Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 110: [Throne War: Parallax Protocol 1] Daggers and Directives

Chapter 110: [Throne War: Parallax Protocol 1] Daggers and Directives

The shop was quiet.

The air smelled faintly of scorched oil and metal dust. Runes flickered dimly beneath the floorboards, humming with low enchantments. Half-finished gauntlets, glowing coils, and blueprint scraps cluttered the side tables—organized chaos, the kind only Catria could read. Raven didn’t mind. It was quiet, focused. Familiar.

A low hiss from Catria’s forge flared and faded in the background. Theo tapped at his ledger console, boots up on the counter, humming something off-key.

Raven entered without a word. Dust from the street clung to the edge of his cloak. He didn’t speak. Just walked past crates of stacked gear and stopped at the wall terminal.

Theo glanced up once.

"Things are calm," he said. "Market’s holding. Orders are regular. Even the Helix fallout’s losing heat."

No reply.

Theo added, almost lazily:

"Feels like they’re settling in. Whatever noise we made last time—Titan Corp’s already moving on."

Raven opened his system interface.

[Event Notification: This Month’s Throne War – Featuring Parallax Vanguard. Brought to you by Parallax Techwear.]

A beat of silence.

His gaze lingered on the announcement.

Sponsor-branded. Polished. Manufactured glory.

Of course they’d dress it up. A title, a tagline, maybe even a hero shot on the event banner.

All scripted. All clean.

And players would eat it up like it was earned.

He closed the menu.

"Joining the camera circus?" Theo asked, glancing up with a grin. "Gonna sneak in a dagger or two between the hero poses?"

Raven’s smirk was brief. Barely there.

Then:

"Hm. Maybe. This looks interesting," he said.

Theo blinked. "That was it? No breakdown, no smirk, no scheme as usual?"

But Raven was already moving.

Theo watched him longer than usual. Most players joined Throne Wars for exposure, guild rewards, or ego. Raven wasn’t built like that. If he was curious, it meant something was wrong—and he intended to find out what.

He turned toward the back of the workshop, where Catria sat hunched over her forge, sparks dancing across the metal in her grip. She didn’t look up.

"Can you make me dual daggers?" Raven asked quietly. "I can pay you from the production commission."

That earned him a glance.

His Sovereign set was useless outside dungeons—and no one here knew why. He kept it that way. "Default armor doesn’t draw attention," he said instead, keeping his tone flat. "But it still needs some teeth."

Catria shrugged, already reaching for her toolkit.

"Sure. What attribute you want?"

"I have no specific idea actually," Raven replied. "My play is fast, agile, and I move between lines. I like burst better than critical."

Catria tapped her knuckles against the workbench thoughtfully. "Hmm... I think I can get you something based on that. You got another attribute on you?"

Raven hesitated briefly, then remembered.

[Hidden Achievement Unlocked – Friend of Kharnath-Dur]

Effect:

— Citizen NPCs of Kharnath-Dur will no longer treat you as outsider.

— Discount: 15% off dwarven-crafted or dwarven style gear.

— Style Effect: 15% more effect for dwarven-crafted or dwarven style gear.

He nodded slightly. "I’ve got a passive in dwarven-crafted and dwarven-style gear. So maybe... dwarven style?"

Catria’s eyes lit up. "Well, that can be done. I got an achievement unlocked for crafting dwarven gear. It looks pretty cool—steampunk style and all that. I could make the daggers have light notifications or switches to fit the style..."

Raven chuckled softly. "I leave it up to you. I focus more on the hit effect."

"Fast enough they can’t react," he added after a pause. "Sharp enough they don’t get a second chance."

Catria leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bench. "You want it just two daggers? Why not go for a full armor set?"

Raven shook his head. "Not entirely. That’d make me stand out too much. I’m playing more stealth this time. Steampunk armor’s a bit loud."

Catria laughed. "Oh yeah, I forgot—you’re not an ordinary guy after all. Alright, some pieces. Belt? Or shoulder armor?"

Raven considered. "Shoulder, maybe. I can cover my neck."

She nodded. "Alright then. It’ll be a three-piece set. Shoulder armor, dual daggers, and a matching belt to tie the whole look together. All in dwarven gear style."

Raven gave a small shrug. "Sounds good to me."

