From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 195: The Dwarf Snaps [FIXED!]
The dwarf was left in a battle with the elf, standing in the clearing as combat should have continued, but something fundamental had changed. He noticed immediately that Byung had disappeared—not fled, not hidden behind trees, but vanished completely from the battlefield as if he’d never existed. The dwarf’s red eyes scanned the area with growing intensity, his obsidian face twisting into an expression of genuine fury.
He looked visibly pissed in a way that transcended his usual calculated demeanor. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles cracking audibly in the sudden silence that followed Byung’s disappearance.
He had been played. The realization hit him like a physical blow, making his ancient pride sting with humiliation. He had thought he was the primary target, the main threat the elves needed to eliminate or contain. His ego and centuries of being hunted had convinced him that everything revolved around stopping him specifically. But the elves must have caught on to his actual plan, recognized that he was merely the facilitator rather than the key piece.
The way they communicated and devised plans on the go was one of the things he had almost forgotten after decades of limited interaction. Elven tactical coordination operated on levels beyond mortal comprehension—telepathic links, scrying networks, contingencies layered within contingencies. They could adapt strategies mid-battle with the kind of fluid precision that came from shared consciousness and centuries of practiced coordination.
They had managed to take Byung through teleportation magic, spiriting him away to some secure location while the dwarf was distracted by Aelindra’s assault. And Byung was the one thing he absolutely needed to lift the sword, because he couldn’t do so himself—his dark continent origins made him fundamentally incompatible with the blade’s selection mechanism. Touching it would mean instant erasure, even for him.
The dwarf turned his full attention on the fallen elf before him. Aelindra had regained her composure after the stunning blow to her head, pulling herself upright with elven grace despite the disorientation. Blood trickled from a cut on her scalp where the cube-weapon had struck, staining her silver-gold hair crimson. She sent a few arrows toward him immediately in a bid to stop his advancement, magical constructs materializing and launching with desperate speed.
But the dwarf looked genuinely pissed now, and that changed everything about how he moved. Where before he had been cautious, calculating, now he advanced with purposeful aggression that spoke of centuries of suppressed rage finally finding outlet. His dark skin seemed to absorb light, creating a corona of shadow around his form.
The elf could instantly tell he was serious—this wasn’t posturing or tactical maneuvering anymore. This was a predator who had decided the time for games was over. Her violet eyes widened fractionally with something approaching fear, an emotion elves rarely experienced and almost never showed.
This dwarf had access to tools crafted in the dark continent, artifacts and devices that could level the playing field against magic users in ways that conventional weapons never could. The armor Byung wore, for example—she had witnessed it firsthand. It had repelled her magic when the arrows should have torn through it like butter, punched clean through the metal and flesh beyond. Yet the projectiles had bounced off harmlessly, dispersed by enchantments that operated on principles foreign to elven understanding.
And the tool that had collided with her head, the cube-shaped object the dwarf had thrown, had somehow disrupted her magic in ways that went beyond simple stunning. She couldn’t wield her power accurately anymore—the flows felt sluggish, unresponsive, like trying to grasp water with numb fingers. The constructs she conjured were significantly weaker than they should be, barely holding form before dissipating into harmless light.
Aelindra looked to her side, spotting the weapon lying in the grass where it had fallen after striking her. It was indeed a cube-like item, roughly the size of a fist, made from black metal that seemed to drink in illumination. Static sounds oozed from it like electrical discharge, crackling energy that made the air itself taste of copper and ozone. Runes covered its surfaces—not elven script but something older, more primal, carved with precision that suggested technology rather than magic.
The dwarf proceeded to speak, his voice carrying across the clearing with weight that made trees seem to lean away. "You’ve gone too far this time, elf. For centuries I’ve avoided direct confrontation with your kind, operated in shadows, accepted the status quo of our mutual cold war. But taking my key piece? Teleporting him to gods-know-where for execution or imprisonment?" He laughed, but the sound held no humor. "I will accept your people’s war proposal now. Full engagement. No more hiding."
The elf tried to project confidence despite her weakened state, summoning the arrogance that came naturally to her immortal kind. "You’re incapable of killing us, dwarf. That’s why you haven’t managed to eliminate a single elf throughout your entire existence in this world. You can harass, you can disrupt, but you cannot win against our magic."
All the dwarf did was smirk, that too-white smile spreading across his obsidian face like a crack in darkness. The expression held centuries of secrets, knowledge that the elf didn’t possess despite her own considerable age.
