Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls-Chapter 477: Hunting Nidhogg

Umbra descended the first steps of the staircase leading to the depths of the castle with firm, silent steps, while the darkness below seemed to make way for her presence as if instinctively recognizing the authority she carried. The air grew denser with each meter traveled, laden with that ancient scent of primordial earth and ancestral magic that existed only in the deepest layers of the Umbral, where the very structure of the dimension began to intertwine with something much larger. The echo of her footsteps was muffled, absorbed by the black stones that formed the walls of the passage, and the spectral illumination that existed in the upper layers gradually disappeared, replaced by a faint glow emanating from natural fissures in the walls, as if invisible roots pulsed beneath the surface.

As she walked, Umbra slowly extended her hand and let her fingers glide through the air beside her, not touching anything physical, but clearly interacting with something that only she seemed to perceive. Small threads of dark energy began to emerge around her hand, responding to her presence in an almost obedient manner, rippling as if they were extensions of the dimension itself. The Umbral was not merely a place she ruled. It was something that recognized her, something that reacted to her existence as a body reacts to its own heart.

She closed her eyes for a moment as she continued down the endless staircase. Her consciousness extended beyond herself, plunging into the deeper layers of the dimension like a silent tide. Umbra didn’t need eyes to track something like Nidhogg. The dragon wasn’t just a physical creature. It was a living disturbance in the fabric of reality, a presence so ancient and heavy that it left scars wherever it went.

And she could feel those scars.

First came a distant, almost imperceptible sensation, like a deep vibration in the roots of the dimension. Then came clearer echoes, waves of distortion spreading through the invisible structures that sustained the Umbral. Umbra slowly opened her eyes.

"Yes," she murmured to herself.

She continued down.

The staircase ended in a large corridor of black stone that seemed to have been carved directly into the interior of the dimension itself. There was no refined architecture there, no ornamentation or design. It was a functional, ancient place, built for only one purpose: access to the roots.

The air was colder there.

Much heavier.

Umbra walked down the corridor with calm steps, but her gaze was attentive, observing the small changes in the environment. Small cracks had appeared in the walls, some of them pulsing with a strange greenish light that shouldn’t exist in that place. She stopped before one of these fissures and leaned slightly to examine it.

Inside the crack, something moved slowly.

It wasn’t an object.

It was a root.

One of the countless extensions of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, which traversed dimensions and planes of existence as a living structure that sustained reality itself. That particular root was partially exposed, something that definitely shouldn’t happen within a stabilized Umbral structure.

Umbra ran her fingers carefully over the root’s surface, and immediately felt the response vibrate beneath her skin.

The root was... wounded.

Not just scratched or damaged.

Wounded.

Umbra frowned slightly.

"So you’ve already started," she murmured.

The root writhed slowly, reacting to her touch as if trying to recompose itself. Small fragments of vital energy escaped from the surface where deep bite marks had been left.

Umbra sighed.

"Wonderful."

She stood up again and continued walking down the corridor. The number of fissures in the walls increased with each meter traveled. Some were small, others large enough to reveal entire segments of the dimensional roots that traversed that level of the Umbral.

And they all bore the same mark.

Bites.

Umbra crossed her arms as she walked, observing the pattern of destruction with a thoughtful gaze. Nidhogg wasn’t simply passing through. The creature was literally feeding as it moved through the dimensional structures.

And that meant two things.

First, it was getting stronger.

Second, it was digging.

Umbra stopped again when the corridor finally opened to something much larger.

Before her lay a colossal space that no longer seemed part of the castle. It was as if the very ground had been ripped away to reveal something that existed far below the constructed structures of the Umbral. A gigantic abyss stretched before her, filled with a sight that would simply shatter any mortal mind.

Roots.

Millions of them.

Some as thick as mountains, others as thin as strands of hair, all intertwining in an infinite network that stretched in every possible direction. Some shone with golden energy, others pulsed with colors that didn’t exist in the common spectrum of light.

It was the root system of Yggdrasil traversing that dimension.

Umbra walked to the edge of the abyss and observed it silently for a few seconds.

Then she heard it.

First came a distant sound.

A deep echo that seemed more like a vibration than a real noise.

Then came another.

A crack.

Umbra tilted her head slightly.

Then finally came the sound she had been waiting for.

Heavy chewing.

Slow.

Ancient.

Like something colossal breaking living wood with gigantic teeth.

