Maria waited and waited, but for whatever reason, the trap formation didn’t get taken down until around an hour later. However, when it finally did get taken down, a system message that completely enraged her appeared.

DING

Lycanthrope Castle Dungeon has been cleared! Congratulations to players: Eos, Caedes, Arthur, …, … for clearing the dungeon!

“...”

“N-No!”

“How?! It’s only been an hour!!!”

With the formation taken down, the fog around them and the illusory scenery that they were trapped slowly began dissipating and they were now back at the spot where they previously were before being trapped inside the formation.

From afar, Maria could see Eos and the other dungeon raid party members step out of the castle with their faces sporting looks of satisfaction. Seeing the smug looks on their faces, Maria’s silent rage continued to boil inside of her and she looked around only to see that her subordinates, Ash, Carmilla, and Elizabeth had been tied down by her enemies and were still caught up in a fight.

“Y-Your Majesty!”

“Ugh–Ash!”

“Dammit…”

Maria could see that the one who was keeping them in check was Raiju, the lightning spirit that had betrayed her. She calmly opened her subordinate tab and saw that Raiju was no longer listed there.

‘I should’ve taken action ahead of time and stamped out the seeds of rebellion from the start…’

She felt a slight tinge of regret that she didn’t address the situation of Raiju’s betrayal ahead of time. Thanks to her hubris, she wanted to find out more about their plan, but it was hard and she didn’t manage to get anything concrete.

The only thing Maria was able to infer was that her subordinate was going to betray her. As for the timing and everything, she wasn’t aware of that because the spies she planted on Raiju couldn’t glean anything from her meetings with the enemy thanks to the formation arrays that Zhuge Lan would erect whenever they met.

Maria didn’t want to admit it, but she had been bested and outsmarted this time. She should’ve acted ahead of time when she found out about Raiju’s treachery instead of trying to be smart. She had been too full of herself because everything had been going her way for a long time now.

Not once since she stepped on Vanhal had she experienced any significant setback. The only thing she met were obstacles–minor obstacles that she easily crushed and stepped over.

Thanks to this, Maria grew too overconfident. She grew cocky even though she tried to convince herself that she hadn’t. It was too late to regret anything. The ‘what ifs’ that were spinning in her mind were scenarios that would not impact anything in the present.

The only thing Maria could do right now was recollect herself and think of a new plan of action. It was foolish to dwell on the past and think about scenarios that wouldn’t affect what was going on right now.

Maria was angered, her strongest subordinate was much too powerful for even 3 of her Duke-rank vampires to deal with. Of course, Raiju was currently struggling, but her objective, which was to hold them down for as long as possible, had been achieved. Her enemies had completed the dungeon so quickly and were now holding possession over all of the Lycanthrope’s territory.

What she should be doing now is backing off and reorganizing her soldiers. From what she could see, her army was currently in an uproar due to the sudden ambush from her enemies.

Not only that, the Alliance chat was flooding in with messages of guilds, players, and parties being attacked by other players and PKers. There were even some saying that they were stuck inside some kind of foggy area, obviously a trap formation array.

“They got the jump on us this time, Mary. We have to retreat and reorganize our soldiers and help out our allies,” Lizzy calmly said after looking at the alliance chat and reading through the brief reports from her guildmates.

“Mary?”

Because they had been trapped in some kind of mega formation, they weren’t able to contact anyone from outside the formation, so their chat windows were being flooded right now. The situation was urgent and they had no time to dawdle here. The dungeon was lost and they should retreat for the time being to help their people.

“You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up with you. I first need to deal with a certain bug…”

“Huh?”

“Maria…”

Lizzy sighed and gestured to the other party members.

“Alright. We’ll get going then. Make sure to finish up with your business and retreat. We can’t do anything to Eos and the others for now. The territory protection period is still up. We can take our revenge once that period is over.”

“...Mhm.”

“We’ll have our chance later in the future. Keep that in mind, Mary…”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The others quickly left or used one of their teleportation scrolls which they obviously got from Maria and disappeared from the spot. Maria was the only person left and the enemy players were slowly inching closer towards her. They didn’t dare act rashly. This was a player that was currently being hailed as the game’s number one damage dealer.

There was only 1 record of her falling in battle and that was during the 2nd planet’s main scenario quest. When she died, she also took the lives of thousands of players with her, so they needed to be cautious.

Maria completely ignored the players. She unfortunately couldn’t harm them because they were being protected by the territory protection buff. Of course, if they attacked her first, then she was free to retaliate, but no one around her was stupid enough to do that.

What she had her attention on was the struggling lightning spirit that was being attacked by her 3 vampire subordinates. Just seeing her still alive made Maria’s blood boil in rage.

‘This little snake…I give you a second chance at life and place you by my side…and this is how you repay me?’

Maria ground her teeth so hard in anger that the players closest to her could faintly hear it. An ominous black aura began spreading on the ground around her and a moment later, a blast of wind struck the players around and threw them back.

“Agh!”

“Ahh!”

“What the heck?”

When they looked up, they saw a black cocoon in the place where Maria previously was standing. The cocoon soon began to crack and Maria emerged from it, albeit in a very different form.

