From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 204: The True Nature Of The Prison [FIXED!]
The dwarf was furious, his face twisted into a mask of rage that made the scars covering his skin seem even more grotesque. He landed a deadly combo on the elf, his movements a blur of brutal efficiency that showed his superior hand-to-hand combat.
His first strike caught her across the ribs with his reinforced gauntlet, cracking bone despite her magical barriers. Before she could recover, he followed with an elbow to her jaw that snapped her head back violently. The third blow was a knee to her midsection that drove the air from her lungs. The elf had played all her cards so she was left at his mercy.
The elf tried to counter, tried to summon defensive magic, but the dwarf’s tools were already disrupting her connection to mana. Each strike came faster than she could process, overwhelming her defenses through sheer aggression.
However, blinded by his rage at being thwarted, the dwarf made a critical mistake. His fury drove him to overextend on a finishing strike, committing too much weight forward, leaving him open for a split second—barely a heartbeat, but enough.
The elf, drawing on reserves she’d been desperately conserving, managed to gather one final burst of offensive magic. She thrust her palm forward and released a concentrated blast of pure force directly into his chest.
The impact sent the dwarf flying backward, his body crashing through the air. He smashed into a rock formation in the distance with bone-jarring force, the stone cracking from impact. Dust and debris exploded outward as he tumbled down, finally coming to rest in a crumpled heap.
The elf collapsed to her knees, breathing heavily, blood dripping from her mouth and nose. She was almost completely out of mana now, her magical reserves depleted to dangerous levels. The teleportation spell she’d used to send Byung away had already cost her dearly, and the attack she’d just used to repel the dwarf had taken even more—specifically designed to damage someone as magically resistant as him.
She couldn’t teleport anymore. She was trapped here with a monster who would recover within minutes.
The elf knew she had to warn the others. There was no doubt this dwarf would try to steal her magic once he recovered, would drain her completely. She quickly used the last ounce of her strength to send a message—a simple magical pulse that would reach the nearest elven outpost, carrying this information: the dwarf was here, she had sent the goblin away, and she needed immediate assistance.
Regarding the fate of the goblin, she added with grim satisfaction: There was no way he was coming out of the prison forest. He was as good as dead. Even the dwarf, with all his stolen magic, wouldn’t be able to locate Byung within that maze. The goblin was trapped there permanently.
The elf smiled despite her pain and mocked the dwarf across the distance. "Your plan failed, creature! The goblin is lost forever where you can never reach him!"
But all the dwarf did was smile in return. He stood up slowly from the rubble, brushing stone dust from his coat with casual ease despite what should have been crippling injuries. His expression wasn’t fury or frustration—it was satisfaction, dark amusement that made the elf’s triumphant smile falter.
This elf had severely underestimated him.
The dwarf sighed and began walking back toward her with measured steps. He looked her right in the eye before speaking, his voice calm. "I’m tired of keeping up the act, elf. You’ve played your part beautifully, but it’s time you understood the truth."
The elf tried to scramble backward, but her body was too damaged, too drained. The dwarf reached her in moments, crouching down to place his hand on her head in a gesture that was almost gentle—a mockery of comfort.
"All of this was part of my plan," he explained patiently. "I knew the moment you came. I’ve been tracking elven movements around my location for weeks. Did you really think I was unaware of your surveillance?"
The dwarf already knew all he had to do to misdirect these younger elf was to show a range of emotions to sway their judgement.
"Let me tell you the missing truth about the sword," the dwarf continued, his smile widening. "The truth that no one knows—not even the elves. There was a reason no goblin has ever been sent to that prison forest in all the centuries it’s existed."
He paused, savoring the moment.
"The dark forest where the sword is rumored to be hidden?" The dwarf laughed. "It IS the prison you just sent him to. They’re the same place. The prison forest and the sword’s location are one and the same."
The dwarf laughed hysterically now. "I cannot believe you actually bought it! You thought you were sending him away from the sword, when you literally teleported him directly to where we needed him to be!"
The elf shook her head weakly. "No... that’s impossible. We would have known—"
"Would you?" The dwarf cut her off. "Tell me something, elf. Why do you think that forest has such uniquely powerful binding magic? Magic strong enough to strip memories, to create an inescapable maze, to hold creatures from the dark continent itself?"
"The sword IS the prison," the dwarf explained. "Or more accurately, the prison was built AROUND the sword. Your ancestors needed somewhere to hide it that no one would ever think to look. So they created a prison forest, sent it far from civilization, and made sure everyone—including their own descendants—forgot the connection which is why no memories are allowed." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦
He tightened his grip on her head, and the elf felt her remaining magic beginning to drain away. The sensation was horrifying.
"And now," the dwarf continued, "thanks to your clever intervention, Byung is exactly where he needs to be. Inside the prison, immune to its memory-draining effects because of the armor I gave him, surrounded by the very magic that will guide him to the sword."
The dwarf began actively absorbing her magic, drawing it into himself in steady pulls that made the elf scream. The power flowed into him, strengthening his reserves. This further enhanced his already formidable abilities.
The elves must have accounted for this possibility and put measures in place to stop someone like him. The prison’s binding magic was designed specifically to prevent escape.
But they had underestimated Byung. Or had they? Even the dwarf himself was unaware of the true nature of the creatures trapped within the prison barrier.
And unknown to the dwarf, unknown even to the current generation of elves who maintained the prison from outside, the ancestors who created this place had made absolutely certain there would be no one in existence capable of escaping the barrier through conventional means.
Because the lock on the prison—the core of the binding magic—was the most powerful elf to ever exist. The first of their kind, the progenitor of the entire elven race, had sacrificed themselves to become the living seal that held the prison closed.
Their consciousness was the maze itself. Their power was what stripped memories and prevented escape. Their eternal vigilance was what kept the sword hidden and the prisoners contained.
The dwarf didn’t know this. The elf he was draining didn’t know this. That knowledge had been deliberately erased from elven history because knowing the truth would create a vulnerability that could be exploited.
But deep within the prison, in the heart of the maze where Byung now wandered confused and afraid, that ancient consciousness stirred. It sensed an anomaly, something that didn’t belong in its domain. Something that resisted its memory-draining effects, something that carried echoes of power from beyond the barrier between worlds.
The first elf, reduced to nothing but will and magic spread across an entire forest, turned its attention toward this new presence. It began to analyze, to test, to determine whether this goblin represented a threat to its eternal duty.
And in doing so, it set in motion events that would either doom or save them all.
The dwarf finished draining the elf, letting her body fall limply to the ground. She was still alive but barely, her magic completely depleted. He stood and looked toward the direction where he’d last tracked Byung’s location.
"Now," he said to himself, "we wait and see if the goblin can do what no one else has managed to do. Let’s see if he truly is the chosen one."
He began walking toward the nearest settlement where he could establish a base of operations. He would need to monitor the situation carefully, watch for signs that Byung had succeeded or failed.
And if the goblin did somehow retrieve the sword, if he survived the prison and emerged victorious, then the dwarf would be there waiting. Ready to claim his prize and finally tear down the barrier that had divided the worlds for far too long.
Behind him, the elf’s fading consciousness managed one final thought before darkness claimed her: *What have I done?*
