Chapter 322: Demonic Predator vs Plague Doctor

Bartholomew had won. He’d cornered his enemies into checkmate. Ronan writhed on the ground, his body weakening as plague spread through him like roots digging into dry soil. The knight remained trapped inside the electric dome, the crown’s metal searing her with every discharge. He still had minutes of absolute control left. Enough time to watch Ronan choke out his last breath, then crush the knight and Luke without effort. The strategy was simple: paralyze, suffocate, let the plague rot them from the inside out.

A sudden pain cut through his skull like an invisible blade. He clenched his teeth, holding on. Channeling so many powerful abilities at once was exacting a price his body was no longer willing to pay.

“I can’t stop now… not after coming this far.”

Drawing in a sharp breath, he forced his voice steady and cold. His eyes fixed on the rubble where Luke hid, words sharpened into authority.

“You can still walk out of here alive. Take my offer.Give up your old life. Better to live here in the tutorial than die trying to leave it.”

As he spoke, he triggered the Death Painting again. If Luke planned a hidden strike, if he intended a suicidal gambit that would end them both, the vision would betray him in grotesque detail. But the image was the same as before: a panther lurking in shadow.

Luke stayed silent.

Is he really going to let Ronan die?

The archer finally rose from the debris. Bartholomew shifted back, keeping the dome between them.

“So that’s it? You’re really making your move?” His voice rang across the chamber. “Don’t you see you can’t win? I’m always two steps ahead of my own death!”

But when he peered into the dark, no figure met his gaze. Only shadows. Then came the high, whistling hiss of arrows slicing the air. One by one they snuffed out the torches, plunging the chamber into choking black. Bartholomew grit his teeth, reinforcing the knight’s prison. He needed to keep the advantage, to hold control. An arrow skimmed past his head, forcing him to duck. Another screamed in harder, faster. He raised a barrier on instinct—and froze as it shattered apart. The shaft buried itself deep in his abdomen.

Air ripped from his lungs. His hand clutched the wound, warm blood seeping between his fingers. More arrows followed, merciless, streaking from every angle. Every barrier he conjured cracked and collapsed under the force.

He staggered back, pouring more plague into the air, swelling the miasma until it choked every breath. His voice broke into the haze, equal parts threat and desperation.

“You’ll die too if you get close!”

He called the Death Painting again. The vision struck fast, brutal: a pig.

His body froze. What the hell did that mean?

Footsteps echoed in the dark, closing in. More arrows. He blocked one, deflected another, but the next slipped through, skewering his leg. Pain tore a scream from his throat. Again he summoned the Death Painting. Again, the pig. Always the damn pig.

“What does it mean?!”

Confusion boiled with exhaustion. The storm of spells, the constant drain—his mind blurred, thoughts unraveling. Inside the dome, the knight stirred, struggling to rise.

“No!” He snapped the crown’s power, lashing her with another surge. “You won’t move!”

And still he sought the Death Painting. This time, the image sharpened into a boar.

Fury and fear mixed into a roar. “What are you plotting, you bastard? What does it mean?!”

The hiss of an arrow made him react at the last instant. A barrier flared into place, and even in his exhaustion he allowed himself a smug smile.

“I told you! I hold the advantage!”

That was when something grabbed him from behind.

The shock was immediate. He twisted his head, and his breath caught in his throat. An orc, grotesque, tusked, with the brutal features of a boar. Exactly like the vision.

“The painting… it was this…”

Almost at the same time, a whistle cut the air. Something came screaming in at brutal speed. Bartholomew panicked, conjuring a fresh dome and sacrificing the one shielding the mechanism. His defense shattered into a thousand fragments as a curved blade, a black kukri, punched through his chest and sank straight into his heart.

No scream escaped. The pain was so sharp, so absolute, it strangled his voice before it reached his lips. He felt the threads of his life tearing one by one, fire and venom searing him from the inside out.

He collapsed to his knees, coughing blood. In desperation he dropped every spell, focusing solely on healing. The boar-orc still clutched him, but he drove a mana drill into its face. The creature dissolved into smoke, giving him freedom, only for him to crash onto the stone floor, gasping.

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The knight seized the moment. Even staggering, she slipped free of the broken dome and vanished into the dark. Behind them, the mechanism came alive, runes burning across the walls with their own light.

[The mechanism has been activated. Only the one who started it can shut it down.]

Bartholomew groaned, clawing at the kukri jutting from his chest. His hand met the blade and hissed. A corrosive burn ate through his flesh, blackening skin in seconds as if his own blood were acid. He looked down and realized the same corruption was devouring his heart.

Panic struck deep.

Teeth gritted, he seized the hilt anyway. The agony of raw meat peeling from his hand almost drove him mad, but he ripped the blade free. Blood sprayed across the stone as he hurled the weapon aside and pressed both hands against his chest, flooding mana into the wound.

“I can’t die here. Not now!”

His vision flickered. Consciousness frayed. Each heartbeat was a war between mana trying to patch his heart together and poison tearing it back apart. It was like bailing water from a sinking ship with his bare hands.

Then, through the shadows, footsteps echoed. Slow. Measured.