Catria smiled, already sketching rough outlines on her blueprint sheet. "Give me a couple of days to design the effect and style. I’ll make you the best one."

————

Elara got the call the night before launch.

Not an email. Not a system ping. A direct voice message from her supervisor at Titan Corp.

"QA coverage assignment. Internal directive. You’ll be joining the next Throne War event as a field-level observer."

She didn’t ask why. She already knew.

Parallax Techwear was sponsoring the month’s siege. Their branded esports team—the Parallax Vanguard—was being funneled into the spotlight. Promos everywhere. Stylized gear teasers, rehearsed interviews, even scripted PvP trailers.

Titan Corp wanted to make sure nothing glitched while the cameras were rolling.

Elara’s role? Log in as a normal player. Play the war. Report any anomalies.

She booted up her personal character—not the corporate ready made character.

Not this time.

Her login hovered on the screen: Fairyblade.

She hadn’t used the name since the last Throne War, when the patch broke her entire rotation and left her elemental summons glitched mid-cast. Players screamed in chat. She’d logged out mid-wave, defeated not by enemies, but by broken systems.

But today, Fairyblade would log back in.

Her loadout was still there—holy sigils layered with elemental ribbons, fairy-channel gauntlets balanced for mobility and sustain. A paladin class with a unique subclass unlock: one that tethered minor elemental spirits to her spells in exchange for reduced cooldown.

She hovered over the gauntlet piece. Still fractured. Still bugged visually in the menu. They never really fixed it.

No matter.

She selected it anyway.

The war wasn’t about perfection. It was about patterns—and hers would blend perfectly in the middle lines, between tanks and mages, where glitches bloom and no one’s watching.

She recognized the setup immediately. No support. No credit. Just enough authority to absorb the blame if something went wrong again.

Titan Corp hadn’t changed. Polished on the outside, hollow underneath. They said ’QA coverage’ like it was a courtesy—but Elara knew better. She’d seen the inside of the boardroom. She’d watched her name dangled like bait while middle managers squirmed to save face. She’d been the one with the datapad while they scrambled for spin.

They didn’t want truth. They wanted deniability. If anything broke again, she’d be the perfect fallback.

And if nothing broke? She’d be forgotten until the next time they needed a silent shield to walk into the fire.

Last time, they nearly buried her over the summoner patch debacle—and she was the only one in that room who had told the truth. The executives had smiled while pushing her forward like a pawn. The sponsors had screamed. The QA director had cowered. And Elara had walked out with a stitched face and a steel spine.

This time, she let instinct guide her. Not orders. Not scripts. Just the reflexes of someone who’d spent a lifetime reading games from the inside—movement patterns, spawn timings, imbalance shadows in the field. She’d learned long ago that systems whispered their intent if you knew how to listen. And she was listening.

She wasn’t the girl staring at the mirror anymore.

She was the one holding the lens.

She had enough.

If they were going to rig another war to sell a narrative, she’d be watching frame by frame.

But she had her own reasons.

If the system was clean, she’d say so. If it wasn’t... she’d record everything.

Quietly.

Without permission.

And she’d keep a close eye on the Parallax Vanguard. Too close to the center. Too perfect. Something felt off, and this time, she wanted to see it fail with her own eyes.

She didn’t log in yet.

Instead, she pulled up her custom tools one by one.

She smiled a little as she pulled up the environment. She’d always been fond of her character—Fairyblade wasn’t just a name, it was a build she had grown into over countless hours. And now? Now she was getting paid to don the armor again.

She chuckled softly at the thought.

Across the room, her phone buzzed with another PR blast: Parallax Vanguard: Live Tomorrow.

A poster blared across the screen—five players, sleek gear, dramatic poses, perfectly lit explosions behind them. Half the comments were astroturf. She could smell it by now.

Elara dismissed the message.

The tagline at the bottom caught her eye: ’Where only skill survives.’ She scoffed quietly. She’d seen their footage—Parallax Vanguard was a normal esports team—talented, structured, well-practiced. But the forced exposure, the spotlight wrapped in sponsor polish, grated on her. It didn’t feel earned. It felt manufactured.

The message wasn’t meant for players. It was meant for sponsors.

The real game wasn’t about skill. Not tomorrow. Not in front of that many cameras.

But systems still leave footprints.

She’d be watching the dirt they tried to sweep clean.

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