Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls-Chapter 476: Umbra wants to capture Nidhogg.

Umbra stood still for a few seconds at the entrance to the ancient containment chamber, silently observing the scene before her. Even for someone who ruled the Umbral, someone accustomed to dealing with impossible creatures, ancient entities, and calamities that existed since before mortal history, this was still... problematic. The entire hall was in ruins. What had once been a carefully constructed prison, reinforced with ancient magic and chains forged to contain something that shouldn’t even exist, now looked more like the remains of a forgotten battlefield. Black walls were cracked in multiple directions, pillars had been broken as if made of glass, and the floor was marked by irregular craters, as if something colossal had struggled within with almost primal violence.

Umbra slowly walked a few steps into the destroyed hall, the translucent fabric of her white dress gliding smoothly across the broken stone floor as her eyes examined every detail. Even without touching anything directly, she could feel the echo of the energy that still lingered in that place. It was an unpleasant mixture of broken containment magic, overwhelming brute force, and something older, something that seemed to carry the deep scent of the roots of reality itself. It could only be one thing. She let out a small sigh, bringing a hand to her temple as she observed the remains of giant chains scattered across the floor. "It’s truly impressive how keeping a dragon that devours the roots of the World Tree contained always ends up being more complicated than it seems."

Behind her, Lyra Noctis and Seryth Vhal remained in respectful silence, watching as their queen surveyed the destruction. Both also seemed troubled, though each showed it differently. Lyra had her arms crossed and observed the wreckage with a clearly irritated look, while Seryth maintained a rigid, almost military posture, as if expecting to be interrogated at any moment. Umbra walked a few more steps until she reached the center of the ancient containment chamber. There was a huge circle of runes engraved directly into the black stone, but now half of those inscriptions were completely destroyed. The lines that once channeled magic were broken, distorted, some completely torn from the ground as if someone had simply ripped the magical structure itself apart.

Umbra stopped before the center of the room and tilted her head slightly as she observed the exact spot where the creature had been kept. There were deep marks on the floor, enormous furrows that seemed to have been made by gigantic claws fighting against the prison. In the middle of it all, one of the chains still remained partially attached to the ground, but completely twisted, as if it had been pulled with absurd force until it finally gave way. She crouched slowly and ran her fingers over the deformed black metal. The material was ancient, made specifically to contain something like that, and yet it was bent in an almost absurd way. Umbra let out a small sigh again. "This is exactly the kind of problem I didn’t want to encounter on my first day back."

She stood up again and turned her face towards her subordinates. Her gaze was calm, but clearly carried a very specific expectation. "I would like to know," she said slowly, "how exactly a primordial dragon that was trapped in the heart of my own castle managed to get out of here." The question didn’t come from open anger, but there was an implicit weight there that made it clear that this explanation needed to be very good.

Lyra was the first to react. She uncrossed her arms and took a few steps forward, looking again at the wreckage as if she were still angry about it. "To be completely honest, my Queen," she began with a small sigh, "it wasn’t exactly a sophisticated process." Seryth remained quiet for a second before slowly raising one hand and pointing to one of the side walls of the chamber.

Umbra followed the gesture with her gaze.

That’s when she saw it.

The entire wall was simply... destroyed.

Not cracked.

Not damaged.

Destroyed.

There was a huge, jagged hole where once there had been a solid structure of black stone reinforced with ancient magic. Giant fragments of rock were scattered along the corridor beyond the chamber, and some parts of the wall appeared to have been literally ripped from the inside out.

Seryth kept her finger pointed in that direction as she answered extremely directly. "It exploded."

Umbra stared at the opening for a few seconds.

Lyra then pointed to the floor, where the remains of the chains were scattered as if they had been ripped off with absurd violence. "First the chains gave way," she explained. "Then the creature apparently decided that the simplest way out would be to go through the wall."

Umbra slowly closed her eyes.

She brought her hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath while trying to maintain some level of patience.

"Of course," she murmured.

There was a brief silence.

Then she slowly exhaled.

"Of course it exploded."

She opened her eyes again and looked back at the enormous hole in the wall. The size of the damage made it very clear that this had not been a silent or planned escape. This had simply been a primordial dragon doing what primordial dragons did when they no longer wanted to be trapped. Umbra let out a heavier sigh this time.

"Finding that idiot dragon now is going to be a problem," she muttered, crossing her arms.

Lyra tilted her head slightly. "We tried to track the creature after it escaped," she explained. "But Nidhogg isn’t exactly easy to locate when it decides to disappear."

Seryth added calmly. "Especially since it tends to move through the roots of the world."

Umbra closed her eyes for a second again.

"Yes," she replied wearily. "I remember."

She walked slowly to the opening in the wall and stopped before it, looking at the destroyed corridor beyond the chamber. Nidhogg’s escape clearly hadn’t stopped there. Marks of destruction continued down the corridor, stones ripped away, pillars damaged, and protective runes broken along the way.

Umbra crossed her arms as she observed it.

"So," she said finally, "let me understand."

She turned her head slightly to look at the two of them.

"While I was away, the primordial dragon responsible for devouring the roots of Yggdrasil escaped from its prison in the center of my castle, destroyed half of the containment structure, and then simply... left."

Lyra tilted her head.

"Basically."

Umbra was silent for a few seconds.

Then she let out a small, dry laugh.

"Fantastic."

She looked back at the destroyed corridor, her eyes narrowing slightly as she began to consider the implications of this.

Nidhogg wasn’t just a dragon.

It was a creature directly linked to the roots of the World Tree. An entity that existed on a structural level of reality. When it moved through the roots, it could traverse dimensions, spiritual planes, and realities as if it were simply digging tunnels through a gigantic system.

Finding that creature now...

Would be like trying to locate a snake in an infinite labyrinth.

