NOVPUB
Chapter 251
[Item: Kamish’s Wrath (Damaged)]
[Acquisition Difficulty: ??
Type: Dagger
Attack Power +1,500 (-1,000)]
“Wh-what a treasure...!”
“Yet it’s so damaged!”
The shadow dwarves who took the Kamish’s Wraths from Suho seemed to be feeling astonishment and horror, their beards quivering. It was a moment of both overwhelming awe and heartbreaking tragedy.
“I never thought I’d get to see a weapon forged from a dragon’s tooth!” one exclaimed.
“To think I would lay eyes on a treasure like this only after my death! It was a good thing I died, then. This is an honor for my entire family!” another shouted.
“But what kind of battle could have dulled such a blade to this extent?”
The shadow dwarves chattered away, their beards rustling as their beard hairs stood on end.
It was a deep shock for them. After all, for ordinary dwarves who had only just become part of the shadow army, the idea of crafting anything from a dragon’s tooth was nothing more than fantasy.
Where would a dwarf even obtain a dragon’s tooth? A dragon flying past wouldn’t simply pluck out its fang and toss it to them as a donation, after all. The only time most dwarves would ever see a dragon’s teeth up close would be in the moments before they were eaten.
Yet here one was, right before their eyes—and in the form of a pair of expertly crafted daggers.
“Hahaha! Excellent! Truly excellent!”
“Even blunted, they cut so well! So this is what a dragon’s tooth can—”
Beru interrupted the dwarves with a sharp screech.
“Kiek! You talk too much!”
The shadow dwarves flinched, pulling themselves together.
“So... Can you fix them?” Suho asked again.
The dwarves all spoke at once.
“Of course we can!”
“If the blades have dulled, we can simply hone them again!”
“But dragon’s teeth cannot be sharpened with ordinary whetstones.”
“We need something tougher!”
“If not a whetstone, bring us a material harder than the dragon’s tooth itself, and we’ll do our best to repair them.”
Hearing this, Suho’s expression twisted. “Something harder than this to use as a whetstone? If something like that existed, wouldn’t it be better to just use that as a weapon?”
“Haha! Not quite,” one dwarf replied. “Just because a material is hard doesn’t mean it makes a good weapon.”
“In fact, harder materials tend to be brittle and prone to breaking. But these daggers are different. Dragon fangs are hard, yet they don’t break. And they’re incredibly sensitive to mana—”
Once again, the dwarves launched into enthusiastic praise for dragon teeth.
Beru clicked his tongue and muttered, “They have always been like this, Young Monarch. But even though they are a noisy bunch, given time and the materials, they can craft just about anything. As for a material that is harder than a dragon’s tooth... I know of one.”
Having followed Jinwoo for so long, Beru had seen countless weapons repaired and reinforced by the shadow army’s blacksmiths.
“There’s really a material like that?” Suho asked.
“Yes. There are several, but the easiest to obtain right now would be dragon bones.”
“Ah...”
[Antares’ eyes suddenly widen.]
The premise was simple enough to understand. Dragon teeth and dragon bones were composed of the same base material. Bones could be more or less durable depending on the part of the body they belonged to. It was completely plausible that the right bones could be used to sharpen the blunted Kamish’s Wraths.
The shadow dwarves seemed thrilled to hear this.
“Ah! Do you have dragon bones, Master?”
“Incredible! Our master really is something!”
“I don’t have any. But my mother does,” Suho responded. He suddenly found himself wondering how she was doing.
***
Moments later, there was a flash of light, accompanied by a message.
[The King of Demons and the Monarch of Gluttony has entered the gate: “Sea of the Afterlife.”]
The same dark, sticky sky loomed overhead, and the endless expanse of ocean, like melted darkness, stretched out below. A small raft floated on the murky surface.
“Row!” a shadow dwarf barked from behind Esil.
All at once, the ten demons on board the raft split into two groups and began rowing with all their might. The raft began to move across the viscous black water, and the shadow dwarf cheered.
“Yes! It worked!”
The raft he had constructed himself was now successfully sailing across the Sea of the Afterlife.
“King of Demons! You’ve made the right choice, picking my raft over that shabby little boat!”
The shadow dwarf began to flatter the captain of the ship, Esil, as she silently stared ahead.
The dwarf was thrilled she had chosen his raft over the upgraded version, the Boat of the Afterlife. He ground his teeth as he thought about his shameless fellow dwarf, the one who had built the larger boat to show off and impress their master.
“Sure, the boat might seem sturdier right now,” he muttered, “but in the long term, a raft is the smarter choice. You need to start with a broad foundation if you want to build a bigger ship later on.”
Esil said nothing.
“Not one for small talk, huh?” said the dwarf, feeling a little embarrassed at her lack of response.
Again, Esil said nothing. Since entering the Sea of the Afterlife, she had been completely silent, her gaze fixed steadily forward.
She took a slow, measured breath.
The Death debuff.
It was just as they expected—the deathly energy swirling through the Sea of the Afterlife had no effect on demons, just as Beru had promised.
It really does... feel like coming home.
