Leornars wandered through the cobblestone streets of the provincial town, his unreadable gaze observing the cheerful citizens as they went about their mundane daily lives. Their peace was a tangible, almost nauseating thing—local merchants loudly bartered their goods, children chased one another through the alleyways, and bright laughter echoed continuously off the storefronts.
From atop a distant, sweeping hill on the outskirts, his eyes locked onto the sprawling silhouette of the Curzon Mansion.
"I wonder if there is an efficient method to drive these citizens entirely insane... to cultivate absolute chaos from within," he muttered coldly to himself, beginning his descent down the grassy slope. "Sending my undead vanguard to openly invade right now would be a tactical waste. I haven't thoroughly stress-tested their independent capabilities yet—what if their parameters are currently weaker than a human infant's? That would be... deeply unfortunate."
He paused, a faint sneer gracing his lips. "Uh. Even the ambient air in this place is contaminated by the breath of these filth. Splendid."
He stopped beside a large stone fountain in the center of the plaza, his eyes methodically scanning the perimeter. Traveling merchants were busy unloading crates of household items alongside a vibrant mix of wheat, fresh fruits, exotic spices, and local vegetables. Rising smoothly to his feet, Leornars approached a nearby merchant who was adjusting a canvas tarp.
"How can I help you, young traveler?" the man greeted with a polite, easygoing smile.
"I was wondering—from where do you typically source your trade goods?" Leornars asked, his tone perfectly mimicking a curious wanderer.
"Ah! Most of our stock comes directly from the surrounding countryside or the neighboring Kingdom of Alvalihm," the merchant replied proudly. "Occasionally, we even procure high-quality wares from the nation of Seraphim. Even during hard times, like the recent seasonal droughts, our local lord is incredibly generous. He completely waives extra taxes to keep us afloat—he truly is a remarkably kind man."
With a final nod, the merchant boarded his carriage and continued on his route.
Leornars watched the wooden wheels roll away, vanishing past the town gates. *So... there are other established kingdoms in relatively close proximity. I'll need to accelerate my timeline and act fast.*
Exiting the town boundaries, he slipped into the dense, untamed forest, walking until the distant sounds of civilization faded entirely. Finding a secluded, quiet clearing surrounded by ancient trees, he settled his weight onto a flat boulder and casually raised his right hand.
"Awaken."
His cold, unmodulated voice echoed ominously through the trees. A thick, pitch-black fog instantly crept along the forest floor, swirling violently as Bellian and the undead royal knights emerged from his shadow. Leornars examined their physical forms closely, noting the flawless integration of his dark mana into their musculature. He pointed a single finger toward a massive oak tree nearby.
"Bellian. Cut it down."
In a localized blur of motion, the undead demon drew his darkened blade. With a single, effortless vertical slash, the massive trunk split perfectly in two, collapsing into the brush with a thunderous crash. Leornars' lips curled into a faint, satisfied smirk.
*I wonder... does my necromancy baseline function on high-tier magical monsters, or is it strictly limited to humanoids?*
He issued a new, telepathic command to his shadowy vanguard.
"Scour the perimeter. Kill a collection of forest beasts. Bring their fresh carcasses back to me."
The undead knights dissolved into the woods with terrifying speed. Leornars leaned back against the smooth surface of the boulder, his mind calculating his next logistical move.
> *A targeted merchant ambush along the primary trade routes will drastically reduce the town's food flow. Artificial scarcity invariably leads to immediate panic. Panic rapidly escalates into violent internal riots. I currently lack an exact count of the garrison soldiers guarding the Curzon Mansion, so I must tread carefully. My undead assets are too valuable to lose to standard attrition.*
>
A series of distant, guttural screeches and heavy structural crashes echoed from the deeper parts of the forest before the wilderness fell completely silent once more. Moments later, all 138 of his undead soldiers emerged from the tree line. Each knight carried the fresh corpses of two slain forest monsters—except for Bellian, who carried three massive beasts slung effortlessly over his broad shoulders.
"Good work," Leornars murmured. He stepped down from the boulder, placing his open palm directly above the pile of monster carcasses.
