Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods-Chapter 138: She Was Always Smiling

In the broken streets of the city, Dusteria ran.

Her eyes darted from alley to alley, scanning every corner, every collapsed wall, every place a body could be hidden.

Her breath came in shallow bursts. Panic, real panic, gripped her chest.

"Dad!" she called out, over and over, her voice cracking with each cry.

Behind her, Elysia followed, trying to keep pace.

"Dusteria, wait! You have to calm down! We’ve found every corpse already. That means he has to be alive."

But Dusteria wasn’t listening. Her hands trembled. Her legs burned from running. Her heart thudded like a war drum.

"Please," she whispered to no one in particular, "God, anyone, please let him be okay."

She turned a corner, her boots skidding slightly on the rubble-strewn pavement. Then she froze.

Her eyes widened.

Slowly, she stepped back. Her body turned toward a shadowed part of the street.

There, slumped against the broken remains of a wall, sat her father.

The Baron.

He wasn’t wounded. Not visibly. But he looked... gone.

His shoulders were hunched. His hands rested loosely on his knees. His clothes were dirty, ripped in some places, covered in ash.

His face was pale and sunken.

Dusteria walked toward him, hesitant, hollow.

She stopped a few feet away.

"Dad..."

He didn’t answer at first.

Elysia caught up and halted beside her, eyes landing on the broken man.

She smiled, relieved.

"Baron, thank the gods, you’re safe. We were looking everywhere for..."

But the Baron slowly lifted his face. It wasn’t the face of a man who had been rescued.

His eyes were red. Not from battle, but from tears. Swollen, hollow, sunken deep in despair.

"It was her," he muttered. "From the beginning... it was her..."

Dusteria bit her lip hard, eyes blurring. She crouched slowly, arms outstretched.

"It’s safe now, Dad," she whispered, hugging him gently. "You’re okay. I’m here."

He didn’t hug her back. His hands hung limp.

"Where is the dragon?" he asked hoarsely. "The one with the voice... That voice. He was supposed to stop her... Why isn’t he there yet? I swear I’m with him... Please..."

His words were jumbled, fading between meaning and madness.

Elysia looked away, her throat tight. She murmured, barely above a whisper.

"Baron... Even you..."

Back in the quiet chamber, tension hung over the three figures like a storm cloud ready to burst.

Sylphera stood between the king and Aurus, her eyes steady as she elaborated on her findings.

"Regarding Midas’s ability... the theory is holding. Among the people listed as missing from the capital in the last twenty-four hours, several were found to have left behind signs. Dust on their beds. Incomplete remains. Finger bones. Teeth." She raised her eyes.

"These all align perfectly with the facts that Midas had been completely obliterated several times. And it confirm that not every corpse can be used."

The king’s face grew pale.

"So it’s not just the consequences of death... it’s the method of death that gets transferred," Aurus muttered.

Sylphera nodded gravely.

"Exactly. It’s as if he doesn’t just escape death, he passes it along, like a curse."

"And what allows him to do that?" the king asked, voice tight.

"That’s the part we’re unsure of. It could be tied to the same technique he uses to steal skills: binding someone into debt. If someone acknowledges they owe him... he might use that as a thread to weave them into his death loop."

The king’s eyes narrowed.

"But if it isn’t that..."

"If he can simply do it at will..." Aurus finished quietly, "then it might be impossible to kill him."

Silence. A long, stretching silence that neither of them dared break.

Finally, Sylphera inhaled.

"But I believe... it’s the second scenario. Because Midas was willing to offer this knowledge as a trade to Lloyd. That means he’s still confident in his ability to use his power."

Aurus slowly nodded, but his eyes were dark.

"Then what about the danger? The danger you sensed in the capital. You mentioned it when we first arrived."

Sylphera’s expression hardened. She took a moment before speaking, as if gathering all the threads of chaos into a single, horrible truth.

"Let’s summarize what we know so far," she said.

"First, the unnatural death of Darwin, one of the strongest adventurers. Killed without resistance. Then the duel between Midas and Lloyd. Lloyd, with his final spell, passed on his fate to Midas. The result? Midas suffocated to death. But he survived by transferring that exact manner of death to another: the Viscount Margrave."

She looked at them, her voice gaining a sharp edge.

"Every time Midas dies, a body appears. His death has to land somewhere. And from what we’ve seen, he’s planted his curse across many people in the kingdom. That means he’s been building something."

The king muttered.

"An army?"

Sylphera continued.

"No... In that case, that would be someone else’s army. These corpses weren’t just decoys. They became undead. Not by necromancy. Not by magic. But through possession. And the final clue comes from Kardrax’s report: a demon’s ability. And finally, the appearance of that monstrous entity at dawn."

Her voice dropped. The magical lights in the room flickered.

"The demon invasion... wasn’t an assault. It was a search."

Aurus leaned forward, face tense.

"A search... They are looking for someone? Not the seals?"

"Yes, someone. And they found them," Sylphera confirmed. "Those roars weren’t part of the attack. They were the beginning of something else. I suppose it was something they had to assassinate or control, and it appeared at dawn."

The king swallowed hard.

"So what was the undead army, then?"

"A distraction," Sylphera whispered. "Their purpose wasn’t to win. Or to take territory. It was to stall us. To create chaos."

She turned slowly, facing both men. The flickering light caught the sheen of her eyes.

"And I have an idea of the enemy. The one who is above this city from the beginning."

