Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 86: [Three Faces of the Blade 4] The Hound and The Ghost

Raven stood.

His boots scraped across the ash-dusted floor, the last echo of movement in a room now gone still. No stealth, no shadows. Just him, exposed under the sallow glow of failing overhead lamps. Before him, Sentinel AX-Draxos loomed like a monolith waiting for judgment.

The arena around him was less a battlefield and more a repair shop for broken ambition.

Once a Velkarin fabrication garage, the room now resembled a desecrated temple of machinery. Towering husks of prototype constructs lined the walls like statues, silent and incomplete. Some leaned broken against collapsed scaffolds, their spinal frames twisted open, heads caved in from internal detonations. Others were never finished—metal torsos fused into the floor, arms still spread like crucified offerings.

Half-formed spell cores pulsed weakly in shattered crates. Cracked containment lenses still flickered with the ghost of stored power, casting faint shadows that moved on their own.

Dust veiled everything. It lay in waves and clumps, only disturbed where combat had carved fresh scars. The ceiling was crisscrossed with gantries—twisted and blackened from past surges—sagging like rusted ribcages.

And beneath it all, something hummed.

The deeper systems muttered to themselves in broken data streams. The wall consoles clicked with no input. And the lights, though dim, blinked in an irregular rhythm—as if responding to a heartbeat no longer present.

This place didn’t feel abandoned. It felt watching.

Not a battlefield. A tomb.

Far behind him, a distant echo scraped through the metal bones of the dungeon—mechanical and wet, a chorus of warped servos.

AX-K9 was up.

But there were no spell flares. No steel impacts. No combat noise.

No one was fighting it.

That was good. It meant anyone coming for him had to pass through the beast first. A buffer of blood and metal. Temporary, but enough.

Raven looked forward again. Draxos remained locked in standby, its cannon arms inert, the chest core dim but not extinguished. Its body bore the marks of its last confrontation—cracked plating, one shoulder joint flickering as though threatening collapse.

Seventy-five percent HP. And it hadn’t reset.

He is in borrowed time.

He needed to take it down fast. Then vanish.

He wouldn’t get another clean window.

And the longer he lingered, the more likely Flaying Tiger’s reinforcements would close in. He had gutted their midboss team—but the raid group must be alive, deeper in. Maybe already at the final room. Maybe waiting. Maybe baiting.

He didn’t care.

This is the window. This is where the focus should be right now.

He recalled the Flaying Tiger roster—six core members. Three he’d already dealt with. The others? Probably watching the kill log spike. They’d be coming. Fast.

This wasn’t about dominance. It was about disappearance.

Not Ostreva. Too slow.

Not the Seer. Can’t give additional value in misdirection.

Not Emberforge Titan or the plant pair. Too slow.

His fingers brushed the dagger edge of his chain.

Duskrunner. Minimal. Fast.

I need pressure. Precision.

One clean rotation.

Then I vanish.

"Duskrunner. Come to me."

The summoning glyph at Raven’s side pulsed once—then twisted into a jagged rift of dark blue glitch.

From it, a beast emerged.

Duskrunner’s form peeled through the distortion like something unstuck from time—its fur rippling with black mist, eyes burning faintly with spectral blue. It hit the ground with a low, growling impact, claws skidding against metal.

"Oh great. Brassy metal to bite," the creature muttered, voice deep and rough like gravel over static. "Did you know metal leaves a weird taste in my tongue after I take a bite?"

"Good to know," Raven replied evenly, eyes still forward, tone flat. "Thank you for the unimportant information."

He didn’t move. His posture was still, but every muscle braced—sensing the slow, silent regeneration of the boss, the faint shift of pressure in the room.

Duskrunner padded closer beside him, staring ahead.

"So what is the important information?" the beast asked, its voice lowering toward a growl as it locked eyes with Draxos.

"We need to take it down fast," Raven said. "There are other players in this dungeon. On my signal: I go left, you go right. During the fight, if I call support—you come."

Duskrunner didn’t respond. It just shifted into a crouch, muscles coiled.

The answer was in its stance.

"Go."

Raven lunged left the moment the word left his mouth. Duskrunner broke right in a blur, claws skimming across dust-choked flooring.

Raven slowed. One step late. Not enough. Two steps.

Perfect.

From the side, Duskrunner let out a guttural growl and launched. It bit down on Draxos’s right arm, locking its jaws over the cannon housing. Sparks burst as clawed limbs raked metal, halting the golem’s firing line.

In that split-second, Raven closed in. He slashed Draxos across the side of the head.

As he passed the golem’s shoulder, his chain uncoiled. It wrapped around Draxos’s thick neck.

