Chapter 433 : Hollow Hunger

With nothing further to discuss, all that was left was to enter the throne room and face whatever was waiting for us. Most of our extra forces were withdrawn, due to space limitations, but if we needed to, it was pretty simple to call them out.

We weren't summoners that needed setup time to call forth our minions; we could just spew out slime and call it a day. Sylvester was the obvious exception, as without his golems, he couldn't really contribute much beyond our shared slime abilities.

As we approached the double doors, they trembled and began to part, releasing what felt like a miasma of cursed energy from the previously sealed room. For the most part, it seemed like we were entirely unaffected, until I noticed something a little odd from Vee and my personas.

"Wow… I'm suddenly hungry," Vee said. "Maybe we should've had a meal before entering."

"I'm also feeling quite peckish…" Sylbera murmured.

"Now that you mention it, so am I," Sylvester joined in, and soon Sylvain and Sylthaeryn were also nodding along.

I was the only one not abruptly overcome by a desire for food, and, considering the timing, it had to be due to the miasma. I quickly pointed it out to the group, warning them that they might be affected by it.

My worst fear was that they would collectively deny it, but after some self-reflection, they all admitted that something was indeed wrong. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could actually do to prevent it, at least without pulling them out of the fight entirely. Considering they needed to be present for the labyrinth clear, that wasn't an option.

"Do better. You ate my crown, so you need to pull your weight," I said, poking my hat threateningly.

Despite the doors being open for some time, the miasma wasn't dissipating even the slightest, and not only that, but there was a blackish fog preventing us from seeing inside the throne room itself. Whatever was ahead, we were going up against it practically blind.

I took the lead since I had the most resistance, and everyone followed behind me, with Vee and Sylbera at the back. As I stepped through the doorway, it felt like fighting the wind, as the fog itself hindered my entry, yet it couldn't stop me or anyone, and we all crossed the threshold one by one.

Inside, we entered the throne room, or what was left of it. No longer was it a regal declaration of power; instead, all that remained was torn apart and decayed. Whatever was once made with wood was splintered and rotten, and the stonework was cracked and overgrown with moss and stains. What once might have been glorious tapestries were shredded with claws, and statues lay shattered and crumbled across the floor.

Sitting hunched over what was left of the throne was an unnaturally and impossibly thin figure. It had two sets of antlers growing from its head, one pair going outward while the other curled upward like horns. Its bark-like skin was ashen like charcoal, while its head resembled a skull, with a set of glowing red eyes like dying embers.

Yet despite all of that, it all paled in comparison to its chest cavity, or more appropriately, the lack thereof. Rather than a stomach or even a chest, it just had a massive empty cavity filled with a void-like blackness. We could see its ribs barely poking out from the darkness, and also hear what sounded like the wind howling through the gaps of bone.

"The Hollow Monarch…" Vee whispered.

That must have come from her [Identify], and it was a very fitting title from what was before us.

"Hungry…" the creature rasped, its unnatural voice echoing through the room.

Suddenly, even I felt hungry, as if its mere words had triggered a deep longing inside me. If I felt that, I could only imagine what Vee and the others were feeling, and judging by their expressions, it was not pleasant.

"So very hungry… Yet no matter what I eat, it's never enough…"

Its hand then clenched, breaking off what remained of the throne's armrest. Judging by its actions, I could predict it would try to eat it, but rather than bringing it to its mouth, it brought it directly to its stomach. The black void trembled with greedy anticipation as it accepted the offering, with the ruined armrest disappearing entirely.

"No! Not enough! I need more! More!" the creature wailed as it fell to its knees and pummeled its fists against the floor.

All of us had been basically frozen at the sight of the creature, not daring to interrupt what it was doing up until now. Its head jerked and lifted; its red gaze directed upon us. Then, with an inhuman screech, it leaped at us like a ravenous beast.

"Shit, don't let it eat you!" Vee cried out.

In response, we scattered, denying it the advantage of attacking a single group, and we all retaliated appropriately. Magic spells flew through the air along with arrows, while golems charged to intercept the creature, yet what happened next was shocking even for us.

When the projectiles neared the creature, its "stomach" seemed to grow, and all of them were sucked into the void. Then, despite most of the attacks not really having any physical substance, you could hear a crunching, grinding noise as if it were chewing. The experience was entirely unnerving, even for us slimes, and it made me wonder how we were supposed to defeat such a creature.

Fire and light had been deterrents to the weaker wendigo, so I summoned forth an array of [Bladelight] spells through [Enchanted Horn] and sent them at it to distract it. The outcome was not nearly as effective as I had hoped, but thankfully, there was still a minor reaction, and that brief pause allowed me to strike it several times without fail.

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The damage my spells were inflicting was unfortunately minimal, as I wasn't a "Lumomancer," or whatever you called a dedicated light mage. Even worse, the creature eventually recovered, and then it began to reach out and eat my swords of light.

We tried to get the same reaction from fire, and the creature did flee from it, but only for a moment before it swallowed the flames entirely. Yet not all hope was lost, as we realized a pattern was forming from its behavior.

"It needs time to chew its food!" Sylvester shouted.

"So we have to attack it while it's digesting? Sheesh, talk about unreasonable…" Vee complained.

I was also paying close attention to the cursed energy in the creature, and to my relief, the "eating" didn't seem to replenish its reserves. The damage we had done was extremely minimal, and if it could have regained it from devouring our attacks, then we would've been in an almost impossible scenario.

The one silver lining was that the creature wasn't impossibly fast, at least not at this stage, and we could keep our distance until we knew it was safe to approach. None of us wanted to find out if it could eat us just as easily as it did our attacks.