Umbra closed her eyes for a moment and let out an extremely tired sigh.

"Of course." She opened her eyes again and looked down.

Far below.

Among the gigantic roots that intertwined in that dimensional abyss, something moved slowly. At first it was just a huge shadow gliding between the living structures, but as Umbra focused her gaze, the form began to become clearer.

Black scales.

Partially open wings.

A colossal body that slithered among the roots like a creature born in that environment.

Nidhogg.

The primordial dragon was exactly where Umbra expected to find it.

The creature was partially coiled around one of the larger roots, using its claws to hold on while sinking its teeth into the living wood of the World Tree. Each bite tore gigantic chunks from the dimensional structure, releasing bursts of vital energy that the creature seemed to absorb directly.

Umbra rested a hand on her hip as she observed.

"You really can’t do anything discreetly, can you?"

Nidhogg didn’t answer immediately.

But the creature stopped chewing.

Its colossal head slowly rose, spinning in the air as the creature’s enormous eyes searched for the source of the voice.

They found Umbra.

For a few seconds, dragon and queen simply stared at each other across the vast abyss.

Then Nidhogg let out a deep sound that seemed like a mixture of a growl and a laugh.

Umbra sighed.

"Yes," she said calmly. "It’s me."

The dragon tilted its head slightly.

Umbra crossed her arms.

"Now stop eating that."

Nidhogg opened its mouth again.

And bit into the root once more.

Umbra closed her eyes.

She took a deep breath.

When she opened them again, there was an extremely ancient dark glint in her gaze.

"Right," she murmured.

Then she simply took a step forward. And she fell into the abyss.

Her body plummeted among the gigantic roots as the dimensional wind roared around her, but her expression remained completely calm. The white dress fluttered around her as she descended rapidly toward the colossal creature.

Nidhogg watched the fall with curious interest.

Umbra extended one hand during the fall.

The darkness responded immediately.

Gigantic shadows began to gather around her, forming something that looked almost like wings made of liquid night. Her speed gradually decreased until her body stopped in mid-air, floating a few meters from the dragon’s gigantic head.

She looked directly into the creature’s eyes.

"Have you finished your snack?" she asked calmly.

Nidhogg merely bared its teeth.

Umbra then extended her hand and pointed upwards. "Because we’re going back."

Umbra hadn’t taken more than a few steps through the tunnel when she felt it. It wasn’t a sound first, nor a visible movement. It was a sudden pressure in the air, heavy and oppressive, as if the very space around her had been compressed by a presence that shouldn’t be there.

She stopped immediately.

Her eyes narrowed as her hand slowly moved toward the blade strapped to her waist. Behind her, her subordinates also froze, feeling the same shiver run down their spines. The silence of the corridor became dense, almost suffocating.

Then something moved.

A shadow ripped through the air above them.

Umbra barely had time to raise her arm when something collided with her with devastating force. The impact threw her several meters back, her body crashing through a stone column that split in two with a dry thud.

Fragments of rock exploded across the corridor.

Umbra fell to her knees among the wreckage, the ground cracking under the weight of the impact. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she slowly raised her head.

Before her, something enormous had landed.

Umbra’s subordinates instinctively recoiled, some stumbling as they tried to keep their distance from the creature that now occupied half of the destroyed corridor.

Nidhogg.

The creature was even more monstrous outside its chains.

Its serpentine body seemed made of jagged black plates, each scale marked by deep fissures that glowed with a faint red light, like magma trapped beneath a crust of ancient stone. Its wings, partially torn by the chains that once bound it, were still vast enough to drag their tips against the corridor walls.

But it was its head that dominated the view.

Nidhogg’s eyes blazed with a deep, unsteady red, like embers fueled by ancient hatred. Its jaw was open wide enough to reveal rows of curved fangs, long enough to pierce solid stone.

Between its teeth, strands of a dark, viscous substance slowly oozed, burning the ground where they touched.

Umbra wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand as she slowly stood up.

Her gaze showed no fear.

Only irritation.

"So you decided to come back," she murmured, observing the dragon before her with a cold expression.

Nidhogg responded with a deep growl.

The sound made the entire corridor vibrate.

Stones fell from the ceiling as the creature took a step forward, its claws tearing the floor with frightening ease. The mere movement of its head created air currents that stirred up dust and debris.

Umbra tilted her neck slightly, assessing the situation.

