Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 203: Queen is Back

When they started to walk down on the stairs, the room brightened itself and revealed the items lying in the room.

The room seemed untouched and it made Knight and the others brim with excitement.

"Look there"

Arrora pointed at two vials at the end of the room that was floating in the air and radiating golden light.

When they stepped closer, they could see the glimmering golden liquid inside the vials.

"Is that what I think it is?"

Knight asked in surprise as Don nodded and reached his hand out to grab the vials but the moment he touched the vials, they heard a voice.

"Welcome my Champion"

The tigress and Arrora were startled and stepped back from the vials when they suddenly heard the voice. The voice was of a woman and it sounded gentle and sweet as it soothed Arrora and the tigress's soul.

Knight looked around and scanned the place but he couldn't locate the source of the voice as a light ball emerged in the center of the room before them.

"Who are you?"

Don asked while Knight noticed the entrance that they came through was closing.

"I'm the one who keeps this realm and everything inside alive, Don"

Arrora and Knight were shocked to see the voice had called him by his real name.

"I've been watching you and your companions, Don, you've passed every test I gave you, and now it's time you claim your last reward, now step forward, Don"

Just as the voice said, a small pillar emerged from the ground before Don and the top of the pillar had a hand mark imprinted on it.

"Place your hand on the rune to receive your last reward, Don"

"What reward?"

His instincts told him not to put his hand on the rune before knowing more about the voice and its intention.

"A secret key to this realm and a treasure that would make you directly enter the Body Strengthening Realm, the realm beyond the heavenly realm"

Arrora and the tigress gasped for air when they heard the voice and even Knight was tempted to get his hands on that treasure.

"Now place your hand on the rune and receive the honor"

An unknown force inside Don prevented him from trusting or placing his hand on the rune.

"No, I cannot"

Don said and stepped back away from the rune

"You have nothing to be afraid of, Don, place your hand on the rune, don't you want to be the strongest person in the world?"

"What are you waiting for? Go on"

The tigress urged Don but failed to notice the slight panic in the mysterious voice.

"Why don't we skip the formalities and get straight to the rewards?"

They heard the sound of someone blasting the door upstairs while Don was talking with the voice.

"You must put your hand on the rune to receive the rewards"

The previous gentleness in the voice disappeared and the voice sounded more like an order.

"We're getting out of here"

Don shook his head and turned to leave 

"thet thn ono vr onr unin thr edtha, ono sklpr ver!"

(How dare you turn you back on me, you filthy maggot!)

The voice shouted as an evil aura enveloped the room and darkened the room.

Knight had never felt such pure evil aura as the tigress and the cubs were shaking in fear.

Don felt an immense force trying to make him fall on his knees while Arrora and the tigress were feeling that their happiness was being stripped away from their souls.

However, suddenly, Don's shield came to rescue again as it created a glowing barrier around them and pushed away from the dark evil aura from them.

"Aathreya"

Don remembered what Ken told him after escaping from the cave and recognized this evil aura.

"QUEEN, QUEEN ATHREYA"

The evil aura tried to penetrate the glowing barrier around them as her sound shook the room.

After the room stopped shaking, hundreds of skeletons rained down on them out of nowhere. Human skeletons, beasts skeletons, and many other skeletons belonging to various races were lying before them and while they were looking at the horde of skeletons with horror, they noticed the ground beneath them turn wet as they looked down to see the blood seeping out of the ground.

"Let me guess, these were your previous champions"

He didn't know how they died but he was sure that their deaths weren't a pleasant one.

"All your maggots lives belong to me, yours will be when the barrier around you dissipate, I will feast on your energies and consume your flesh and skin this half-elf alive and these beasts will be my desert"

The cubs held onto the tigress tightly as they shivered in fear.

"if you could, You would have done it by now, you're stuck in this place, aren't you? You're not a queen, you're just a bitch"

The place shook violently when Don said this while Knight slowly started to grab some of the items lying around the room by manipulating the wind element in the room.

