Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 201: Fiends and Shadow Ghosts

"I don't think so"

Knight shook his head and walked towards Don to grab the shield from him.

While Don was holding the shield, Knight opened his jaws and tried to grab the shield using his mouth.

However the moment Don let go of the shield, the shield fell on the ground with Knight's lower jaw under it.

"Oooh, hek...it...aack"

Knight struggled with the shield and put his full strength to free himself from the shield.

"See, I told you"

He lifted his shield up as Knight quickly stood up and stepped back from the shield.

"Let's see what's my shield does"

Arrora took her shield and threw it at Knight to see if he could lift it up.

After getting his jaw pinned down by Don's shield, Knight did not underestimate Arrora's shield. The tigress and Arrora leaned forward towards Knight and watched him.

Arrora's shield was indeed a bit heavy but unlike Don's, Knight simply lifted the shield up and threw it at the tigress.

Seeing the shield flying towards her, the tigress jumped in the air and caught it in her mouth and landed on the ground comfortably.

"Sorry, girl, its seems anyone can use your shield"

The tigress threw the shield at the three cubs and the three cubs held the shield with their small heads as they ran around the place with the shield on their heads.

"But that doesn't make the shield any inferior to mine"

Don calmly said and Arrora nodded at him with a smile.

"So now we have taken care of that, what's our next plan? And before that, we need to know what's the next level of this dungeon?"

Knight asked Don and turned his gaze towards the tigress because she knew much more than them.

"We have two more levels, and the next level is the most dangerous of them all, according to my uncle, only a handful would survive in at the end of it"

Until now many of them lost their lives in the hands of the golems that Knight and Don brought down on them. While a bunch of them lost their lives in the arena but seeing the tigress's gloomy look on her face, the next level would not be as easy as the others for them.

"So if you want these little buggers to stay in the ring, feel free to tell us"

The tigress looked at the three cubs who were playing in Arrora's hand for a moment and shook her head.

"I think it's better if they stayed in their caves, the next level is not a place for cubs like them"

The moment the cubs heard her, they stopped playing with Arrora and growled at her like they were not happy with her decision.

"No, I don't want you three to come with us, it's too dangerous and you three are just cubs"

The tigress stared at them and said with a firm voice but the cubs didn't seem to back away from their decision to go with them.

"ROAR"

The tigress stepped forward at the cubs and roared at them as it echoed through the forest and almost put out the campfire.

However unexpectedly, the cubs didn't fear her as the three of them roared at her even though it sounded more like meowing to Knight.

"You three are staying here, I let you take part in the arena because you needed some real battle experience, but the next level will be too much for you "

Still, the three tiger cubs shook their heads.

"Excuse us for a moment"

The tigress said and suddenly grabbed the three cubs by their neck and walked away from the campfire. The three cubs tried to free themselves from her mouth but the tigress's clutch was too strong for the cubs to break.

Arrora waited until the tigress and the cubs to reach behind the trees and then she turned her gaze towards Don and Knight.

"So are you going to pretend like nothing happened?"

Knight and Don sighed and looked at each other.

"I put the hot red nails through your chest for god sake, you at least owe me an explanation why did you make me do that"

"Sometimes it happens, in the divine continent, healers called this as cerebral episodes"

Hearing Knight, Arrora was afraid thinking that it might be something incurable like some deadly diseases.

"We don't know when it will happen, but every time it happens, we need to stab him with the nails to break him from the episodes, only extreme pain like this could bring him back from the episodes"

"It can be cured right?"

She was freaking out as Don shook his head

"I don't think there's one"

"How many times?"

Arrora stuttered and looked at the both of them

"Too many times"

Knight said.

"Don't tell anyone about this, it must stay between the three of us"

"But they might be able to help you"

"NO"

Don said with a firm voice as Arrora quickly closed her mouth.

"What if you have an episode during a battle?"

"Then you should protect me, can you do that?"

When she heard Don, she knelt on one knee 

"With my life, your majesty"

He nodded as he put his hands on her shoulder and lifted her up.

"Am I disturbing something?"

Arrora stepped back when she saw the tigress and the cubs walking towards them.

"Nothing, what did you guys decide?"

Knight noticed a slight defeat on the tigress's face and a smile of accomplishment on the cubs' faces.

"Can you let these little stubborn bastards in your ring?"

"Okay"

Knight didn't want to ask what made her change her mind by looking at their face as the cubs bounced around in joy.

After discussing their plans for the next day, they went to sleep as Knight took the first watch while Don took the next one.

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"Quick"

At the moment, they were rushing towards the light beam to go to the next level.

The tigress and Arrora had to use their full strength to keep up with Don and Knight's speed and when they got closer to the light, they heard footsteps rushing towards them.

But they didn't wait to find out who as they ran into the light beam.

The moment they stepped outside the light beam, they were welcomed by a gloomy place covered with nothing but fog.

"Careful"

Knight said when he noticed the path in front of them is a narrow one and the path was located between a river of dark muddy water.

The river looked endlessly deep and an evil aura was radiating from the water. 

"Come closer"

Don noticed the path had only space for two people to walk side by side as he gently pulled Arrora closer to him. Behind Don, Knight looked through the fog and realized that the thick white fog would prevent anyone from seeing through.

He then transformed into his original form and took the cubs and the tigress under his wing. If the tigress had a human-like face, Don could have noticed the blush on her face but now he was too busy walking on the path.

"Where are we going?"

Knight asked the tigress while cautiously taking every step forward.

"There's a mansion at the end of this path, or least, that's what my uncle's drawings said"

"I forgot to ask, what happened to your uncle?"

Knight asked the tigress.

"I remember he was celebrating his return with his friends and then after a few days, he was gone, no one knows what happened to him"

"There's something ahead"

Knight quickly said as Arrora took her sword out while Don took out his bow.

The cubs hopped on to the tigress's back and held her tightly with their tiny paws.

"Hurrrrr"

Suddenly they heard a growling sound and after a few seconds, they saw a shadow of a human figure emerging from the fog.

"Be careful, they must be the rotting fiends, they are invulnerable to magical attacks"

But Arrora had already sent a fireball to the fiend's head but the fireball did nothing to the fiend.

When the fiend completely emerged from the fog, Arrora quickly shut her mouth because of the smell of rotting flesh. The fiend had gray skin and flesh was peeling off as it walked towards them with its hand raised at them.

Arrora had seen her fair share of horrible scenes but the fiend's disgusting look still sent a chill towards her spine. 

"Cut its head"

The tigress said as Don sent a wind blade and severed the head from its shoulder with a clean cut.

At the same time, they heard the sound of someone or something drop into the water.

"Look"

Arrora pointed at the fog before them as they saw a bunch of fiends emerging from the fog.

Knight sensed the fiends were not only in front of them as they were also coming from behind.

With a heightened sense, Knight sent wind blades at the fiends who were behind them and severed their heads.

"Shit"

The tigress was shocked when she saw the fiends' headless bodies falling to the ground and she was glad that she's with Knight because she lacked the ability to attack from a distance.