A streaking meteor shot across the pitch-black night sky. The meteor crashed violently into the heart of the fortress. A group of soldiers cautiously approached while keeping their guard up.

"Everyone, stay alert!"

"But what in the world is that?"

They were soldiers of the Strauss family. Since the crucial task of defending the outer walls was entrusted to the far more reliable and formidable undead soldiers, the living were left to patrol inside the fortress.

They slowly drew closer to where the object had fallen and soon, a pile of bones came into view. Dark energy seeped from the bones, causing them to stir and latch onto one another.

Had this been the subjugation army’s camp, the priests of the church would have rushed over with holy water without delay. But the Strauss family was reliant on undead forces. Thus, there had been no preparation whatsoever for the possibility of an undead infiltration. After all, they never imagined the church would employ necromancy.

The bones fused into the shape of a human, and slowly, the creature rose to its feet. A tattered robe draped itself over the skeletal frame. The sight conjured up the image of an ancient monster from legend.

The soldiers, almost involuntarily, muttered to themselves. "A lich...?"

Archlich Tirafar opened his eyes, which glowed with blue spectral light. A sinister black bread escaped from between his jawbones.

As he reconstructed his body, he looked around. He could already feel the presence of his comrades scattered throughout the fortress.

Am I the last to arrive? It seems the others are already here.

The soldiers cautiously pointed their spears at the awakened archlich.

One of them, wary yet curious, called out. "Who are you? Are you... on our side?"

Tirafar let out a scoff. "I never thought I would ever receive such a greeting from living humans."

But it was understandable from their perspective. Had they not seen their lord, Emil Strauss, declare allegiance to the Black God and bring in a host of necromancers to raise all manner of undead monstrosities?

So even with an undead creature appearing before them now, it didn’t immediately strike them as an enemy. Of course, Tirafar had no interest in humoring their assumptions.

He raised a bony finger, and dark flames ignited at its tip with overwhelming force. "Die, enemies of my master."

A merciless storm of fire swept over the soldiers. In an instant, their skin charred, their fat sizzled, and their horrific screams pierced the air.

The soldiers, far too late, finally shouted with all their might. "Enemy attack!"

***

Tirafar was not alone. Demphis, Maloka, and Kalaf were all unleashing their death energy and malice throughout the fortress. Their oppressive force of darkness pressed so heavily that even future Leven could feel it keenly.

"Those bastards..."

Amidst his panic, Karnak’s mocking voice rang in his ears. "You showed us first, didn’t you? Firing undead with catapults."

Indeed, Strauss Fortress was protected by all manner of powerful defensive barriers. Most spells would be intercepted mid-air before they even came close.

But there was a critical flaw: Those barriers only reacted to attacks of magic or aura. To go beyond that, they would have to pour in an exorbitant amount of magical power.

But blanketing the entire fortress with a universal defense—capable of blocking all forms of attack—was gross inefficient. It was impossible given their resources.

"Sure, the defense here is strong..." Karnak brushed his neck with a wry grin. "But how were you ever going to stop a pile of bones flying at you, when all it’s doing is flying through the air?"

***

A bony hand traced patterns in the air, casting a pitch-black magic circle against the night sky. "Weep, despair of the heavens!"

A ruthless thunderbolt split the sky open. Blinding lashes of lightning tore across the surroundings. Under such devastating destruction, there was no distinguishing man from object. Everything the lightning touched burned and was blasted apart.

Archlich Kalaf scattered lightning and swept away the surrounding soldiers. He raised his voice high. "In the name of the Twilight Goddess, Serakal!"

He made sure to loudly invoke Serakal’s name with great effort. "We shall bring the divine punishment of the goddess upon these heretical fools!"

His intent was clear.

Why was the subjugation army working together with an undead archlich? Because they were from the Twilight Order.

They were a group that attacked the Cult of the Black God as they pleased, and whom the kingdoms and even the priests of the church had been quietly overlooking! That was the kind of reaction they aimed to provoke.

As expected, the soldiers of the Strauss family trembled with fury.

"Hypocrites!"

"In the end, you’re doing the same thing!"

But that rage did not last long. They could no longer feel any anger once they were consumed by flames.

It wasn’t just Kalaf either. The other archliches were also rampaging throughout Strauss Fortress.

Demphis raised every corpse scattered around and turned them into undead soldiers. "Rise, ye who have succumbed to sinful death. Walk the profane path according to the laws of the reversed heavens!"

Maloka, with refined technique, even seized control of the undead soldiers originally raised by Strauss’s necromancers.

"Why? Why aren’t you following my commands?"

"That monster has overtaken our spells!"

Maloka sneered. "Of course. You really thought mere worms like you could resist my dominion?"

Tirafar crushed all resistance with overwhelming magical force. "I have no time to associate with lowly insects like you. Die."

Explosions erupted one after another all around. Thus, the four archliches appeared and disappeared across the fortress, weaving in and out like phantoms. To the soldiers under attack, it truly felt as though they had been cursed by spirits.

And honestly, they weren’t wrong. If skeletons moved and killed the living, wasn’t that a ghost by any other name? Not long after they stormed the fortress, the archliches gathered before the pillars of darkness.

