WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom

Craze walked through the dimly lit hallway, his footsteps echoing against the stone walls. At the end of the corridor, he stepped into the arena.

It was nothing like the grand coliseums filled with roaring crowds. Here, only a few dozen eyes were locked onto him, silent, and full of expectation.

Eyes that said one thing: You die if you lose.

But Craze didn't care. In a place like this, losing already meant death. He slammed the head of his battle axe against the ground, the clang ringing sharply through the empty stands.

From the opposite gate, his opponent emerged. A Nephirid warrior, no, something more. He brandished a black scimitar that radiated heat, the blade shimmering like it had been forged in fire. His obsidian skin was marred by countless scars.

Craze's eyes widened in recognition, his grip tightening on the axe handle.

'They paired me with an Ashborn warrior?! Are they nuts?!'

This was one of the five Ashborn who had ambushed the Magus. After their humiliating failure, they were punished harshly. And this one?

Now he was nothing more than a tool for entertainment, thrown into the arena like a beast, forced to fight for the crowd's amusement.

Atop the arena wall, a dozen Krell crawled silently, ant-like, with chitinous limbs clicking softly against the stone. Their compound eyes glowed faintly as they watched every movement below. Through the hive link, streams of data flowed back in real-time, feeding directly into Taleth's vision and Ben's personal console miles away.

From the shadows, Taleth narrowed his eyes, perched like a gargoyle on a high beam, invisible to the crowd.

[Target confirmed. Nephirid royalty present.]

Ben leaned forward over his crystal interface as the feed sharpened. His expression hardened.

Below, the Nephirid prince arrived. His armor shimmered with metallic inlays. A thin crimson cloak trailed behind him, held by two retainers, both female, heavily armed, their horns polished and ceremonial masks veiling their faces.

Behind them three guards bearing glaives, and a tall male Nephirid fire priest with glowing tattoos pulsing like veins of lava. He stopped at the royal balcony and sat, eyes locked on the arena floor.

On the opposite side of the arena, three cloaked figures slipped into the viewing deck.

Taleth seating on a private room on a bar, narrowed his eyes on the interface. 'Unknown identities. One tall, hunched. One slim. Just who are they?'

Ben's voice hummed through the link. 'Watch them. Try to listen to their conversation .'

Taleth didn't reply. He was already moving, guiding one of the Krell ants toward the cloaked figures. It crawled silently across the stone… closer… closer…

Then, without warning, one of the hooded men, the hunched one, turned his head. The atmosphere shifted instantly.

BAM!

The Krell ant burst into a cloud of blood and shattered chitin.

The hunched figure chuckled, his voice dry and rasping. "What a filthy place. You should clean up more often, Prince."

The Nephirid prince frowned but didn't rise to the provocation. He simply replied, coldly, "Remember your deal. If we win, you will help us."

"Kekeke… taking care of the daemon, yes, yes." The hunched one's grin widened beneath his hood. "Don't worry. If you win, we'll help."

He raised one withered hand, shriveled, blue-skinned, the flesh pulled tight over bones. His nails were dark and sharp.

A pulse of crimson light flared around him. A blood-red magic circle bloomed in the center of the arena.

Dark miasma erupted from the circle, flooding the arena with a choking, unnatural fog. Both Craze and the Ashborn warrior stiffened.

Dread crawled down their spines. Even the crowd fell silent.

The hunched hooded man chuckled darkly.

"Kill this… and we will help you."

His crimson eyes gleamed from beneath the hood.

"Lose… and you will give us what we want."

As he lowered his hand, the blood-red magic circle pulsed violently. The ground within the arena cracked, and from the broken stone, rivers of blood seeped upward, followed by white bones.

The arena shook. A vibration echoed as the blood and bone coiled together, merging, twisting, warping into something monstrous.

From the bubbling pool of gore, five serpentine necks rose. Each head took shape of draconic skulls, layered in dark scales, fanged jaws dripping with venomous smoke. Their eyes glowed with sickly green light.

The body followed, thick and muscular. Spikes appeared along its spine, and wings made of bone unfurled with a crack.

A five-headed draconic hydra stood tall in the center of the arena, spreading it malevolent aura. Even the Ashborn warrior flinched.

Craze swallowed hard, gripping his axe tighter. 'What the hell kind of match is this…?'

