Dungeon Overlord: Monster Girl Harem!
Chapter 189 - 189: The Dungeon Master's Realisation

The smell of burnt hide and blood was thick enough to chew.

Leonhardt stood in the centre of the ruined orc village, embers floating past his cheek like glowing snow. Firelight licked the edges of his coat, revealing the dried stains down his chest, the red streaks on his hands. His eyes burned brighter than the flames.

The corpses around him didn't scream.

Not anymore.

He bisected some of them and tore apart others using his webbing and ignited them in mid-air, with limbs still twitching.

But Leonhardt wasn't looking at them.

He stared past the charred huts and overturned stone cauldrons, toward the northern ridge where the fleeing orcs had vanished. His sword, blackened along the edge, still dripped fat.

"I've been too focused on leading my dungeon..." he murmured, voice low, more to himself than anyone else. "...that I forgot one key truth."

The next group of Orcs rounded the slope, war cries rising as they saw what he had done.

Dozens of them. Roaring, maddened. Some still bore burn marks from the retreat. Others dragged the corpses of fallen kin.

Leonhardt's knuckles cracked around his greatsword's grip.

"I need to be strong to lead."

He took a step forward, boots sizzling against the blood-soaked earth. Then another.

An orc charged ahead of the rest, axe raised, shouting something guttural.

Leonhardt didn't slow.

His eyes locked on the attacker, and in the next heartbeat, his body vanished, only to reappear behind the orc.

A sticky web dragged the orc's weapon away before his blade tore through the massive neck in a flash of light.

The orc's head hit the ground a moment later.

The body stumbled three steps before collapsing.

A ding rang faintly in his mind.

[1000 Experience Gained]

The Orcs gave a decent amount of experience.

Leonhardt licked a blood droplet from his lips and smiled.

"See?" he said, half-laughing as he turned to face the horde. "There's some delicious experience here."

His muscles tensed as he raised his sword to shoulder height.

"A whole damn clan of it."

The Orcs didn't sto even after what they saw, not even when the fear began to grow behind their rage.

He welcomed it.

With a breath, Leonhardt shifted his stance—dungeon threads uncoiling from his back and shoulders like living tendrils.

In the heat and fury, he could almost hear her voice. Nyxara.

A foolish woman who dedicated herself to him back when he was still weak, he beat her using tricks and yet... look at what she achieved for him.

The dark elf warriors numbered 100, and all of them trained daily, helped with farming and developed the dungeons.

Nyxara even sent 10-20 of her sisters to the north to help teach goblins to use the Dark Elf style of archery, which helped Gobbolas, too.

At first, he assumed she would be an annoyance that sought his seed, but Leonhardt came to find her adorable, always competing with Zafira, Asuka and the others.

That yandere stare of hers, blood trailing down her arm while she smirked as if the pain didn't matter.

'Just a kiss… and she gave me that much.'

His fingers twitched.

"I won't waste that."

With a calm smile and the two spirits in his soul chamber happily whispering in his ears, Leonhardt strode forward.

The Orcs surged forward in a tide of sweat, steel, and desperation.

Leonhardt met them head-on. His blade was quiet—no magical flares, no martial cries. Just smooth motion, efficient, unstoppable. An arc from his right shoulder cleaved through two shields and half an arm. A twist of his wrist sank the hilt into another orc's eye socket with a crunch.

He didn't even blink.

None of them could touch him.

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

His thoughts drifted as he moved, slicing and dodging with mechanical ease.

"I thought becoming a Dungeon Master would be the turning point… that I could build without limit, create a domain that would stand forever. But a dungeon doesn't grow without strength behind it."

A pair of larger orcs, one wielding a rusted glaive, charged together. Leonhardt kicked a corpse into them, throwing off their rhythm, then spun low and swept their legs. His sword flashed once—both fell, one headless, the other spurting blood from a severed jaw.

More experience flowed into him.

But it wasn't enough.

They were too weak.

Too slow.

A loud grunt snapped his attention; one of the orcs had thrown something.

A thick glass bottle hit the dirt near Leonhardt's feet and shattered, splashing his boots and thighs in slick oil. Another orc leapt forward, torch in hand, and slammed it into his chest.

Whoosh—

Flames erupted.

Fire bloomed up his robes in an instant, licking across his arms, his collar, devouring cloth with greedy hunger. Smoke curled around his form.

The Orcs roared in triumph—until they saw what burned beneath.

His tunic fell away in cinders, revealing his nude body, covered with skin not human but scaled, black, red, cracked along the edges like volcanic rock.

The gleam of molten veins ran under the surface, and where his chest heaved with breath, his scales shifted and shimmered.

Leonhardt's manhood swayed from the explosion, thick black veins throbbing beneath the skin as it slapped his thigh.

Dragonhide, both red and black.

Gained from pairing with the red dragon Asuka.

Leonhardt exhaled, stepping out from the smoke. Ash drifted behind him. His body glowed faintly with heat and sizzled, but remained untouched beneath the fire.

'I don't really like my cock hanging out during combat though...'

As if following his thoughts, a black cup materialised and wrapped around his crotch. Cool, and protecting his manhood from damage.

Only his clothes had died.

"I always do this," he muttered. "Get too fixated on one method... one style…"

The Orcs hesitated.

Then screamed and charged.

With the flick of his wrist... a thread lanced through his throat—webbing so fine it sliced before binding. More threads lashed out, snagging arms and legs and weapons, pinning five of them to the ground like bugs in a jar.

Leonhardt raised a hand, fingertips glowing crimson.

"I'm a chimera," he said softly. "So I should start acting like it."

The air shimmered.

"Cinderblast."

The spell blossomed not like an explosion, but a cruel blossom of slow-burning flame, directed and controlled. It didn't explode. It seeped. It crawled.

The webbing ignited, and the Orcs screamed.

The fire was too slow.

Their flesh began to blacken. Their eyes bulged. One tried to beg, only for the webbing to clamp over his mouth.

Leonhardt watched with no reaction.

His blood sang with delight.

Djinn blood, master of all magic, allowed him to control even spells that humans thought were limited and unchangeable.

"Interesting..."

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

[+2000 EXP]

Only control.

Only pain.

Only silence remained once they died.

He turned back to the battlefield. Scaled arms flexed, tension rippling.

Only a few remained. The rest had fallen or fled, leaving a wide ring of scorched, mutilated corpses.

And one figure approached slowly.

A tall orc, scarred from shoulder to hip, his hide armour blackened by ash.

Unlike the others, he didn't roar. He didn't charge.

He simply walked.

Leonhardt's lips curled.

"...You must be the captain they cried out for."

Thanks to his glowing blue eyes, Leonhardt could see the rough strength of this orc, and suddenly his mana, his threads and even the beating of his Djin heart slowed.

'He's too weak... so I have to limit myself to enjoy this fight.'

The orc didn't reply—only raised his axe.

"Krogar," he growled.

Leonhardt tilted his head.

"Good. Something with meat."

"I am the one who will wipe out your entire race."

He pointed his blade.

"Come vanquish me!"