Facing the towering, crimson-black pillar, Demphis unleashed a spell without hesitation. "Explode, Flame Blast!"

A fierce inferno slammed into the pillar, erupting into a massive explosion. But the pillar only trembled briefly. It refused to collapse. It had clearly taken damage, but the domain was too powerful to be broken so easily.

Demphis, however, was unfazed. "Just as Lord Karnak predicted."

His master had already imparted profound dark wisdom about how to deal with this. He raised both hands and pressed them against the surface of the pillar. The dark energy surged from his palms and climbed up the pillar.

He wasn’t trying to destroy it by force. He simply traced the flow of power in reverse, precisely disrupting it. Normally, countering a spell like this carried far too many variables to succeed. Without adapting the necromantic energy to the situation, failure was inevitable.

But Demphis executed the technique effortlessly. After all, Karnak had already accounted for every variable and taught him exactly how to do it. All Demphis had to do was follow the steps, like a trained monkey.

The pillar vibrated as if it were howling in pain. Cracks split across its black surface like spiderwebs, spilling vile energy into the air. It didn’t take long before the colossal pillar shattered like glass and crumbled to dust.

***

Explosions continued to erupt one after another. From the east, west, south, and north, plumes of dark energy shot into the sky, only to vanish like smoke. Future Leven watched the scene unfold with a stricken expression.

Already?

The pillars had fallen barely moments after the infiltration began. It happened so quickly that he hadn’t even have time to react. With the pillars of darkness gone, the necromantic domain inevitably collapsed as well. The crushing pressure that had weighed down Karnak’s party vanished as if it had never existed.

Stretching his back, Varos rubbed his neck. "Ahhh, now I can finally breathe."

The others also looked visibly relieved.

Karnak slowly stepped forward toward future Leven. "Seems like our positions have flipped."

Now, with all of Strauss’s forces deployed far from here, future Leven found himself alone, facing Karnak’s group.

"That’s why you don’t set traps lightly," Karnak said with a smirk. "They tend to point back at your own throat when things go wrong."

Future Leven blinked. "How curious."

"Hm?"

"That’s something Lord Tesranach used to say often," he commented.

His expression was unhurried, a face filled with composure and ease. Even now, future Leven showed no sign of wariness toward Karnak and his companions.

"What’s curious is you as well," Karnak replied, feigning a sneer. "For someone whose carefully laid traps have just been smashed to pieces, you seem far too calm."

Future Leven tilted his head, as if not understanding what he meant. "Traps, smashed?"

Then, glancing up at the sky where the shattered pillars had stood, he let out a soft chuckle. "Ah, you mean those?"

"What? Are you going to say there was another trap all along?" Karnak shot back.

"Not exactly..." A sly smile played on future Leven’s lips. The necromantic domain was indeed a kind of trap, but its purpose was somewhat different. "That was merely to prevent your escape. Which means I, too, am a bit troubled now."

He clicked his tongue with genuine regret. "Now, if I let my guard down, you might actually slip away. What a bother."

Karnak and his companions stiffened. They couldn’t tell whether this was pure bluff or if there truly was another layer to his plans.

Wearing Emil’s face, future Leven continued to murmur to himself, "Still, it can’t be helped. Nothing in this world ever goes exactly as planned, so I suppose I’ll have to settle for this."

Then, quite suddenly, he collapsed in place.

"Eh?"

They all looked down at the fallen young man, bewildered. Silence. He didn’t move at all. It seemed he had truly collapsed.

"What is this?" Lapicel wondered.

Alius let out a groan. "Could it be..."

As a priest, he could faintly sense what was happening within Emil Strauss’s body. "His soul has left his body."

Serati and Leven turned to Alius in shock.

"What?" Serati said.

"Then... where did the soul go?" Leven asked him.

"That much... I cannot tell," responded Alius.

Only a necromancer would be able to answer that question. Their gazes naturally shifted to Karnak.

—Lord Karnak?

Karnak hesitated.

—Ah, well...

Normally, no soul that fled before his eyes could escape his grasp. In fact, Karnak had prepared a soul-binding spell for the moment Leven’s soul left the body.

But this time, he couldn’t secure future Leven’s soul. Before he could even act, it had been sucked away as if predetermined, vanishing somewhere beyond his reach. Karnak narrowed his eyes at the place the soul had fled to. It was somewhere beneath the depths of Strauss’s main keep.

What in the world was there, hidden in that place, that even his necromantic arts couldn’t touch? The answer soon revealed itself.

From the passageway leading to the courtyard, an old knight slowly emerged, clad head to toe in heavy armor and wielding a massive greatsword in one hand. Everyone who saw him widened their eyes in shock.

"Huh?"

Some among Karnak’s group already knew the identity of that old knight.

"The Martial King, Gellard?"

"Father?"

Delphiad’s Martial King, Gellard Strauss, spoke. "You asked why I seemed so calm? Well, this is the reason."

It was unmistakably Gellard’s face and Gellard’s voice. But the way he spoke was far too familiar. It was the very soul that had just been speaking to them moments ago through Emil’s borrowed tongue.

Gesturing to his own body, the martial king of the future smiled faintly. "This is the real trap I prepared."