At this point, Craze realized his true enemy wasn't the Ashborn warrior, it was the monstrous hydra standing before him.

The beast roared, five voices screaming in unison, shaking the arena as it charged forward.

Ben frowned as he watched everything unfold. 'That mana… it feels like aether.' He couldn't sense the energy directly, but there was something in its flow.

Beside him, Elvira narrowed her eyes. "That's necromancy. A ancient spell. I thought it had been lost."

"Lost?" Ben asked, glancing at her.

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Not a single record of it exists, not even in the archives of my kingdom. Whatever that is… it's forbidden magic. Long erased. Or so we thought."

Meanwhile back at the arena, The Nephirid Prince's voice rang out. "Kill it."

Craze gritted his teeth. The Ashborn warrior didn't speak, just flexed his fingers around the scimitar, molten heat radiating from the blade.

The five-headed hydra surged forward like a nightmare, its scaled bodies twisting together into a wall of snapping jaws and lashing necks. Each head moved independently, one spewing acidic mist, another biting into the ground, tearing stone like paper, while the others prepared to strike.

Craze come first. His battle axe glowed faintly. He rolled beneath a slamming head, sprang up, and buried the axe into the beast's neck. Blood spurted, but the wound began to close almost instantly.

The Ashborn didn't bother dodging. Instead, he met the hydra's strike with his bare fists.

CRACK!

His punch met the income jaw mid-snap, shattering teeth and sending a shockwave through the arena. The beast reeled, but the next head was already upon him.

Craze didn't waste the moment. He climbed up the hydra's spine, using the beast's scales as footholds. His axe burned as he swung with both hands, BAM!, cleaving through one neck entirely.

But the victory was short-lived. The severed stump pulsed, twisted, and two heads erupted from it, hissing in unison.

"Are you kidding me?!" Craze shouted.

Elvira's expression tightened. "Regeneration… "

Ben narrowed his gaze, "That's not much, but if he can create creature like that as many as he want, than it will be dangerous…"

Back in the pit, the Ashborn warrior unleashed his molten core. Fire burst from his body, his skin glowing like a furnace.

With a roar, he leapt into the air, slamming his scimitar down into the hydra's heart. The blade exploded with heat, burning through hide and muscle.

The hydra shrieked. Craze, still hanging on its back, leapt off just in time as three heads struck where he'd been an instant earlier.

One head come toward the Ashborn, but this time, he wasn't fast enough. The massive jaw clamped down on his arm, CRUNCH!, blood sprayed.

But he didn't fall. He roared, muscles bulging, and ripped his own arm free, still clenched in the hydra's mouth, and drove his scimitar into the neck with his remaining hand. The head went limp.

Craze hit the ground hard, rolled, and saw an opening.

"Move!" he shouted.

The Ashborn stepped aside just in time as Craze hurled his axe in a spinning arc, BAM!, embedding it deep between the hydra's eyes.

The beast screamed again, all five heads writhing.

Then the Ashborn threw his last weapon, his own molten arm, still burning with internal heat, into the hydra's chest. The flesh detonated with internal fire, igniting its heart.

The creature collapsed, twitching, steaming, burning from the inside out.

The Ashborn warrior staggered back, blood still dripping from where his arm had been.

Steam hissed from the stump. Charred flesh pulsed, and beneath it, new muscle grew. Bone twisted and reformed in real time.

Within seconds, his arm regenerated. He flexed his fingers, smirking. "Is that all?.

Craze didn't reply. His eyes were fixed on the hydra.

The corpse was moving again. The twitching turned into a ripple.

The ripple into spasms. Then a heartbeat. The blackened heart reignited with a green glow.

Steam rose as flesh regrew. Scales knitted together. Muscles twitched and snapped back into place within second.

The axe embedded in its skull was pushed out, clattering to the ground.

Craze's face darkened. "Damt it!"

The hydra rose again, fully restored, but now… there were six heads.

The newest one coiled high above the rest, its jaws wide. A burning light flickered in its throat.

The Ashborn's eyes narrowed. "Incoming!"

BAM!!!

The sixth head unleashed a torrent of fire, hotter than dragonflame, white at the core, edged with black smoke. The blast struck the ground where Craze and the Ashborn stood.