Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 69: [The Heir of Thornspine 3] Roots of Defiance

The Thistlecreep Marauder roared, and the Deathsong collapsed into a single, droning heartbeat.

Its body trembled with unnatural speed, vines whipping violently from its flanks. Thorned petals rained down in heavier sheets. Every movement was sharper, faster—the air itself seemed to ripple around it.

Raven’s HUD flared:

Enrage State: Active.

The first double Tangle Leap came without warning—the Marauder vanishing and reappearing twice in a vicious chain, forcing the team to scatter.

"Fall back! Reset!" Raven barked.

The team struggled to adapt. Bloomstep traps erupted faster now, barely giving a two-second warning before exploding. Thornling adds spawned at the edges, chasing down any player who dared linger.

Seneschal grit his teeth, holding Rite of the Root back to conserve mana, even as poison puddles began dotting the battlefield.

Root-Soul Ascendant moved fast—staff slamming into the ground again. Another Spitgrowth Sentinel burst forth, its form solidifying into a Defender type. Phantom Seer, catching the cue instantly, layered fresh illusions onto the Sentinel, making it loom larger, more menacing.

The Sentinel shuddered under the Marauder’s frenzied assault.

Splinters of bark and thorn sprayed outward, the illusory bulk around it shimmering under Phantom Seer’s magic.

Raven crouched low, muscles tight.

His hand brushed the Dominion Chain wrapped at his hip.

Phantom Bind... too obvious. Too slow. Too predictable.

Something wilder. Riskier.

But I need a precious second.

He flung the chain upward, latching onto the skeletal beam crisscrossing the ruined dome overhead. With a sharp jerk, he propelled himself high into the mist-choked air.

In a millisecond, Phantom Seer’s eyes snapped upward. Reading not just Raven’s motion, but the risk he carried.

Suspended, exposed, fragile.

If the Marauder looked up now, he wouldn’t survive the climb.

Phantom Seer moved without thinking.

Phantom Seer cast Mind Shatter toward the Marauder’s head, a ghostly illusion shimmering into being above the beast.

Mind Shatter flared to life in her hands, a ghostly Sentinel illusion blooming above the Marauder’s head.

The Marauder snarled, confusion flashing across its thorned features.

It twisted violently, scanning the mist-choked heights for this new phantom threat.

Raven reached the peak of his arc.

He raised his head, spotting the Marauder directly below him.

A smirk tugged at his lips at Seer’s quick reaction just seconds ago.

"Heh. Pretty good teamwork we’ve got here."

Below, the Sentinel crumbled under the Marauder’s final blow—but it didn’t matter.

Raven let go, pushing off the ceiling with both legs to launch himself downward.

Gravity seized him.

Twin daggers drawn, he plummeted like a spear.

The Marauder looked up—too late.

Raven struck, driving both blades deep into the beast’s skull with the full weight of his fall.

The impact cracked the marble beneath their feet. Black sap erupted from the Marauder’s ruined form, splattering the ground in sticky arcs.

The Deathsong shuddered—then roared, a broken chorus of fury and grief as one of its guardians fell. For a heartbeat, the manor itself seemed to wail with it—then the sound faltered, slipping into a heavy, grieving silence.

The Thistlecreep Marauder spasmed once, a final convulsion, then collapsed into a heap of twisted vines and shattered bone.

The Wildfang Node across the chamber pulsed violently, cracks spiderwebbing across its blood-red surface.

[Midboss Defeated: Thistlecreep Marauder]

The first pillar of Thornspine’s corrupted heart had been shattered.

Raven gasped for breath, his chest heaving, the taste of iron and sap thick in the air. His hands trembled from the insane stunt he had just pulled, muscles aching from the brutal drop.

Duskrunner growled low, hackles raised, circling the fallen Marauder once.

The Phantom Seer flickered at the edges of the mist, its shifting form rippling silently.

Ironbark Seneschal stepped forward, the heavy thud of his staff against the broken marble echoing in the heavy silence.

He paused briefly, turning his hollow gaze toward Root-Soul Ascendant.

Root-Soul shifted subtly—an almost imperceptible movement, the coils of vines across her arms loosening, uncoiling.

For a heartbeat, the two of them simply stood there:

The knight carved of bark and judgment.

The sentinel born of roots and rage.

Seneschal bowed his head slightly—a gesture of knightly respect, heavy and deliberate.

Root-Soul’s many voices whispered low, nearly lost in the fading hum of the Deathsong.

"Not all thorns... must strike."

The last crack in the ice splintered deeper—still not forgiveness, but something like recognition.

Raven wiped sap from his gloves and muttered under his breath, smirking faintly.

"Messy," he said. "But effective."

Ironbark Seneschal turned, his heavy bark-carved frame casting a long shadow over the broken marble.