A pause. None of them moved from an inch..

Then she said it.

"The Slumbering King."

A deaf silence fell over the room.

Sylphera’s words echoed in their heads like the toll of a bell.

"The Slumbering King," she had said.

The king froze, his hands gripping the edge of a metal table, hands trembling.

Aurus didn’t speak. He turned, reached for a nearby stool, only to realize there wasn’t one.

He simply leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit on the cold floor, stunned.

"Another Demon Lord," the king whispered. "Inside the capital... this whole time."

Sylphera gave them a moment. They needed it.

Then she continued, voice strangely calm.

"The signs were subtle. The undead weren’t necromantic, and their condition was too coordinated to be random. When I considered the paralysis Darwin suffered, Kardrax’s report of energy threads constricting the guild master and silencing his abilities, it matched the pattern."

She stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back.

"The Slumbering King’s method is to shut down your body from the inside out. Then as he control your body, he make you destroy your own body."

The king shivered involuntarily.

"So Darwin... was killed that way?"

"Yes," Sylphera confirmed. "His resistance was nullified. Then his joints, his limbs, his body were dislocated while he was still alive. Silently."

Aurus’s eyes widened. He saw Darwin’s twisted face in his memory.

The way the body was horrible to watch.

"I refused to understand it at the time," he muttered. "I wanted to believe that it was the aftermath of some explosion or power. But it wasn’t. He... he felt all of that."

He turned away, breathing hard, hiding his face with one hand.

Sylphera watched him but didn’t comfort him.

"We owe him clarity," she said. "To Darwin. To Lloyd. Their deaths were not in vain. They uncovered the abilities of two Demon Lords. That knowledge is now our weapon. We must finish what they started."

They both nodded, slow and solemn.

Sylphera then turned to the second covered corpse. The foot was visible: blackened, rotten, far more deteriorated than the others.

"This one," she said, "is the priority now."

She placed her hand on the edge of the sheet.

"This body was found near the city gates. But according to our research, this person died months ago. Maybe more. And her family didn’t even know until a few days ago."

The king frowned.

"What?"

"Whoever preserved this body went through a lot of effort. It’s... grotesque. The work of a psychopath."

She inhaled.

"And based on what I learned from my investigations, this person might be the key to everything."

She pulled the sheet back.

Both Aurus and the king recoiled.

Their eyes widened, mouths falling open. The king stumbled backward.

"No," he breathed. "No, that’s not possible."

Aurus clutched his chest.

"What... WHAT?!"

Sylphera observed their reaction, then closed her eyes.

"This confirms my suspicions," she said quietly.

The king, voice shaking, turned to the door.

"Guards!" he shouted. "Call the guards! Now!"

In the quietest corner of the healing ward, Crest sat with his back hunched, the soft glow of his Starling Mirror trembling in his hands.

He just wanted to hear her voice. His mother. After all that had happened, the chaos, the demons, the death... he needed to see her, to know she was still there.

Just one word. That would be enough.

He tapped the mirror gently, lips moving in a silent prayer. The surface shimmered.

No answer.

He tried again.

Nothing.

His hands began to shake. He tried a third time, then a fourth. Still no response. The silence on the other end turned into a scream inside his chest.

The dread built fast.

Breathing hard now, he got an idea and changed the frequency.

"Will," he whispered. His best friend had to answer. He was supposed to be close to his family.

He had to answer.

It rang for a long time. No answer, but then, finally, the screen lit up.

A face appeared.

Relief surged through Crest, but it was short-lived.

Will wasn’t looking at him.

He was crying.

His head was bowed, his shoulders trembling with every shaky breath. No words came out, just the sound of quiet, aching sobs.

Crest’s heart froze.

"Will...?" he said, his voice cracking. "Please... please talk to me. Where’s Mother? Where is she?"

Will didn’t answer.

The silence made Crest dizzy.

He pressed closer to the mirror, panic climbing in his throat.

"Will, answer me! What happened?! Please!"

Will finally looked up.

His eyes were swollen, his face pale and broken.

He spoke, but it came out like a whisper.

"Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this? Why didn’t you say anything...?"

Crest’s blood ran cold.

"Will... What do you mean? What are you saying? Tell me where she is! Where’s Mom?!"

Will opened his mouth, but no sound came at first. He swallowed hard, then forced the words out.

"... She’s dead... Crest... She’s gone..."

The mirror nearly slipped from Crest’s hands, his fingers going numb, like his nerves had shut down.

At first, his mind was frozen, his body functioning on automatic mode. Then, his mind formed a though.

"No... No, that’s not true," he whispered, voice trembling as he stared at the glowing mirror. freewebnoveℓ.com

His chest rose and fell in sharp, shallow breaths.

"That’s not true! She’s fine! She has to be fine!"

His legs buckled. He dropped to his knees, the mirror clutched in shaking hands as he gasped like the air had vanished from the room.

His heart pounded so loud it echoed in his ears, drowning out the rest of the world.

Tears burst from his eyes before he realized he was crying.

"She was just fine...! She was just fine last week...!"

He looked around the room like someone would fix this, like someone would wake him up from this nightmare.

But there was no one. Just him and the truth, burning into his soul.

"Don’t say that... Don’t... please... don’t say that..." he begged, like if he said it enough times, it would undo everything.

He wanted to scream. To break something. But all he could do was kneel there.

But then...

"Elysia is dead... dead... Crest, she’s dead... She was always dead..."

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