Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 128: The Sacred Climb Pt2

The lock was huge. It was a circular array of stone rings, each covered in ancient Wolf runes. They were spinning slowly, out of sync.

"Okay," Primrose muttered, her breath coming in panicked gasps. "Okay. Think, Prim. It’s just like the ’Lock-Pick Minigame’ in Level 4."

She touched the stone. It was freezing.

The Wolf howls at the moon. The moon pulls the tide. The tide feeds the earth.

"Wolf. Moon. Tide. Earth," Primrose whispered.

She spun the outer ring. Click. A wolf symbol aligned at the top.

Behind her, the battle raged.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Konrad screamed.

Primrose’s hands shook. She spun the second ring. Click. A moon.

"Primrose!" Caspian called out. "Hurry!"

She spun the third ring. Click. A wave.

One more. The Earth.

She tried to turn the inner ring. It was stuck. Frozen solid.

"Come on," Primrose grunted, pushing with all her might. "Don’t be stubborn! Move!"

A shadow fell over her.

One of the corrupted guards had slipped past the line. He raised a black axe high above Primrose’s head.

"PRIMROSE!" Caspian screamed.

Primrose saw the shadow. She didn’t have a weapon. She had a bag of snacks.

She didn’t think. She swung the heavy bag of dried pork and hardtack like a flail.

THWACK.

She hit the zombie square in the face with five pounds of cured meat.

The zombie stumbled back, surprised by the sudden assault of protein.

That second gave her the adrenaline she needed. She slammed her shoulder into the frozen ring.

CRACK.

The ice broke. The ring spun. Click. The Earth symbol aligned.

RUMBLE.

The massive stone gates groaned. The runes flared gold, washing away the purple corruption.

The corrupted guards shrieked as the holy light hit them. They dissolved into dust, their souls finally freed.

"It’s open!" Primrose cheered, holding her snack bag like a victorious weapon.

Meanwhile, on the shortcut.

Astrid was regretting her life choices.

The Goat Path was less of a path and more of a suggestion. It was a narrow ledge, barely a foot wide, winding up the sheer face of the cliff.

"This is crazy," Orion wheezed from behind her.

He was clinging to the rock face like a barnacle. His face was blue. His tail, which had popped out due to stress, was dragging in the snow.

"Just... keep... moving," Astrid grunted. She was pulling him up by his scarf. "We’re almost... there."

"You said that... twenty minutes ago," Orion complained. "I can’t feel my toes. I think my tail is frozen to the rock."

"If you die, I’ll kill you," Astrid threatened. "Don’t you dare freeze on me, fish-boy."

Orion looked up. Through the swirling snow, he saw a glimmer of purple light coming from the rock face.

"Astrid," Orion whispered. "Look. There’s smoke."

Above them, carved into the cliff face, was an ancient steam grate. It was a narrow opening barred with heavy stone slats, used to vent the magical heat from the Shrine’s core. Warm, purple-tinted steam was hissing out of it.

"A steam grate!" Astrid gasped. "It leads inside!"

"I fit," Orion noted, looking at his small frame. "You... might get stuck. Your head is pretty big."

"Shut up and climb," Astrid growled.

They scrambled up the last few feet. Astrid kicked the stone slats. They were old and brittle from centuries of heat and cold. With a hard stomp, they crumbled inward.

"In you go," Astrid shoved Orion into the dark, warm tunnel.

They crawled. The air inside smelled of ozone and old magic.

Finally, they reached an opening looking down into the main chamber.

Astrid peered over the edge. Her eyes went wide.

"By the First Wolf..." she whispered.

Below them was a nightmare.

She saw a massive room made of black crystal. She saw thick, sticky webs strung up everywhere like a grotesque chandelier. And inside the webs...

"Are those... kids?" Orion whispered, peeking over her shoulder.

"Vivi!" Astrid gasped. She saw the red hair of her missing friend trapped in a cocoon.

And in the center of the web, glowing like a dying star, she saw Vali.

"He looks... really bad," Orion whispered.

Vali’s skin was grey. His red eyes were rolling back in his head. He looked like he was vibrating apart.

"He’s overloading," Astrid realized, watching the purple energy flow into him. "He’s gonna explode."

The Confrontation

The main doors of the Shrine slammed open.

Rurik, Konrad, Freya, Caspian, and Primrose burst into the chamber.

They stopped dead.

The sight was overwhelming. The sheer scale of the web, the stolen children, the pulsing Void energy—it was a nightmare made real.

"Vali!" Rurik screamed.

The Boss stood on a platform overlooking the web. He turned, smiling beneath his mask.

"Right on time," the Boss said, spreading his arms. "Welcome to the grand finale. I hope you like fireworks. Because in about..." he checked his watch "...three minutes, your son is going to become a black hole."

"Let them go!" Primrose shouted, stepping forward.

"I can’t," the Boss shrugged. "The process is irreversible. He has eaten too much mana. If I stop the transfer now, the feedback loop will kill him. If I let it finish... well, he becomes a god. A mindless, hungry god, but a god nonetheless."

He looked at Primrose.

"It’s a tragedy, really," the Boss mused. "But think of the plot twist! The Heroine fails. The Love Interest grieves. The World Ends. It’s very... avant-garde."

Primrose looked at Vali. He was twitching. The purple veins on his neck were pulsing.

She looked at her snack bag.

"He’s hungry," Primrose whispered.

"What?" Caspian asked.

"He’s hungry," Primrose said louder. "The Boss said he’s ’eating’ mana. But Void mana is empty calories. It’s junk food. It fills him up but doesn’t satisfy him. That’s why he’s overloading. He’s starving to death while being force-fed poison."

She grabbed Caspian’s arm.

"I need to get to him," Primrose said. "I need to feed him something real."

"Prim," Caspian looked at the web. "It’s pure Void. If you touch it..."

"I have to try," Primrose said. Her amber eyes were burning. "He’s my cub. I feed my cubs."

Caspian looked at her. He saw the fire in her soul.

"Then we clear the path," Caspian declared.

He turned to the Warlords.

"Rurik. Konrad. Freya. Get her to the center."

Rurik grinned. It was a terrifying sight.

"With pleasure," Rurik growled.

The Boss sighed. He tapped his cane.

"Minions," he said lazily. "Kill them."

From the shadows of the ceiling, giant spiders made of black ice descended.

"DINNER TIME!" Rurik roared, and the charge began.