Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler
Chapter 49: [Roots of Dominion 8] - Birth of the Hollow Bloom

Chapter 49: [Roots of Dominion 8] - Birth of the Hollow Bloom

The Root-Soul Ascendant rose from the floor, not summoned but birthed. Its body wasn’t a shape. It was a mistake.

Arms layered over arms, bark peeled into blade-like spirals, roots coiling through its ribs like vines growing through a corpse. From the hollow socket where a face should be, jagged teeth churned without lips, wet and blind. And then it spoke.

Not words. Not sound. Pressure.

A hundred screams, barely woven into meaning, tried to fit into a single mouth.

"Struggle more. Suffer more. Be MY compost."

Raven flinched. Not because of the words. But because they crawled inside his ears and stayed there. His HUD glitched for a split second—a blink, a line of code distorted.

The arena began to breathe.

Walls pulsed. Roots bled from the cracks. Darkness thickened like swamp mist, but heavier—sentient. The floor shifted beneath their feet, rising and falling like lungs. A ripple of black water spread beneath the stone floor, untouched but restless, like something watching from below.

The rib-like roots began to close in overhead, curling inward as if preparing to devour them.

Runes flickered like candlelight. Sap dripped from the ceiling, hissing where it struck stone. The air stank of rot and iron—like something had died a thousand times and was still dying now.

And embedded into the arena wall, half-fused with root and bark, were the outlines of other players. Corpses, maybe. Or echoes. Armor still gleaming. Hands twitching.

"Phase-bound arena," Raven muttered, breath tight. "It’s going to shift. Every few seconds. If we don’t push tempo, it’ll eat us."

The first summon came.

Two Spitegrowth Sentinels burst through the wall—one a twisted healer, dragging leeching vines like torn nerves; the other a skeletal caster wrapped in barbed roots. They moved in sync.

Before anyone could react, the healer raised its arms, vines flaring outward in a leeching aura.

"Seneschal!"

Ironbark slammed forward, roots surging beneath him. The healer halted mid-cast, tangled in vines. Phantom Seer flickered around the caster, scattering illusion like broken glass.

Duskrunner leapt forward—vanished—reappeared. One strike. Then another.

But the caster wasn’t idle.

It threw a root-spike toward Seer. The Phantom twisted, dodging just as its mirror-self lunged from a nearby Growth Mirror—almost striking it.

Phantom Seer stumbled. Its own mirror clipped it with a psychic blast.

Raven’s eyes narrowed. The Growth Mirrors weren’t just reflective—they were algorithmic traps. Any action repeated within ten seconds was captured and countered. Now, Phantom Seer had dodged left just seconds ago—so its mirror struck back in perfect mimicry.

"It’s using our own echoes now," Phantom Seer hissed.

Raven moved fast, eyes tracking the healer. He dodged a leech lash, then hurled his chain wide.

Dominion Chain connected.

He didn’t pull. He vaulted. Grappled the chain like a hook, launched himself sideways, then stabbed downward with both dagger ends into a vine-fed husk flanking the healer.

The husk exploded. Spore burst. Duskrunner took a hit—staggered.

"Cover!"

Phantom Seer slashed the caster across the back. Ironbark crushed the healer beneath a blooming root.

The Sentinels died.

The arena dimmed—just for a moment. Runes faded. Roots coiled tighter. The Ascendant did not move. For five seconds, it stood utterly still. Like it was digesting.

Raven staggered back. He unclipped a vial from his belt, twisted it open with his teeth, and drank. The healing potion burned his throat—too bitter, too fast. His muscles screamed under the cooldown strain. His lungs dragged in stale air that smelled like ironwood and decay.

But the Ascendant moved.

Its chest cracked open like a rotten tree splitting from within. Inside: a soul. Glowing. Weeping. Healer type.

It inhaled the burst of green mist from the exploded corpse of the destroyed sentinel.

"It just healed. AoE leech aura." Phantom Seer’s voice shook. Not from pain. From understanding.

The arena convulsed like a massive nerve had been struck.

A new sentinel is summoned, another summon phase.

The bark wall peeled again—this time slower, heavier. A new figure emerged—larger, armored in jagged, thorn-wrapped bark. Its shield pulsed green. The Defender.

Behind it, the Healer Sentinel reformed.

Raven’s jaw tensed. "We didn’t finish her for good."

The Defender thudded forward. With each step, the ground sagged beneath its weight. Bark plates slid into position over its chest like living armor.

The Healer opened its arms—casting Leech Aura again, binding to the Defender. Roots slithered between them like veins.

Phantom Seer lunged in, claws flashing. Bounce. The hit rebounded. Seer blinked out, stunned.

"Reflected damage! It’s rejecting contact!"

Duskrunner flanked wide. Roots shifted. He stumbled.

The Healer began a full restoration. Ironbark slammed the ground. The pulse caught them both.

"Cut the link!"

Raven hurled his chain. Dominion Chain locked on the Healer. He spun—grappled midair—landed behind. Twin daggers plunged.

The Healer cracked. Exploded.

A spore burst. Raven winced. Duskrunner growled.

But the Defender wasn’t done. It slammed its shield down—Thorn Slam.

A fan of jagged roots flared outward. Phantom Seer was clipped.

"Split them!"

Ironbark raised a root wall. Phantom Seer flickered. Duskrunner surged.

One last push. Raven lunged. His chain struck—snared the shield arm.

Seneschal slammed again.

The Defender crumbled.

Raven exhaled. "Now it’s learning to defend what matters. Good."

