Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 105: [The Throne of Kharnath-Dur 8] The Hollow Throne

The deeper Raven ran, the more the weight of the dungeon pressed down on him. Each step echoed through the dead corridors of Gravewake Hollow, where no torch flickered and no creature stirred. He passed the first midboss chamber—a vast circular room once filled with bone-crushing automata and enchanted defense systems. Now? Nothing. Just dust, collapsed scaffolding, and quiet.

His boots slid across the stone as he turned into the next corridor. Pillars lined the walls like silent sentries, each one carved with scenes of dwarves locked in battle with creatures of the deep. The brass light-spheres overhead flickered, dim and struggling, as if the very dungeon were resisting being seen.

He reached the second midboss room. It should have been a molten forge-hall, glowing with magma ducts and lined with mechanical guardians that breathed fire. But it too was silent. Dead. The forges had long cooled. The chains that once swung from above now hung motionless.

Raven stopped. His breath formed in mist. Cold. Too cold.

"He did it," he muttered. "He took the whole dungeon."

Still, he ran. One last place to confirm.

The final hallway stretched like the throat of a beast. Its ceiling arched high overhead, cracked with age, flanked by statues of dwarven kings holding spears and tomes. Some statues had been defaced—not by time, but by force. Blasphemy made with deliberate intent.

At the end of the corridor stood the great door to the Hollow Throne, the final chamber of Gravewake.

Raven pushed it open.

The air inside was heavy with ancient mana. The room was vast—a ruined dwarven court, with shattered thrones and broken stained-glass windows that once depicted the founding of Kharnath-Dur. Now, only the light of brass-glow gas spheres illuminated the chamber in a sickly orange hue.

And there, at the center—a platform surrounded by the flickering remnants of ritual runes—stood the King.

The Sovereign Engine on his back pulsed with a mechanical heartbeat, casting arcs of dull red light.

Flanking him like twisted honor guards were the three horrors of Gravewake Hollow:

Grave-Knight Orun, still clad in corroded dwarven plate, bone-helmed and deathly silent. His blade was drawn—not rusted, but polished—as if still on duty.

Bone-Speaker Velitha hovered beside him, her illusory robes woven from funeral chants and ash. Her hands danced in sigils, surrounded by spectral echoes of the dead whose names she once preserved.

And standing furthest back, towering over the others like a priestess at judgment—Lady Seravelle, the Last Benediction. The succubi paladin fractured golden armor wept runes of bloodlight, and the broken halo above her head spun like a slow, malignant sun. Her face, cold and ruthless, framed by flowing blonde hair, stared back at him with an empty, unfeeling gaze.

And behind them all, cowering atop a raised dais behind his puppets, stood the King.

Raven stared. No weapon drawn. No breath wasted.

He had feared this—another sovereign.

And an army.

A wide circular chamber stretched before Raven—cracked stone and long-dead metal converging into what once might’ve been a ceremonial coliseum.

Originally, this is the final boss room, where the player will fight the final boss of this dungeon, Lady Seravelle, the immortal succubi paladin. Forgotten banners of dwarven kings flapped weakly in the unnatural wind, stirred by nothing, anchored to memories.

And at its heart—

The King.

Orzag stood tall in the dim, flickering gaslight. Brass tubes arced like ribs over his shoulders, feeding into a device mounted to his spine—pulsing, alive, clicking and hissing with dwarven engineering. Cables ran from the machine to the three hulking figures that stood before him: the dungeon’s two midbosses, reanimated, converted, breathing in eerie unison. And behind them, the final boss—a towering priest-like construct, veiled and floating, its once-healing aura now twisted into something darker.

"You came," Orzag said with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. "I had hoped you would. The device sings with your presence. It hums with power."

Raven said nothing at first. He took it all in—the machine, the converted bosses, the manic gleam in Orzag’s eyes. He measured it with silence.

"And here I thought you were a coward, hiding behind temple politics," Raven finally spoke. His voice calm. Flat. "But no. You’re a madman playing god in a grave."

Orzag let out a barking laugh. "A grave? No, no. You call it a grave. I call it rebirth. The Sovereign Core is mine now—this dungeon, its monsters, its will. All of it. What you see here is only the beginning."

He stepped forward, his boots scraping the floor.

"The Velkarin beg for scraps. Let them. I will carve an empire from the bones of this world. The underrealm belongs to me now!"

Raven’s eyes narrowed. "And you’ll enslave every soul along the way."

Orzag sneered. "If that’s what it takes to bring power back to my people? Then yes."

"I wonder," Orzag mused, eyes locked on Raven. "How you’ll respond to my new army. What kind of scream you’ll make when it finally breaks you?"

Raven exhaled slowly, slipping into stance. "You’re about to find out."