The dark, heavy atmosphere didn’t feel like death to a demon. Instead, it made Esil feel strangely comfortable as if she had returned to a time before she was even born. The ten demons rowing with her felt the same sensation.
However, that comfort wasn’t the only thing surrounding them. They were sailing through deep waters, and strange ripples began spreading in every direction as they passed. Something—or someone—had already sensed their arrival.
“Good,” Esil said, finally smiling. Her teeth gleamed white in the darkness.
Suddenly, the shadow dwarf cried, “The weeds!”
Countless weeds burst from the sea, surrounding the raft. Their grotesque tendrils reached up to seize the demons above.
“They’re trying to destroy the raft! Stop them!”
The dwarf was panicking, but the demons were in no hurry. They were all survivors of the trial, and Esil was their king.
“We have confirmed that the rafts float,” Esil said. “Now...”
She raised her hand high into the air and issued a command.
“All demons, gather before me!”
Where the King of Demons goes, the demon realm follows.
“Hell’s Army.”
As the weeds’ tentacles attacked from all directions, hundreds of magic circles formed around Esil’s raft. The circles forced the dimensional breach apart and called forth all demons who had sworn loyalty to their ruler.
With a flash, countless rafts materialized through the new gates. Each Raft of the Afterlife carried ten demons.
The weeds cheered at the shocking sight, their tentacles shaking. They were ravenous.
Unable to hold back, they reached for the demons immediately. Patience was impossible. Tasty prey had walked right into their lair!
No matter how many demons there were, the weeds outnumbered them, and to the weeds, none of the demons looked that strong.
However, the rafts carried more than just demons. Suho had sent shadow dwarves with them, one for each raft, as well as guards to protect them all until the rafts could be expanded.
The dark shadows huddled on the rafts suddenly stretched out, and many grotesque legs planted themselves firmly on the wooden planks. These shadow creatures were as big as houses, with dozens of eyes, disgusting mouths, and enormous claws. 𝒏𝒐𝙫𝙥𝙪𝙗.𝒄𝙤𝙢
These were, in fact, the kin of the boss monster that Suho had once defeated and extracted in the Monarch of Fangs’ sanctuary—the Giant Tomb Spider. Among the souls that Suho had recently pulled from the Sea of the Afterlife were even stronger members of the same species.
[Shadow Spider - Level 1 - Elite Grade]
[Shadow Spider - Level 1 - Elite Grade]
[Shadow Spider - Level 1 - Elite Grade]
[...]
The spiders shrieked, flinging dark spider silk in every direction from the rafts like fishing nets.
“Good! Bring them in! They’re the materials we need!”
“The corner of the raft’s been torn off! Patch it up with the webbing!”
“These make the perfect glue, all right!”
The shadow dwarves were ecstatic. The spiders’ webs snared every weed that tried to attack, wrapping them up tightly.
“We can get all the materials we need right here!”
“Let’s expand the rafts!”
And so the demons’ rafts, floating in the middle of the endless sea, began to grow.
***
In the Grave of the Dragons at the center of a rift filled with windblown gray ashes, the bones of dragons slain in battle littered the ground. The sheer number of bones made it look like an excavation site.
“Cha Cha.”
Haein, sitting idly atop a massive dragon bone, turned her head at the sound of Sirka calling her.
“It’s Suho. He got in touch,” the elf said.
“My son?” Haein asked, pushing aside her tousled hair. Her clear eyes gleamed.
[Sillad used the skill: “Echo.”]
As Sillad’s descendant, Sirka could “pray” and communicate directly with the dead Monarch. Though she called it “praying,” the action really functioned more like opening a direct line to Suho.
[Sillad grumbles that more respect should be shown to one’s ancestors.]
“So anyway... Suho needs dragon bones?” Haein asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Having heard about Suho’s situation through Sillad, Haein and Sirka glanced around with slightly awkward expressions.
“Do you think these will work?” Haein continued.
“Not sure,” Sirka replied.
These bones had been lying in the wasteland for ages, and in the aftermath of the war and the passage of time, they had degraded. They were in perhaps even worse shape than Kamish’s Wraths, which Suho was reportedly now using as his weapons. If his purpose was to sharpen the blades, the bones here would likely not be hard enough.
“But who knows?” Haein said. “Maybe there are still some that could work. Let’s look for the ones in the best shape.”
“All right. We don’t have much else to do anyway.”
Haein and Sirka were only here to wait for the recovery of the shadow wyvern, Kaisel. They had supplies coming in from outside the gate and were essentially camping out in the wasteland. It didn’t feel anything like a camping trip, however, since the scenery was nothing much to look at.
As they suddenly stood up with enthusiasm, Kaisel, who had been curled up sleeping, stretched for the first time in a long while. As he spread his black wings wide, they noticed that something was different about his size.
“Huh?”
“Wow...”
Haein and Sirka’s eyes sparkled with realization. He had grown much larger than before.
“At this rate, we could take the bones to Suho ourselves,” Haein said with a smile.
She would bring dragon bones as a gift to the son she hadn’t seen in a long time.