"Awaken from your temporary death. Serve me until the literal end of time."
A dense, necrotic mist erupted from his hand, enveloping the beasts. Their flesh instantly darkened to a midnight hue, and their lifeless eyes rolled back, burning with a hollow, pitch-black energy.
"Bellian," Leornars ordered, his voice cutting through the damp air. "Deploy these beasts along the roads. Ambush every merchant and traveler before they can reach the town perimeter. Let absolutely no one enter or leave. I want this entire sector choked by starvation and despair."
Bellian offered a deep, respectful bow and vanished into the thick foliage alongside the newly reanimated beasts.
*He is more than capable of executing this operation completely alone,* Leornars mused, watching the shadows settle. *But still... it is always better to be safe than sorry.*
For three consecutive days, Leornars remained entirely inconspicuous within the town. Like a slowly spreading disease, chaos naturally began to bloom. Standing before a tarnished mirror inside a secluded room at the local inn, he glanced at his reflection. The caked, dried blood from his palace escape had thoroughly stained his once silk-white hair into a deep, aggressive shade of blood-red.
*No wonder the local guards haven't grown suspicious of my identity,* he thought, running a hand through the crimson strands. *To them, I'm just another unkempt vagabond.*
Outside his window, a massive crowd of townspeople had begun to gather in the plaza. A heavily bandaged, wounded man was carried through the center of the mob on a wooden stretcher.
"Another senseless victim of those black, shadow demons patrolling the roads," someone muttered fearfully from the crowd.
"The lord should have deployed his personal knights to purge the forest days ago!" another man shouted, his fist raised in anger.
"I bet he's dining in absolute luxury up on his hill while our children starve in the streets," a bitter voice hissed from the back, sparking a wave of resentful murmurs.
Leornars stepped out into the plaza, listening quietly to the mounting dissent.
"Fourteen traveling merchants have been slaughtered in the span of just three days," noted a frantic woman who had previously tried to sell him produce. "We have less than a single day's worth of communal food left!"
"We shouldn't just sit here and starve! We should march up to the mansion right now and confront him ourselves!" a prominent citizen declared, his voice booming across the plaza. A thunderous roar of agreement followed.
"Yes... that's precisely the spirit," Leornars whispered from the periphery, a dark, hidden smile playing on his lips.
The enraged citizens, quickly arming themselves with iron pitchforks, heavy wood-splitting tools, and makeshift clubs, marched in a massive, disordered line straight up the hill toward the Curzon Mansion, immediately beginning to violently bang against the reinforced iron gates.
"Come on. Surely you can hit it harder than that," Leornars taunted quietly from the back of the mob, his voice easily drowned out by the shouting. He casually picked up a heavy, jagged stone and hurled it with pinpoint accuracy, shattering a grand stained-glass window on the mansion's second floor.
*Perfect.*
Slipping away from the escalating riot, he hurried back into the immediate safety of the tree line and summoned Bellian to his side.
"Bring me a wild warthog. Alive or dead, it doesn't matter."
A few mere minutes later, Bellian materialized from the brush, dropping the large, heavy carcass of a forest warthog at his feet.
"Excellent. I'll handle the narrative from here."
Hoisting the massive, bleeding animal corpse over his shoulder, Leornars navigated the blind spots of the estate and reappeared at the front lines of the rioting mob just outside the gates. He casually dumped the fresh carcass into the dirt. The starving townspeople gasped in collective horror at the sight of the meat.
"Look at this! He's still actively hunting and hoarding food for himself!"
Enraged beyond all reason, a large man stepped forward, hoisted the heavy warthog carcass into his arms, and hurled it forcefully over the iron gates, where it landed with a wet thud on the pristine courtyard grass.
"Enjoy your decadent meal, you gluttonous swine!" the man screamed, immediately following up by throwing a heavy stone that shattered another prominent window.
The estate doors finally flew open, and the local lord emerged onto the steps, a fine silver sword gripped in his hand, his expression a mix of panic and confusion.
