From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 188: The Truth About The King’s Sword.
The elf that had encountered Byung stood motionless above the sealed ground where he had vanished, her violet eyes narrowed in concentration as she replayed the encounter in her mind with perfect clarity.
She was surprised he had been able to catch her off-guard but more so, how he undid her camouflage. The speed in which he moved was unlike anything the elven scouts had documented in their extensive observations of this region’s inhabitants. Goblins were supposed to be quick in short bursts, yes, but limited by their small frames and inferior musculature. Orcs had raw power but lacked refined speed. Humans fell somewhere between, competent but mortal.
But this creature—this transformed goblin—had crossed the distance between them faster than her enhanced elven perception could fully track, his hand closing around her throat before defensive spells could fully activate. That kind of velocity suggested either magical enhancement or biological evolution beyond normal parameters.
This wasn’t something they had reliable information about in the intelligence gathered during their surveillance. The elven scouts had come to this region specifically for the dwarf, tracking the dark-skinned aberration who had evaded their scrying for decades through a combination of ancient runes and underground habitation. But discovering Byung was something she had witnessed firsthand now, an unexpected complication that elevated this mission’s priority significantly.
They knew about a goblin living in these parts—reports had filtered back about a settlement that had survived an orc assault, about unusual advancement, about alliances forming between traditional enemies. But the elves had dismissed it as typical border chaos, the kind of petty squabbles that plagued lesser races constantly. Now she understood why the dwarf had met with this particular goblin, why their paths had intersected. The transformation wasn’t natural; it bore the hallmarks of something older, something that predated current racial divisions.
The elf didn’t call for reinforcement despite the discovery’s significance. Her pride wouldn’t allow it, and more practically, she was more than capable of handling this threat on her own. A single elf could handle an army of orcs all on their own, depending on their rank within elven society’s complex hierarchies. Combat mages of the higher circles had leveled entire battalions, their magic turning battlefields into graveyards through force of will and centuries of accumulated power. While she wasn’t of the highest rank—not an Archmage or High Sentinel—her magic was more than enough to handle multiple foes simultaneously. She had trained for three centuries, mastered seventeen schools of combat spellcraft, and survived encounters with creatures from the dark continent’s edges that would drive lesser beings insane.
One transformed goblin and a dwarf, no matter how unusual, were well within her capability to neutralize.
She knelt and inspected the ground where Byung had fallen through, her slender fingers tracing patterns in the soil that had seamlessly resealed itself. The craftsmanship was impressive—dwarven work at its finest, utilizing principles the elves themselves respected even if they found the creators distasteful. But there was no way for her to breach it from above without triggering defensive mechanisms that would alert the dwarf to her presence or, worse, collapse the tunnels and trap her quarry beyond reach.
Not to mention entering the enemy’s territory directly would be foolish tactical thinking. The underground was the dwarf’s domain, honeycombed with traps and enchantments accumulated over decades of paranoid preparation.
Fighting on his ground meant surrendering every advantage her magic and training provided. Better to wait, to track, to intercept when circumstances forced them to surface.
Besides, the elf already knew where they were headed. The dwarf’s destination had been the subject of elven speculation and monitoring for years—the black forest that bordered the dark continent, where the barrier between worlds grew thin and unstable, where reality itself seemed to warp under the pressure of what lay beyond.
This dwarf in question, the one called Nameless in their intelligence reports for lack of better designation, had always wanted to join both worlds—to breach the barrier and create passage between the lands of mortals and the nightmare realm beyond. But not for the reasons most would assume. He didn’t seek power, didn’t crave the forbidden knowledge that drove mad sorcerers to their doom, wasn’t motivated by conquest or curiosity.
He wished to join both worlds because he was originally from the dark continent himself. He was trapped here when the barrier was erected.
That was the terrible secret the elves had uncovered through centuries of patient investigation, piecing together fragments of evidence and ancient texts that most races couldn’t even read. The dwarf wasn’t merely corrupted by exposure to that cursed place—he was native to it, one of the twisted inhabitants who had somehow crossed over in ages past and survived in this world by hiding his true nature beneath layers of deception and protective magic. The worlds were once once after all.
This was why he was the single greatest threat the elves monitored despite other dangers that plagued the borders. Orc warlords could be contained, human kingdoms rose and fell with predictable patterns. But this dwarf represented something far worse—a deliberate effort to tear down the barrier that kept their world safe from horrors beyond mortal comprehension.
And if Byung was to retrieve the sword from wherever it lay hidden, he would unwittingly provide the final piece the dwarf needed. He would be able to tear a rift into the barrier that separated both worlds because the sword of the original goblin king was a major catalyst that made such transgressions possible. The elven archives contained references to this weapon, buried in texts so old the parchment crumbled at touch—a blade forged in darkness before the barrier existed, when the worlds weren’t yet separated, when monsters walked freely among mortals.
The sword wasn’t normal by any definition. It was a key, an anchor point between realities, imbued with power that resonated with the barrier’s fundamental structure. In the right hands—or wrong hands, depending on perspective—it could cut through the magical fabric that kept dimensions separate, creating doorways that should never exist.
But this act came at a terrible cost, one that the original goblin king had paid willingly or perhaps unknowingly. The goblins’ curse—the reason their race was reviled, why their reproduction killed the mothers who bore them with such low production rate, why they were considered abominations rather than merely another intelligent species.
The fatality of anyone who dared to bear the child of the goblin king was not natural biology but punishment, a cosmic consequence for defying the natural order of things. When the first goblin king had wielded that sword to bridge worlds, to bargain with powers beyond mortal ken, the price extracted wasn’t gold or servitude but genetic corruption that would haunt his descendants through every generation. Every goblin birth became a death sentence, ensuring the race could never truly thrive, could never grow.
And despite their efforts to keep their numbers up, there was no way they would be able to keep up with their short lifespan.
Now this transformed goblin, this Byung who moved with impossible speed and survived what should have killed him, was being led by a dark continent native toward reclaiming that cursed blade.
The elf stood gracefully, her decision made. She would track them, follow at distance through methods the dwarf’s runes couldn’t detect, and when the moment came—when Byung reached for the sword—she would strike. Not to claim the weapon herself; the elves wanted it destroyed, erased from existence, the catalyst removed before it could fulfill its terrible purpose.
If that meant killing the goblin and the dwarf both, so be it. Some prices were worth paying to keep the worlds separate, to prevent the nightmares beyond from flooding into reality.
She turned and vanished into the forest, her form blending with shadows and light until even the keenest eyes would see only trees and dappled sunlight.
