Chapter 326
She really is beautiful. Nobody else has looked yet — one more glance won't hurt.
Maru lowered the telescope. Immediately raised it again.
Okay. One more. The absolute last one.
...Can't do it. Just a little longer. Just a little.
Her behavior loop was practically a bug report — the kind of glitch that might've earned a spot on a list of Dark Souls V's greatest virtues: network latency.
Anyone else caught staring at that painting this long would've earned the label creep by now.
Somehow, she got a pass.
She was a girl, after all.
While Maru worshipped at the altar of the giant treasure chest, Leon and the others had already moved on to logistics — specifically, how to sneak up behind the Silver Knight and drive a blade squarely into his backside.
Beauty could wait. Backstab priority was non-negotiable.
Drew could cast Invisibility and Silence, but his mastery of either spell was shaky enough that duration was a genuine gamble. Speed mattered.
A quick sweep confirmed no other threats on the second floor — just the Silver Knight, back still turned, still lost in the painting.
Leon was going in.
He vaulted the railing smoothly. Even with Invisibility and Silence active, he moved carefully, wary of any accidental noise.
It wasn't that he doubted the group's odds against the Silver Knight directly. He'd simply, recently, developed a genuine addiction to the specific sensation of parrying an enemy and driving a blade straight through afterward.
If a frontal stab felt this good, what would a backstab feel like?
He finally understood, on some fundamental level, why assassins got so hooked on ambush kills.
In total silence, Leon closed the final distance behind the Silver Knight, who remained fully absorbed in the painting.
Heh. Beauty really is dangerous.
A small, uncharacteristic smile crossed his face — nothing like his usual expression — as he tensed his sword arm.
Then he noticed his Invisibility had lapsed at some point without him tracking it.
He glanced up at the Silver Knight, fast.
Still hadn't noticed him. Good.
No time to waste second-guessing. He committed to the thrust.
"Twang—"
What was that sound?
Something familiar clicked in his memory, dragging him back to his days as the hooded mystery man in the dungeon — kiting invaders around in slow circles while Stella lined up her massive bow, waiting for the perfect angle to unleash a rain of arrows.
Wait.
Why did that specific sound — a greatbow being drawn — seem to be coming from directly behind him right now?
Oh no.
He'd gotten so locked into the backstab that he'd completely forgotten to check his own six.
A bead of cold sweat rolled down his forehead.
Committed to a trap now, and with no clean exit, Leon went all-in — drove the straight sword through the Silver Knight's back instead of pulling back to dodge.
Blood sprayed.
Not entirely the Silver Knight's blood.
A massive lightning-wrapped arrow punched clean through Leon at the exact moment his blade landed, pinning both of them together against the wall like meat skewers.
Something like a Super Saiyan taking his own brother down along with him — if that image had any relevance here, which it didn't, but the resemblance was uncanny.
Fortunately, the arrow wasn't a full Kamehameha equivalent — didn't kill him outright. He was left to twist and struggle against the pin, dragging his head around far enough to spot the source and curse.
"Fuck. Three more."
Counting the Silver Knight currently skewered on his own blade, that made four total. Three others were tucked into blind spots invisible from the second floor, bows already half-drawn.
Genuinely classic setup design.
And somebody had still walked straight into it.
Even Leon — who considered himself familiar with Sein's habits by now.
Ultimately, human beings simply couldn't resist the things they liked. Every so often, the brain just shuts off entirely and lets the guard down along with it.
Combat erupted instantly.
The good news: individual Silver Knights ran weaker than a Black Knight.
The bad news: they fought as a coordinated unit.
The moment fighting started, Maru and the others registered the problem clearly.
This was unwinnable in its current shape.
The Silver Knights displayed genuinely solid teamwork — one advancing with shield and sword while the other two maintained continuous ranged fire from behind.
Worse to fight than the Deacons had been, honestly.
And their current available roster — an old man (Drew), a child (Maru), and an already-injured giant (Terl) — wasn't equipped to handle it.
Maru caught Leon's eye.
His expression shifted instantly.
"Wait — where are you going?!"
"We're going ahead to pick you up, Boss!"
Thirty minutes later.
At the bonfire outside the Irithyll Bridge.
Leon, freshly revived, stared down a grinning Maru with an expression that had temporarily run out of words entirely.
"Boss, look! Kept our promise — came back to pick you up, meow~"
Leon's eye twitched.
Smack.
He seized her cheeks between both hands, expression darkening visibly, then pointed toward Terl, still catching his breath from the sprint over.
