From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 214: Discovery [FIXED!]

The dwarf knew the elves wouldn’t send their strongest warriors because they were cautious about sending them into direct confrontation with him—a caution born from incomplete intelligence and reasonable paranoia about his abilities. They suspected he could siphon magical energy from powerful casters, drain them of their essence and turn their own strength into fuel for his purposes. And they were right to suspect it, though they didn’t understand the full extent or the specific mechanisms. Their fear of losing their champions kept those champions safely behind defensive lines, watching through scrying pools rather than engaging directly.

This allowed him far more flexibility in his movements and strategic planning than would otherwise be possible. Because if they had sent all their forces at once—if Queen Galadriel had unleashed Lysandra, Aetherys, Seraphel, and the full complement of battle mages in a coordinated overwhelming assault—there would be no way he would survive the onslaught.

The sheer magical firepower concentrated in one place would burn through his defenses like paper, overwhelm his siphoning capabilities before he could drain enough to defend himself, corner him with nowhere to run and no tricks left to deploy.

He would be killed, vaporized or torn apart or crushed under raw magical force that exceeded anything he could counter. His centuries of planning would end in fire and light, his body scattered as ash across soil that would reject even his remains.

But the elves had no idea what weapons he truly possessed, what technology he had access to from his decades on the dark continent before the barrier sealed that cursed place away from the rest of the world. The way he had defeated the other elves—cutting through their defenses with efficiency that shocked even veteran warriors—was proof of their fundamental lack of knowledge regarding these things. They had no framework for understanding dark continent engineering, the fusion of runic work and mechanical principles that operated entirely outside traditional magical paradigms. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

It allowed non-magic users to access to magic which leveled the playing field.

This ignorance was the one thing he consistently used to his advantage, the ace he kept hidden until opponents realized too late that their assumptions were fatally flawed. It was also why he was able to catch them off-guard during their fights with him—they came prepared for one kind of threat and encountered something entirely different, something their training and instincts couldn’t properly categorize or counter.

The dwarf knelt beside the fallen elf’s body where she lay gasping, throat crushed but still clinging to life through sheer elven vitality. He searched her methodically for anything that he could use—enchanted arrows, alchemical vials. His thick fingers moved with practiced efficiency, taking what had value and leaving the rest.

He wasn’t particularly worried about immediate pursuit—the shadow hunters would need time to regroup, to process the loss of another sister, to adjust their strategy. But there was a more pressing concern gnawing at the back of his mind, a variable that had suddenly become unpredictable as he had no idea the elves had already deployed another set of warriors to deal with him with renewed knowledge.

Byung could no longer be sensed through the tracking enchantments woven into the armor. The connection had severed completely, the subtle magical signature that allowed the dwarf to monitor the goblin’s location and status simply... gone. Which meant only one thing: he no longer had his armor. Someone or something had stripped it from him, leaving him vulnerable to the memory prison’s curse.

There was no way to know if Byung was alive or not at this point. The armor’s removal could indicate death, capture, or any number of catastrophic failures. The dwarf’s carefully constructed plan suddenly felt far more fragile than he’d like to admit.

He needed confirmation. Needed to know if the barrier was still intact or if somehow, impossibly, Byung had already succeeded.

The dwarf inscribed strange runic symbols on the ground with practiced movements, his fingers tracing patterns in the dirt that began to glow with sickly purple light. He channeled the magical power he’d siphoned from the dying elf beneath him, using her essence to fuel a diagnostic spell that operated on principles the elves themselves would recognize but could never replicate. The runes flared brighter, reaching out across vast distances to touch the barrier itself, to test its integrity.

The dwarf attempted to push his consciousness through, to breach the barrier just enough to confirm its status—

And was violently pushed back, his mind slammed against an immovable wall that rejected his intrusion with force that made his teeth ache. He gasped, breaking the connection before it could damage him further.

The barrier still stood. Unchanged. Unbroken.

Which meant Byung hadn’t succeeded yet. But also meant the goblin might still be alive somewhere, armor removed but perhaps not dead. But by simply taking off the armor—whether voluntarily or through outside interference—Byung had unknowingly escaped the dwarf’s tracking, slipped beyond the sphere of influence the dwarf had so carefully maintained.

He had no way of locating him now, no method of determining his status or position.

