Chapter : 1129

The clean, sharp sound of Lord Kyle’s sword being drawn was a final, irrevocable statement. It was a full stop at the end of a heretical sermon, a declaration that the negotiation was over. Sir Raghav’s serene, pitying expression finally hardened, the warmth in his eyes freezing over into a glacial disappointment. The hand he had offered in fellowship slowly curled into a fist.

“So be it,” he whispered, the words a soft, sorrowful sigh. “I had hoped you would see the light, Lord Kyle. I truly had. But the old world clings to its loyal sons, even as it sinks into the mire.” He shook his head, a gesture of genuine regret. “A pity. Your strength would have been a great asset to the new kingdom.”

Kyle remained silent, his sword held steady, his body a coiled spring of readiness. He was not just facing Raghav. He was facing the entire, silent city, and the unknown horrors that lurked within the fortress at its heart. He was outnumbered a thousand to one, but the Lion of Ironwood did not know how to kneel.

“You have made your choice,” Raghav continued, his voice losing its persuasive warmth and taking on the cold, sharp edge of a judge passing sentence. “You have chosen to stand with the usurper. You have chosen to defend a legacy of theft. And so, you must be removed. Not as an enemy, but as an obstacle. A glorious, honorable, but ultimately irrelevant relic of a bygone age.”

He turned his back on Kyle, a gesture of supreme, insulting confidence, and began to walk slowly towards the gate of the fortress. “But do not think that I will be the one to strike you down. To raise my own hand against a man I once called brother-in-arms… it would be an act of profound disrespect. No. Your execution will be handled by those who have never known the foolish constraints of mortal loyalty.”

As Raghav walked, he reached into a pouch at his belt. He produced an object that seemed to drink the very light from the air. It was a shard of jagged, pulsating obsidian, no larger than his thumb. It was a solid piece of night, and it radiated an aura of absolute cold and a despair so profound it was a physical weight on the soul. Kyle felt his own spirit, a mighty, kingly presence within him, recoil from the object’s sheer, unadulterated malevolence.

It was a Heart of the Abyss. A forbidden artifact, a key to unlock a gate to the darker realms, a tool of the highest and most damned echelons of the Devil Race.

Raghav stopped at the threshold of the gate and turned, holding the shard up for Kyle to see. “My master has learned a great truth, Lord Kyle. True power is not a sword you wield. It is an army you command. An army that feels no pain. An army that knows no fear. An army that will never, ever stop.”

A sad, final smile touched his lips. “You chose to answer with your blade. Now, you will witness the true power of the Unholy Palace.”

With that, he closed his gauntleted fist.

The sound of the obsidian shard being crushed was not loud. It was a soft, wet, cracking sound, like a bone snapping deep underwater. But the spiritual cataclysm it unleashed was deafening.

The ground screamed.

A wave of absolute, soul-crushing despair washed over the square. It was not a feeling, but a force, a tangible pressure that sought to extinguish the very will to live. Kyle’s twenty elite soldiers cried out, some clutching their heads, others dropping to their knees as the wave of pure, negative energy hit them. It was a conceptual attack that targeted hope itself. Kyle roared, a surge of his own King-Level spiritual pressure erupting from him to form a protective bulwark around his men, a desperate, defiant act of a captain shielding his crew from a tsunami.

The cobblestones at the center of the square began to crack and split. Not from an earthquake, but as if the ground itself were being torn open from below. A black, oily smoke, thick with the stench of ancient graves and forgotten sorrows, began to pour from the fissures.

And then came the hands.

Skeletal, bony fingers, caked in black earth, clawed their way out of the cracks. They were followed by arms, then shoulders, then entire skeletal forms, pulling themselves from the unhallowed ground. They rose in a terrifying, silent legion. There was no groaning, no shrieking. There was only the dry, relentless, clicking and scraping of bone on stone.

