The forest was still, heavy with silence, when Kael finally stopped walking. His hand lingered in the air, summoning the threads of Necromancy once more. The corpse he had stored rippled into existence before him, faint spectral light wrapping it like a cocoon.
The elf's form lay fragile, but the spirit tethered to it stirred faintly. Kael closed his eyes, his mind reaching inward.
"Speak to me," he murmured through the tether. His voice was calm, yet it carried the weight of command.
For a moment, only silence answered. Then, a voice like cracked glass broke through his mind, trembling but clear enough to be understood.
"…You… hear me?"
"I do." Kael's eyes narrowed. "Your soul has not yet crossed. That is no accident. Show me why."
The tether brightened. Fragments of memory bled through, flashing in Kael's mind — stone walls, cold chains biting into pale wrists, the sound of men laughing while blades cut into flesh. The elf's pain was not just death, but humiliation and violation of her very being.
Kael gritted his teeth, forcing his focus as the voice grew clearer.
"They… took many of us. Not beasts… but humans. Cloaked in power. They carved us apart… spoke of blood, of essence. They wanted life that does not end."
Kael's expression hardened. "Experiments. On elves."
"Yes… one wore the crest of the empire. A man with black hair, cold eyes. He commanded others. They said his name. Ar… Arlen."
The name struck like a blade. Kael's jaw tightened, scars across his body aching as if remembering betrayal.
The elf's spirit flickered, desperate to finish. "But not for himself. For… the king. They say he is dying. The prince… wants his father's life stretched beyond its end. Arlen's man promised to deliver it."
Kael stood in the shadows, the forest around him forgotten. The king on his deathbed, a prince clawing at power, Arlen worming into the heart of it — and sacrificing innocents for ambition.
The world above had decayed in his absence.
The elf's faint form trembled. "I… I was still alive when they threw me into the ravine. Broken… discarded. They thought I was finished. That is why I remain. I know… where they keep the others."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Then you will guide me."
There was no hesitation in his tone, no question. The elf's spirit bent under his authority, though not unwillingly. "…Yes… Sovereign. I will show you. Take vengeance for us."
A thin, cold smile touched Kael's lips.
"My vengeance," he said softly, "was sealed the day Arlen betrayed me. But your cries will add to his debt."
The plan crystallized in Kael's mind as his hand tightened at his side. He could not march on Arlen yet — the traitor was too deeply entwined with the prince. But a subordinate? That was different.
A subordinate could bleed.A subordinate could scream.A subordinate could send a message.
"Your knowledge will serve me," Kael whispered to the elf's spirit. "You will not fade. You will rise."
Necromantic energy flared, binding tighter around the elf's remains. Her body shifted, skin paling into marble tones, eyes glowing faintly like silver embers. No longer corpse — but summoned wraith, tethered to Kael's will.
She knelt. "I live… to serve."
Kael's gaze drifted past the trees toward the distant lights of Greyspire. "Then we begin with your captors. One by one, until Arlen himself answers to me."
The night wind stirred the leaves, carrying the scent of ash and decay.
Kael raised his hand, and the summoned elf dissolved into his summon space, awaiting the command. His path was set.
The hunt had begun.
Greyspire — the jewel of the Empire, the iron city where power, ambition, and betrayal interwove like a web.
Kael's first glimpse of it after ten years was from the shadowed ridge of the southern forest. The skyline rose with spires of blackened steel and marble towers, their surfaces reflecting torchlight and crystal lamps. Great bridges arched over canals that cut through the city like veins, pulsing with merchant barges and military vessels.
But beneath the gleam, Kael's trained eye saw the rot. The guard patrols were doubled, moving in rigid formations. Banners that once bore the empire's golden lion now hung beside the serpent insignia of the crown prince — bold, unchallenged, a sign that succession was already shifting.