The dwarf knew there was nothing he could do right now but wait for the fruits of his labor to bloom, for events he’d set in motion to play out according to their own momentum. He had planted seeds across decades of preparation—Byung was just one of many contingencies, albeit the most promising. Other pieces were still moving, other plans still unfolding in the shadows.

He looked up at the sky where he knew scrying spells watched from impossible distances, where elven eyes observed through magical means, and he smirked. Then he mouthed a single word deliberately, slowly, ensuring whoever was watching could read his lips clearly despite the distance: "Soon."

His attention returned to the fallen elf at his feet. She was still alive, barely, her crushed throat preventing speech but her eyes full of defiant hatred. He hadn’t killed the first elf he had fought a few moment ago—the one who had engaged him in the previous location—because she was useless to him strategically and he had been in too much of a hurry to waste time on unnecessary executions. But he had no reason to show the same mercy to this one.

This death would serve a purpose.

The dwarf picked up the elf’s head with one hand, tilting it back to expose the pale throat, and ran his knife across her neck from ear to ear with brutal efficiency. The blade bit deep, severing windpipe and major vessels in one practiced motion. Blood sprayed across the ground in arterial pulses as her body convulsed. Without access to her magic—already drained by his siphoning—she couldn’t heal, couldn’t reverse the catastrophic damage. Her eyes widened with shock and pain as death claimed her in seconds.

He knew he was being watched through those scrying pools, knew elven mages were observing this exact moment. This execution was deliberate, performed for their benefit. And what he communicated through this brutal display was simple, delivered through action rather than words:

I will find you all and kill you.

Every single one of you who stands between me and my goal will die exactly like this—helpless, drained, throat cut like livestock. Your magic won’t save you. Your barriers won’t protect you. Your queen’s caution will only delay the inevitable.

The dwarf stood, leaving the corpse behind, and began moving toward the tunnel entrance that would take him underground again. The elves wanted to play careful? Fine. He’d been playing this game for decades. He could wait a little longer.

But when the time came, when all the pieces finally aligned, their caution would mean nothing at all.

---

Borg finally realized that Shava was nowhere to be found when he went to summon her for the evening meal, intending to discuss final preparations for their rushed wedding ceremony. Her room was empty when he pulled back the door, personal belongings still arranged neatly in place—her weapons, her armor, the ceremonial garments he’d commissioned for the wedding—but the woman herself had vanished like smoke in wind.

Borg was confused, his mind racing through increasingly unlikely possibilities as worry transformed into something approaching panic. This made no sense, especially after he had given specific instructions to lock everywhere down—no one enters the camp, no one leaves without his explicit permission. The order had been clear, emphatic, delivered with the full weight of his authority as chieftain. The camp was supposed to be sealed tight, every exit point guarded by warriors he trusted.

Borg searched frantically, his heavy footsteps carrying him through the camp with growing urgency. He checked the perimeter where guards stood at their posts, the training grounds where warriors practiced, the cook fires where evening meals were being prepared, anywhere she might have reasonably gone. His desperation grew with each empty location, each space that should have contained her but didn’t.

Before long he was confronting his patrols directly, grabbing warriors by their armor and demanding answers. "Where did she go?" he snarled, his voice carrying an edge of desperation that made even veteran fighters exchange nervous glances. "When did you last see Shava? Which direction did she take?" All these questions was proof he didn’t have everything under control.

But none of them had answers—no one had seen her leave through any of the guarded exits, no one had spotted her moving through the camp toward the perimeter, no sentries had reported anything unusual. It was as if she had simply ceased to exist within their territory and reappeared somewhere beyond their sight.

Borg realized with sinking certainty that his lady had slipped through the cracks with ease that spoke of deliberate planning rather than impulsive flight. She had waited for the right moment, identified weaknesses in his security, and exploited them with the tactical awareness of a warrior who had been observing his operations for weeks. And there was only one reason for her to take such risks, one destination that would drive her to such dangerous secrecy despite the wedding looming just days away.

"She’s headed to the goblins," Borg muttered under his breath, his hands clenching into fists hard enough to make his knuckles crack. The realization hit him like a physical blow—Shava was going to the mysterious orc that had caused such devastation, the one who had given him a memory he could never forget, the Stonehide Chieftess whose very presence had paralyzed his ability to expand territory and project strength.

His carefully constructed plan was unraveling, and he had no idea how to stop it.