Location: The Obsidian Enclave, The War Room.
Time: Two Weeks Later (Post-Titan).
Success, it turned out, was boring.
Dante sat at the head of the polished obsidian table, spinning a gold coin between his mechanical fingers. The room buzzed with activity, but it wasn't the sound of war. It was the sound of administration.
"Nitrate production is up 200%," Aurum announced, pointing to a holographic chart projected by a repurposed mining drone. He wore a new suit, tailored from black Enclave silk, but he still looked like a shark in fancy pyjamas. "Silas's modifications to the geothermal vents have tripled the Enclave's energy output. We are currently exporting enough raw mana-crystal to power Sector 4 for a month. The exchange rate is favorable."
Matriarch Nyx nodded, looking pleased. She sat to Dante's right, her staff resting against the table. "The trade caravans return with food, medicine, and high-grade steel. My people are eating well for the first time in a generation. The children are warm."
"And the defenses?" Dante asked, catching the coin with a snap.
"Impenetrable," Valerius answered. He was standing by the tactical map, wearing a new set of armor—black obsidian plate reinforced with gold circuitry (courtesy of Aurum's funding). "The Onyx Guard has adapted to the new steam-rifles. We have overlapping fields of fire covering the entire canyon. Nothing gets in without a pass."
"It's perfect," Aurum grinned, his nose almost fully healed. "We are a sovereign nation with a GDP rivaling the Gold District. We are untouchable."
Dante stopped spinning the coin. He set it on the table. It stood on its edge.
"We're quiet," Dante muttered. "Too quiet."
He looked at the map.
"The Baron's death left a vacuum. The Unknowns should be scrambling for territory. The Chimera Queen should be raiding the borders. The Banker... well, you're here. But the others? Nothing."
"Maybe they're scared," Havoc suggested, cleaning his nails with a massive combat knife. He had grown a thick beard to combat the cold. "We did kill a Titan. That sends a message."
"Or maybe," Dante stood up, walking to the window that overlooked the glowing, thriving city, "they're waiting for the weather to change."
A red light flashed on the communications console. A harsh klaxon cut through the self-congratulatory atmosphere.
"ALERT. PERIMETER BREACH DETECTED."
Silas tapped the keyboard frantically, his goggles reflecting the red light. "It's not an attack, Boss. It's... Caravan 4. The supply run from the South. The one carrying the medical supplies."
"They're early?" Nyx asked, standing up.
"No," Silas frowned, the color draining from his face. "They're late. And their transponder just stopped moving. Five miles out. In the Blind Pass."
Dante grabbed his crimson coat.
"Aurum, keep the ledger running. Nyx, lock the gates. Valerius, Havoc—gear up."
"Is it bandits?" Havoc asked, grabbing his heavy rifle. "Frost-Giants?"
"I hope so," Dante said grimly, checking the charge on his mechanical arm. "Because bandits bleed. And giants die when you shoot them."
Location: The Blind Pass.
Time: 20:00.
The Blind Pass was a narrow gorge that funneled the southern winds into a screaming gale. Visibility was ten feet. The snow didn't fall here; it flew sideways like buckshot.
Dante, Valerius, and Havoc rode in a heavy-duty Ice-Crawler—a tank-like vehicle Silas had built from the wreckage of the Baron's tanks and the Enclave's skiff tech.
"Visual on the convoy," Havoc called out from the turret.
The crawler slowed, its treads crunching over hidden ice.
Ahead, three transport trucks sat in the snow. They weren't wrecked. They weren't burning. They were just... stopped.
The engines were idling. The headlights cut through the snow, illuminating nothing but white emptiness. The windshield wipers were still moving. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"No drivers," Valerius noted, scanning with his thermal vision. "No heat signatures in the cabs. The cargo bays are open."
Dante opened the hatch and jumped down into the snow. The wind whipped his coat, chilling him instantly. He activated the War Engine in his right eye. A red grid overlaid his vision.
Analysis: No signs of struggle. No bullet holes. No blast marks. No blood splatter.
He walked to the lead truck. The driver's door was open. A half-eaten sandwich sat on the dashboard. A thermos of coffee was still steaming.
"They didn't fight," Dante whispered. "They just... stepped out."