The streets beyond the walls buzzed with hushed voices: rumors of the emperor's failing health, of siblings locked in bitter contest, of blood spilled in hidden alleys as factions tore each other apart.
Kael slipped through the southern gates unnoticed, cloaked in a thin weave of concealment magic from his shadow summons. The press of the city was overwhelming after the silence of the Abyss — the cries of vendors hawking goods, the stench of sweat and metal, the distant clang of forges. But more than that was the tension.
Everywhere, Kael heard whispers:
"The emperor has but days left.""The crown prince's alchemists are working miracles. They say he has a cure no healer could ever craft.""No, it is sorcery, forbidden rites. You've heard the missing slaves, the missing elves—""Silence! Do you want the Blackcloaks to hear?"
Kael's fists clenched. He needed no confirmation; the elf wraith at his side had already told him the truth. But the brazenness of Arlen's rise cut deeper than he expected. Arlen, once his comrade, now a lord in all but name, his shadow looming larger with the prince's blessing.
Kael ducked into a derelict alley, pulling his hood lower. His summons stirred in the shadow realm. He had thirty bosses under his necromantic command — towering behemoths, nightmarish warlords of the Abyss. But to unleash them all here would be madness.
No. This was not the time for conquest. This was the time for fear.
Kael's lips curled into a cold smile as he whispered across the tether:
"Three will suffice."
From the veil of shadows, three Abyssal Bosses materialized beyond the city's outer ring — hulking forms of bone, fire, and steel. One was a giant plated beast that once ruled the caverns; another, a winged abomination shrieking with hollow echoes; the third, a colossal armored warlord, wielding a cleaver taller than most houses.
Their arrival was met with screams. The outer district erupted in chaos as the monsters rampaged, crushing streets, tearing through markets, scattering the imperial guard like ants.
Kael gave them only a single command:
"Ravage… but do not finish. Leave the city trembling."
The bosses obeyed, their carnage limited, but dramatic enough that flames lit the sky and bells rang furiously from every tower. Greyspire descended into panic.
While the city reeled, Kael moved. His steps were silent, his shadow legion flowing behind him like a tide. He made for the inner district, toward the old aqueduct that led beneath the noble quarter.
The elf wraith whispered in his mind: "…Below the manor with the black banners. That is where they took us. Where the experiments are done."
Kael's gaze hardened. The manor belonged not to Arlen, but to one of his closest subordinates — a man whose name dripped with infamy in hushed tones.
Lord Maldrake.
An alchemist turned butcher, entrusted with overseeing the prince's darkest project.
Kael's shadows slipped through the aqueduct grates, bypassing guards drawn away by the rampage. The cries of Greyspire echoed above — alarms, steel clashing, flames crackling. Amidst that chaos, none noticed the Sovereign of the Abyss sliding deeper into the underbelly of the city.
The aqueduct opened into a wide chamber. Faint light seeped from iron sconces, revealing cells lining the walls. Within them, Kael saw what the elf's memories had warned him of:
Dozens of elves, frail and bloodied, their bodies etched with runes, tubes draining their blood into glowing vats. Some still breathed, their eyes hollow, while others were husks, discarded like failed experiments.
Kael's vision turned red. His hand trembled, not with hesitation, but with fury he had restrained for far too long.
He reached out to the wraith at his side, and she knelt. "…This was the place. Here… they broke us."
Kael's aura spilled out, thick with killing intent. "Then this is where their sins end."
From the darkness behind him, skeletal warriors, Abyssal mini-bosses, and the Sovereigns stirred, eager for release.
Above them, the city burned with the chaos he had sown. Arlen would hear of the attack. The prince would demand answers. And when the truth reached them — that the chaos began with a whisper in the shadows, with three Abyssal monsters tearing through their precious Greyspire — they would know fear.
Kael let the fury of the Abyss roll off him like a storm, his voice echoing across the chamber:
"Let the empire know… the Sovereign has returned."
And with a flick of his hand, the slaughter began.