Chapter 69 - 26: [Lord of Kana, King of the Bloodrust Crows]

Chapter 69: Chapter 26: [Lord of Kana, King of the Bloodrust Crows]

In the exact center of the Kana Plain sat a Giant Stone Array formed by a ring of white stone pillars. These towering, spike-tipped columns encircled a charred Fire-formed Rock Hall in the very center.

The Fire-formed Rock originated from the subterranean lava layers. Relying on the immense power of the Earth-Devouring Demon Insect, the Monarch had excavated the stone from deep below. Slave laborers were then whipped into hauling the Fire-formed Rock to the surface to construct the entrance to the Underground City.

The clearing within the Giant Stone Array bristled with long poles. Skulls of trespassers who had dared to enter the Underground City over the years were impaled on the tips alongside Wild Battle Banners crafted from rawhide. Faded, foul blood and russet iron ore pigment were smeared across the fluttering leather banners, depicting a Demon Crow with outspread wings. Though adventurers entering the Underground City had chopped down most of these poles, a scattered few remained standing. They served as a warning—a paradoxical blend of cruel benevolence and gentle malice—radiating a condescending arrogance.

No sculptures or idols were enshrined within the Divine Hall. The high altar held only a massive white stone, a specialty of Kana. Its surface was completely bare, pure, and ordinary, so clean that nothing could be seen but the distinct natural grain of the rock.

Some believed this white stone was a symbol of the Kana Plain’s primitive nature gods. Before delving into the Underground City, certain adventurers would place offerings—like dry flatbread or cheap Magic Potions—before the boulder, praying devoutly for a stroke of luck on their expedition. Upon leaving the Underground City, they would also present a symbolic piece of their hard-earned spoils before the stone.

Other adventurers argued the boulder was a symbol of Valak, the Lord of the Kana Plain—a crude effigy of the Demon Monarch. They sneered at those who offered tributes to a white stone for good luck. Ultimately, however, these skeptics were in the minority. After all, humanity always needed something to believe in.

Behind the Divine Hall’s white stone altar lay a massive stone staircase coated in loose dust. The rough, sloping rock passage was wide enough to accommodate over a dozen chariots riding abreast. It descended at an angle into the dark subterranean space, leading straight into Demon King Valak’s Kana Dungeon.

The Kana Dungeon was only of medium scale, divided into five distinct rings.

The outermost layer, the Fifth Ring, was a primitive ecosystem overrun by an Insect Maze. The sprawling space was a chaotic, three-dimensional labyrinth of looping tunnels, completely saturated with a complex demonized ecology. Carnivorous plants and bizarre Magical Beasts lurked within, constantly hunting and devouring one another to harvest the demonic essence inside their prey, making for a brutally unforgiving food chain. The root tribes of the Rot Root Ball had also taken hold here, laying out countless primitive traps. From thorny Beast Traps and tripwire-triggered spiked clubs to rolling logs and poison blowdarts, these sinister, deadly contraptions carried out the most efficient hunts driven by the simplest of malice.

Over the years, however, a steady stream of adventurers had left markers throughout the Insect Maze and culled the dangerous monsters along the way. They had successfully carved out a safe tunnel cutting straight through the Fifth Ring directly to the Fourth Ring.

The Fourth Ring served as a slave labor zone. Massive numbers of Burrowers excavated and constructed within, building ornate sculptures and sturdy fortifications for the Monarch. They forged weapons and crafts, smelting metal using geothermal magma and the Demon Fire produced by burning demonized materials. This ring was vastly wealthier than the Fifth Ring. Filled with temporary gold mine storage vaults, armories of Burrower-forged goods, and Relic Repositories containing the Relics of past adventurers scavenged by the Burrowers, it was practically a land of Gold and unimaginable wealth. That is, assuming you were brave, strategic, strong, clever, and blessed with a bit of luck.

Burrowers were a brutal race that clung to the underground Insect Paths to survive. These strange, pale humanoids possessed a form somewhere between a massive maw-worm and a human. They despised sunlight, and their eyes had degenerated until they were nearly non-existent. Though their vision was abysmal, their senses of smell and hearing were remarkably acute. A gaping mouth filled with jagged, oversized teeth took up two-thirds of their face, leaving the remaining third to awkwardly accommodate narrow slits for nostrils and bead-sized, vestigial eyes.

Their pale skin was thick and resilient, covering rugged, heavily muscled bodies. In the wild, they lived savagely in primitive tribes. But the Demon Monarch had found them. After conquering and ruling them through absolute violence, he taught them how to mine, forge weapons and armor, build, and carve. He also taught them the intricate, deadly arts of war and slaughter.

Under normal circumstances, the Fourth Ring of the Kana Dungeon was rigged with even deadlier Burrower traps. It was swarming with Cave Dwellers and Shamans, and even fully equipped Heavy-Armored Dwellers serving as Warrior Knights. It was a defense that should not have been breached so easily.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, when a party of 257 adventurers arrived at the Fourth Ring, they discovered it had been subjected to a brutal massacre. Someone—or rather, a group of highly trained Warriors—had beaten them to the Fourth Ring.

By the time the adventurers arrived, corpses of Cave Dwellers Warriors were already strewn across the ground. The blood around the sword wounds on the bodies appeared to have been sucked dry by something, leaving the flesh shriveled and withered. Weapons forged by the Burrowers had been snapped in half, and their armor shattered to pieces. The sheared edges of the metal even gleamed with a bizarre blood-red hue.

In the end, as the adventurer party pushed through the devastated Fourth Ring, 212 of them remained. This casualty rate was nothing short of miraculous luck.

Bolstered by the strength of Level 9, 10, and 11 adventurers, along with their unprecedented numbers, the party successfully breached the remnants of the Fourth Ring and made camp within the garden architecture complexes of the Third Ring.

The Third Ring was situated close to the core of the Underground City, nestled beneath the massive dome of this subterranean world. Architecture and ecology blended seamlessly together in a meticulously designed, resplendent display. Verdant vines intertwined with the Black Stone Fortress, while beasts roamed through the underground forests and shrubbery. Soaring bridges connected towering load-bearing pillars that directly supported the dome above, creating an intricate, three-dimensional network of pathways.