She had angrily activated her [Nightmare] skill and changed to her True Nephalem Form. In the eyes of the players around her, she looked like a monster, a demon. The player in front of them no longer seemed like a player.

“Get up and get in formation! She might atta–”

Before the person who was in command could say anything, Maria disappeared from her spot with a sonic boom as she kicked off the ground, fracturing it and sending herself hurtling towards the 4 individuals fighting in the air. The 3 Vampire dukes could feel a very familiar aura rapidly approaching them and they immediately took action.

Ash, Carmilla, and Elizabeth simultaneously used [Blood Chains] and aimed at Raiju. Raiju immediately reacted and tried to dodge the chains, but Ash’s chains luckily managed to tie up her legs.

“This won’t work!”

Raiju quickly snapped the chains and freed herself, but that was all Ash needed to do. Freeing herself from the chains gave Maria enough time to quickly arrive behind the lightning spirit who didn’t even notice her until she was there.

“Kugh! You–”

Maria didn’t waste any words and stabbed her hand forward. The sharp nails and scales on her demonic-looking hand were deadly and they pierced into Raiju’s spirit body.

“GAH!”

She didn’t let up and stretched out her hand, materializing Calamity and slicing down with a [Calamity Cleave]. Raiju tried to pull away but Maria was tightly grasping the part of her body that she had pierced and this delayed her a bit. A large chunk of her spirit body was torn off while her arm was cleaning lopped off by Maria’s attack.

“AHHHHH!!!”

Since she was a spirit, Raiju could easily regenerate her body, but what happened next was completely outside of her expectation. She saw Maria grab hold of her lopped off arm that was slowly dematerializing and stuffed it into her mouth, devouring it whole.

“NO!”

The same happened with the chunk of her spirit body that had been torn off. Maria completely devoured the two pieces of spirit flesh she took from her former subordinate and after a moment, a system window popped up.

DING

You have consumed an object imbued with minor divinity! Divinity +20 Divinity +5

Raiju was visibly weakened after that. She was a powerful entity, but not even she could prevent herself from being injured from a swift ambush and this one no ordinary ambush. This was an ambush from the player who had previously defeated her in battle.

She was much more powerful now than she was back then, but so was Maria. In a head on fight, Maria would probably not be able to lose, but in an ambush where her subordinates had even helped her out, taking a limb or two was something she could definitely do. Now that she had also consumed a bit of Raiju’s divine spirit body, she had grown a little bit while the lightning spirit had weakened.

“...I should’ve done this right when I found out about what you were doing.”

“Urgh, you! Do you know what you’ve done?!!”

“No, I don’t, but what I do know is that I’m going to eat you…and I’m going to slowly enjoy it.”

“!”

“Ash, Carmilla, Elizabeth.”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Your command?”

“I await your orders.”

“...We’re going to deal with this traitor. Show no mercy. Tear her limb from limb. I’m going to devour her divinity.”

“Yes!”

At this point, Raiju was scared. She already knew that something bad would happen to her if she betrayed Maria, but she did it anyway because all she wanted was freedom. She had been trapped inside of a seal for who knows how long and all she longed for was freedom.

It was her dumb luck that the person who released her from her seal was a crazy person like her former master, Maria. All she wanted was freedom, but unfortunately, she didn’t see that although she was in a pact, Maria never tried to restrict her. She was technically free to do everything she wanted even though she was in a pact with somebody.

Raiju was unfortunately too narrow-minded to realize this and decided to take the wrong route. She betrayed Maria and was now facing the consequences of being devoured by her.

Her master was powerful, but she was much more powerful than her…at least that’s what she thought. Her stats were definitely much higher than Maria’s, but unfortunately, she was too stupid and didn’t know how to properly utilize her strength.

Just because someone had high stats didn’t mean that they were powerful. To Maria, Raiju’s use of her abilities was just like how a child would use a stick when they found one. She held power, but didn’t know how to use it. Her thousands of years of isolation had definitely played a part in her deterioration of ability.

Even though she was stronger and faster than Maria, she couldn’t even land a proper hit on her as they fought. With the 3 vampires also helping her opponent out, Raiju was literally helpless.

Even before when she was fighting the 3 Vampire Dukes, she couldn’t even fight them properly and only managed to tire herself out even though her opponents were supposed to be the weaker ones.

“I guess this is all you amount to. Alexa was right, you only wield your power as you want. You don’t know how to properly use it. I can’t believe a child like her was able to see through you, but you can’t even see through your own faults.”

“Ugh…”

A few minutes had passed since the start of their fight and Raiju’s condition was in a completely horrible state. Other than the arm and the chunk on her side that Maria had took from the start, she had lost the forelimb of her other arm, a part of her neck, one leg had been completely lopped off while the other leg had lost a foot and chunks of her thigh had been gouged out.

There was a hole in her abdomen while chunks of her torso area had disappeared. Usually, she would be able to regenerate herself pretty easily, but with Maria devouring her body along with her divinity, she could no longer regenerate those parts of her that she devoured.

“I-I just wanted freedom…”

“And I gave you freedom. Even though you were in a pact with me, have I ever tried to restrict you in any way? While I did give you a few orders, they weren’t frequent and you had a lot of time for yourself…Unfortunately, you used that time to plot against me instead of cherishing the new life that I gave you.”