"You think I didn’t kill your kind because I was frightened?" he asked, taking another step forward. Aelindra tried to conjure a barrier but the magic flickered and failed, her reserves still disrupted by the cube’s effects. "You think fear kept me in shadows, that your power intimidated me into submission?"
The dwarf stopped talking suddenly, the words cutting off mid-thought. Then he chuckled—a low, dark sound that made the elf’s blood run cold despite her magical nature preventing such mortal reactions. When he continued, his voice carried a quality that suggested he was sharing a joke only he fully understood.
"What is an elf without magic?" The dwarf questioned rhetorically, closing the final distance between them faster than Aelindra’s weakened reflexes could track. His hand shot out, dark fingers pressing against her forehead with surprising gentleness. "Let me show you exactly why I spared your kind all these years."
Then he activated his true ability—the dark gift that made him so dangerous, the reason the elven Queen feared sending her strongest warriors against him directly. His hand began to glow with sickly green light that spread across Aelindra’s skin like infection, and she felt it immediately.
Her magic was being drained. Not depleted temporarily like using too much power—this was different, more fundamental. This was him taking away her ability to use magic permanently, severing the connection between her soul and the mana that flowed through reality. The sensation was agonizing in ways that transcended physical pain, like having a limb amputated but worse because what was being removed was intrinsic to her very identity.
Aelindra screamed, the sound tearing from her throat with raw anguish that echoed through the forest. She tried to fight, tried to pull away, but her weakened state and his surprising physical strength kept her locked in place. The green light intensified, flowing from her body into his, and she felt her magical reserves not just emptying but disappearing entirely—the well drying up, the pathways closing, the gift of her people being ripped away forever.
When the dwarf finally released her, Aelindra collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. He caught her before she hit the ground, lowering her unconscious form with almost tender care that contradicted the brutal violation he’d just committed. Her silver-gold hair had lost some of its luster, her skin appeared more pallid, and the glow in her eyes had dimmed to nothing. She looked diminished, lesser, mortal in ways that elves should never appear.
There was no way she would be welcomed back into elven society now, the dwarf knew. An elf without magic was an abomination to her own kind, a living reminder of vulnerability they refused to acknowledge. They would shun her, exile her, perhaps even execute her as mercy. The elves had no place for the powerless, no compassion for those who fell from grace.
But the magic the dwarf had absorbed from Aelindra wasn’t enough to do anything worthwhile on its own—one elf’s power, even a skilled warrior’s reserves, couldn’t fuel the kind of workings he typically needed. Her magical capacity was significant by mortal standards but trivial compared to what he required for major rituals or sustained combat.
However, it could do the one thing he desperately needed at this exact moment.
He used it to track Byung, creating a resonance with the goblin’s unique signature. The armor he’d given Byung wasn’t just protection—it was also a beacon, enchanted with markers that could be detected if you knew what to look for and had the power to search. The stolen elven magic gave him exactly that capability.
The dwarf’s red eyes snapped open, glowing brighter now with the infusion of foreign power. He could feel Byung’s location like a distant pulse—not precise coordinates but a general direction and vague sense of distance. The goblin was far, transported across significant space, but not impossibly remote. The elves had taken him somewhere within their territory but not to their central kingdom, suggesting they planned interrogation or execution at a secondary facility.
A smile spread across the dwarf’s face again, this time carrying genuine satisfaction. "Found you," he muttered to the empty air, speaking to someone who couldn’t hear but would hopefully survive long enough for rescue.
He looked down at Aelindra’s unconscious form one last time, considering whether to kill her and eliminate a witness or leave her alive as a message. After a moment’s thought, he chose life—let her wake and return to her people powerless, let the elves understand what he was truly capable of when provoked. Fear would serve him better than one more corpse.
The dwarf retrieved his cube-weapon from the grass, the device still crackling with residual energy. He tucked it into his cloak alongside other tools of dark continent origin, then began moving in the direction his new tracking sense indicated.
The elves had made a critical mistake by taking Byung. They’d assumed removing the key piece would stop the plan entirely, that the dwarf would be neutralized without his chosen wielder.
But they had underestimated his resourcefulness, his willingness to burn every bridge and exhaust every option to achieve his goals. The sword would be claimed. The barrier would fall. And anyone who stood between him and that destiny would learn exactly why the dark continent was feared.