"You could've just died alongside me! At least you'd have gotten stamina back on the revive!"
"B-but the Kindling effect would've dropped if we respawned too…"
Maru's cheeks were squeezed thoroughly enough that her voice came out garbled, projecting the exact wounded-cat confusion of a small animal being unfairly punished.
"…"
Leon couldn't hold the anger.
Genuinely, the whole disaster had unfolded because he'd let himself get distracted by a painting.
The group rested a while at the bonfire. The Estus Flasks upgraded by the Secret Rite of Kindling held nearly twenty sips at full charge, but resting at a standard bonfire reset that capacity down to a plain five.
Still better than nothing.
Getting back to the eastern avenue's house took roughly double the original time — every monster along the route had respawned in the interim. Fighting through wave after wave earned Leon almost half a level's worth of accumulated Souls by the time they arrived.
The "endgame" monsters really did carry a serious payout to go with their difficulty.
They'd also picked up the Pontiff Knight Leggings along the way — one piece closer to helping the boy escape Irithyll.
A quick check on him confirmed he was fine. Every other monster in the region had reset, but the mutated hounds guarding his house specifically hadn't returned.
Small mercy.
Re-entering the house, the group had learned their lesson properly. Plan this time: isolate the Silver Knights and pick them off individually.
Unfortunately, apart from the painting-admirer, the remaining three seemed genuinely linked, moving as a unit no matter what.
At least, no method to separate them had surfaced yet.
After clearing the first Silver Knight — the one still fixated on the painting — Leon put the terrain to work. He used the elevator to bait one of the remaining knights down to the first floor: lure it onto the platform, jump clear as it descended, then throw a Black Firebomb to force it away from the elevator entirely before pulling the lever back up.
Another lever existed downstairs. Unclear whether the Silver Knight could operate it independently.
After successfully killing a second Silver Knight with the delaying tactic, the one they'd stranded downstairs rushed back up unassisted.
Confirmed — Silver Knights could operate the elevator too.
Leon's respect for them climbed further. Individually weaker than a Black Knight, sure — but coordinated as a group, considerably more dangerous. Every one of them could switch fluidly between ranged and melee depending on the situation, adjusting tactics in real time.
If they hadn't also been vulnerable to the Undead Hunter Charm, Leon would've genuinely started to suspect he was fighting an actual adventurer party.
Tactics weren't their only edge, either. Each carried lightning enchantment on their weapons — every swing crackled with live arcs of electricity. Their physical durability and poise, while short of Black Knight territory, ran far above the embarrassingly fragile Pontiff Knights.
"Boom! Boom!"
Every heavy strike gouged deep marks straight into the flooring.
Leon avoided direct clashes entirely, working the margins for whatever openings he could find.
Eventually, with the whole group operating in genuine sync, the last Silver Knight went down.
"They're… they're… huff…"
Leon collapsed to the floor, dragging air into his lungs.
Between all of it, they'd earned enough to level up at the bonfire — first level-up in what felt like ages. Everyone was running on fumes.
Given the hour, dungeon closing time couldn't be far off. Every instinct wanted to just lie down and let the forced eviction happen naturally.
But getting kicked out meant losing every stored Soul.
So, for the sake of that hoard, everyone forced themselves upright and started searching for a nearby bonfire. Failing that, the long walk back to the bridge bonfire waited.
Souls sat like a physical weight on everyone's shoulders — heavy enough to override the temptation to just quit for the day.
Maru, still running on reserves of youthful energy, wandered the house. Much of the expensive furniture had been reduced to kindling during the fights, which visibly hurt her a little. The nobles outside would've paid handsomely for any of this intact.
The walls held paintings of every size — landscapes, portraits, some purely abstract symbolism. She studied them for a long stretch, recognizing only the Irithyll skyline piece.
The beautiful woman at the center of the painting that had mesmerized the Silver Knight was, apparently, someone significant. Exactly how significant remained a mystery — unlike Raya Lucaria's collection, none of these carried written descriptions.
Pure speculation was all that was on offer.
Poking behind the wall the woman's portrait hung on, Maru found something new.
"Everyone, come look — three treasure chests!"
Neatly arranged in a row.
Objectively generous. This should've earned genuine cheering.
Instead, Leon and the others went quiet.
They looked left. Right.
Finally, Leon spoke.
"Do we open them?"
Standard dungeon logic: not every treasure chest was a Mimic. But treasure chests appearing in groups always, without exception, meant a trap.
