Void Crowne - Book 1 - Chapter 77 (Patreon)

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Table of Contents

Click on the following link for the 1440 word Chapter 77:

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Somewhere on Furtruna

McKayne Ivy feels irritated beyond belief as she brings forty-nine of her elven elites into the latest dungeon that the Void Crowne sent to their planet. Because she wasn’t able to show up immediately to deal with it thanks to it being sent during the World Council discussion period.

Did the Void Crowne purposefully leave the World Council early to send this? It’s despicable.

She also has to wonder how many Victory Points he’s spent on additional dungeons, since she’s heard that this wasn’t the only additional dungeon he sent during the World Council. Another one appeared far away from any of their cities that they only learned about through the World Chat. And the nymphs, who are closest to it, won’t be able to reach it for at least a day. Even when taking shortcuts through portals.

This makes for a total of four Assaults he has sent at once.

Ivy narrows her eyes when she and her group find a room within the mineshaft. One with a chest at the center of the room.

She nods her head towards the elites around her, making them all move to surround the chest without another word. Having already become used to this process over the course of the Void Crowne’s Assaults.

Things turn out differently this time, however, as the mimic suddenly begins to emit a sinister black mist from its body before jumping forward at a speed far faster than any mimic has ever done before in a fight against them. Surprising the elites around it into faltering and letting the mimic chomp down on two of their elites at once. Crushing both of them and killing them instantly.

Ivy clicks her tongue while she and the other elves in the room – those that could fit in the room – fire off numerous arrows at the mimic. Killing it via turning the monster into a pincushion.

“Stay focused,” Ivy says before turning around and leaving the room. “The Void Crowne has begun infusing skills into his monsters.”

She ignores the grim looks on her elites’ faces as she begins walking through the tunnels of the mineshaft once more. But not even a minute later, a short scream sounds from the back of the group, making her turn around to find several of her elven elites firing arrows into the tunnel behind them. Only to miss whatever caused the screams as it vanishes, leaving behind a blur of black mist.

Ivy quickly moves through the elites to inspect their flank, but all she finds is the absence of two of her elites. No corpses, and no signs of what took them beyond the black mist.

It took them? It must be one of the arachnids, but they usually attack and leave the corpses behind. Why is it taking the corpses?

She narrows her eyes while mentally going over the skills she remembers from the intel she was given. And it doesn’t take long for a few skills to come to mind.

Could it be feeding the corpses to other monsters for the source mana?

In the outside galaxy, many of the Void Crowne’s skills are unknown, but some of them are very public. Such as the Void Crowne’s ability to directly devour other creatures to slowly absorb the source mana within them and grow stronger.

It’s a skill that the Supreme Empress of the Void Throne has given numerous voidlings over the years, and is the very reason no force facing the voidlings allows their corpses to remain intact after death. Because those corpses would serve to empower their own foes.

As for the skill the mimic and arachnid are using, she isn’t sure. There are too many Void Crowne skills that emit the black mist, so there isn’t a way for her to be sure yet. And she doesn’t know most of his skills even if she knows some.

“Keep moving,” Ivy declares while turning around and continuing through the tunnel. “Keep a close watch on our surroundings. Make sure the arachnids don’t get any more of our number.”

And, despite her warning, not even ten minutes later, another two of her elites vanish under the attack of another arachnid. And the most they manage to do to stop it is reveal it for a moment before it escapes.

Ivy feels livid at the thought of how many elites she will lose by the end of this. But some of that anger fades away when she, after facing two more mimics, finds a real loot box filled with three rare items and a single epic item in it. Proving just how difficult this dungeon is compared to the average strength of their planet.

If I can get more items like this, it might make up for some of the lost elites.

And when she gets another epic rarity item in the loot box they find after two more mimics, she begins to feel conflicted. Because she also lost two more elites to the arachnids before reaching the loot box, along with a few more to the mimics, bringing her total numbers down to just thirty-two elves remaining out of the fifty total she came in with including herself.

Overall, she still feels regretful about this dungeon. If they had managed to take down even one more of the arachnids during this time, she would’ve felt better.

But even after traversing the dungeon for hours, they have still only managed to kill a single arachnid. And they don’t know exactly how many arachnids there are.

What’s worse is that they haven’t even seen the blightlings yet, nor have they seen many of the zombies.

Ivy gets a bad feeling about this.

If it were me, I would give the zombies the Devour skill, making these zombies much larger threats than they would normally be.

She takes a deep breath before continuing. All the way until they arrive at a vast chamber with numerous minecarts and ores lining the sides of the chamber.

What attracts her gaze the most, however, isn’t any of that.

It’s the blighted broodmother standing behind an army of blightlings, zombies, and elite void golems at the back of the chamber. Surrounded by large deposits of ore as if it’s standing in some large throne section of the chamber.

“Find high ground and attack,” Ivy says, her eyes narrowing as she herself jumps up onto large mounts of ore near the entrance and begins to fire arrows into the army of blightlings and zombies charging them.

It doesn’t take long for her to change her mind, though. Specifically after her arrows hit the blightlings and she feels pain in the same places her arrows hit them.

Ivy’s eyes widen before she looks down at her arms and torso to find much smaller arrow wounds on herself despite her not taking any hits from the monsters. Not to mention the monsters not having any arrows.

And the wounds are much smaller than the arrow wounds on the blightlings.

Is this… what skill is this?

She’s never heard of a damage reflection skill on the Void Crowne before.

Wait, how is he even infusing skills into these blightlings when they’re monsters created by the blighted broodmother? Or is this some sort of skill infused into the boss?

Regardless, when she sees her elite elves all taking injuries from shooting the blightlings, she grits her teeth and shouts, “Target the zombies, then retreat!”

They have to kill the zombies before they get the chance to level up any further, since she can tell they’re higher level than they should be. And they will only level up further if they’re allowed to eat more corpses.

Our corpses aren’t the only ones they can eat, after all.

She grits her teeth at that thought while firing more arrows at the enemies. Taking injuries herself whenever her arrows land on the blightlings to keep them back.

These blightlings are terrifying.

Not only do they have to worry about being infected by the blight, but now they also have to take damage just to kill the blightlings. Their current numbers aren’t enough to handle this force. Especially since the monsters in the dungeon specifically acted in a way to delay them from arriving at the boss, giving the blighted broodmother more time to birth more blightlings.

I need to report this to the others before we return.

With that thought in mind, Ivy helps cover their retreat as they gradually finish off the zombies and escape from the chamber. Following which they retreat all the way back towards the entrance.