Chapter 385| This Battle Was Far From Over

The main hall froze in a suffocating silence.

Only the pulse of the dark red runes along the obsidian walls moved, beating slowly like the heart of a titan holding its breath. Riven stood dead center in the room, his short sword gripped tightly in his right hand. Opposite him, Grendel hoisted his colossal axe high, the runes along its blade flaring blindingly bright.

No signals. No battle cries.

Grendel made the first move.

The colossal axe swung horizontally at Riven’s head, cleaving the air with a heavy hiss that carried enough force to shatter a normal human’s skull in a single strike.

Riven ducked.

The massive blade grazed a hair’s breadth above his head, the sheer wind pressure sweeping across his face, carrying the stench of scorching metal. Grendel yanked his weapon back, instantly launching a sweeping strike from the flank, aiming straight for Riven’s left ribs this time.

Riven didn’t back down.

He surged forward—stepping directly into the strike zone instead of evading. His right hand snatched the haft of the axe right beneath the glowing blade, deadlocking Grendel’s momentum mid-air.

Grendel’s red eyes widened in shock.

Riven’s knee drove brutally into his opponent’s gut. The steel armor clanged loudly. Grendel’s towering frame was literally lifted a few inches off the ground by the impact.

Pivoting his body, Riven slammed Grendel into the obsidian floor with absolute, raw force.

CRASH!

Fissures spider-webbed across the volcanic stone. The impact knocked the axe loose from Grendel’s grip; it skidded away, coming to a dead stop right at the foot of the throne.

Riven stood tall, glaring down at the massive body sprawled before him.

Grendel rose slowly. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, staining his iron-ringed gray beard. The runic veins etched across his body pulsed erratically—several nodes dimming out like failing mana circuits.

Roaring savagely, he charged barehanded.

Riven shifted a half-step, letting the wild punch hit empty air. With lethal precision, he drove his own elbow straight into Grendel’s temple.

Grendel stumbled sideways, but miraculously stayed on his feet. His breaths came out in ragged gasps. His crimson eyes burned with suppressed, unadulterated wrath.

Riven stepped forward once more, ready to end it all.

Rianor saw it first.

Behind the lenses of his thin glasses, his analytical eyes caught a micro-movement that was nearly invisible—Grendel’s right hand subtly slipping beneath his chestplate.

Those thick fingers pressed something.

A hidden trigger.

"Riven—" Rianor barked, his sharp voice slicing through the tension.

Too late.

Grendel smirked. A cruel, triumphant grin, blood still dripping from his curled lips.

He yanked his hand away from the hidden mechanism.

GRRRAAAKH!

The main hall gates—their only exit—slammed shut with a deafening crash of steel on steel that shook the entire room. Dust and stone fragments sprayed from the hinges as the doors locked down tight. The dim light from the outer courtyard was instantly snuffed out.

Now, the hall was solely illuminated by the dark red runes pulsing along the obsidian walls, casting bizarre, menacingly elongated shadows of everyone inside.

Riven shot a quick glance at the heavily sealed gates, then snapped his gaze back to Grendel.

Grendel let out a raspy laugh, his chest heaving as he fought through the pain of the previous strikes.

"The doors are the least of your worries, Human," he growled, his booming baritone echoing off the obsidian walls.

Rianor, Borch, and Thorne swiftly closed rank behind Riven. Their combat instincts had already picked up the grim omen even before the heavy footsteps began to echo.

A heavy, rhythmic stomping flooded in from the side corridors.

The Dwarf soldiers who had previously retreated were back—double their original numbers. Their armor was dented and smeared with dried blood, but their faded red eyes burned with a fresh, lethal vendetta. Runed axes and warhammers were hoisted high.

Then, a primal roar erupted from the depths of another tunnel.

From the right flank, two Wyverns dragged their dark-scaled bodies out of the shadows, the sheer force of their wings blowing thick dust across the hall. Right behind them, a Basilisk slithered low to the ground, its forked tongue tasting the air as venom dripped from its elongated fangs.

From the central corridor, something vastly larger stepped out—an Obsidian Golem. Towering nearly three meters tall, its body was entirely constructed from jagged volcanic boulders, with bright red runic circuits blazing at every joint. Every step it took sent tremors through the hall.

Trailing behind the Golem, a Magma Crawler scuttled along the wall—a colossal five-meter-long centipede, its carapace coated in superheated rock that plumed with thin, sulfuric smoke. Its jagged mandibles gnashed menacingly.

The Dwarf soldiers parted their ranks, clearing a path for the beasts to take their positions. The Wyverns perched atop ruined pillars. The Basilisk coiled in a shadowy corner. The Golem stood like an impenetrable fortress dead in the center of the hall. The Crawler silently clung to the upper walls.

Grendel walked backward, taking cover behind his own vanguard. He hoisted the colossal axe that he had dropped earlier—having been retrieved by one of his grunts—his smirk widening with absolute satisfaction.

"You thought I’d play fair against four little rats from Northreach?" he taunted, his arrogant voice booming. "I have an army. I have beasts. I own this fortress! You will never win!"

Riven didn’t even look in the direction of the taunt. He simply stood perfectly still, feeling the solid presence of Rianor, Borch, and Thorne as they formed a tight, unbreakable formation at his back.

"Hold the line," Riven ordered softly, his tone as cold as ice. "And this time—kill."

The first Wyvern dive-bombed straight for Riven, its talons splayed wide to tear him to shreds.

