Chapter 135: Difficult Choice

Verna's stronghold is housed within an ancient ruin-turned-sea cave at the edge of the marsh, its entrance facing the sea—avoiding fungal detection from the marsh side while leveraging the threat of light-devouring eels to deter any enemies approaching from the ocean.

The war council chamber lies deep within the central cavern of the "nest." The stalactites hanging from the ceiling have been carved by drow artisans into the shapes of watchtowers, and dark luminescent paint traces the entire outline of the Weeping Bog across the walls; the glowing lines resemble living nerves in the darkness.

The stone table is a single slab of basalt, its surface uneven—not for decoration, but as the lingering mark of its former owner.

Hachet spoke first. He was Verna’s weapons master, his face bearing an old scar that slashed diagonally from temple to jaw, a gray-white ridge that writhed like a centipede in the dim light.

He pushed a parchment across the center of the stone table, his voice flat: “Mistress, none of the twelve scout squads returned on schedule, nor did any send distress signals. Unless something unforeseen occurred, they’ve been annihilated.”

The chamber fell silent for a moment. The five seated around the table—Hachet, the Spider Queen’s priestess Marsha, the adjutant Tali, and two captain guards—showed no surprise.

Drow dislike surprises, and they especially dislike showing them on their faces.

Verna sat at the head of the stone table, one foot resting on the edge of the bench, her arm draped over her knee, relaxed as a cat napping in the sun.

Her skin was paler than most drow’s, nearly translucent, with faint blue veins visible at her temples. Her eyes were dark red, fixed now on the glowing map before her, lingering over the Whispering Shoals at the marsh’s edge.

“Tali,” she said, her voice quiet but clear to all, “recall your gnolls from the Gray-White Reed Marsh. The battlefield is no longer safe.”

Tali nodded.

Marsha rose and placed a black magical beacon on the table. A crack ran across its surface, and the silver-white fluid seeping from within had hardened—proof it had been violently intercepted.

“Mistress, we received a magical signal from the fifth scout squad. It contained only one phrase: ‘The Old Man of Rotting Wood’ is assembling his army. Then the beacon failed.”

“So,” Verna picked up, “they managed to send word at least. Too bad they didn’t live to bring it back.”

The way she said “too bad” was as casual as saying, “The tide’s coming in slower today.”

Tali finally couldn’t hold back. She braced both hands on the stone table, her face grim.

The current battle situation is extremely unfavorable for us. We only have six thousand warriors, and two thousand goblins are utterly incapable of holding the line—they will break at the first charge of the bone-spiked toads, so I believe we must temporarily abandon this operation.

The air in the chamber froze for an instant.

Verna lifted her head, her dark red eyes locking onto Tali’s. She didn’t speak immediately, but slowly rose from the bench, placing her foot back on the ground. Her movements were deliberate, slow enough for everyone to see every rune etched into the curved blade at her hip.

“Shut up.”

Two words, neither loud nor soft, like nails driven into wood.

“You don’t get to teach me how to handle this.”

Tali clenched her fangs but bowed her head. She’d seen how Verna handled problems—six months ago, in this very chamber, Verna had peeled the skin off the previous owner herself.

Marsha smoothly steered the conversation back on track. Her voice was calm, like a ritual chant: “Mistress, if the Old Man of Rotting Wood has completed his muster, he will soon advance toward the Whispering Shoals.”

“Our stronghold remains outside the fungal detection range, but if the shoals fall, the old beast can extend his fungal network right to the cliff’s base. Then even our escape route by sea will be cut off.”

“Then let him stop before the shoals,” Verna said. “He wants to devour all my scouts? Let him choke on them.”

She stood and walked to the side of the table, placing her finger on the region between the Gray-White Reed Marsh and the Whispering Shoals—the high ground near where Keno and his team were positioned.

“How many troops did he send to hunt down the twelve scout squads?”

Dierwagusuanleyixia ：“ Gucimochanzhishaosanqiantou ， Jiashangzhaozefushi 、 Junsikuileihelingxingdezhongjieemo 。

“But the main force remains behind—his personal guard hasn’t moved, nor have any other master-tier demons stirred.”

“So what we’re seeing,” Verna said, tracing a curved line on the map from the reed marsh, around the high ground, straight to the tidal inlet of the Whispering Shoals, “is merely his claws.”

