The dawn broke over the Blighted Marches like a festering wound, painting the sky in hues of pus-yellow and congealed blood. The Ossuary Ascendant drifted lazily above the newly forged necropolis of Reidmar, its vertebral chains swaying in the toxic wind. Nyx Voss sat upon his throne of femurs and scapulae, Gehenna's Grimoire open in his lap. Beside him knelt Lady Seraphine, her once-golden armor now veined with black cracks that pulsed like infected arteries. Her eyes, voids of former divinity, stared unblinking at the horizon.
Aldric the knight—scribe now, in truth—huddled at a desk fashioned from a shattered altar, quill flying across parchment. The grimoire drank his words greedily, each drop of ink birthing new entries: troop movements, supply lines, the names of minor lords who might bend or break.
Nyx's skeletal fingers drummed the armrest. "Report."
Aldric cleared his throat, voice steadier than before. Fear had forged obedience. "The fall of the vanguard spreads like plague-rats through Aurellion's taverns. Rumors claim you devoured Seraphine's soul. The king mobilizes: five thousand levies from Fort Halcyon, reinforced by Archmage Thorne and his Aetherial Conclave. They'll arrive in three days. Princess Lirien leads them personally."
Seraphine stirred. Her voice was silk over razor blades. "Lirien… my cousin. She wields Dawn's Lament, a blade that severs undead ties to their master. Dangerous."
Nyx tilted his head. "Then we harvest her too."
The grimoire quivered. A new page unfurled: "Chapter 3: The Bone Whispers." Script etched itself in glowing azure:
Incoming Threat: Royal Host – 5,000 Souls (Est. Value: High)
Objective: Amplify domain. Convert 70%. Corrupt leadership.
Reward: [Whisper Network] – Network of bone-spies across Eostia.
Nyx closed the book. "Seraphine. You know their weaknesses. Speak."
She rose, her corrupted aura washing over the throne room like grave-mist. "The Conclave relies on ley-line anchors—crystals buried at crossroads. Disrupt them, and Thorne's spells fizzle. Lirien's paladins fear the dark; use shadows."
Nyx nodded. In YGGDRASIL, strategy had been spreadsheets and simulations. Here, it was alive—pulses of mana he could taste, fears he could smell. "Kael'Thuzad."
The Death Knight materialized from a swirl of ash, greatsword slung across his back. "Sovereign."
"Summon the Wraith Chorus. Haunt the Marches' crossroads. Shatter the anchors. Then, prepare the Pits of Rebirth."
Kael'Thuzad bowed. "It is done."
As the knight vanished, Nyx turned to Aldric. "You. Summon the council."
Aldric blinked. "Council, my lord?"
"The souls we've claimed. Elevate them."
The throne room filled with specters.
First came Mira the baker, elevated to Wraith Matron, her form solidified into swirling dough and flour-dusted ectoplasm. She bowed, offering a loaf baked from pulverized bone—still warm, somehow.
Then the child with the doll, now Dollfiend, a pint-sized horror with needle teeth and eyes of stitched shadows. It giggled, a sound like breaking porcelain.
Eighty-seven souls, remade. Nyx addressed them not as individuals, but as a legion.
"You are the first entries in my Ledger. Reidmar was your grave. Now, it is your forge. The royal host comes. Some you will break. Some you will become. Whisper to me their secrets. Drag them into the dark."
The wraiths chorused assent, a susurrus that rattled the stained-glass bones.
Nyx dismissed them. They streamed out like smoke from a pyre, bound for the crossroads.
Alone with his lieutenants, Nyx opened the grimoire to a forbidden section: "Alchemical Appendices." In the game, these had been cash-shop exclusives. Here, they hungered.
He selected [Essence of the Corrupted Saint]—Seraphine's distilled faith—and combined it with Aberration Souls from Reidmar's monsters. The book thrummed. A new entry bloomed:
New Creation: [Lament Wraiths] – Phantasms that mimic holy light, drawing paladins to corruption.
Perfect.
Meanwhile, in the fog-shrouded crossroads of the Marches, the Wraith Chorus struck.
Mira led the assault. Her Lament Wraiths—false angels with seraphic wings and screams that promised salvation—descended upon the ley-line anchors. Paladin patrols, weary from days of marching, lowered their guards. "Sisters!" one cried, reaching for the light.
The light bit. Flesh sloughed. Screams turned to gurgles. The crystals shattered, unleashing geysers of raw mana that the wraiths slurped like nectar.
By midnight, half the Conclave's power grid lay in ruins. Archmage Thorne, scrying from his tower-wagon, smashed his orb. "Necromantic sabotage! The lich adapts!"
Princess Lirien gripped Dawn's Lament. "Then we end it swiftly. Full advance."
Back in the necropolis, Nyx experimented.