He did not kneel. He did not bow deeply.

He turned toward Root-Soul Ascendant, the blunt tip of his wooden mace thudding once against the ground—a knight’s salute, battered but unbroken.

Root-Soul shifted. The vines spiraling across her arms slackened slightly, a ripple of memory passing through her.

When she spoke, her many voices wove together in a low, hollow thread.

"Once... you were my shield," she said.

"Even now... your roots remember."

Seneschal’s hollow sockets, empty of eyes, somehow seemed to see her more clearly than before.

He said nothing.

Raven watched the exchange, his smirk fading into something quieter, heavier.

Old debts never die. They just grow heavier with time.

The sound of a distant door groaning open broke the heavy silence.

From a side passage shrouded in creeping vines, Eldryn Marrowleaf emerged—her form limned by the pale, sickly light filtering through the ruins. She walked slowly, her steps cautious but determined, carrying the aura of someone who had waited too long to act.

"You’ve done it," Eldryn said, her voice a brittle whisper threaded with awe. "The Baron’s Fang has fallen. I can begin the cleansing—"

"Hang on," Raven cut in sharply, holding up a hand.

He didn’t lower his guard yet. Not until the last threads binding this cursed place started unraveling.

The choir—damn it, that choir. The Deathsong, though quieted for a moment, slowly shifted back into its usual sorrowful lament—a sad, eerie choir threading through the broken chamber.

Raven wiped a smear of black sap from his face, his hands still trembling as he scanned the ruins around him.

Somewhere deeper in this rotting labyrinth, the true source of the Deathsong still sang.

And Raven intended to find it.

Raven approached the cracked Wildfang Node, its surface pulsating like an exposed heart under layers of twisted thorns.

He exhaled slowly, adjusting his grip on the Dominion Chain.

Back in beta, people thought you could leave these nodes alone. They didn’t last long.

Without fanfare, Raven unfurled the chain, letting its twin daggers spin in a slow, circling rhythm.

He whipped it forward.

The Dominion Chain lashed across the Node with a sharp snap, embedding deep. Black sap burst from the fissure, splattering the broken marble at its base.

Raven didn’t stop.

With a sharp yank, he triggered Phantom Bind—the chain locking, pulling Raven forward in a blink.

He drove both daggers into the bleeding Node with the full momentum of his Phantom Bind lunge.

A shriek ripped through the chamber—not from anything physical, but from the Deathsong itself.

The high, wailing soprano note that had haunted them from the start—gone.

Only the guttural drone and the broken whispers remained, heavier, closer somehow.

[Optional: Silence Resonance Nodes (1/3)]

The popup flared across Raven’s HUD, then faded.

He exhaled, feeling the manor sag just slightly—as if it, too, had lost a piece of its poisoned soul.

Eldryn, who had paused respectfully at Raven’s signal, now stepped forward again, her green-lit eyes softening.

"You destroyed the node too. Thank you," she said, bowing her head slightly. "This will impact greatly on the journey ahead."

She lifted her staff, the tip already gathering pale light.

"Now, please go on," Eldryn continued. "I will begin cleansing here. I will catch up to you once it’s done."

Without waiting for further ceremony, she moved toward the shattered Wildfang Node. As Raven watched briefly, Eldryn raised her arms, her body shimmering in a soft, steady glow. The vines around her pulsed in time with her silent chanting, as if the estate itself recognized her attempt to heal the breach.

Raven turned away, motioning the team to move. As he glanced back once more, Eldryn stood frozen in ritual, locked in place by the slow, patient magic of restoration—a solitary figure against the breathing ruin.

He knew she would not move until another guardian had fallen.

Raven led the team across the splintered courtyard, their boots crunching over shattered marble and withered vines.

Ahead, a broken porch stretched outward—once a grand entryway into the Thornspine Estate proper. Now it sagged under the weight of time and corruption, its columns cracked, its roof half-collapsed into a tangle of rotting wood and thorny overgrowth.

The remnants of the old garden bled into the ruined structure, the air growing heavier as they approached.

Beyond the broken porch loomed the true doors of the estate: massive twin gates of blackened iron, so choked with vines they seemed more plant than metal.

A faint pulse rippled through the cracked stone beneath their feet—the manor’s heartbeat, slower now but still alive.

Without a word, Raven pressed onward, the Dominion Chain coiled loosely around his arms, ready for whatever lay ahead.

As they passed beneath the crumbling archway of the porch, a notification flickered across Raven’s HUD:

[Zone Transition: Thornspine Manor — Inner Halls]

The breath of the estate thickened.

The Deathsong’s low drone and whispering undertones leaked more strongly from within.

Another guardian awaited.

And Raven intended to tear it from its roots.

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