“He’s using the scout squads as bait to lure us out into a frontal engagement on the open shore. He knows we’re outnumbered—we can’t win a direct battle.”

“Then we don’t respond?” Hachet asked.

Verna turned, a faint smile curling at her lips—a smile that reminded everyone present of the scene six months ago: the stone table, the curved blade, layer upon layer of peeled skin.

“We respond,” she said. “But not from the front.”

She paused, her gaze sweeping over each person in the room, finally settling on Marsha’s face.

“Have you all forgotten how we came to possess this ‘nest’?”

No one answered. They hadn’t forgotten.

Six months ago, the owner of this sea cave wasn’t Verna—she was a master-tier demon known in the marsh as “The Skinner, Ghuv.”

Ghuv’s true form was a six-armed, twisted serpent demon who fled to the Graywater Delta after losing a power struggle among the Abyssal lords, seizing this ancient ruin.

Ghuv’s fatal arrogance was her belief that the cave couldn’t be breached from the sea. The Ashen Sea was filled with light-devouring eels—any vessel approaching within a hundred fathoms was devoured.

And the only entrance to the Whispering Shoals was blocked by tidal channels and black mud; as long as she held the channel, any enemy would be forced to march single-file into a death trap.

On the day Verna arrived, Ghuv never left her skinning workshop. She sat on her chair made of rotting crocodile ribs, listening to her reports: no enemy activity at the shoals, the sea as calm as ever.

Then she fell from her chair.

Because Verna hadn’t come from the Whispering Shoals, nor from the sea—she’d arrived with twelve personal guards, diving up from the seabed beneath the cave’s lowest fissures.

The endless sea’s temperature hovered near freezing; the light-devouring eels avoided the scent of rotting crocodile blood, and drow could hold their breath and move in total darkness for nearly half an hour.

Ghuv had posted sentries in the cave’s lower levels—but they watched only the tidal channels.

No one imagined a band of black-skinned elves could slither out from deeper, narrower, colder fissures beneath the tides, dripping black seawater, appearing soundlessly beneath her skinning workshop.

Ghuv was later nailed to that chair made of crocodile ribs, and Verna spent three days peeling off her scales and flesh, one slice at a time.

Throughout, Ghuv begged, cursed, swore fealty, wept—Verna said nothing, only, when switching blades, murmured to Marsha beside her:

“Record her screams. Next time someone disobeys, play it for them.”

Ghuv’s skin was stripped whole, tanned, and hung in Verna’s private chamber—directly covering the secret passage to the upper levels.

Her six arms were severed and mounted on the cave entrance’s rock wall, still frozen in their final pose: outstretched, like a malformed octopus, warning all who dared approach.

“Ghuv had two hundred swamp gray trolls, a hundred rotting crocodiles, and three high-ranking serpent mages.”

Verna said calmly, her finger lightly tapping the small depression on the stone table where a skin-stake had once been driven.

“We had forty. Half of them stayed aboard to guard our rear. Now we have six thousand warriors, twelve scout squads holding his main force at bay, and his fungal network still doesn’t know the exact location of this ‘nest.’”

She looked at Tali and smiled—a smile that, under the glow of the luminescent map, gleamed like the edge of a blade.

“You say we’re at a disadvantage?”

No one spoke. At the far end of the table, the gouges carved by Ghuv’s blade in her lifetime remained clearly visible.

Verna had preserved them deliberately—to remind every person seated at this table: the owner of this cave may change, but drow never lose to the Abyss.

……

Meanwhile, the battle on the highland reached its most brutal peak under the relentless barrage of bone spikes from the bone-spiked toads.

Gray-white hollow bone spikes rained down like a storm. At the last possible moment, Keno pulled the trigger; the specially crafted arrow, infused with shards of Abyssal Bloodstone, left a silver-white trail as it pierced through the mist and struck precisely into the left eye socket of the spirit toad.

The spirit toad let out a piercing screech, its massive body toppling backward into the mud, sending up a black wave several feet high.

Its dorsal glands went into explosive spasms, releasing the remaining digestive fluids through its pores, scorching and blistering the skin of several nearby toads that couldn’t escape in time.