The bark on the Ascendant’s arms split open. Root-chains slithered free, twitching like sensory limbs.

"This one knew pain. I will carry it well."

Then the ground exploded again. Roots surged like a heartbeat, building pillars of bark and bone. They slammed around Raven, boxing him in. The arena no longer had walls. It had ribs.

The mirrors came next. They didn’t grow—they emerged. As if they’d always been watching, just waiting for someone to look. Shards of bark, polished to glassy smoothness, slid from the inner ribs with grotesque clicks, forming along the root-pillars. Each one turned slightly inward—reflective and almost sentient.

Raven caught his own face in one. It blinked a half-second later. A reflection not of now, but of a moment ago. Wrong. Too late. Too knowing.

Roots squelched into place with a sickening wet sound. Moisture dripped from above—not water, but thick, pinkish resin.

"They’re closing the view! Move! We’ll lose each other!"

Raven spun. No clean path. He threw his chain again, hooked a pillar, vaulted up. Landed behind a mirror. Shattered it with a strike.

Duskrunner slid into the gap beside him.

Then he saw it.

Reflections.

Growth Mirrors lit up—bark polished to near-glass. They replayed motion.

Ten seconds ago, Phantom Seer dodged left. Now its reflection lunged at itself.

It missed.

But not by much.

"Mirrors are live! Don’t repeat your moves!" Raven snapped. "They memorize your last ten seconds—if you do the same action twice, they’ll echo it back at you like a counterspell."

The air felt thick. Not from heat.

From watching.

Like the boss wasn’t fighting them.

It was remembering them.

His mask hummed. Soul Pressure hit max. 10 stacks.

"Now," Raven muttered.

He blinked left. Phantom Bind. He teleported behind the Ascendant’s blind side. One clean slash, the blade sinking in.

It turned.

Raven dropped, rolled, barely dodging the return strike. A root-arm shattered the stone where he stood.

"Duskrunner—Alpha’s Wrath. Go."

The wolf vanished again, claws out. Damage numbers flashed. The Ascendant reeled.

But not truly.

It moved like memory. Like it knew this fight already.

Like it’d done this before.

Raven felt it—his body rebelling. Fatigue. Soreness. Even breathing felt like dragging weight.

"Seneschal. Growth Denial Slam."

A quake rippled through the ground as Ironbark struck.

The boss staggered.

Rootbound Pulse triggered again.

Another summon phase.

Another Sentinel—a caster. It emerged mid-cast, caught in the tremor. Phantom Seer lunged with an illusion. Duskrunner tackled from behind. Raven lashed a chain.

Crack.

The Sentinel died.

The boss twitched.

Phase absorbed.

Root-chains burst out like whips. One clipped Ironbark. Another missed Duskrunner by inches.

The floor rippled.

A vine dropped from the ceiling, trying to impale Raven’s shadow. He sidestepped—barely.

Boss HP: 50%

Raven froze.

"Hollow Bloom is coming. Whoever gets marked... survive. Everyone else: break them out. If we fail? That player’s locked out for the rest."

He clenched his jaw.

Then the pressure changed.

Like something huge had just noticed them.

Then the mark burned into Duskrunner’s back.

[Seed Chosen: Duskrunner Alpha]

Roots burst from beneath the wolf. Vines coiled like skeletal armor, dragging him down. His muscles bulged, paws dragging trenches. He didn’t scream. He refused to.

Vision tunneled. Roots wrapped his legs. His chest. Something reached for his muzzle—trying to silence him.

"Seer! Seneschal! Break him out!"

Time ticked.

[Growth: 20%]

[Growth: 30%]

Phantom Seer slashed. Ironbark surged with a stun pulse. The bark cracked.

[Growth: 50%]

"Pull him now or he’s gone!"

Raven moved the other way, pulling the boss, baiting its gaze. Its faceless head tilted.

It began to walk. It’s its finishing move, the insta death slash for them who gets trapped inside the root.

"No you don’t," Raven growled.

He spun his chain. Threw it.

Dominion Chain landed.

The Ascendant staggered. The scream came again.

Not a roar.

A collapse of suffering. A choir of broken throats.

Raven’s arms shook. The chain trembled in his grip.

[Growth: 60%]

[Growth: 70%]

He couldn’t hold it forever.

"You will not touch them!"

Every part of him burned. The mask seared. His muscles locked. But he pulled.

He knew what would happen if the boss reached the bound Duskrunner.

Instant death.

The bark reached Duskrunner’s chest.

The Ascendant loosed a guttural, grinding growl—half-laugh, half-hunger. It reverberated through the root-walls like a beast choking on the joy of a meal it hadn’t finished.

"Good fight. Real struggle. You might’ve earned your own roots... had I let you."

The pressure behind the words surged again, thick and invasive.

"Stay. Let me wrap you into the foundation. Grow inside me. Slowly. For a thousand years."

The way the Root-Soul Ascendant loomed—its eyeless cavity angled just slightly downward—felt like being watched not as an opponent, but as raw material. Something it intended to absorb, slowly and deliberately, to become part of its eternal compost. Not dead. Just... repurposed.

The words pressed inward—not into the air, but into Raven’s thoughts, like the weight of a claw placed gently on the mind. It wasn’t praise. It was a dismissal.

The way the Root-Soul Ascendant loomed—its eyeless cavity angled just slightly downward—felt like being observed by something that didn’t see him as a threat, but as a future ingredient. Like a beast evaluating if this one ant was worth not crushing.

And stepped forward again.