Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 73: [The Heir of Thornspine 7] The Fall of the Seer

The sealed laboratory trembled with the weight of the voice outside.

"Lady Ostreva!"

Bang. Bang. Bang!

"Lady Ostreva!!"

The pounding on the great vine-choked door grew more frantic.

"MOTHER! STOP—PLEASE—STOP THIS MADNESS! I’M BEGGING YOU!"

Eldryn’s voice cracked with raw desperation.

But inside the sealed chamber, there was no time to look back.

The pounding on the door. Eldryn’s voice. The Deathsong’s last whispers curling like smoke in his ears.

Raven heard all of it.

But none of it mattered.

Not the slam of Eldryn fist on the thick wooden door behind them, fists breaking rhythm with panic.

Not the whispers—sickly remnants of a choir reduced to a single breath in the dark.

Not even the floor beneath their boots, slick with residue from shattered alchemical glass. The broken vials still glistened faintly, crusted with violet sap and green fluids long since dried into veins. Moss crept across sunken tiles, where scrolls lay half-dissolved and ink had bled like old wounds.

He barely registered the crooked laboratory equipment—the glass tubes leaning like toppled gravestones. Some still pulsed with dim life, their shapes distorted by fungal bloom and bark. One near the wall throbbed faintly, revealing the slumped figure of something once human. No longer.

It wasn’t a lab.

It was a mausoleum of failed experiments—a place where curiosity had long since shed its conscience.

But none of it held Raven’s gaze.

Because standing in the heart of the poisoned dark—draped in silk and rot, crowned in cruelty—was the final trial.

Lady Ostreva of Thornspine.

The Matriarch.

The one who turned a manor into a laboratory—and love into a lineage of suffering.

She floated on a web of roots, not walking, but carried like something embalmed and revered.

Her robes were made of silk laced with vine-bone and petal-thread, blooming in slow, rhythmic pulses. Her arms were bare, bark-armored and rigid, and from her forehead spiraled her crown—bleached and cruel, like a throne carved from thorns.

She looked at them not with fury.

Not with hatred.

But like a biologist looking at lab rats.

"Ah... another batch."

(A pause. Scientific, not surprised.)

"My daughter’s instincts haven’t failed entirely. Viable composition. Good movement variance. Decent posturing under duress."

She clasped her bark-armored hands behind her back.

"Let’s see how long you survive intense pain. The last group lasted just under ninety-two seconds before expiring."

"I’m curious if this batch handles pain with greater elegance."

Ostreva raised one bark-armored hand.

Mushrooms exploded across the arena floor. A poisonous vapor spilled from every crack, rushing outward like fog chasing light. The air turned green.

REGAL BLOOM – Field Domination (First Wave)

But four glowing circles pulsed into existence—safe zones blessed with regenerative energy.

From beyond the sealed door, Eldryn screamed:

"LISTEN! SHE WILL FLOODING THE ROOM WITH TOXIN!"

"GET TO THE GREEN ZONES! I CAN GIVE YOU PROTECTION!"

The team moved fast.

Duskrunner bolted to the left circle, snarling as he tugged Phantom Seer’s trailing illusion with him. Root-Soul pulled Seneschal backward with a vine-tether, just before the poison surged.

Inside the green zones, the gas peeled away—healing energies pulsed outward like heartbeat waves. But outside, the poison stacked quickly. Rejection. Then Rash.

Raven narrowed his eyes.

Ten seconds.

That was the window.

As the Bloom faded, the floor cleared.

Ostreva shifted forward.

Phantom Seer’s shrouded figure shimmered near one of the pillars. Its form vibrated unnaturally—then split.

One, two, three mirror images blurred into existence across the battlefield.

The illusions drifted in deliberate, erratic arcs—diverting the Matriarch’s line of sight. One stepped into the poison fog briefly, then another flickered past the edge of her vision.

Root-Soul and Seneschal moved through the fog, partially obscured by the false echoes. Duskrunner weaved low behind a root pillar, flanking unseen.

In that moment, Ostreva’s head tilted—just slightly.

"Interesting. Interference... projected visuals... non-physical variance?"

She give an evaluating looks before smile coldly, "Ah, that one."

She turned her gaze directly toward Phantom Seer, eyes narrowing with methodical calm.

"Look how cute you are, a false mirror."

Seneschal slammed his mace to the floor. Roots exploded upward in a crisscross pattern—he cast Root Trial Lattice, and the floor cracked as thick wooden bars erupted in a grid beneath the matriarch’s feet. The roots grasped her ankles like binding claws. She staggered as bark cracked beneath her.

Root-Soul’s hands glowed with verdant energy. She raised her staff and called out in a voice that echoed with layered feminine tones. She cast Bark Arena Entombment—and the arena responded.

Every two seconds, pillars of roots burst from the ground like jagged teeth. One flared up near Ostreva’s flank, another by her heel. The pillars weren’t just barriers—they pulsed with aura, slowing any movement near them with crawling vines that spread like moss.

In response, the matriarch’s arms bloomed with fresh bark plating—growing into dagger-shaped thorns, her forearms armored like executioner’s gauntlets.

