiled from one ear to another.

'But I better not tell her that she did a good job. That brat is too arrogant for her own good.'

Liam readied himself for the fight, but he didn't dash out of their hidden position mindlessly. The Lava Salamander had yet to enter its lair and trigger the traps Hellen installed meticulously.

He glanced at Jennie before he reverted his attention once he was sure she could control herself – even if it was hard.

Jennie clenched the sapphire spear with all her might. Her veins protruded from the back of her hands, and it looked like they would pop at any moment. But that was already it.

The Lava Salamander – oblivious to the terrifying encounter it was about to make – returned to its lair. It didn't rush back but slowly strode through the outskirts of the city it had destroyed first. No monster dared to come close to it but that was only given. Nobody was as on par to its strength, and that was something the Lava Salamander was fully aware of. It was just too mighty for anyone to compare!

Being at the top of the food chain and the Overlord of a small territory was bliss. The Lava Salamander never enjoyed such a privilege in the past. It was just a weak 1st Circle monster, and not a mythical creature, after all. However, the Arcane Apocalypse and the opportunity it had been granted thanks to it changed everything.

It was finally strong enough to reach the peak of the food chain and slaughter the beings around it to gain Arcanium, which could then be used to become even stronger. Within a few days of the Arcane Apocalypse's start, the Lava Salamander grew much stronger than it did over the course of years. Countless beings died at its hands within those five days, but it didn't care.

The life of all monsters inside the Nine Realms had been filled with the rule of the jungle. The strongest ruled supreme and the weak were at the mercy of the strongest. If the strongest wanted to eradicate everyone, they would do it. Who would dare to call them out? The dead couldn't complain, and those who were not yet dead would die as soon as the strong found them.

That was how the Lava Salamander lived. It had been suppressed for half a decade and barely survived. Nobody would listen to its complaints even if it had the intelligence and capabilities to understand the universal language and speak. That was how life was, and it didn't change even in Haltan. The only difference was that the Lava Salamander was not the strongest.

And that was exactly what caused the Lava Salamander to become arrogant within the first thirty days of the Arcane Apocalypse. Nobody was as strong as it, and it was growing stronger by the day.

Thinking that no one in the region would ever dare to attack it in its own lair, the Lava Salamander missed the clues as it crossed the first trap upon entering its lair.

"Why is the trap not activating?" Felicia asked Hellen stiffly. However, Hellen just smiled.

"Don't you see how arrogant it is? It didn't even look around to make sure that nobody would attack," She responded, still smiling.

"So what?" Felicia asked, nearly shouting.

Oddly enough it was Jennie who answered this time.

"Hellen can control the traps. She wants to active all seven to severely injure the Lava Salamander and kill it off easily,"

Despite looking like she was about to lose her sanity, Jennie could think straight ahead. Her train of thought was much faster than ever before as she had only one goal in mind; kill the Lava Salamander as humiliating and painfully as possible.

Liam nodded as well, pointing at the blue strands of energy that had formed in her hands to show that Hellen had full control of the traps.

Each strand was connected to one trap. Hellen connected the blue strands of energy to trigger them at once. Understanding dawned on Felicia and she quickly diverted her focus, not forgetting to voice out her complaint silently, "You guys could have said that beforehand…"

Olivia and the others smiled in response. They didn't know about the precise control of the traps either and thought that the first trap malfunctioned when it didn't trigger

However, all of their worries dispersed the moment a thunderous explosion resounded through the surrounding area. Hellen clenched her first, crushing the seven strands of energy. Simultaneously, the earth around them began to rumble. The Salamander's lair trembled and a pained roar reverberated through the destroyed city before the self-made cavern collapsed at last.

The others watched everything with great interest. Their expressions were all different, yet similar at the same time.

"Dumb question…but was that planned?" Claire was the first to ask a question, however, nobody could really answer her. They just stared at Hellen, whose expression didn't change at all.

"There should have been four spiked pit traps two gravity expansion traps, and a shrapnel fragment trap…what happened?" Liam asked, also not quite sure what why the cave collapsed.

The spiked pit traps were traps that created a spiked pit the moment it was triggered, while the gravity expansion traps increased inertia tenfold in a small area for a few seconds. The shrapnel fragment trap was a trap that shot metal fragments in all directions. Hellen filled them with aqueous metal that had been infused with certain highly oxygen substances.