Chapter 219: He’s Here

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As he finished off the last of the Kobolds, Riven looked around at the aftermath of the short but brutal battle. Blood, guts, bones, and other remains covered the entire area in a thick, messy layer.

He looked down and found Vladimir still barely keeping himself alive while coughing up mouthfuls of blood. The poison was only mildly paralyzing his body thanks to his werewolf form, which allowed him to resist the toxin as much as possible.

Even against these lethal wounds he still clung stubbornly to life. Yet it was clear he was once again standing at death’s door. All of this had happened because Riven had taken longer than he should have — a simple miscalculation on his part. He had wrongly believed that synthesizing an antidote using raw Mana would be just as fast as doing it inside his own physical body.

"Cough, cough...!" Vladimir coughed in clear annoyance. "You damn son of a bitch, took you long enough! What the hell were you doing?!"

"Hey, Language. I don’t want you speaking that way in front of the kids once we get back home," Riven told him, which only annoyed and irritated Vladimir even more.

"Shut up! Didn’t you say it would take you no time at all?!" Vladimir growled, showing his sharp teeth while vomiting more blood in anger.

"A-Ah... about that, well... Haha," Riven laughed nervously. "I guess I miscalculated."

"TSK!" He tore at the stone floor with his claws just to resist the agony spreading across his entire body. "Just heal me already! Hurry!"

"Alright, alright, I’ll heal you," Riven said with a slight smile. "You’re pretty damn tough though, I have to admit it. You’re built to endure a lot of damage. I guess werewolves are more like tanks rather than the assassin build you’re trying to go for."

"SHUT UP AND HEAL ME!!!" Vladimir roared as he grew more and more frustrated with Riven’s incessant teasing.

"Fine, fine," Riven replied. He carefully pulled the spears out of Vladimir’s body one by one. The werewolf screamed in pain and bit down hard on his own arm to endure it. As each spear was removed, deep bleeding wounds were revealed, oozing thick purple poison that slightly melted the stone floor wherever it dripped. "It looks terrible, but I can fix this," Riven said calmly. He absorbed the deadly poison with his Mana Aura, quickly synthesized the same antidote again, and poured several healing potions over Vladimir at the same time.

"Uuugghh! Aarrgh!" Vladimir roared in pain and anger, but his body slowly began to recover at a rapid pace. He started gasping for air while his skin mended together and his fleshy wounds closed almost instantly. "Ahhh...! It worked...!" he growled in relief.

Riven checked the remaining wounds. Vladimir was covered in scars all over his body, yet more thick fur quickly grew over them, masking the marks as if they had never been there. Then Riven asked, "Can you move? I think we still have to stay on high alert. There could be something else nearby."

"Heh, I know," Vladimir answered with a fierce smile as he stood back up and began flexing his arms and legs. His aura surged outward. Somehow he felt even stronger after enduring all of that punishment and receiving a full heal. "I’ll have to stay sharp. I can already smell that son of a bitch..."

"What?" Riven asked. His senses were mostly dulled while he remained in Shadow form. Even though he shared as much sensory information as possible through the Psionic Avatar, it was still not the same as the full senses his physical body possessed.

In response the werewolf glared toward the dark corridor farther ahead. "The fuckin’ boss is here, Riven," Vladimir said while licking his muzzle. Something massive was approaching.

"!!!"

Riven suddenly felt a heavy pressure emerging from deep beyond the corridor — a dark passage that led into an endlessly black cavern where there was absolutely no natural light for some reason.

It was from that place that loud, heavy footsteps approached at a rapid pace. Each step steadily caused small tremors to ripple across the cavern floor. The remaining Kobolds that had been hiding suddenly flinched in terror and ran away as they felt the pure rage of the one truly in charge of this place.

"The Kobolds are running away?!" Riven wondered while glancing behind him. "Wait, that’s...!"

The footsteps grew faster and heavier. A massive arm first emerged from the corridor, followed by a broad torso, a terrifying head, and the rest of its enormous body. The figure was still mostly shrouded in darkness, yet it was lightly illuminated by the faint glow of the torches hanging on the walls and the crystals embedded in the ceiling.

It was an absolutely massive figure, fully emerging from the end of the corridor. The creature stood five times the size of a normal Kobold. The monstrosity possessed two massive, heavily muscled arms marked with dozens of deep scars that represented all the battles it had survived. Its shoulders were extremely wide, and its legs were thick with dense muscle and flexible cartilage, allowing it to take fast steps, deliver powerful kicks, and jump with ease whenever it pleased.

The monstrosity arrived while carrying two weapons in its massive hands. The weapons were curved and incredibly sharp, each one imbued with glowing cursed runes. They were gigantic axes — likely the famous Cursed Runic Axes known to drop only extremely rarely from this type of monster.

But that was not where the surprises ended. The creature had a clear dragon-like head and sharp, blazing horns, showcasing that it was no mere Kobold. This was someone who had awakened the faint bloodline of dragons within its genetics — a true champion, a pedigree among pedigrees, a King.

Vladimir and Riven’s eyebrows twitched as they felt the blazing, potent, and overwhelming presence of the creature. The aura seemed to come accompanied by an immense wave of heat that made even the nearby torches burn hotter than before.

"He’s here," Vladimir muttered under his breath.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

RUMBLE!

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