Chapter 466: A Thousand Hyenas!
Pride’s mental voice carried wariness as he assessed the cave before them. "Master, this place radiates powerful energy. I can sense the queen inside. She has gotten stronger since the last time I saw her...She might be more powerful than I now."
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the news but nodded in the end.
Aether bounced excitedly on Arthur’s shoulder, apparently immune to whatever fear-inducing effects the Bone Cathedral was supposed to generate. "Master, it looks like a really big mouth! Are we going to go inside the mouth?"
Arthur’s smile carried predatory anticipation as he studied the entrance that represented the heart of hyena power in the region. The Cackle Queen awaited within, surrounded by her pack and protected by defences that had never been breached by hostile forces.
That record was about to change permanently.
"Yes, Aether," Arthur replied with obvious satisfaction. "We’re going inside the mouth. And the Cackle Queen is about to discover what happens when something bigger and hungrier decides to bite back."
...
They stepped into the cave, and Arthur immediately felt the oppressive weight of centuries-old malice pressing down upon him. The Bone Cathedral’s interior stretched far beyond what the external entrance had suggested, its walls lined with skeletal remains that seemed to shift and writhe in his peripheral vision.
Suddenly, Arthur began to feel the cave around him begin to change. The sensation was subtle at first—shadows moving in ways that defied the light sources, distances becoming distorted, the very air taking on qualities that made his enhanced senses struggle to maintain proper orientation.
He looked to his right, expecting to see Pride’s golden form and the crimson hyena guide, but found only empty darkness where his summons should have been standing. The absence was so complete that it felt like they had never existed at all.