Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 55: [Thrones in Ruin 4] - The Dead Men Dance

Raven stepped into CloudSpire Lounge without hesitation.

Several weeks ago, he was jacked into a secondhand capsule in a discount café.

Now? Smooth marble floors. Polished chrome booths.

A polite young receptionist in a sleek black uniform greeted him with a practiced smile.

"Welcome back, Mr. Voss. Your capsule is prepared."

He nodded, handed over his ID.

The CloudSpire Lounge catered to top-ranked players and influencers—streamers who rented entire wings to broadcast their runs and polish their brands.

Adrian didn’t care about that.

This was just a byproduct of progress. He’d earned it—grinding dungeons, flipping loot, selling materials. The moment he could afford it, he upgraded.

He’d even thought about buying a capsule for his apartment.

One-time payment. Convenience. Privacy.

But no.

That would mean isolation—weeks, maybe months, holed up without air, sun, or distance. And Adrian knew himself too well. That was a fast path to spiraling.

He needed fresh air. Movement. Routine.

Sanity wasn’t something you could automate.

He stepped into the capsule. The hatch sealed with a whisper of hydraulics.

Login complete.

DAY 2 OF THRONE WARS

A faint hum. Then warmth.

Then the scent of incense.

Raven appeared in the Inner Sanctum of Greycliff Hold, his spawn point for the Throne War event.

Stone columns rose around him, etched in moss-script and warpaint. Banners of the Cindraleth Union hung limp in the stale wind, and soft ritual music echoed from the high alcoves.

But the peace was only skin-deep.

He turned his head. Around him, the tension was already building.

One guild huddled in the corner, whispering over a floating war map. Their leader drew lines with his fingers, marking troop rotations.

"We reroute to the middle tier. South’s not holding—Group 2, prep to rotate."

Nearby, a streamer stood alone in ceremonial armor, mumbling into a lapel mic. His drone cam hovered in slow orbit, casting light trails for his audience.

The Inner Sanctum wasn’t chaos—not yet. But the edge was showing.

Raven opened his quest tab.

[Daily Objective Received]

– Retrieve 3 Memory-Stones from fallen allies and return to Elder Kaelthorn

He accepted it.

And then the floor rumbled beneath his boots.

The rumble came again—low and distant, but unmistakable. Trebuchet fire. South wall.

Raven remembered the guild leader he’d overheard earlier in the Sanctum.

"South’s not holding."

That was twenty minutes ago.

Now it was breaking.

He sprinted out of the Sanctum and into what used to be a residential district.

Now it was just smoke, fire, and bodies.

Chunks of molten rock had caved in buildings. Fallen banners fluttered in the dust. Players were everywhere—some casting heals, some looting corpses for the daily task of retrieving 3 memory stones, some just standing in the open, overwhelmed by the scale of the realism.

[Zone Notification: South Wall Integrity – 40%]

Another explosion rocked the earth. A screaming boulder tore overhead, slamming into a half-broken tower. Screams followed.

Raven ducked behind a cracked wall, scanning the chaos.

A squad of Meridian Fold shock troops broke through a breach in the rubble.

They were NPC elites—dual-axe berserkers with fire cloaks—charging straight at a pack of disorganized Cindraleth defenders.

"Hold them! Push ’em back!" someone yelled in local voice.

A guild healer dropped a totem—then got cleaved in half a second later.

Raven flanked from the side, his daggers flashing.

+3

+4

+5

He leapt back, breathing hard.

Not because he was tired. But because this wasn’t it yet.

He didn’t rush to the wall.

In large-scale events like this, the first thing wasn’t to fight.

It was to grasp.

The flow of players.

The morale.

The shape of the chaos.

And right now? It was scattered.

He looked up.

Above the South Wall, around 200 Cindraleth players—mages and archers—were still firing volleys downward as if the wall would hold forever.

But the structure groaned beneath them, buckling with every blast. When it broke—and it would break—they’d be the first to fall.

Crushed in the collapse, or worse, flung off the ledge and dropped straight into the enemy swarm.

And if any of them survived that fall? They’d be sealed in, trapped between rubble and a tide of Fold soldiers with nowhere left to run.

Raven didn’t waste another second.

"Off the wall!" Raven barked into zone chat. "Pull back! Prepare inner wall sieges!"

[Zone Chat]

"lol who tf is shouting like a raid leader?"

"Relax bro. Shooting from up here’s actually a solid spot to hit them near the breach."

"STFU, you’re not my guild leader."

"Wait—is the wall actually dropping?"

"Yo I think he’s right"

"I just fell off the wall, not even joking"

"Where the fuck are the healers??"

