Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 51: [Roots of Dominion 10] - Ascendant’s Hunger 2

The Root-Soul Ascendant staggered, ribs split by phantom wounds, bark sloughing off its frame like flaking armor.

It should have fallen.

But it didn’t.

The Root-Soul Ascendant staggered under the weight of its wounds, massive body swaying like a tree about to crack under its own rotten trunk. Bark sloughed off its limbs in steaming chunks. Roots twitched across the arena floor like dying nerves, slapping wetly against the stone.

For a heartbeat, Raven thought it was finished.

The Vault seemed to agree. The growth mirrors along the walls flickered erratically—reflections glitching, freezing mid-movement like trapped ghosts. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling. The roots binding the arena slackened, sagging downward as if the entire dungeon had exhaled a sigh of defeat.

Raven tightened his grip on the chain. Every instinct screamed at him to strike. To end it now.

But something was wrong.

The Ascendant’s body didn’t collapse. It curled inward, as if clutching something unseen at its core. Sap—dark, almost black—began to leak from its ribs, trailing down its legs in slow, viscous lines. The air warped again, thickening with unnatural heat.

Raven took half a step forward.

And stopped.

The light inside the Ascendant’s hollow chest flickered—not fading, but burning hotter.

Mutating.

A tremor rolled through the floor. Roots quivered in anticipation. The Vault wasn’t dying.

It was evolving.

Its body convulsed. Roots curled inward, like it was folding into itself.

Raven paused, chain ready, breath raw in his throat. The boss wasn’t dead.

It was evolving.

From its core, two tendrils lashed into the ground, rooting deep.

His UI flickered.

[Rootbound Pulse – Double Soul Absorption Detected]

He barely had time to curse.

A Berserker soul flared first—red, pulsing with raw fury.

Then a Caster soul—green, twisted with spiked vines and screaming echoes.

"Double absorption!?" Duskrunner barked.

Seneschal stepped forward. "It’s abandoning structure."

The Ascendant roared—a sound like metal shredded inside a dying tree.

"One final bloom. All roots. No restraint."

The air warped.

The Ascendant bloated with unstable magic. Veins of red and green light crawled like parasites beneath its bark.

Then the dungeon collapsed.

The dungeon itself seemed to scream.

Roots ripped apart from the ceiling in wet, gory shudders. Chunks of bark and stone rained down in a chaotic waterfall. The once-unified floor split into uneven terraces, rising and sinking like the chest of a dying beast.

Raven ducked instinctively as a massive growth-pillar snapped loose above, missing him by inches and splintering against the floor in a blast of splinters. His boots slid across wet stone slick with sap and blood.

Phantom Seer’s illusions wavered—bent into unnatural shapes by the collapsing light and thickening mist. A ripple of distortion glitched their reflections across the shattered growth mirrors, scattering false echoes through the chaos.

Duskrunner howled—a sharp, furious sound—as he was thrown bodily against a shifting wall of root, landing hard but scrambling back to his feet with a snarl.

The walls didn’t just break—they moved, reshaping with terrifying speed. New root-barriers sprouted like teeth, snapping shut behind the team.

The Vault wasn’t dying quietly.

It was trying to take them all with it.

The root-pillars shattered. The ceiling opened. The walls reformed in chaos—jaws of splintered wood snapping and rising.

Growth Mirrors shattered. Illusions bled light and died.

"Scatter!" Raven shouted.

Phantom Seer blinked sideways, illusions fracturing into spectral shrapnel as root-chains lashed behind. Duskrunner struck the boss’s flank but was thrown off course by bark armor. A massive limb slammed the floor, forcing him back.

Seneschal activated Root Trial Lattice to pin a flanking Sentinel, but the AoE was meaningless now. The field had become wild.

They were being forced apart.

Raven skidded across a stone outcrop, just as the roots collapsed behind him.

And he realized—

This wasn’t random.

The boss was isolating him.

Cutting him off from heals. From illusions. From control.

Then it happened.

[Trial of the Hollow Bloom Activated: Seed Designation – Raven]

A bark root snapped around his ankle. Another coiled under his ribs.

His vision narrowed.

Phantom Seer tried to reach him—intercepted by a mirrored phantom. Duskrunner collided with a rising root-pillar, yelping as another chain lashed his flank.

Seneschal was too far. His aura blinked out.

Raven was alone.

And growing still.

The bark climbed faster than before. 10%. 20%. 30%.

The trial was binding him. If it reached his chest—game over. Permanently removed from the fight.

He exhaled, calm.

"You want to isolate me. Stop me from moving."

He smiled.

"Bad plan."

Because he knew.

He knew this mask.

The Visage of the Hollow Forge pulsed. His Soul Pressure had reached ten stacks.

The moment he was marked, he stopped resisting. He let the trial take root.

Because at ten stacks—

Resonant State will override the seed effect.

The mask ignited. A pulse of power exploded outward, like a breath exhaled by a god. The bark recoiled.