"How about this — I'll test one with Scholar's Hand first," Drew offered, cautiously opening the nearest from a safe distance with magic.
A purple light bloomed.
Everyone's shoulders dropped in visible relief.
[Divine Blessing]
Holy water blessed by the Princess of Lothric. Fully restores HP and cures all status ailments.
"Isn't this the same potion Master Gapar found before?"
An item genuinely worth treating carefully.
Attention shifted to the remaining two. First chest confirmed real — which meant, statistically, one of the remaining two had to be a Mimic. Possibly both.
Worth the gamble?
They skipped the middle chest and opened the one on the far side instead.
Cold sweat threatened.
It opened without incident.
Another purple light.
[Leo Ring]
A ring passed down in the name of Ornstein the Dragonslayer, one of the Four Knights who served Gwyn, First Lord of Cinder.
The wearer gains the power of the lion, enhancing counterattacks with thrusting weapons and allowing them to pierce even the most heavily defended foes.
Ornstein was the first knight of the Firstborn of Sunlight. It is said his cross spear could pierce even the scales of the Ancient Dragons.
Another fragment of the Four Knights' lore.
And this time, tied to the genuinely legendary Ornstein.
But.
Everyone studied the ring for a long moment before landing on the obvious problem.
Nobody in the party actually specialized in thrusting weapons.
Completely unusable.
"One chest left."
This one had to be the trap. If it wasn't, this genuinely wouldn't feel like Sen's Fortress anymore.
"Everyone, brace yourselves."
Magic shields went up. Every eye locked on Drew as he opened the final chest with visible caution — the atmosphere of the room shifted to something closer to bomb defusal.
The moment it opened, Maru actually ducked.
Nothing happened.
"Eh?"
Her confused voice summed up the room perfectly.
A purple light sat quietly inside, untouched by drama.
"No trap at all — and all three chests are purple lights?"
Everyone exchanged glances.
Genuine unease crossed every face.
Was Sein Dungeon actually running out of ideas?
No. Couldn't be. A dungeon didn't just get lazy.
The abnormality itself was the unsettling part.
But weighing it further — if these three chests were the collective reward for both Vordt and the four Silver Knights, the payout actually tracked appropriately for the effort involved.
Danger check cleared. Terl reached out and grabbed the light.
Everyone knew dungeon lights could contain literally anything, and object size never reliably predicted the light's actual scale.
The palm-sized glow in Terl's hand suddenly expanded — and within a heartbeat had grown considerably larger than Terl himself.
A massive hammer.
"Terl — throw it!"
Too late.
The sudden weight buckled his legs entirely, crushing him backward.
"BOOM!"
"CRACK—!"
Terl was already carrying his own great hammer. Now the newly-manifested one landed directly on top of him, sandwiching him between the two.
His neck, spine, ribs, and a substantial list of other bones snapped in the same instant.
Watching him dissolve into ash, everyone fell silent.
In a dungeon like this, not even a god could reliably predict the specific stupid way you'd eventually die.
"Keep this quiet," Leon said finally. "Nobody ever hears exactly how this happened."
Maru and Drew nodded, heavily.
Genuinely too embarrassing to circulate.
The hammer itself turned out to be absurdly heavy — took all three of them working together just to lift it off the ground.
[Smough's Hammer]
The grotesque great hammer wielded by Smough the Executioner, last knight to guard the abandoned cathedral.
Successful attacks steal life force from the target — likely a remnant of his years as an executioner.
Smough. Presumably the massive golden figure who'd stood alongside Ornstein.
Which raised the obvious follow-up question.
How were they getting this thing out of here?
Hauling it back to a bonfire on foot was a non-starter given the distance. They could technically exploit the dungeon's teleportation rules — cling to the hammer when forcibly ejected — but that meant sacrificing every accumulated Soul.
A genuinely miserable trade-off.
"Let's just leave it here for now," Maru said, pointing toward a side passage. "There's another path over there."
A hidden route descended underground. Dim lighting, but nothing carrying the danger-signal atmosphere of a monster-filled area.
If anything —
A faint crackling sound reached them. Fire.
"Could that be a bonfire?"
Leon led the way down.
The deeper they went, the brighter the firelight grew. A strange smell drifted up with it — hard to place exactly, but somewhere in the register of soup being cooked.
At the bottom, a faint sound reached their ears.
Maru's expression shifted into something distinctly unreadable.
"That's… snoring."