"Please, my citizens! Let us speak calmly—"
"TALK?!" the instigator shouted back, his face contorted in rage. "We are literally starving to death in the plaza while you dine in secret behind your high walls?!"
"Dine? What in the gods' names are you talking about—?"
"You're going to stand there and lie to our faces now, too?!"
The man hurled another heavy stone through the bars. It struck the lord squarely in the forehead, causing a thick stream of blood to pour down his face.
"Die, you parasitic pig!"
Suddenly, a chorus of distant, piercing screams erupted from the town plaza below. Leornars' undead horde had officially received their cue. They stormed through the lower streets—deliberately tearing down structural supports, shattering empty merchant stalls, and flipping carriages. They carefully avoided inflicting lethal casualties, but they systematically obliterated every single piece of infrastructure in their path.
"Where are your private knights?!" a man in the crowd screamed, grabbing the iron gates. "Why aren't they protecting the town?!"
"They're... they are all currently in the royal capital," the lord stammered in pure horror, clutching his bleeding head as he looked at the smoke rising from below. "The king issued an absolute, high-priority mandate ordering all regional forces to search for a silver-haired boy. I deployed my entire garrison three days ago..."
Utilizing the absolute chaos at the gates, Leornars smoothly slipped through a breached section of the mansion's perimeter fence. Moving through the side service entrance, he summoned Bellian and three of his strongest undead knights into the pristine hallways.
Room by room, they conducted a swift, silent search of the estate, until a sharp voice echoed down the corridor.
"Are you simply another one of those filthy pigs from the plaza? Or... are you my father's new puppy?"
Leornars turned his head. A young noble girl stood completely alone at the end of the hallway, a mocking, elitist sneer plastered across her face. He didn't utter a word. He walked up to her with terrifying speed, clamped his hand into her hair, and slammed her skull violently against the stone wall.
"Where is the demi-human girl your father is hiding in this house?" he asked softly, his crimson eyes boring into hers.
The girl spit blood onto his cheek, her expression twisted in arrogance. "Die, subhuman trash."
Leornars' cold grin vanished instantly.
Without a shred of hesitation, he drove his dagger straight through her left palm, pinning it to the woodwork. She let out a piercing, blood-curdling scream. He smoothly wrenched the blade free and drove it through her right palm. Then her wrist. He slowly, systematically carved deep lacerations into her back, completely ignoring her frantic, weeping cries for mercy.
"You and your family tortured demi-humans for your own amusement. Starved them. Abused them because you deemed them cattle. So tell me—" he whispered coldly, executing a slow, precise slice across her cheek, "—how exactly does that feel?"
The girl's eyes rolled back as her consciousness faded completely. Bellian stepped forward, effortlessly hoisted her lifeless body into his arms, and hurled it forcefully straight through the glass window, sending her crashing down onto the stone courtyard below.
"A shame," Leornars murmured, wiping his blade on a tattered curtain. "She didn't possess the mental fortitude to talk."
Outside, the local lord let out a broken, agonizing shriek of horror upon recognizing his daughter's mutilated corpse. His mind completely snapped. In a blind, frantic frenzy, he lunged through the gates, his sword impaling several citizens. But the overwhelming size of the frantic mob immediately retaliated, completely swarming the noble, dragging him down into the dirt and brutally tearing him apart.
Leornars watched the gruesome spectacle quietly from the second-story window.
*The very people you protect will always be the ones to ultimately destroy you,* he mused, his thoughts entirely detached. *A blind man, once he miraculously regains his sight, will always throw away the very cane that guided him through the dark.*
Turning away from the window, he led his undead knights down into the deepest recesses of the mansion's basement. Bellian stepped forward and kicked the reinforced wooden door off its hinges with a loud splintering crash.
Inside the damp, freezing cell, a young girl with ashen-white hair and two distinct, curved black horns was heavily shackled to the stone wall. Hearing the commotion, she slowly raised her head, her vacant eyes blinking against the sudden intrusion of light.
Leornars noticed a pristine wooden water bucket sitting near the wash basin. He walked over, scooped up a generous handful of clean water, and thoroughly rinsed the dried, dark blood from his hair. The deep crimson washed away into the drain, allowing his brilliant, silk-like silver strands to shimmer under the torchlight once more.
