The Whispering Gallery was no longer just a room of stone; it was an instrument, and Kaelen was playing it perfectly.
"Stay back! I said stay back!" the Mage shrieked, his voice cracking. He unleashed another fireball, the volatile sphere of orange flame illuminating the domed ceiling before detonating against a weeping angel statue. The blast sent chunks of ancient marble raining down, but the statue's shadowed visage only seemed to smile at him through the hallucinogenic mist.
From his perch near the rafters, Kaelen watched the human's mana pool drain. The [Minor Hallucinogenic Spore Vent] was working far better than he had anticipated on the fragile, intellectual mind of the spellcaster.
Down on the floor, Bram the Warrior was completely torn. He had one hand pressed desperately over the puncture wounds on the Cleric's neck, his thick fingers slick with her blood, while his eyes darted toward the erratic Mage.
"Kael, stop casting!" Bram bellowed over the echoing reverberations of the explosion. "You're burning through your mana! There's nothing there!"
"They're everywhere, Bram!" Kael stepped backward, his boots slipping on the slick flagstones. His pupils were dilated to the very edges of his irises. To his poisoned mind, every shadow was a coiled serpent, every drip of condensation a hiss. "We have to burn it all!"
He raised his staff again, the crystal at its peak glowing with a frantic, unstable blue light—a lightning spell.
Kaelen didn't wait for the spell to form. The Mage was a liability to himself, but a stray lightning bolt could bounce off the enchanted stone and hit Kaelen's perch.
With a silent flex of his metallic coils, Kaelen engaged [Camouflage Lvl 2] and dropped into the shadows beneath the curved dome. He slid rapidly down the curved wall, entirely invisible against the dark stone, and approached the Mage from the blind spot directly behind him.
"I see you!" the Mage screamed, aiming his staff wildly at a completely empty patch of darkness near the fallen marble slab. "Chain Lightning!"
A blinding arc of electricity erupted from the staff, tearing through the air and scorching the empty flagstones. The recoil threw the exhausted Mage off balance, forcing him to take a stumbling step backward.
Right into Kaelen's waiting coils.
Before Kaelen could even strike, the System chimed violently in his mind.
[Enemy Defeated: Human Cleric (Level 11)] [Experience Gained: 700 EXP] [Level Up! You are now Level 10.] [Notice: Host has reached the Tier 0 Evolution Threshold. Evolution paths will unlock upon exiting combat.]
The notification was a secondary thought. Kaelen struck.
He lunged upward, bypassing the Mage's robes entirely, and clamped his fangs directly onto the man's exposed wrist, right over the radial artery. He pumped his remaining [Basic Venom Synthesis Lvl 1] into the bloodstream.
The Mage gasped, his staff clattering to the floor. The paralytic venom, combined with the extreme adrenaline and the hallucinogenic spores, caused an immediate, violent system failure in the human's body. The Mage collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Kaelen didn't linger. He uncoiled and vanished back into the mist just as Bram charged forward with a deafening roar.
The heavy broadsword cleaved the air right where Kaelen's head had been a fraction of a second prior, sparking violently against the stone floor.
Bram stood over the fallen Mage, his chest heaving. His heavy plate armor was covered in dust, his face smeared with sweat and the blood of his healer. He looked to his left. The Cleric was dead. He looked to his right. The Rogue was gone. At his feet, the Mage was entirely unresponsive, his breath shallow and fading fast.
The Level 12 Warrior was alone in the Cataclysm-grade dungeon.
"Show yourself!" Bram roared, the sound echoing endlessly around the Whispering Gallery. "You coward! You hide in the shadows and use poison! Fight me!"
High above, Kaelen slithered to a halt on the rim of the central chandelier. He looked down at the human.
Fight you? Kaelen mused, the cold ember of his mana core pulsing with newfound Level 10 strength. A king does not fight. A king executes.
But looking at the Warrior—a man who had stood his ground, tried to protect his people, and refused to break even when his world fell apart—Kaelen felt a faint twinge of respect. It was the respect of one warrior for another. This human deserved more than a trap in the dark. He deserved the honor of a duel.
Kaelen issued a mental command to the System.
"Convert the Mage and the Cleric."
Below, the bodies of the two fallen casters dissolved into brilliant, swirling pillars of azure light, shooting upward into the ceiling.
[Conversion Complete. Human Souls and Biomass processed.] [+2,000 Dungeon Points (DP) Acquired.] [Current DP: 2,325]
Bram stumbled back, his eyes wide with horror as he watched his friends turn into raw magical energy. He raised his shield, his knuckles white.
"Turn off the hallucinogens," Kaelen commanded the System. "Turn the lights back on."
The hissing of the spore vents ceased. Slowly, the ambient, bioluminescent blue moss clinging to the vaulted ceiling flared to life, casting a cold, ethereal light over the massive chamber.
And there, descending slowly from the central chain of the chandelier, was the Lord of the Depths.
Bram stared. He had expected a massive troll, a dark sorcerer, or perhaps a feral wyvern. He did not expect a four-foot-long snake with scales that gleamed like polished copper and emeralds.
Kaelen reached the floor, sliding silently onto the flagstones. He didn't hide. He didn't camouflage. He raised the upper third of his body off the ground, flaring his neck slightly, his slit pupils locked directly onto the Warrior's eyes.
Bram swallowed hard, tightening his grip on his broadsword. The sheer density of mana rolling off the tiny creature was suffocating.
"Just you and me, then, little worm," the Warrior growled, shifting his heavy boots into a combat stance.
Kaelen let out a long, deliberate hiss that echoed through the silent chamber.
Just you and me, Kaelen thought, his metallic scales flexing. Let us see if human steel can pierce the armor of a true king.