Raven ignored them. He saw the way the wall was bowing. The cracks were spreading like spiderwebs. He set the ballista’s stabilizer, locked it on the breach line, and fired the first bolt to pre-burn the kill zone.

"Focus fire on the breach!" he shouted. "Trebs, ballistas—aim at the crack! Mages, take the flanks! Don’t shoot forward, shoot across!"

More grumbling hit the chat.

"Dude thinks he’s some hot shot. LMAO."

"Bro I’m just here for the kill count."

"Hey noob, maybe YOU go flank next time."

Raven snapped back.

"Then shut up and go respawn. Or shoot from the goddamn side like I said."

The South Wall cracked like thunder.

A chunk of it caved inward, sending half the players on top screaming as they plummeted.

Fold NPCs poured through the gap—flamethrower elites, shieldbreakers, storm mages.

The first line of defense broke in seconds.

But some listened.

Siege fire rained down on the breach. Mages repositioned to the sides. Archers abandoned the top tier and ran.

And for a few moments, the chaos bent around Raven’s voice.

"Zone lead."

That was the term.

When zone movement turned chaotic, someone would instinctively step up in chat—barking orders, trying to shape the flood.

Raven didn’t do it to be a hero.

He did it out of anger. Cold, sharp, focused rage.

And now... they followed him.

But Raven didn’t stop to count how many. He had no time for pride.

He reloaded the ballista and fired again. The recoil slammed against his shoulder, jarring his grip, but he gritted his teeth and hauled the lever back into position.

Again. Reload. Fire.

Again. Reload. Fire.

He would hold this position alone if he had to. Burn the breach into a graveyard by himself, with his dead body on top of it.

But then—more ballista bolts flew beside his. Then spells. Then arrows. The players were following his orders.

The breach became a furnace. Meridian Fold NPC soldiers ran into it and came out charred, blasted apart mid-sprint. Some froze in place, shields up, trying to wait it out. Others burst through—only to be cut down by archers repositioned to flank angles.

Kill feed climbed. The air screamed with explosions. NPCs staggered and died in piles.

Raven said nothing. He just kept shooting. Kept reloading. Because if he stopped now, it would all fall apart.

But it wasn’t enough.

The wall collapse had claimed nearly two hundred players. Most of them hadn’t made it. The few that did were stuck behind the front line, unable to reach the defense. And with no teleportation allowed during Throne War, their respawns in the Inner Sanctum were still minutes away.

The breach widened.

The Meridian Fold swarm pushed harder.

Summoners screamed into their hotbars, desperately trying to conjure beasts to block the path.

One necromancer raised both arms, chanting for a risen bone warlord—but the cast glitched halfway through, looping uselessly.

Another tried to deploy a phantom serpent, only to be met with a static-laced error.

Their monsters flickered, jittered, and failed to materialize.

A summoner near the barricade was breaking.

She looked like one of those high-spirit types—painted armor, flashy cloak, all energy and charm. But now her hands shook over her hotbar, slamming keys like they could save her, since his words couldn’t control anything.

One summon. Then two. Then three.

She called for everything.

A massive striped tigress.

A dire wolf mount, black as night.

A silver-feathered sky eagle.

None of them answered.

The summon circles flickered in and out—half-formed, misshapen, twisted into glitchy wireframes. One tried to crawl out of the glyph before vanishing in a burst of static. The others didn’t even get that far.

Her face went pale. Numb. Her voice cracked as she whispered, almost begging. Almost crying.

"Why... why? Dire Alpha... Tigress... Sky King... hear me. Please... please..."

A fiery trebuchet rock slammed down—crushing her and her glitched summons in a burst of smoke and static.

She didn’t have time to scream.

The v1.3 sync patch had promised "behavior consistency." In reality? It neutered every summon at the worst possible time.

"Why the hell won’t it summon?!" someone shouted in proximity.

Raven smirked, just enough to make it bitter. The seed of this disaster was already there—now it was blooming.

"It’s the goddamn patch!"

He yelled back. Try hard to hide his triumphant tone.

A priestess near Raven tried to heal a paladin who had fallen, his HP flickering dangerously red. But the recoil blast from a nearby ballista shot hurled her backward, sweeping her off her feet mid-cast, killed both of them.

Then the line broke.

The Fold surged forward like a dam bursting.

The tanks were overwhelmed.

Archers scattered.

Siege crews pulled back too slow.

A flamecaster exploded near Raven.

Shrapnel tore into his side.

HP: 17%

"Fall back! Inner City defense! Fall b—"

He didn’t have time to finish.

A spear caught him in the chest.

[You have died.]

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