Umbra sighed again. "This really couldn’t have happened at a worse time."

Lyra frowned slightly. "My Queen?"

Umbra turned her face slowly.

"I need to return to the world of the living," she replied calmly. "And quickly."

Seryth tilted her head slightly. "Because of the... King?"

Umbra immediately brought her hand to her face again.

"Don’t call him that."

Lyra blinked, clearly confused.

"But you said—"

"I know what I said."

Umbra took a deep breath.

"But this is complicated."

The two exchanged a quick glance.

Then Lyra smiled slightly.

"So there is a King."

Umbra let out a long, defeated sigh.

"That’s not the point."

Seryth then paused briefly before asking something that seemed far more important at that moment.

"My Queen..."

Umbra looked at her.

"If Nidhogg escaped..."

She hesitated for a second.

"There’s a possibility she’s trying to reach the roots that connect the Umbral to the world of the living."

Umbra stood completely still.

The thought was... worrying.

Because if Nidhogg really was trying to do that...

Then the problem Umbra was facing now wasn’t just finding a runaway dragon.

It was preventing a dragon that devoured the roots of reality from starting to dig directly into the fabric that connected the worlds.

And that...

That could cause much bigger problems than just a destroyed prison.

Umbra looked again at the destroyed corridor and let out another tired sigh.

"I really needed a vacation before dealing with all this."

Umbra remained motionless for a few moments after hearing Seryth’s words. The silence that followed was not empty, but heavy with calculation. Her eyes were once again fixed on the enormous hole in the wall of the old prison, but it was evident that she was no longer truly seeing the physical destruction before her. Her mind was farther away, following possibilities, analyzing routes a creature like Nidhogg could have taken to escape that place. The problem wasn’t just that the dragon was free. The real problem was what that creature represented when left unsupervised.

She slowly crossed her arms as she took a few more steps down the destroyed corridor, the fragments of stone creaking softly beneath her feet. The trail of destruction was clear, almost crudely direct, as if the creature hadn’t made any effort to conceal its initial passage. Broken pillars, deep claw marks on the walls, and cracks that still carried remnants of ancient energy indicated exactly where Nidhogg had passed before disappearing. Umbra observed it with an analytical gaze, tilting her head slightly as she followed the path with her eyes.

"She didn’t stay here long after escaping," Umbra murmured, more to herself than to the two subordinates behind her. "This damage is recent... but not recent enough to indicate she’s still in the upper structures." She raised her hand and ran her fingers through the air, as if sensing something invisible. A slight ripple of dark energy coursed through the space around her hand, instinctively responding to the presence of the Queen of the Umbral.

Lyra and Seryth remained a few steps behind, watching her every move intently. They both knew Umbra wasn’t just looking at the physical surroundings. She was listening to the Umbral itself, sensing the deeper layers of the dimension reacting to the presence of a creature that definitely shouldn’t be loose.

Umbra closed her eyes for a brief moment, concentrating.

When she opened them again, there was a silent certainty in her expression.

"Of course," she said, almost with a resigned sigh. "She went to the roots."

Lyra immediately straightened her posture. "Are you sure?"

Umbra turned her face slightly toward her, raising an eyebrow with an almost ironic calm.

"We’re talking about Nidhogg."

She made a small gesture with her hand toward the ground.

"The creature literally exists to devour the roots of the World Tree. If it escapes from a prison... where do you think it’ll go first?"

Seryth answered without hesitation. "The dimensional roots."

Umbra nodded slightly.

"Exactly."

She looked back at the corridor ahead, but now her gaze seemed to pierce the very structure of the castle, as if she were seeing far beyond those walls.

In the heart of the Umbral, far below the cities of souls and the ancient towers that dominated that dimension, there existed a region that few beings were permitted to reach. The roots of the World Tree did not exist only on the physical plane of mortal reality. They traversed multiple dimensions, multiple planes of existence, connecting everything that existed in an incomprehensibly vast system.

And in the Umbral...

Some of these roots passed very close.

Umbra took a deep breath.

"It’s probably already started feeding."

Lyra frowned. "Is that... bad?"

Umbra looked at her for a few seconds.

"Lyra," she replied calmly, "a dragon that feeds on the roots of reality is loose within the dimension that serves as one of the connecting points between the world of the living and the world of the dead."

She paused briefly.

"Do you really want me to answer that question?"

Lyra remained silent.

Seryth crossed her arms slowly as she thought. "If it continues digging through the roots... it could open unnatural passages between dimensions."

Umbra nodded.

"Or collapse some of them."

Silence returned to the corridor. Umbra then let out a small, tired sigh, running a hand through her hair as she turned her body completely toward the two of them.

"Right," she said in a much more practical tone now. "That settles the order of priorities."

Lyra tilted her head. "My Queen?"

Umbra placed her hands on her hips and looked directly at the two of them.

"I’ll go to the roots."

The statement was simple.

Direct.

But the weight of the decision was evident.

Lyra blinked a few times. "Now?"

Umbra raised an eyebrow.

"Yes."

She made a small gesture around, indicating the destruction of the prison.

"I just returned to my own domain and discovered that a primordial dragon escaped from the prison and is potentially chewing on the dimensional structure that sustains half of the worlds connected by the Tree."

She tilted her head slightly.

"So... yes. Now."

Seryth observed Umbra for a few seconds before asking something that seemed far more strategic. "Do you intend to confront her directly?"

Umbra was silent for a moment.

Then a small smile appeared at the corner of her lips.

"Confront? No."

Lyra frowned.

Umbra then turned and began walking back down the destroyed corridor, her white dress flowing smoothly as the two immediately followed her.

"I intend to grab that stupid creature by the neck and drag her back to the prison before she chews on something that truly can’t be fixed."