I am the Demon King of the Dungeon!

The middle-aged miner seemed to shout something behind him, but it was swallowed up by the echo in the tunnel.

Arthas turned and walked deeper into the cave, not towards the exit, but into even more depths.

As you walk deeper into the cave, the traces of human excavation gradually disappear, replaced by naturally formed rock fissures.

Thick, black liquid seeped from the rock face, and the air temperature was rising; with each step, the rock beneath our feet grew hotter.

Arthas could sense something strange underground, and he wanted to check it out before confronting the boss.

It was a familiar scent.

At the end of the tunnel is a huge underground cavity.

The dome is twenty meters high, with stalactites hanging upside down, their tips dripping with glowing crimson liquid.

In the very center of the void was an altar made of obsidian. The altar was circular, and its edges were engraved with runes that Arthas had never seen before. These runes were not werewolf totems, nor orc battle marks, nor did they belong to any magic system he knew. The lines were twisted and organic, like the blood vessels of some living creature flattened and imprinted on stone.

In the very center of the altar, a figure was crouching.

The figure wore a tattered dark blue robe with the hood pulled low, covering most of its face. The exposed half of its face was covered with grayish-white wolf fur, but its features did not resemble those of a werewolf; its mouth was wider and its eyes were set further apart.

Its hands emerged from wide sleeves, its fingers twice the length of a human's, each joint protruding with deformed knuckles, and its fingertips tipped with curved claws.

Arthas's gaze fell on the robe, on which was embroidered a pattern: a snake coiled in a figure eight, its head biting its own tail. The dark gold embroidery thread shimmered eerily in the light of the crimson liquid.

Ouroboros.

Samigina Order.

"Another one."

Arthas's voice echoed through the empty underground altar, "You really are everywhere."

In the center of the altar, the believer slowly raised his head, revealing serpentine vertical pupils beneath his hood, the whites of his eyes covered with blood vessels.

It saw Alsace, and a slow grin spread across its face.

"You are not human."

"Your aura is strange. It's like a dragon, yet not entirely a dragon. It's like a demon, yet not entirely a demon, like a human..." It tilted its head, the angle of the twist abnormally large, its neck almost bent at a right angle. "You're not human, so what exactly are you?"

Its sound is smooth and delicate, like a snake crawling on wet mud.

Arthas's gaze passed over the cultists and landed on the obsidian statue behind the altar. The statue was five meters tall and depicted a faceless human figure with its hands clasped to its chest, its palms cradling a beating dark red heart.

"What are you summoning?"

The cultist's smile stretched to his ears, his sharp teeth gleaming wetly in the firelight. He rose from the altar, twirled his staff in his hand, and the moment the staff struck the ground, all the runes on the edge of the altar lit up, their dark golden light illuminating the entire underground cavern.

"Don't you know? You've already seen our stronghold. You personally slaughtered it."

"The Lord is angry, but the Lord is also happy. You are special; you possess a human soul and dragon blood. The Lord says you are the perfect vessel."

Arthas's pupils contracted slightly.

The soul of man, the blood of dragon.

The Samigina Cult knows what he is.

"Your lord," Arthas's voice remained calm, "is it Samigina?"

"You are not worthy to address the Lord by name!"

The cultist slammed his staff on the ground, and the altar exploded with a dark golden shockwave. Wherever the shockwave passed, the ground cracked, stalactites shattered, and crimson liquid gushed from the cracks, drawing distorted rune patterns on the ground.

The entire underground cavern began to tremble, and the dark red gem at the center of the obsidian altar shattered with a deafening roar. The fragments floated in mid-air and coalesced into a huge dark red vortex.

Deep within the whirlpool, creatures are crawling outwards.

Four claws gripped the edge of the vortex at the same time, pulling it outward with force. The vortex was torn apart, revealing the surging dark red light inside.

From the depths of the light, a head emerged.

It has no eyes.

There is only one mouth on the head, which takes up the width of the entire face. Two rows of sharp teeth squeeze out from the edge of the lips, densely packed, three rows on the top and three on the bottom. The mouth is open, and deep in the throat is not a tongue, but a beating dark red heart.

"The Lord's vanguard!" the cultists cried out, their hands raised high, their voices piercingly high-pitched, "Descend!!!"

As the Heart Eater completely escaped the vortex, the flames throughout the underground cavern changed color simultaneously, from orange-red to dark gold, and then from dark gold to pitch black.

All the runes on the altar ignited simultaneously, the light contracted inward, the temperature concentrated towards the core of the altar, and all the light was absorbed by the Heart Eater.

Immediately, a circular shockwave was unleashed.

Arthas raised his left arm, and ice walls piled up in front of him. Shockwaves crashed into the ice walls, the first layer shattered, the second layer shattered, the third layer developed a through crack, and it wasn't until the fourth layer that it barely held on.

The Heart Eater appeared before them in an instant.

Claws slash down!

Arthas dodged the first claw, parried the second with his longsword, and the third claw grazed his ribs and struck the rock wall behind him, tearing four deep cracks in the rock wall that revealed the rock layers.

The moment the claws sank into the rock wall, Arthas began to counterattack. Flames ignited on his longsword, and he slashed diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, striking the Heart Eater's wrist joint. The blade cut into the muscle layer but got stuck.

The muscles contract automatically the moment the sword cuts in, clamping the sword tightly. The Heart Eater uses its own flesh and blood as shackles to create a trap.

The Heart Eater opened its mouth, and three rows of sharp teeth turned outwards simultaneously in the darkness. The dark red heart deep in its throat suddenly contracted and then shot out a dark red beam of light.

Arthas had already gathered a fireball in his left hand, but he didn't fire it. He suddenly remembered Martha saying that she was too used to fighting alone, but now he really was alone. He didn't need to create opportunities for his teammates, he didn't need to consider the space for cooperation, he just needed to turn the thing in front of him into ashes as quickly as possible.

Arthas loosened his grip on the sword hilt, his body sinking just before the beam struck, his hands simultaneously pressing into the ground.

Ice in the left hand, fire in the right.

Frost exploded from the left palm, spreading in all directions along the ground and freezing the ground beneath the Heart Eater's feet into a smooth layer of ice; flames poured into the ground from the right palm, exploding beneath the ice layer. Ice and fire acted simultaneously on the rock strata, with thermal expansion and contraction completed in a fraction of a breath.

The rock strata split directly in the middle.

The Heart Eater's three claws simultaneously sank into the crack, its center of gravity shifted forward, and its muscles were forced to relax.

Arthas drew his sword and thrust it in with a backhand motion, the tip piercing the Hearteater's lower jaw and through to the upper jaw. He then slammed his right fist into the end of the hilt, hammering the entire sword into the Hearteater's skull like a nail.

The Heart Eater let out a piercing shriek, its four claws attacking the ground frantically, shattering the rock walls, the ground, and stalactites. Debris flew everywhere, and the entire underground cavern shook violently as it struggled.

Arthas took two steps back, raised his right hand, spread his five fingers, and hellfire erupted directly from his palm, black with a hint of red and gold.

The flames transformed into a straight pillar of fire, engulfing the Heart Eater head and body. The shriek was twisted and deformed in the hellfire, dropping from high to low, from low to wailing, until only the roar of the burning flames remained.

When the flames died down, the Heart Eater was no more.

On the altar.

The cultist slumped on the obsidian steps, his vertical pupils wide open, and the eerie smile on his lips finally vanished.

"What...what are you? The Heart Eaters are the Lord's vanguard; dozens of hearts were sacrificed before..."

"How about I send you down to ask your lord?"