"You maggot, sooner or later I will consume everything in this realm and break out from that bitch's spell" 

The tigress's mind and heart were filled with dread when she heard the voice.

"Knight, look for a way out"

Don noticed the glowing buried around him flicker and said to Knight.

"On it"

Don slowly stepped back so Knight would still be inside the barrier as Knight tried to destroy the door that they used to come here.

"Struggle, cry, beg for mercy"

Aathreya let out a burst of evil laughter as Knight and Arrora put their full strength to destroy the door.

While Knight and Arrora were trying to break out of this place, Don's gaze was on the two vials of the golden elixir as the glowing barrier around them kept flickering.

"I would have given you a sudden death if you had done what I told you before, now I will make you suffer, I will make you watch your friends suffer"

The evil aura started to seep through the barrier as the barrier's glow had on the verge of fading away.

"Don! I will distract her for a moment, use this time to grab the vials and use one of your teleportation scrolls"

The voice he heard in the arena shouted inside of his mind.

Don had no time asking any question to the voice since the barrier almost faded away.

"COME NEAR ME!"

Don shouted at Knight, Arrora, and the tigress. Hearing Don, Knight stopped punching the concrete as he pushed Arrora and the tigress at Don and came closer to him.

"PROTACTUM!"

The moment the three of them came closer to Don, a bright light emerged from Don and pushed all the evil aura back. Just when the evil aura was pushed back, Don reached his hand out as the two vials flew right into his hand, and then he immediately used the teleportation scrolls.

"EVAN?"

They heard the voice say the name Evan before the white light engulfed them.

*****************************

Don and the other had no idea that the mansion was completely destroyed after they teleported away because of the spell 'Protactum'. The ones who were fortunate enough to have a protective item or spell survived the explosion, unlike the unfortunate ones who were either dead or severely injured in the explosion.

"Where are we?"

"Are we safe?"

Arrora and the tigress opened their eyes to see Don and Knight were sitting before the campfire.

"You two are finally awake?"

Knight came to help the tigress stand up as Arrora felt weak like she lost all her strength.

"Drink this"

Don came towards them and placed the two cups before them as the tigress looked around for the cubs.

"They are safe and sound inside the ring"

Knight said as the tigress sighed in relief.

Arrora wanted to reach for the cup and take it but somehow her hands refused to move.

Seeing her struggling to move her body, Don hesitated for a moment as Arrora said

"I can't feel my body"

Looking at her helpless state, Don sighed and lifted her head, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"You'll feel better after drinking this"

Since she couldn't move her hands, he had to feed her the drink while Knight did the same to the tigress.

"Hot"

Arrora slowly said when the drink that Don fed her was too hot. Moving the cup near to his mouth, he blew on it to cool down the drink.

"Here"

Even though Don didn't like this very much, he knew that he had to do it as he slowly fed the drink to Arrora.

The bitterness of the drink made her frown while the tigress was coughing.

"What is this?"

Arrora started to feel her strength slowly returning to her when she finished the drink.

"Igoshil and Fire lizard milk" 

"Yuck"

"Can you move your body now?"

Arrora slowly nodded and moved herself from his shoulder with an embarrassed smile.

After seeing them regain some of their strength, Don and Knight stepped away from them.

"What happened back there? What was that voice?"

Since Arrora had heard about Aathreya from Ken and the group stayed in the cave, she was not as shocked as the tigress. Knight could see that she was still in shock and terror.

"An Ancient being, a very powerful ancient being"

Knight would not easily be terrified of someone but Aathreya and her evil aura had terrified the hell out of him.

"So everyone reached that mansion...died in her hands?"

The tigress stuttered as Knight took a long breath

"It seems she only killed the ones who were unfortunate enough to find the underground, plus she had been covering her tracks well or the dungeon board would have warned everyone about this mansion"