Since we were forced to feed it to even have a moment to attack it, we naturally tried to see if we could harm it through food. [Nitro Slime], spell orbs, and [Poison Slime] were all tested, but it quickly became apparent that the void it called its stomach could handle anything. I'd hoped I could detonate things inside there, but once consumed, it was like it ceased to exist, and I lost connection to the slime.

I'd even tried [Nitro Slime] with set intervals or various triggers, but that didn't work as planned. Likewise, detonating while in the middle of feasting just caused the actual explosion to be consumed as well. Vee even tried seeing if her [Rift Thread] was enough to cause it some indigestion, but it was slurped down like tasty noodles.

"Even my [Rift Thread]... Come on, how unfair is that?"

While we all had been hoping we could attack it from the inside, a tried-and-true tactic of us slimes, we did, fortunately, discover one thing from this. Rather than pure quantity, depending on what it specifically ate, the time to digest varied, and Vee's precious [Rift Thread] had given us one of the longest openings.

Yet we also discovered a downside: the more the creature ate, the hungrier it became, and that somehow spread to us as well. The Hollow Monarch spread its corrupting hunger to everyone, and with each ineffectual bite it took to try to stave off starvation, the worse it got.

This fight was more unpleasant than we had previously realized. We were expecting a drawn-out fight as we whittled down its energy, but we hadn't anticipated that half our attacks would be wasted just to make it temporarily vulnerable while it assaulted us with psychological warfare throughout.

I'd activated [Draining Aura] since we arrived, and it was proving effective and was one of the few things the creature couldn't eat. To our horror, we had even watched it eat our debuffs and afflictions present on its body, which was a massive inconvenience. This forced us to change tactics, as we now needed to predict when it would finish its meal and cast [Decay] immediately before it was too late.

Yes, as absurd as it sounded, if it started consuming even the damage caused by [Decay] from ripping out afflictions. It became a delicate balancing act: keeping the afflictions up as long as possible to be effective, then destroying them before the next meal.

Naturally, we tried to see whether it was worth using debuffs and ailments to increase digestion time, but they seemed to add only a few seconds, if at all. Most things we tried feeding it barely changed the digestion window, and unfortunately, those that did were actually inconvenient to feed.

Vee's [Rift Thread] was still the best by far, although there was a limit to how much she had stored and how much new thread she could produce. Considering the area was also causing her to starve, her energy levels were depleting faster than normal, and soon she was almost entirely relying on her reserves.

Next up in effectiveness was Sylvester's golems, as a few of them had unfortunately fallen into the consumption range. We quickly tried to use this to our advantage by having Sylvester throw plenty of cannon fodder golems at it, but those had not produced the same results. Yes, if we wanted to use Sylvester's golems, they needed to be his elite ones that had powerful or multiple golem cores, and decked out in enchantments, not exactly something he could create at the drop of a hat.

The gap between first and second place in terms of effectiveness was significant, but the gap between second and third was even worse. That prize belonged to [Metal Slime] or, more precisely, an impossible alloy of [Truesilver], [Adamantite], and [Orichalcum]. Slime was our most plentiful resource by far, but creating three powerful metals and alloying them together was not cheap. At the rate this fight was being drawn out, we could very well deplete even my vast ocean of slime, something I hadn't thought possible.

The thought of sending out one of my other slime networks on the outside to go around eating for more slime did cross my mind, but that felt like an inappropriate response. It was as if this creature was forcing us to eat more, consume more, and join it in its endless hunger, and that was not something I wanted to allow.

I'd already caught Vee pulling out meals and eating, something she really couldn't help, as the only one with an actual stomach. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that we slimes were entirely immune to its effects, as I had noticed that consumption as a whole had increased by a small but notable amount.

Whether it was energy, stamina, Mana, or even slime, the mere presence of the Hollow Monarch was causing all of it to be spent at an increased rate. This thankfully seemed to apply to its own cursed energy as well, but that felt like a small compromise given how much it was negatively affecting us.

What else could we try…? Think, Syl, think!

The creature was about to initiate another consumption, and I quickly finished the last of my calculations to teleport Sylbera away from it. In an effort to cause more harm, she'd taken to wielding various weapons and engaging in melee combat. Included in her arsenal was the flamberge we'd received as a prize from the previous labyrinth, as it appeared to be more effective than her own creations for now.

"Thank you as always, Master," Sylbera said, bowing respectfully to me, who had just saved her and the precious sword from being consumed.

I shrugged it off, as even with the more difficult coordinates, it wasn't like I had done much. In fact, I felt like I wasn't contributing enough to this fight, given that my actual class had been largely ineffective ever since we arrived here.

Wait… Am I actually ineffective?

Ever since we'd been in the presence of the snow globe, the dimensional space had been a mess and difficult to work with, leaving me without most of my usual tools that I'd grown extremely fond of. Of course, if I really forced it, I could do something, but it had always seemed not worth the effort, until now.

Vee's [Rift Thread] gives it the most trouble to digest… But what about feeding it an actual rift?

[Personal Rift] had been forced onto the sidelines since our arrival, as I was worried about what effects it would have. This space was anything but ordinary, but if it was for only a brief moment, it should be fine. My avoidance of using it prior to this stemmed from my concern that entering and exiting the rift while inside the shrunken snow globe could be detrimental, but if I was just trying to feed it to the monster before us, what was the harm?

And the rifts reform anyway, I might as well try it out! Let's see if it can give this thing the worst indigestion of its unnatural life!