Chapter : 1130

Their armor was the corroded, pitted iron of long-dead soldiers, their weapons the rust-eaten blades of forgotten wars. But it was the light in their empty eye sockets that was the true horror. It was a cold, disciplined, and malevolent red glow, the light of a singular, hateful intelligence binding them all into a single, cohesive unit.

In less than a minute, the square was filled with them. Three hundred Curse Knights stood in perfect, silent, and terrifyingly disciplined formation. They were a tide of death, a silent, unblinking army that had just been summoned from the very bedrock of this corrupted city.

Kyle and his men were a tiny, desperate island of flesh and steel, completely surrounded by an ocean of bone and death. Their defensive circle was flawless, their courage absolute. But courage was a currency that had no value here.

Raghav watched from the gate, his face a mask of serene satisfaction. He had not summoned a spirit. He had raised an army. The slaughter was about to begin.

The silence of the risen legion was more terrifying than any war cry. Three hundred pairs of glowing red eyes were fixed on the small circle of living men, a singular, unified gaze of cold, predatory intent. The air was thick with the chilling aura of their collective malice, a weight that sought to crush the spirit before the first blow was even struck. Lord Kyle Ferrum stood at the center of his men, his greatsword held in a low guard, his mind a whirlwind of frantic, desperate calculation.

He was a King-Level master, one of the most powerful individuals in the duchy. Against a conventional army, even one of this size, his own power could turn the tide. He could raise walls of iron, unleash storms of metallic shards, and become a one-man fortress. But these were not conventional soldiers. Each one was a vessel of cursed energy, and their sheer, overwhelming numbers created a field of spiritual attrition that was already beginning to tax his own defenses. He could feel the cold, despairing aura of the legion pressing in, a constant, grinding pressure against the shield of will he had erected around his men.

“Hold the line!” Kyle roared, his voice a defiant beacon in the oppressive gloom. “For the Arch Duke! For the Lion!”

His men responded with a unified shout, their training and loyalty a fragile bulwark against the supernatural terror they faced. They were the best of the best, the iron heart of the duchy’s military. They would not break. Not yet.

Sir Raghav, still standing at the gate like a satisfied theatre director watching his play begin, raised a single, languid hand. It was not a dramatic gesture, but a simple, clear command.

The legion moved.

It was not a chaotic charge. It was a slow, inexorable, and perfectly synchronized advance. A closing wall of bone and rusted steel. The front rank raised their pitted shields, while the second rank leveled their corroded spears, a perfect, textbook example of infantry tactics executed by an army that had been dead for a century. The chilling discipline of their advance was the final, horrifying proof that they were being guided by a single, brilliant, and malevolent military mind.

“Archers, first volley!” Kyle commanded. Five of his men in the center of the circle drew their bows, their movements swift and practiced. Their arrows were not simple steel; they were tipped with blessed silver, enchanted to disrupt unholy energies.

A volley of five shimmering arrows hissed through the air, striking the shields of the front-rank knights. There was a flash of silver light and a sizzle of corrupted energy, but the skeletons barely flinched. The blessed arrows, which would have crippled a lesser undead creature, were a minor annoyance to this legion.

The wall of death continued its inexorable advance. Twenty yards. Ten yards.

“Brace!” Kyle bellowed.

The impact was a grinding, screeching cacophony of modern steel against ancient, cursed iron. Kyle’s men held, their shield wall a testament to their strength and courage. But they were being pushed back. For every skeleton they shattered with a sword stroke or a mace blow, two more seemed to press forward to take its place. The sheer, crushing weight of the dead was a relentless, grinding force.

Kyle himself was a whirlwind of destruction at the front of the line. His Iron Blood power erupted. The cobblestones around their circle became a forest of razor-sharp iron spikes, impaling the first wave of attackers. He then manifested a dozen flowing, liquid-metal serpents of solid iron that lashed out, shattering ribcages and crushing skulls. He was a demigod of war, his every movement a symphony of brutal, efficient death.