"White hair. Black horns," he murmured, verifying the description.
"Please... help me," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
"Good. You still retain the biological capacity to speak."
Bellian entered the cell, his massive blade flashing once as he effortlessly sliced through her iron shackles.
The moment her hands were freed, the girl's eyes widened as she recognized the dark aura surrounding the undead demon. "Uncle Belluahn!" she cried out, throwing her weak arms around the massive undead's torso, weeping softly. Bellian stood entirely rigid, his hollow purple eyes staring forward, though his large hand slowly raised to pat her head in a silent, residual reflex of his past life.
Leornars cleared his throat, his tone dripping with impatience. "We do not have the luxury of time for sentimental reunions. Let's move."
The girl attempted to take a step forward, but her malnourished legs immediately buckled beneath her weight, causing her to collapse onto the stone floor.
*Completely malnourished,* Leornars noted, assessing her physical condition. *Her biological strength is entirely depleted.*
"Bellian. Carry her."
The giant undead effortlessly hoisted the girl into his arms. They exited the rear of the mansion, the two remaining undead knights cleanly cutting through a pair of stray citizens who had wandered near the back gate. Once they reached the dense safety of the forest clearing, Leornars dismissed the bulk of his horde back into his shadow and took his seat upon his designated rock.
He cast a cold glance at the demi-human girl, who was now resting against a fallen log. Bellian and the knights seamlessly sank back into the darkness beneath his boots.
*What is my next logistical step?* Leornars calculated. *I cannot afford unnecessary tactical distractions.*
The girl finally gathered enough strength to speak, her voice trembling slightly. "I... I am profoundly grateful that you saved my life."
Leornars reached into his traveling pouch and tossed a fresh apple into her lap. She took the fruit cautiously, inspecting it for a moment before taking a desperate, ravenous bite.
*Why does it feel as though I have effectively adopted a stray animal?* he thought, his brow twitching slightly.
"I am eternally grateful," she continued, swallowing hard. "My name is Stacian Von Gremoriah, daughter of—"
"Where exactly were you planning on going after escaping?" Leornars interrupted, cutting her off coldly.
"I... I don't know," she admitted, looking down at the dirt. "I have been locked in that dark basement for four consecutive years."
"What practical use are you to me?" he demanded, his voice sharp.
"I can cook, I can tend to wounds, I know how to fight... and I possess an innate high affinity for light magic," she said. Sliding off the log, she dropped to her knees, bowing her head deeply before him. "Please... I beg of you, do not abandon me to the wild."
*Light magic...* Leornars' eyes narrowed significantly. *The singular baseline weakness to my dark mana core and my necromancy network. If properly conditioned, she might prove to be an invaluable strategic shield after all.*
"Get up," he commanded. "You will remain by my side—at least until you successfully determine your ultimate purpose."
A look of immense relief washed over her face. "Thank you, Master."
"Never utilize that specific title to address me ever again," Leornars hissed, his aura flaring slightly.
She stood up quietly, dusting off her tattered clothes. "Understood. So, Gremory—"
"It is Gremoriah," she corrected softly.
Leornars gave her a dry, thoroughly sarcastic look. "Whatever."
He stood up from the boulder, looking out toward the horizon. "We leave the boundaries of this kingdom at dawn. If you wake up late, I will leave you behind to fend for yourself without a second thought."
With a casual flick of his index finger, a localized burst of elemental fire crackled to life in the center of the clearing, casting long, dancing shadows across the trees.
*She isn't just a stray burden,* Leornars reassured himself, staring into the flames. *She is a calculated strategic asset. And I am still a highly wanted fugitive across this territory. Remaining within the borders of this rotten, decaying kingdom benefits neither of our long-term goals.*
He glanced back at her one final time.
Stacian sat quietly by the warmth of the crackling fire, silently chewing her apple. Her newfound freedom, her entire future, rested entirely in the hands of a boy who possessed absolutely no capacity for mercy... and yet, had chosen to spare her anyway.