The king raised a gauntleted hand, flicking a switch on the device. The air trembled.

A loud THRUM pulsed through the stone.

The Sovereign Core roared to life.

Like a beast taking its first breath, it exhaled a wave of mana-soaked pressure that cracked the stone beneath the King’s feet. Tendrils of red-etched light surged from the device, racing along the floor in jagged veins, reaching toward the three bosses like leashes dragged taut.

Grave-Knight Orun’s helmet jerked slightly—just a twitch, but Raven noticed. His gauntlet clenched around the hilt of his greatsword as if resisting an unseen weight. For a split second, the runes on his chestplate glowed faintly blue—residual dwarven wards.

Velitha recoiled in midair. Her illusory veil flickered, unstable, her ethereal whispers turning into fragmented screams. The phantom scrolls around her unraveled, dancing chaotically before reforming again in ragged stutters. Her hands trembled—not in fear, but in defiance.

And Lady Seravelle—

She screamed.

Not from pain, but pure, righteous fury.

Her golden armor—fractured along the breastplate and etched in glowing red runes—flared as if trying to reject the current forced through it. Bloodlight pulsed violently across her exposed abs, traced up her arms, and surged into her cracked, tilted halo. Her fingers clawed into her long, flowing blonde hair as though trying to wrench the compulsion out of her own skull.

Her back robe, once a symbol of sacramental grace, snapped like torn wings in the torrent of unnatural mana. Seravelle’s breath turned ragged—more like a beast than a priestess—as she staggered forward, legs trembling beneath metal greaves.

This was no divine obedience. This was desecration.

The King, grinning, raised his voice above the thrum of the Sovereign Core.

"Yes... fight it, if you must! It only proves you were made for this. In the end, you’ll kneel like the rest!"

The tendrils of power continued to pull—unyielding, relentless.

Orun, Velitha, Seravelle... all of them locked in place.

[System Notice: Boss Conversion Phase – 21% complete. Bindings stabilizing...]

Raven clenched his jaw. He must disrupt the tempo before it hit 100%.

They’re being broken. Not with chains or violence, but through domination of will. And if he waited any longer—they’d never come back.

Seravelle’s gaze flared with rage as she stared at the King. But then, with a slow breath, she relented.

"As you wish, Sovereign," the succubi paladin said smoothly, her voice laced with venomous grace. She turned her eyes toward the true threat before her—the real dungeon Sovereign.

"Oh? You obey him, paladin? The false sovereign. Very well then, I’d like you to meet my team." Raven curled a small smile.

Seravelle smiled, "Be my guest, Sovereign. Let us have fun with this fight, and I wonder, what kind of Sovereign you are".

Orun growled and took a stance. Velitha whispers of what it sounds like prayers, or mantras.

Raven didn’t charge in. He didn’t bark orders. He simply stood still—watching.

Calculating.

He was a dungeon sovereign. He knew how bosses behaved. Knew how the conversion phase worked. This... this wasn’t the time for brute force.

"They’re resisting," he muttered. "This is still the conversion phase. If I hit now—before the bindings settle—there’s a chance."

Then his eyes locked on Seravelle.

She wasn’t just a threat. She was the linchpin. The anchor holding the others. A tactical priority.

"The moment she goes quiet," he recalled from past encounters, "the others lose momentum."

Raven marked her—coldly, surgically—as the target to break.

But the enemy had three. He only had four slots.

One was already filled: The Phantom Seer, drifting silently behind him, its spiral of eyes glowing, watching.

Three left.

Normally, Raven built a team to take down one boss. But this was different. This was a full triad. He didn’t yet know how they moved together. So he would probe. He would bait. He would test.

Volume first. Summons. Not brute strength.

He raised a hand and whispered a name.

"AX-K9."

The twisted flickers of lights erupted from shadow. With a rising crescendo of whirring gears and the precise clicks of interlocking joints, the metallic tiger took full form—AX-K9 incarnate.

Raven didn’t stop.

He whispered a second name.

"Thistlecreep Marauder."

The mist split again—revealing a panther-like floral predator, bred from jungle creepers and venomous orchids. Mobile, fast, and lethal, it prowled into view with silent menace, petals folding along its muscular limbs as venom dripped from orchid-fused fangs.

Three against two, Raven thought. Me against Seravelle. The Seer to disrupt. AX-K9 and Thistlecreep against the rest.

He gave a small nod.

The system ping lingered on his HUD.

[Optional Quest Completed – Pick a Side and Decide the Fate of Kharnath-Dur (1/1)]

Script Does Not Provide Alternate Quest.

Creating New Quest...

[Critical Quest – There Will Be Only One Sovereign (0/1)]

[Yes / No]

With a smooth move, Raven smirked and click Yes.

"Let’s hear your orchestra scream, King."

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