"Dante," Valerius called out. He was standing near the edge of the gorge, looking down into the darkness. "You need to see this."
Dante walked over.
At the bottom of the gorge, fifty feet down, the snow wasn't white. It was black.
Hundreds of bodies.
They were the drivers. The guards. The merchants. They were stripped of their clothes, their pale skin stark against the dark rock. They weren't just thrown there. They were piled into a precise, geometric spiral pattern. A mandala of limbs and torsos.
"A ritual," Dante realized, a cold dread settling in his gut—colder than the wind. "They were sacrificed. But to what?"
CRACK.
The sound came from the pile of bodies. Like a dry branch snapping.
Dante froze.
"Havoc," Dante said calmly into his comms. "Target the pit."
"On it," Havoc swiveled the turret of the Crawler. The heavy cannon whirred.
Below, the pile shifted.
A hand reached out. Then another. The bodies weren't moving with the jerky spasms of fresh zombies or the feral rage of the infected. They were moving with coordinated, mechanical purpose.
They began to stand up.
They didn't scream. They didn't groan. They simply turned their heads—necks snapping with wet crunches—to look up at the ledge.
Their eyes burned with a sickly Green Flame.
"Necromancy," Valerius hissed, his hand going to his sword. "Sector 5."
The dead men opened their mouths. In unison, a voice that sounded like grinding gravestones echoed from hundreds of throats—a hive mind speaking through dead meat.
"THE KING... OF... WORMS... SENDS... GREETINGS."
"Open fire!" Dante roared.
Havoc pulled the trigger.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
The heavy machine gun roared. High-explosive rounds tore into the mass of bodies.
Limbs flew. Torsos exploded. Heads vanished in red mist.
But the pieces... kept moving.
A severed arm crawled across the snow like a spider. A headless torso began to climb the cliff wall, digging its fingers into the rock, green flame erupting from the neck stump.
"They don't stop!" Havoc yelled, panic rising in his voice. "I blew that guy in half and his legs are still walking!"
"It's not biology," Dante shouted, backing away. "It's puppetry! The mana is binding the bones! You have to destroy the structure!"
Suddenly, the snow around the Ice-Crawler exploded.
CRASH.
Skeletal Hands burst from the ground. Not fresh corpses. Ancient ones. Soldiers from wars fought centuries ago, buried in the permafrost, preserved by the ice. They were everywhere.
"Ambush!" Valerius shouted, drawing his obsidian daggers. He spun, decapitating a skeleton that lunged at Dante.
"There's too many!" Silas screamed over the radio from the driver's seat. "Boss! The radar just lit up! The entire pass is moving! It's a horde! A Level 5 Horde!"
Dante looked at the crawling darkness below. He looked at the skeletons clawing at the tank treads, jamming the gears with their own bones.
This wasn't a raid. It was a tide.
"Retreat!" Dante ordered. "Back to the Crawler! We need to warn the Enclave!"
They scrambled back to the vehicle. Havoc fired wildly, clearing a path. Dante grabbed a skeleton by the skull as it blocked the door.
"Decay!"
He pumped entropy into the bone. The skull turned to dust instantly.
Effective. Entropy worked on the binding magic. But he couldn't touch them all.
"Dante!" Valerius grabbed him, hauling him onto the hull of the crawler as a massive, stitched-together monstrosity—a Flesh-Hulk—lunged from the storm.
The Hulk slammed its fist into the spot where Dante had stood, cracking the rock.
Dante slammed the hatch shut.
"Drive, Silas! Drive!"
The Ice-Crawler roared, its treads crushing the skeletal hands gripping them. They spun around, tearing back toward the North.
Dante looked through the rear viewport.
The pile of bodies in the gorge was rising. It was knitting together. It was forming a shape. A massive, walking tower of flesh and bone.
And behind it, marching in perfect silence through the blizzard, were thousands of green eyes.
"The Necromancer," Dante whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "He didn't want the cargo. He wanted us to know he's coming."
"Who is he?" Havoc asked, reloading his gun with shaking hands. "That wasn't normal."
Dante looked at the green fire fading in the distance.
"The Fourth Aspirant," Dante said. "The Lord of the Necropolis. And he just declared war on the living."