RoleplayNovel Chapter 153: Victory
Chapter 153: Victory
Night Espresso’s traps showed their power almost immediately.
Along the waterfall’s edge, magic circles buried in the soaked soil began to wake. Lines of light surfaced beneath the torrent, spread through the mud, and erupted before the Ant Queen could force her way any higher.
The first trap burned red. Fire blasted through the curtain of water and turned the falling stream into hissing steam that swallowed her body. She pushed through it with smoke rising from her skin, only for a blue sigil to flare beneath her next step and freeze a whole section of the cliffside solid.
Before the ice could hold her, she tore through the frozen earth and ripped herself free.
A violet mark flashed overhead before she could regain her balance. Lightning slammed into her back, bright enough to make the entire cascade glow for an instant. Her body twitched from the impact, yet her four arms only dug deeper into the cliff.
Another spell bloomed beneath the water a heartbeat later. Green light spun into a violent gale that bent the torrent sideways and hurled the full weight of the rushing water against her body.
Even that failed to knock her down.
She clawed into another patch of soil and dragged herself onward, more terrifying with every hurdle and every groan. Fire scorched her. Ice cracked beneath her hands. Lightning burned across her back, and wind kept slamming her against the cliffside. Instead of breaking her, each magical explosion seemed to make her hatred heavier.
Darkness thickened around her like a living shadow as she crawled through the collapsing path.
For a while, Martin worried their plan might not work.
Then Cascade Valley shuddered beneath the pressure. The land itself seemed to answer Night Espresso’s final trap as radiant cracks spread through the cliffside and the torrent roared louder. Deep inside the bank, an earth-colored magic circle pulsed once.
The detonation came from within.
At last, the soil gave way.
For one breathless moment, the waterfall looked like it had spat the Monument of the Dark back into the lake.
Martin’s muscles tightened the instant she fell, and Ao Tenshin reacted with him. Her claws struck the rushing water, her shell angled forward, and her massive body launched down the cliff after the boss. Martin pressed himself flat against her scales while the world around him dissolved into water, wind, and falling darkness.
Spray battered his face and stung his eyes. The roar of the cascade swallowed almost every sound except his own breath and Ao Tenshin’s fierce, adorable growl.
She chased the final boss with everything she had, and Martin understood how narrow their chance had become.
If they missed her here, she would crash into the lake, recover, and turn every sacrifice Night Espresso had made into nothing.
Across the battlefield, the surviving guild members seemed to realize the same thing. No one spoke for a heartbeat. Every player held their breath while Martin and Ao Tenshin plunged after the falling Ant Queen.
Then the guild channel erupted.
[GO, EMPEROAR!]
[GO, AO TENSHIN!]
[GET HER DOWN!]
Other voices joined in, overlapping into a storm of desperate support.
[FINISH HER!]
[DON’T LET HER GET AWAY!]
[THIS IS OUR WIN!]
Their shouts reached Martin through the roar of the torrent. Some voices were hoarse, others were laughing, and a few sounded close to tears. Together, they carried the weight of every player who had fallen to bring him to this moment.
Adrenaline sharpened his vision until the world seemed to slow around him. Water droplets flashed past with impossible clarity. Each heartbeat struck harder than the last, and the distance between him and the Ant Queen kept shrinking.
They were already descending faster than her.
This was their chance to strike first.
"Angel!"
Ao Tenshin obeyed instantly. She tucked her legs, twisted her shell, and tilted her entire body at the perfect angle, changing their plunge into a launch.
Martin tightened his grip around the Crystal Spear and pushed off from her shell with every ounce of strength left in him.
For one impossible instant, he was no longer riding the torrent. He was flying through it.
Blessed radiance blazed along the Crystal Spear’s edge as water split around him and wind screamed past his ears. Behind him, Ao Tenshin roared in her own beastly way, and the guild’s cheers thundered through his channel.
Martin became the spear itself, a single point of light dropping toward the heart of the Monument of the Dark.