The Pits of Rebirth yawned in the village square: craters lined with teeth, bubbling with phantasmal slurry. He tossed in the fallen vanguard—unconverted corpses. The pits chewed. Hours later, they spat out Bone Husks: shambling infantry with armor fused to ribs, eyesockets leaking tar.
Seraphine oversaw quality control. "This one's brittle," she said, snapping a husk's arm. It reformed instantly. "Good enough for fodder."
Aldric watched from the balcony, quill paused. "My lord… this army. It grows by the hour. Selaria cannot stand."
Nyx's sockets flickered. "Selaria is the appetizer."
A tremor shook the floating island. The grimoire flipped open unbidden. A map etched itself: Eostia's kingdoms, ley-lines pulsing like veins. Red script marked vulnerabilities: a dwarven forge-city in the Ironspines, ripe for skeletal labor; an elven enclave in the Whisperwoods, souls pure for corruption.
But one point burned crimson: The Vault of Eternal Dawn, beneath Aurellion. "Source of all holy power. Destroy to cripple faith."
Nyx smiled. "Aldric. Prepare a missive. To the neighboring realms—Drakoria to the east, Sylvandar to the west. Inform them: Selaria falls. Pledge fealty, or join the Ledger."
Aldric's hand shook, but he wrote.
Day two dawned with horns blaring.
The royal host crested the final ridge: banners snapping in the wind, catapults laden with sunstones, Thorne's tower-wagons humming with residual magic. Lirien rode at the fore, her plate gleaming, Dawn's Lament drawn.
Nyx observed from the Ossuary's highest spire. Seraphine flanked him, Kael'Thuzad below commanding the lines: Bone Husks in phalanxes, Skeletal Mages on bone-towers, Death Knights as shock cavalry on dracoliches.
"Status," Nyx commanded.
Kael'Thuzad's voice echoed telepathically: "Legion: 1,247 risen. Morale: Eternal."
The host charged.
Catapults loosed sunstones—explosives of purified light. They detonated in the undead ranks, vaporizing hundreds. But the pits churned anew, recycling ash into fresh husks.
Thorne unleashed [Aetherial Barrage]—bolts of starfire that scorched the sky. Nyx countered with [Ledger Eclipse], a dome of absolute dark that swallowed the spells whole.
Lirien broke through first. Her blade sang, severing ties: husks crumbled to dust, mages wailed into oblivion. She carved a path to the necropolis' edge, paladins at her heels.
"Seraphine!" she roared. "Traitor! Fall back to shadow!"
Seraphine laughed—a sound like shattering chalices. She leaped from the spire, landing amid her former sisters. [Divine Desecration] flared: her "holy" light rotted flesh from bone. Paladins clutched throats, vomiting their own lungs.
Lirien reached the base. Chains lashed. She severed them with Dawn's Lament. Up the vertebral stairs she climbed, slaying wraiths, husks, all.
Nyx awaited in the throne room. Aldric cowered behind the throne.
"You," Lirien spat, blade leveled. "Monster. For every soul you've stolen—"
Nyx opened the grimoire. Her thoughts spilled: doubt about her father's wars, a forbidden love with a Drakorian spy, nightmares of her mother's pyre-death.
"You're no savior," Nyx said softly. "You're a girl playing queen."
Lirien lunged. Dawn's Lament struck true—pain lanced Nyx's phylactery-core. Cracks spiderwebbed his ribs.
He staggered. For the first time, fear—real, electric.
But the grimoire wrote. Her blade dulled. Her armor rusted. She collapsed, chains binding her.
Thorne burst in, staff blazing. "Lirien!"
Nyx turned. [Mass Inscription]—the archmage's soul yanked free, pages filling with arcane secrets.
Outside, the host broke. Husks swarmed. Pits feasted.
Night fell. Lirien awoke in the Pits of Rebirth, Nyx overseeing.
"Choose," he said. "Join the Ledger. Or fuel it."
She spat blood. "Never."
He pushed her in. The slurry boiled.
Hours later, she emerged: Princess of the Pit, eyes black, blade reforged as Lament's Echo—now severing life ties.
Thorne, converted to Archlich Advisor, bowed. "The Conclave's tomes are yours, Sovereign."
Aldric tallied: 5,000 souls harvested. 4,200 converted. Legion: 12,000.
The grimoire updated: [Whisper Network] Unlocked. Bone-spies—rats, crows, whispers in the wind—spread across Eostia.
Missives returned: Drakoria pledged tribute. Sylvandar sent assassins—now wraiths.
Nyx gazed from the Ossuary, now a mile-wide behemoth. The Vault called.
Princess Lirien knelt. "The way to Aurellion is open, Master."
The whispers grew to a roar.
The Ledger turned its page.