Raven yanked.

The construct staggered, its balance thrown off. The force of the pull sent Raven forward again, dragging his own body into a follow-through.

Blade flashed. Another stab into the side of Draxos’s head, just beneath a damaged optic cluster.

"Keep on pushing!" Raven shouted. "Use your shadow shift to dodge and reappear in the gaps!"

Duskrunner roared in response, dragging the cannon-arm further off-center. The assault had begun.

"Let it go. No use trying to outmuscle this thing! Move around, circle it! Take openings when they come! Use your shadow shift—this thing’s heavy, but slow!"

Duskrunner snarled and released Draxos’s arm, vanishing into the nearby shadows. It reappeared behind a collapsed rack of equipment—broken, dust-covered, and barely standing. Its breath growled low through the dim.

A sudden roar from Draxos cut the air.

"BURN."

Raven didn’t need a countdown. He had already calculated the angle Draxos had turned. From the way its shoulders were squared, its cannon-core was locked on Duskrunner.

He was safe.

A beam of searing energy screamed through the rack Duskrunner had just used as cover. It exploded into slag and dust—but the shadow wolf was already gone.

Duskrunner emerged from behind the construct, biting down hard on the back of Draxos’s ankle joint.

The massive golem lost balance and crashed down to one knee.

From above, a vertical shadow dropped—Raven falling like a blade.

He drove his dagger into Draxos’s head again, near the same fractured seam. The blade struck hard; recoil rattled his arm.

Draxos swept upward in defense.

Raven jumped back, boots skidding off its shoulder.

"Come to me!"

Duskrunner jumped towards Raven.

Raven used Duskrunner’s back to launch himself sideways, breaking angle again..

His hand trembled slightly. That last hit had driven deep.

"Keep moving! Don’t let it lock you!" he barked.

They separated again, circling.

Draxos pushed itself upright with a mechanical groan. Its chest glowed.

Safe Zone Burn charging.

"Circles will spawn. Pick one and hold. Wait for my signal," Raven muttered.

Three glowing rings blinked into existence.

The room dimmed. The edges of the arena pulled into shadow.

Raven took the far right. Duskrunner melted into the left, eyes glowing. Sign of its self, buff, Alpha’s Wrath. The more Duskrunner in continous attack, the higher its damage is.

All still according to plan. The buff will gone after the Safe Zone ended but that doesn’t matter. It can restart again.

The pulse swept through the floor. No mana burn. No silence.

Raven exhaled. He downed an HP potion and gritted his teeth.

Duskrunner watched him from the opposite circle, breath calm but body ready. Raven gave a slight nod—not thanks, just confirmation. The wolf blinked once, slow, like it knew they were halfway through a sprint with no brakes.

Even when you know the mechanics— Even when you outthink the players—

Fatigue comes for everyone.

The safe zone glimmers faded. The arena brightened. The Safe Zone Burn ended.

Raven broke right. His chain unspooled, lashing around Draxos’s leg once more as he dragged the giant’s stance wide.

Duskrunner burst from the left, biting into the opposite knee—coordinated, mirrored. The construct faltered, too slow to pivot, caught between predators.

"Now!" Raven called.

Duskrunner leapt, claws tearing at Draxos’s hip plate just as Raven swept low, chain in hand, slicing across its midsection. Sparks scattered from where its metal body ripped open.

Draxos lurched forward. One arm cannon fired off-target.

A low, distorted voice buzzed from its throat emitter—deeper than before, warped and crackling:

"Recalculating aggression priority. New threat identified: rogue protocol. Executing purge."

Its head twitched, trying to recalibrate.

The code lines across its shoulder flickered—an override string, half-broken. Something inside the AI core tried to adapt. But two predators didn’t give it the time to learn.

Raven twisted away, then turned sharply back.

"Left rotation!"

Duskrunner vanished again. It reappeared behind Draxos’s shoulder and struck the upper back with another bounding attack.

Raven surged forward in sync, stabbing toward the ribs. The golem swung one cannon blindly—but neither of them were there anymore.

The air trembled. Draxos roared and charged both arms.

Raven darted in—one last strike—then snapped his chain upward. It latched onto a ceiling hook.

He yanked.

The chain tightened. Draxos’s torso twisted unnaturally—its stance buckled.

Duskrunner swept in from below, claws dragging at the golem’s support leg.

Draxos fell.

A quake echoed through the floor.

Raven dropped from the hook mid-fall, slamming down with his dagger for a final drive into the exposed cluster near the head joint.

The last blow landed—deep, true.

Draxos’s body spasmed once. The core in its chest, already flickering, blinked twice more—and went dark.

The light inside the boss was out.

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