The valley stank of smoke, blood, and wet fur.
Xerces stood on a ridgeline above the human village, what remained of it. Crude wooden palisades had been ripped apart. Homes burned. Blood stained the snow-dusted grass. The corpses of men and women lay scattered—some torn open, others simply missing.
He heard them before he saw them.
Growls. Heavy, snarling breaths. The sloshing sound of feeding.
Then—movement. Hulking shadows darting between broken wagons and torn fences.
Gnoll raiders.
Six of them. Hyena-headed, taller than men, wrapped in scavenged leathers and chains. Their yellow eyes glowed with feral cunning. These weren't wild beasts. These were apex predators. Pack hunters. Smart, fast, and cruel.
They laughed while they killed. And they were still here.
Xerces crouched low, the green glow of his soul dimming slightly. His thralls followed suit—three skeletal warriors, their spines taut like drawn bowstrings, blades ready. But he knew they wouldn't survive long in a straight fight.
He needed leverage.
He needed more soldiers.
And this battlefield had plenty of bodies.
[Corpse Detected: 8]
Reanimate? 3 Thrall Slots Remaining.
[Override Limit – Soul Core Overload Risk: 12%]
"Yes," Xerces whispered.
The wind died.
Bones shifted beneath charred soil. Fingers twitched. Eyesockets lit with sickly fire. From the bloodied snow, three more figures clawed their way up—two armored villagers and one massive blacksmith, his hammer still in hand.
[Thralls bound: 6/6]
A scream echoed through the trees—one of the gnolls had spotted them.
It charged up the ridge with disturbing speed, slobber flying from jagged teeth. Xerces raised a hand, and his new thralls surged forward like a tidal wave of death.
The first clash was brutal. The gnoll slammed into one skeleton, shattering its ribcage with a roar. But the others didn't falter. They overwhelmed it, hacking, stabbing, battering it down.
Another gnoll leapt over the wreckage, slashing wildly—Xerces flicked two fingers, and bones surged with unholy strength. The blacksmith-thrall caught the monster's arm mid-swing and crushed it with one brutal blow.
Xerces advanced slowly, calmly, like a god surveying ants.
The gnolls regrouped—four left now, circling, howling in challenge. They sensed power. They didn't understand it. But they feared it.
Good.
The ground cracked beneath Xerces' feet. He whispered a forbidden phrase and drove his hand into the earth. Magic surged.
[Necromancer's Art: Bone Garden – Unlocked]
Effect: Raise temporary bone spikes from beneath enemies. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
From the dirt below the gnolls, spears of jagged bone exploded upward. Two were impaled instantly, howling in agony. A third lost a leg and tried to flee.
The last one, bloodied and wild-eyed, locked eyes with Xerces. It charged.
Fool.
Xerces stepped aside like smoke, then extended his hand.
The beast froze in mid-air, suspended by invisible threads.
[Soulbind – Target Immobilized]
"I am not prey," Xerces said coldly.
He clenched his fist.
The gnoll's soul was ripped from its body in a violent burst of green fire. Its flesh withered instantly.
[Soul consumed. Necromantic Energy replenished.]
Silence fell over the valley, broken only by the crackle of fire and the twitch of the dying.
Xerces stood among the corpses, six thralls still standing. His chest didn't rise or fall—he didn't breathe. But if he could, he would have drawn in that moment like a drug.
He had won.
His first battle.
Small. Insignificant by Elydria's standards. But not to him.
This was the beginning.
He turned to his thralls, now bloody, cracked, and still unwavering.
"We will raise an army," Xerces said, his voice low. "We will tame this world of monsters. And when they look upon our banners, they will not see hope."
He stepped down into the ruined village.
"They will see fear."