Their eyes met in midair.
In Martin’s black eyes, the Ant Queen saw cold resolve. For every fallen comrade and every sacrifice that had led to this moment, he would finish her.
She moved her four arms, but she was too late.
That single look made her hesitate just long enough for the Crystal Spear to strike first and pierce straight into her stomach.
Blood fountained out as the blazing edge sank deeper.
Martin clenched his teeth, drove his shoulder behind the weapon, and poured all of his falling weight into the thrust. The monster’s body folded around the impact, pinned in midair for a split second before gravity seized them both.
Together, they dropped.
They crashed into the black lake with a thunderous explosion. Water erupted around them in a towering pillar, and the force of the impact swallowed them whole, dragging them deeper through the cold darkness. Above them, even the noise of the battlefield faded into nothing.
During the plunge, cracks spread from the wound around the Crystal Spear, and the Ant Queen’s body went rigid.
Bright gold poured into her system like liquid sunlight, empowered by the Light Tree’s Blessing. Rather than merely wound her, it invaded every vein of darkness inside her and pushed through the corruption that had shaped her existence.
The Ant Queen tried to scream, but the lake swallowed the sound.
Radiant lines raced across her stomach, chest, arms, and face. Light leaked from every crack while the black aura around her recoiled, peeled away in strips, and dissolved into the water like ash.
Her hatred thrashed one last time. The blessing burned deeper anyway, erasing the Dark Force from within.
By the time Martin and the Ant Queen struck the lakebed, her eyes had gone hollow and filled with radiance.
No sound came from her anymore.
For one final second, the Monument of the Dark hung beneath him, cracked from head to toe and stripped of everything that had made her terrifying. She was no longer unstoppable. She was only an empty shell filled with light.
Then she shattered.
Countless particles swept outward with the remains of the Crystal Spear. They surged through the black lake first, chasing the darkness out of the water, then rose through the surface and spread across Cascade Valley.
The waterfall brightened. The corrupted soil softened. The dark pressure weighing over the valley finally broke as purifying radiance washed over everything.
[Guild Night Espresso has claimed the Cascade Valley for themselves.]
[The Dark Force permeating the Cascade Valley has been purified and is now part of the Territory Management System available to the Guild Leader and their advisors.]
For a moment, Martin floated near the lakebed with trembling arms, burning lungs, and fading particles drifting past his face like dying stars. The Crystal Spear was gone. The Ant Queen was gone. The impossible fight was over.
The realization hit him all at once.
He kicked upward, broke through the lake’s surface, and dragged in a ragged breath. Water poured down his face and armor while his whole body shook from exhaustion, adrenaline, and disbelief.
When he looked across the purified valley, the waterfall shone above him, and Ao Tenshin cut through the water toward him.
His hands curled into fists. His shoulders lifted. A wild laugh escaped his throat, and then he threw his head back and screamed with everything he had.
"WE FUCKING DID IT!"
The entire guild lost all decorum and echoed his scream through the guild channel.
[WE FUCKING DID IT!]
Martin’s adrenaline surged even higher.
For one breathless moment, he was at the center of everything. The valley was theirs, the impossible victory was real, and everyone was cheering with him so loudly that his thoughts nearly scattered.
He wanted to see the smiles of his party members, maybe claim a few hugs, and maybe even steal a few kisses. So much heat and testosterone flooded through him that he didn’t know if he would be able to contain himself in front of his friends.
Then a cold system message cut through the rush and dragged him back to his senses.
[Victoria has sent you a friend request.]
Victoria?
He opened her profile and froze when he saw Just Die’s Guild Leader adding him as a friend.
[You have accepted Victoria’s friend request.]
[Victoria: Hello. I come with but a single request. First, let me congratulate you on defeating Just Die and claiming the Cascade Valley for Night Espresso, Emperoar.]
[Emperoar: Hi, and thanks. What’s your request?]
[Victoria: Raze Dawg’s legendary sword. I want to buy it from you.]