+30% Stealth. +25% Critical. Next strike from stealth—empowered.

The roots shattered off his body as the buff surged through him. The binding vines didn’t snap—they burned away.

Phantom Bind triggered.

Raven vanished.

Then reappeared midair behind the Ascendant, masked in silence.

His chain whirled.

Dominion Chain cast—spiked end latching deep into bark-flesh.

The Ascendant turned, too slow.

It roared.

But not in rage.

In denial.

"You... do not... grow..."

Raven met its eyeless face.

"No," he whispered. "I command growth."

Then he unleashed it.

Primordial Sovereignty activated.

Darkness rippled across the arena, blooming from Raven like ink dropped into water. His power flooded outward, warping the shattered roots and splintered floor with every pulse.

He struck—once, twice, thrice.

Each blow was a blur of chain and blade, a perfect storm of brutal precision. Black mist bled from every impact, coiling into the air like dying souls set loose.

The Ascendant reeled back, its body convulsing. The roots that made up its flesh twisted madly, knotting and unraveling as if trying to escape him.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, Raven glimpsed inside—

—trapped souls, warped faces pressed against translucent bark, clawing at the prison walls, mouths open in endless silent screams.

He drove the chain deeper.

The world constricted. His muscles locked.

With one final pull, he anchored the Dominion Chain at the creature’s core.

Chains of glowing bark erupted outward, slamming into the Ascendant’s limbs like divine shackles, locking the horror into place.

It screamed—no longer defiance, but a collapsing, defeated wail—

—and fell still.

[Subjugation Triggered.]

Chains of glowing bark exploded around the Ascendant’s limbs, slamming it into submission.

It screamed. A final, echoing sound of death and assimilation.

[Boss Subjugated – The Root-Soul Ascendant has been bound to the Sovereign]

Raven dropped to one knee.

Breathing hard. Burned. Victorious.

Seneschal arrived first, quiet. Duskrunner limped in, bruised and bloodied. Phantom Seer phased through the wreckage, tilting its head.

The boss twitched one last time.

Then fell still.

The talisman on Raven’s chest pulsed once—then again, brighter each time. Tendrils of faint purple light spiraled toward it from every corner of the broken arena. The vault itself exhaled, and the energy sank into the charm like it had been waiting for this moment.

The bark-wrapped totem flared to life.

[Quest Progress Updated: Vault of the Rootbound – Buried Will, Unbroken Blood]

Main Objective: Complete the Trial of Growth within the Vault. (3/3)

Its surface turned completely purple, glowing like stained glass held to fire.

Raven looked past the crumpled husk of the Ascendant and saw it—a thick root at the far edge of the arena began to unwind like a curled finger. Behind it, a tunnel yawned open.

The exit.

He unsummoned the team, and walked alone.

The path led into a chamber that didn’t belong to the boss. It felt older. Quieter. A space untouched by violence, shaped like a hollowed study. Scrolls and bone charms hung from root rafters. Fungal light glowed from amber orbs.

Ritescar Ferun reading a book at the corner of the towering book shelves, unmoving. The glow of his robes didn’t flicker. His expression didn’t change.

Raven stepped forward, the purple talisman still glowing against his chest as he removed his mask. The mechanical arms clicked and released their grip from around his head.

Ferun looked at him, eyes unreadable.

"So it ends," he said. Not with reverence. Just certainty.

[Quest Complete: Vault of the Rootbound – Buried Will, Unbroken Blood]

Main Objective: Complete the Trial of Growth within the Vault. (3/3)

Secondary Objective: Defeat the Root-Soul Ascendant before it devours another soul. (100%)

Raven held out the talisman—fully purple now, the mark of three trials passed. His armor was still scorched at the shoulders. One hand rested loosely on his waist. The chain wrapped on his arms start cooled down from the long battle.

Ferun didn’t blink. "And the Vault?"

"Quiet," Raven said. "All dead."

Ferun turned, reached into the folds of his robes, and pulled free something wrapped in dark cloth and sealed with a knot of root fiber.

"The Circle doesn’t reward outsiders. But the Vault... remembers effort."

He extended the bundle.

Raven unwrapped it slowly. Inside was a mantle of muted violet bark-threads and faded green stitchwork—the Root-Soul Warden’s Mantle. A cloak once worn by trial stewards, reforged from the Vault’s own remains.

[Vault Relic Acquired: Root-Soul Warden’s Mantle]

Class : Mage Robe – Unique

+ Resistance to psychic and illusion effects

+ Reactive bark pulse at low HP (stun aura)

Raven stored it in his inventory. His current cloak was better—but this one would fetch a good price on the market.

"Let me guess," he said. "No one else gets one of these?"

"Not unless they walk out alive," Ferun replied.

Raven cracked a tired smile. "And most don’t."

Ferun looked down at the fading glow on the floor. "The Vault takes its due. You were not due."

Then, as if finished, he turned back to the study, his eyes lock again at the tome he read.

"You may leave. Or stay. But the Vault is silent again. That is all that matters."

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om