She turned her head—elegant, clinical.

The matriarch gives an intrigued cold observation, "Specimens attempting rebellion."

"Curious. Perhaps this batch craves stimulation. Let’s escalate the pain index."

meanwhile, Raven jolted forward.

He cast Phantom Bind, and as his Dominion Chain coiled and snapping forward with preternatural precision with a precision of a sniper. They wrapped around Ostreva’s left leg, anchoring her to the floor just long enough for Raven to dart past and rake twin daggers across her side.

She hissed—more at the data collected than the pain inflicted.

Seneschal’s roots still coiled around the Matriarch’s feet—buying precious seconds.

Ostreva narrowed her eyes slightly, bark armor twitching as she began shifting weight for a retaliation.

"Now!" Raven barked.

Root-Soul responded immediately.

She pivoted her staff downward, casting Verdant Pulse—a shockwave of nature magic exploded outward from her position, striking Ostreva’s side with a burst of kinetic bloomlight. The wave didn’t damage heavily, but it staggered the Matriarch’s posture, disrupting her rising momentum.

Duskrunner lunged from behind a pillar.

The massive wolf twisted mid-air, aiming for the back of her leg. His fangs tore into the bark armor—snapping off splinters, exposing softer wood beneath.

But Ostreva reacted.

A single flex of her arm—and a twisting thorn-arm lashed outward, knocking Duskrunner back into a root pillar with a thud.

"Engage—don’t linger!" Raven called.

Seneschal surged forward now that the lattice roots were beginning to crack under Ostreva’s strength.

He swung his arm upward in a slow, deliberate arc.

Growth Denial Slam.

His bark-wrapped limb crashing like a living battering ram into Ostreva’s side. It hit true. Bark cracked. She staggered again—her crown flickering with veins of golden light.

Raven swirls his chain and throws it as javelin, with intention to stab this monster from distance.

He flung one outward—not to bind, but to grapple.

It hooked into one of the arena’s overhead spore-fans. With a sudden pull, he launched himself into the air, twisting mid-arc. His body curved like a thrown spear, descending at speed.

Ostreva looked up.

Too late.

He landed daggers-first into her shoulder, black ichor erupting in a thin spray.

"I’m logging that response," she whispered. "Impact trauma. Moderate. Interesting variance under aerial acceleration..."

Her voice wasn’t pained.

Only... curious.

She thrust her arm backward and blasted him with a radial spore burst—forcing him to disengage. The bark regrew rapidly over her wound as the first pulse of spores began recharging.

REGAL BLOOM – Second Wave

Mushrooms pulsed again.

This time, the spores exploded faster. The green zones spawned in new, harsher positions.

Eldryn’s voice cut through again:

"The gas is denser now! WATCH THE EDGES!"

As the dense gas surged from the mushrooms once more, visibility plummeted. The green safe zones pulsed farther apart—more treacherous, less forgiving.

Raven scanned the room, calculating angles—then caught a shimmer at the corner of his vision.

Phantom Seer lifted its gaze.

A soft pulse echoed outward—Haunting Mirage.

A cascade of visual ripples distorted the toxin’s spread. Illusions layered into the fog—flickering afterimages of movement that danced between safe zones and danger fields. The poison seemed slower. The panic, subdued.

Duskrunner hesitated, then veered with precision, guided by one illusionary trail.

Root-Soul reacted too, recognizing the pattern—she pulled Seneschal through a false wall of mist that parted just enough to reveal the hidden path.

The team, staggered by disarray, realigned under the Seer’s influence—reaching the green circles in time.

But in that act—disruption blossomed.

"Ah... a clever little specter. Always hiding. Always misleading. Naughty, but not unexpected.", Ostreva smirked with a cold breath, measured Phantom Seer behavior as data rather than anger.

"Let’s see how well you function... under direct pressure."

She raised one clawed hand toward the flickering outline of the Phantom Seer.

She cast Scent of Trespass – Scent Anchor Variant. A glyph appeared under the Seer’s misty form. Vines erupted upward, wrapping around its limbs and holding it fast.

The glyph pulsed red once—confirmation. Locked target.

"Break the mark!" Raven shouted, but too late.

The vines tightened.

She followed up with Crimson Thornlash, now in Precision Mode.

The vine-blades launched like spears.

They struck clean.

Phantom Seer didn’t scream.

It staggered.

Then froze.

Its form shimmered in and out, glitching like corrupted data.

A single hand raised in reflex, reaching toward Lady Ostreva—as if to cast a final spell on its dying breath.

Then the Thornwrap detonated.

The illusion buckled—twisting inward like a dying flame.

With a final flicker of light and a whimper of magic, it collapsed into fragments.

[System Notice: Phantom Seer has fallen. Summon on cooldown.]

Duskrunner growled, lunging forward in anger.

Root-Soul stiffened, her layered voices murmuring in unison, "Not the Seer..."

Seneschal clenched his fists.

Raven didn’t speak.

He just breathed once—slow, tight—and stepped forward again.

One down.

But the fight wasn’t over.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l