Riven sidestepped at the absolute last second. The talons cratered the obsidian floor, shattering the volcanic stone. Before the beast could recover, Riven snatched its thick, scaly tail and ruthlessly hurled it straight into the path of the approaching Basilisk.

The two monsters collided with a deafening, agonized roar.

The second Wyvern swooped down from above, significantly faster. Riven took a half-step back, letting the deadly claws swipe through empty air, before driving his elbow fiercely into its skull. The beast was launched backward, crashing hard against the wall.

The Obsidian Golem surged forward, raising a fist the size of a boulder high into the air. Riven met the strike head-on with his own fist, slamming directly into the Golem’s shoulder joint where the red runes flared brightest. Stone cracked. The Golem staggered. Riven immediately drove a brutal kick into its knee, forcing the stone titan to buckle.

In the shadows, Borch moved like a phantom that refused to be seen. He materialized right behind the disoriented Basilisk, burying his dagger deep into its left eye. He had deliberately left his Gauss Rifle holstered—firing a magnetic projectile in a closed space packed with allies was far too risky.

The beast shrieked, blindly spraying venom in all directions. Borch had already vanished before a single corrosive drop could touch his coat.

Thorne snagged a long spear from the grip of a fallen Dwarf soldier—a weapon he had disarmed during the initial breach. The Magma Crawler scuttled down the wall, lunging at him with its jagged mandibles spread wide. With ironclad discipline, Thorne thrust the spear straight down its maw, piercing clean through the back of its head. The Crawler collapsed, its molten carapace grinding to a dead halt.

Rianor took cover behind a shattered pillar. The Arcanotech Bracer on his arm was completely dead, now just a useless slab of cold metal weighing him down. A Dwarf soldier slipped in from his blind spot, axe raised for the kill.

Rianor raised his bare right hand. No Bracer, no tech. His eyes locked onto the pulsing red runes on the wall, his intellect instantly decoding and copying the circuit pattern. He funneled raw ambient mana into his palm, converting it into thermal energy, and blasted it straight at the grunt.

The soldier was blown backward, his armor violently scorched black. But Rianor stumbled immediately after, his breathing erratic, his physical stamina completely drained. A single cast—that was his absolute limit without a conduit. He slumped against the pillar, unable to do anything but desperately manage his breathing.

Yet the soldiers continued to flood in from the corridors. The injured beasts only grew more feral. Safely tucked behind his vanguard, Grendel laughed uproariously, enjoying the slaughter as if he were merely a spectator.

Riven pulverized the Obsidian Golem’s head with two rapid, earth-shattering strikes, scattering volcanic fragments across the floor. He shot a brief, lethal glare at Grendel cowering behind his ranks.

The second Wyvern recovered, dive-bombing once more. Riven took a half-step back, easily evading the strike. Borch was simultaneously juggling three runic-axe-wielding soldiers, his movements executing with flawless, phantom-like precision. Thorne seamlessly transitioned between his spear and dagger, flawlessly parrying and dismantling two attackers at once. Rianor remained slumped behind the pillar, his sharp eyes still tracking every variable on the battlefield even if his body couldn’t move.

They weren’t overwhelmed yet.

But they were nowhere near winning, either.

Riven finally brought down the second Wyvern with a crushing blow to its cranium. The massive reptile collapsed, slamming into the floor with a heavy thud. His breaths were coming in hot and fast, but his eyes remained as sharp as a razor.

Borch dispatched the last soldier attempting to flank him with a clean, soundless slit to the throat. Thorne neutralized two opponents simultaneously with a sweeping spin of his spear, dropping them in unison. Rianor stayed grounded behind his cover, the dead weight of the Bracer on his numb left arm throbbing with a dull ache.

Grendel was still laughing behind the remnants of his forces, his booming voice echoing with absolute satisfaction at the chaos he had orchestrated.

Suddenly, a deafening rumble erupted from outside the fortress.

The violent tremors traveled straight into the hall, shaking thick layers of dust loose from the vaulted ceiling.

CRACK—BOOOOM!

The fortress’s main gates—which had already been structurally compromised by Rianor’s inverse resonance blast earlier—now collapsed entirely. Massive chunks of obsidian and thick steel plates were blasted inward, flying in all directions.

From within the billowing clouds of smoke and dust, a massive, highly organized battalion of Dwarf soldiers emerged. Their armor was far more uniform, gleaming sharply despite the soot of battle. The runic circuits etched into their chestplates flared with a bright, pristine light—vastly more stable than the erratic, dark red runes of Grendel’s grunts.

Leading the vanguard, an elderly Dwarf commander strode forward with unshakeable calm, gripping a massive warhammer etched with pure white runes. It wasn’t the King himself—but the commander he had deployed to lead the Royal Army.

The royal battalion halted right at the threshold of the ruined gates.

They didn’t attack. They didn’t advance a single inch. They simply stood in absolute silence, observing the blood-soaked chaos and destruction that had laid waste to the grand hall.

Grendel’s laughter died in his throat.

His arrogant smirk vanished instantly. Those red eyes that had just burned with triumph now widened in sheer, unadulterated panic that he could no longer hide.

Riven stared at the newly arrived Royal Vanguard for a brief moment. Slowly, he shifted his gaze back to Grendel, who was now trembling behind his own faltering ranks.

The corners of Riven’s lips curled up ever so slightly—a freezing, lethal smile far more terrifying than any display of raw wrath.

This battle was far from over.