The toad swarm did fall into brief chaos—but less than half a minute later, a dark red-boned “veteran” took command. It emitted three low calls, and the toad swarm reformed into formation, launching a fourth volley that completely blanketed the highland’s front line.

The corpses of the rotting crocodiles were the only cover. Damon’s arms trembled from the impact; Riven’s thigh was pierced by a sideways spike, and yellow-green digestive fluid seeped into his flesh, visibly causing his muscles to collapse.

Solon rushed to help him—only to be impaled through the abdomen, the spike emerging from his lower back. He collapsed to his knees, falling onto the medical pack, never rising again.

“Kor! Signal!” Keno shouted.

Kor dragged his ruined left arm to the highest root of the dead tree on the high ground, slashed his right palm with his dagger, and pressed his bleeding hand onto the “Wayhome Beacon.”

A deep crimson glow pulsed; a psionic pulse pierced through the fungal interference, shooting toward the marsh’s edge. Embedded within the pulse were Kor’s final words:

“Fifth Recon Team, highland surrounded. The Old Rotwood’s main force is assembling—at least three thousand bone-spiked toads. Coordinates have been relayed.”

Before the words faded, a different sound echoed from deep within the marsh.

A low, wet, dragging noise, like massive sludge being pulled across stone. The mist split open, and dozens of enormous gray-white shapes slowly emerged from the mud.

They were over seven meters long, their bodies flat like salamanders, dragging thick, tree-trunk-like crocodile tails.

Their gray-white skin was covered in tumor-like nodules and moss, with two curved bone spines rising from their backs, periodically exhaling clouds of foul white mist.

Their limbs were short but powerful, their webbed claws splayed like five curved scythes. Most chilling of all were their eyes: no pupils, only milky white orbs, yet deep within glowed a sickly green luminescence.

“Gray Marsh Stalkers…” Damon’s voice trembled for the first time. “This is bad.”

Keno’s heart sank. He’d heard of these creatures—top predators of the Graywater Delta, whose every appearance meant no survivors.

Their “Corrupting Gaze” could liquefy living muscle tissue within seconds; prey couldn’t even scream before collapsing like melting wax into the mud, then being devoured whole by their wide, jawed maws.

The first Stalker lifted its head. Those milky white eyes locked onto the drow on the high ground.

“Close your eyes!” Keno roared.

Too late. Emerald beams shot from the Stalkers’ eye sockets—like invisible scythes sweeping across the slope. No heat, no force—but where they passed, the air twisted.

The rotting crocodile corpses began to bubble and collapse; their hardened hides melted like heated cheese.

A young scout, the last remaining recruit, Ned, was struck by the beam on his left arm.

He felt no pain—only looked down, and saw his arm from shoulder to elbow had turned into a gray-white slurry, dripping down his torso.

Ned opened his mouth but made no sound, then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Spread out! Don’t let the beams hit you all at once!” Keno shouted, dragging Riven behind the dead tree.

Kor fired his crossbow; the Abyssal oil arrow struck the first Stalker’s head, igniting dark green flames across its face.

The Stalker let out a low, bull-like bellow, but didn’t retreat. It shook its head—the flames burned for a few seconds before extinguishing, leaving only charred scars on its slick hide.

The second Stalker began moving sideways along the high ground, exhaling twin clouds of white mist from its back tubes, then vanishing entirely into the mud, leaving only its bone spines and milky eyes visible.

Its submerged path twisted like a serpent, swiftly circling to the eastern side of the high ground—their only possible escape route.

The third Stalker remained crouched, its lower jaw slightly open, revealing two rows of inward-curving, nail-plate teeth.

It didn’t rush. It waited—for the prey to be cornered, for the beams to soften enough flesh, for the fungal tendrils in the mud to coil around every fleeing leg.

Knowing escape was impossible, Keno pulled the silver-white “Deathward Beacon” dagger from his cloak, unlatched the safety, and placed it on the ground.

He removed his helmet, knelt on one knee, and pressed the blade’s edge against his forehead—the ancient drow scout ritual, invoking the witness of the Champion of Lloth, “Serivatam.”

But Lloth’s blessing could not pierce the thickening mist, nor reach this marsh utterly corrupted by the Abyss. Heroism here received no answer.

After a volley of beams, the high ground held nothing but white sludge, steaming quietly, awaiting decomposition and absorption by the swamp.