Building a Harem in a Noble House

Chapter 114: Dungeon Master

Was this practice? The intensity in her gaze suggested she reveled in it, blurring the line between role and reality.

"Goblins, my children"’ Lyra intoned, her voice a hypnotic chant. "We stand at the threshold of ascension! The pinnacle of evolution awaits. Flesh remade, hunger eternal, power unbound! Praise the Mother who births your glory!"

The goblins surrounding her chittered in agreement, raising crude idols and chanting her name. "Wendigo Mother! Eternal hunger! Glory! For the Mother! For the Mother! For the Mother!"

Meredith’s stomach twisted. This madness had to end. She charged the nearest group of goblins before they even knew what was happening. The first goblin fell before it could react, cleaved in two. She spun, dispatching another with a precise thrust, then unleashed Spirit Guardians in a swirl of radiant shards that shredded three more. The chamber erupted in chaos, goblins swarming her like insects, but she was a tempest of holy wrath. One stabbed at her side; she parried and countered, her blade singing through flesh. Another leaped from a pillar; she caught it mid-air with a Divine Smite, the explosion of light reducing it to ash.

Her actions drew the Wendigo Mother’s attention fully. Lyra’s eyes locked on her, lips curling in a feral smile. "Intruder! You dare challenge the evolution? The blood calls! The flesh hungers!"

The fight began in earnest. Lyra was no mere pretender. Though Meredith didn’t know the arcane secrets, the air thickened with the scent of iron as crimson tendrils lashed out–blood magic, weaving from Lyra’s gestures like living whips. Meredith dodged the first strike, the tendril splattering against a pillar and corroding the stone. She closed the distance, her claymore clashing against an invisible barrier of coagulated red that Lyra summoned.

"Your dark arts hold no sway over the light!" Meredith declared, her voice ringing with conviction.

But her goal was clear: above the chamber’s center hovered a fleshy sac, pulsating grotesquely, suspended over the open maw of some gigantic monster–a colossal beast with rows of teeth like boulders, its breath a fetid wind that stirred the runes below. Inside the sac, Lloyd floated, incapacitated, his form limp and encased in a veiny membrane.

Lyra laughed, a sound like shattering glass. "The warrior falls to feed the greater! Join him in transcendence!"

Meredith feinted left, drawing a blood lash, then rolled right, her eyes scanning for weakness. The runes pulsed in rhythm with Lyra’s magic, a conduit perhaps. As Lyra flung another tendril, Meredith channeled her power, empowering herself to bolster her speed in a burst of divine favor. She vaulted over an altar, slashing at the tendrils anchoring the sac. One severed, and the sac swayed perilously.

Lyra snarled, summoning a wall of blood to block her. "You cannot stop evolution!"

Outwitting the mage, Meredith spotted the flaw: Lyra’s focus on offense left her flanked. She hurled her that summoned flame from earlier into the blood wall, igniting it in a flare that forced Lyra to recoil, the magic sizzling. Seizing the moment, Meredith climbed a pillar, her gauntlets gripping the rough stone, and leaped. Her claymore bit into the sac’s base, radiant energy searing through. The membrane tore, and Lloyd tumbled free, just as the gigantic monster below lunged, its jaws yawning wide.

Lloyd twisted mid-fall and landed on the beast’s tongue, rolling toward its throat, but instead of being swallowed, he drove his blade into a vulnerable spot beneath the jaw. The monster thrashed, but Lloyd was relentless, his strikes precise, exploiting the environment’s own traps: he lured it into the runes, which flared and bound its limbs in crimson chains of its own making. With a final, empowered thrust, he felled it, the colossal form shuddering and stilling, its size no match for his cunning despite its power.

Freed, Lloyd joined her, but Meredith pressed the assault on the Wendigo Mother. Their battle was proper, a clash of steel and sorcery. Lyra’s blood magic lashed like serpents, one grazing Meredith’s arm and drawing a line of fire, but she endured, her conviction fueling her. She blocked a crimson spear with her blade, countering with a smite that forced Lyra back.

"Your perversion ends here!" Meredith proclaimed, her swings methodical, wearing down the defenses.

Lyra countered with a torrent of blood that Meredith dispersed with a Dispel Magic invocation, the fluids evaporating in holy light. They circled, breaths heavy, until Meredith created the opening, feinting a charge to draw Lyra’s lash, then sidestepping to expose her flank. Lloyd seized it, dashing in with his wooden sword...

...Wait, wooden?

They stood in the middle of the training hall now, the ritualistic chamber’s edges blurring. Meredith was in front of Lyra, who wore one of Isobel’s elaborate dresses beneath the cult robes, the fabric torn but elegant. Lyra gasped theatrically, still in character.

"The... the evolution..."

Lloyd chuckled, twisting the wooden blade lightly. "Yeah, yeah, Wendigo Mother. You gonna stay in character forever?"

Lyra’s eyes sparkled with fun, but she held the role, whispering, "The hunger... eternal..."

Meredith felt a swell of pride, her chest lightening as the illusion slowly faded. The pillars dissolving into wooden walls, the runes into chalk marks, the goblins’ blood into little more than colored water. Lloyd pulled the sword free, grinning at her.

"You were really getting into it, Meredith. You did great out there."

Before she could respond, Isobel appeared standing by the doorframe, visibly exhausted, her usually vibrant energy dimmed, dark circles under her eyes. She leaned against a nearby table, wiping sweat from her brow.

Lloyd raised an eyebrow. "That was incredible, Isobel. You really outdid yourself. Even if it was supposed to be ’basic’."

Isobel managed a tired smile. "Better to be overprepared than under, wouldn’t you say? Remember, you won’t know what kind of dungeon you’re facing during the Qualifying Exam, will you? Besides, this was more fun than a basic goblin quest."

Lloyd smirked. "So that’s why you did all that. You just wanted to play dungeon master."

She didn’t disagree, chuckling weakly.