Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 46: [Roots of Dominion 5] - The Priestess Arena

The light in the trial chamber dimmed behind them. Roots slowly sealed the circular floor, like the closing eye of something ancient and finished with judgment. Raven stepped forward first, the talisman at his chest flickering with faint purple light. One-third of the Vault acknowledged. Two more trials to go.

Ahead, a broken stair jutted sideways into the wall—a spiral of stone twisted by roots, climbing through a narrow, vein-lined tunnel. Duskrunner sniffed once, then growled low.

"Yeah, I feel it too," Raven muttered.

The Ironbark Seneschal moved behind them, silent but steady. Its bark-plated form no longer throbbed with hostility, but the arena didn’t forget. Even Phantom Seer hesitated before passing the threshold.

As they climbed, small lights flickered along the tunnel’s edge. At first, they seemed like glowing fungus. But each one lit up a name—etched into root-wrapped plates of bone. Names of Rootbound warriors. Some scratched out. Some burned.

One name appeared three times.

Zavalei.

One erased by fire. One engraved with pride. One... abandoned mid-stroke.

Each with rough carving note: "She kept climbing. Or couldn’t stop."

Raven slowed as he passed the third.

"Three trials," he said aloud, reading the text carved on stones. "Three failures."

Phantom Seer whispered beside him, its voice a fractured hum. "Some climb roots not to grow, but to twist."

The tunnel narrowed again, its walls closer now. Ridges of root-vein pulsed faintly along the inner edges, as if reacting to their presence. The air grew heavier—denser with memory.

More bones lined the wall ahead, this time arranged in a spiral, forming a half-shell over their heads. Raven ducked slightly, trailing a hand across one name burned deep into the structure.

Zavalei.

Again.

The name etched into memory, not just stone. Her persistence—or descent—marked this path.

The next bend opened into a narrow root bridge, curling through open space. Below, an unseen abyss breathed cold wind upward. Raven motioned with two fingers—a silent call to stay alert.

From the far side, something stirred.

The creature stepped into view—or rather, stumbled. It had the shape of a mount, limbs wrapped in spiked roots, eyes covered by bark-veils. Its mouth opened but made no sound. Just wet, sucking breath.

A Confused Ritual Beast.

It screeched without warning and charged, its movements jittery, unpredictable.

Raven vaulted sideways as it tore across the bridge, nearly flinging Duskrunner into the pit. Phantom Seer shimmered out of range. The Seneschal blocked it mid-path, absorbing the blow with a grunt of splintering bark.

But the beast didn’t stop.

It reversed course instantly, nearly backstepping onto Phantom Seer. Duskrunner lunged forward, jaws locking onto a rear limb.

The bridge trembled with each impact. One wrong slip, and someone would fall.

Raven lashed his chain forward, the jagged tip anchoring into the beast’s neck like a climbing hook. He yanked hard, dragging the creature off-balance.

Phantom Seer blinked above the beast’s head, planting an illusion behind it.

"Now."

Duskrunner latched tighter, dragging it sideways as the Seneschal planted both arms and held it firm. The Ritual Beast slammed once more, then twitched, let out a final heave, and stilled.

The bridge held.

No words were exchanged.

They moved forward.

After the bridge, the path widened again into a chamber. Root-veins crawled up the walls, pulsing faintly. This was no battle room. Just a place of memory.

Raven stepped forward, but the moment his boot hit the center, something triggered.

A memory echo. Must be its skill.

He saw himself when he was fighting with Ironbark Seneschal earlier.

But then, Raven was not the focus.

The Ironbark Seneschal was.

A vision of their earlier battle replayed, but the angle warped—like the dungeon itself was watching. Judging. Raven saw the Seneschal resisting his chain, saw it kneel mid-combat, its bark mask staring toward something unseen.

A chorus of whispers filled the chamber.

Traitor. Disjoined. Rootless.

[Memory Reflection Activated – Subject: Ironbark Seneschal]

[Vault recognition: Fragmented loyalty.]

The Seneschal froze. Not in confusion—but in recognition.

Duskrunner growled, stepping protectively.

Phantom Seer tilted its head.

"It’s a Memory Reflection Zone," Raven said, low. "But it’s not showing just my memory anymore."

He looked toward the Seneschal.

"The Vault remembers you, too."

The walls shimmered faintly. Shadows stretched from places that held no light. Raven felt pressure—like weight around the edges of thought. The Vault wasn’t showing memories. It was shaping them.

Phantom Seer’s form glitched slightly, mirroring Raven’s stance for a moment before blinking back into its usual self.

Raven narrowed his eyes. "This room bends things. Not just what happened. What could have."