"I was coming after you," she said calmly. "This saves me time."

One of the subordinates behind her whispered something nervous, but Umbra raised her hand without even looking back.

Immediate silence.

The dragon’s eyes locked on her.

Then Nidhogg attacked.

The movement was brutal and too swift for most to follow. The colossal head shot forward, fangs poised to crush Umbra against the ground as if she were nothing more than an insect.

But Umbra had already vanished.

Her body dissolved into a mass of shadows the instant before impact.

The dragon’s fangs barely pierced the stone floor, carving a massive furrow in the corridor as its jaws snapped shut with a deafening crack.

Umbra reappeared a few meters above.

She stood in mid-air, supported by a platform of condensed shadow, her gaze coldly observing the dragon below with calculated precision.

"Uncontrolled as always," she remarked.

Nidhogg immediately raised its head.

The roar that followed was so loud that new cracks appeared in the corridor walls.

Umbra sighed.

"Noisy too." The dragon flapped its partially torn wings, raising a storm of dust and stones as it propelled itself upward, attempting to reach Umbra with its claws outstretched.

Umbra moved only two fingers.

Shadows exploded from the surrounding walls.

Black chains surged from the floor and ceiling simultaneously, enveloping the dragon’s colossal body in an instant. Each link was made of pure dark energy, heavy and dense like ancient metal.

The chains tightened.

For a brief moment, Nidhogg was pulled back.

Its wings twitched as the creature tried to tear its bonds.

Umbra watched.

Her eyes analyzed every movement, every tension in the creature’s muscles.

Then Nidhogg opened its mouth.

Umbra noticed too late.

The dark substance that dripped between its teeth condensed into a concentrated jet that shot directly at the chains.

The impact was immediate.

The black liquid began to corrode the shadow chains like acid.

The links snapped.

Umbra narrowed her eyes.

"Interesting."

With a violent movement, Nidhogg tore through the remaining chains. Fragments of dark energy exploded through the air as the dragon advanced again.

This time, faster.

Umbra disappeared once more, her form dissolving into the shadows as the giant claws crushed the spot where she had been a second before.

She reappeared on the ground, sliding a few meters back.

Behind her, her subordinates watched the battle with tense expressions.

Umbra didn’t seem worried.

But she also didn’t seem to underestimate the dragon.

She slowly raised her hand.

Shadows began to gather around her fingers.

"You haven’t changed at all," she said calmly, looking directly into the creature’s red eyes. "You’re still just an animal destroying everything in your path." Nidhogg responded by advancing again.

The ground trembled under the creature’s weight as it charged, its jaw opening once more in a brutal attack.

Umbra finally drew her blade.

The black sword appeared in her hand as if formed from the very shadow surrounding her. The blade was long and thin, absorbing the little light of the corridor instead of reflecting it.

When the dragon came close enough, Umbra moved.

It was a single step.

A fluid movement.

The blade described a swift arc through the air.

For an instant, all was silent.

Then a deep line appeared along Nidhogg’s snout.

Dark blood gushed out.

The roar that followed was deafening.

The dragon recoiled violently, banging its head against one of the corridor walls and knocking down another section of stone.

Umbra remained motionless.

Her sword dripped slowly.

She tilted her head, observing the wound intently.

"You are stronger," she admitted.

The dragon’s red eyes burned with hatred now.

The creature breathed heavily, its chest rising and falling as the dark blood continued to trickle from the deep cut.

But Umbra could see something else as well.

The cracks in Nidhogg’s scales glowed more intensely now.

The energy within the creature was building up.

Umbra frowned slightly.

"Ah."

She finally understood.

A small smile appeared on her lips.

"So that’s it."

Nidhogg roared again.

This time, the sound seemed even more unstable, almost broken.

Umbra twirled her sword once in her hand before pointing it directly at the dragon.

"The tree roots are feeding you," she said calmly.

The smile disappeared.

"And that explains why you were able to break my chains."

Nidhogg spread its wings again.

The red energy in the cracks of its scales began to pulse erratically, as if something inside the creature was about to explode.

Umbra watched silently for a few seconds.

Then she sighed.

"How inconvenient." She adjusted her stance, gripping the sword more firmly.

Behind her, the shadows of the corridor began to move.

They stretched across the walls and floor, slowly gathering around Umbra as if drawn to her presence.

"I really didn’t want to destroy half the roots today," she murmured.