He turned to his team.

His gaze lingered on the Ironbark Seneschal, still stoic, but quieter than before. The echo hadn’t just replayed a battle—it had passed judgment. He wondered, just for a moment, if the room was designed not to reveal truth, but to bend it. Could a place like this turn memories into weapons? Turn teammates against one another?

"Makes you think... how many groups came through here and broke apart before even reaching the trial."

"This mid boss is different. Priestess Zavalei. A Rootbound priest who tried to ascend. Failed. She’s... fused with her memories. Every 25% HP, she loops her combat combos. Faster every time."

He walked through the fading memory images. The air buzzed faintly, as if too much memory energy made even his perception stutter. His head spun—not from exhaustion, but from something less physical. Disorientation. Like the Vault was trying to rewrite the story he knew.

"If we don’t interrupt the loops, we trigger Growth Rebound. Burst bleed. Knockback. Total chaos."

The Seneschal bowed its head slightly.

"She also speaks combat mantras. If she says ’Stand Rooted’ and you move, you take psychic damage. If she says ’Flow Between Blades’ and you stop, same thing."

He looked at the Seer. "You’ll have to mirror her. Shadow her movement and mislead her targeting."

The Seer offered a slow nod, its smile stitched wide across bone and shadow. The Seneschal tilted its head as if processing, bark groaning faintly.

He had barely finished speaking when motion stirred ahead.

The Sanctum wasn’t unguarded.

Another Confused Ritual Beast waited just inside the arena’s edge—this one larger, twitchier, bark plates cracking from the strain of containing its form. It didn’t see them as enemies or allies, only motion.

It charged without warning.

Duskrunner snarled and leapt forward. The Ironbark Seneschal stepped sideways, absorbing the first impact. Raven ducked a lashing tail of thorned roots, then flicked his chain forward to wrap around a twisted hindleg.

"Keep it from the walls!" Raven shouted.

Phantom Seer shimmered behind the beast, splitting into two mirrored illusions that staggered its focus.

The creature slammed its head into the ground once, then twice—disoriented, confused, overwhelmed. freewёbnoνel-com

Duskrunner drove it backward, and with one final combined strike from Seneschal and Seer, the beast crumbled into twitching roots and bone.

Raven didn’t wait for the dust to settle.

"Clear. Move in."

They advanced, breathing low and steady as the atmosphere thickened.

The path ended at a wide slab door, half-eaten by vines. A carving marked the top: She grew beyond the roots. She remembered too much.

A whisper passed through the air.

No rest.

Only root.

Living an endless fight.

As Raven stepped forward, the talisman at his chest shimmered. A faint pulse passed through the vines on the door, as if the Vault acknowledged his presence again. The roots behind them twisted inward, sealing the path they’d come from. There was no way back now.

The air thickened, as if the Vault inhaled in anticipation. The walls whispered again—not with random echoes, but with almost-formed sentences. Something between prayer and warning.

The stone beneath Raven’s boots felt wrong—less like architecture and more like pressure. Like he was walking across a buried thought.

Then, the door creaked, heavy and reluctant, and opened on its own.

Raven didn’t speak. He simply unwound the chain from his arm. The jagged edge rattled softly in the stillness, each link falling into place like an execution bell.

Phantom Seer turned slightly, its hollow sockets flicking toward the chain, then to the chamber ahead. Even it stood a fraction tenser.

The world inside flickered.

A chamber shaped like a warped octagon, carved with flowing duelist stances in the floor. Root-nodules pulsed on the walls. Illusions shimmered ahead of action. Whispers echoed the team’s movements, trailing their own attacks.

The figure at the center stood mid-scream, blade raised—half bark, half decaying corpse.

Her body was draped in ritual cloths twisted like roots, spiraling from one shoulder downward. Bark plating fused unevenly across her back and limbs, as though trying to hold her together through sheer will. One arm still wore ceremonial bracers, engraved with Rootbound spirals.

Her weapon looked like a ceremonial dueling blade, once curved and beautiful—now cracked, splintered at the center. The edges wept sap.

Behind her, the carvings on the walls traced fluid movement stances. They looped back on themselves, like a dancer who could never stop.

Her hollow eyes tracked something unseen.

As they stepped in, the statue cracked. Then it screamed again—and moved.

But not to attack.

Her first motion was sideways—a twist of the wrist, like she was completing a strike started in another life. Her other arm raised to shoulder height, fingers trembling, as if she were offering something long gone.

Then she pivoted—half-spinning toward the wall, gaze fixed on a ghost only she could see.

She was fighting memory, not them. For now.

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