"Verhen. Where did I hear this name again?" Dusk asked.

"He was among those who foiled our plan to take control over a World Sapling, my liege." Inxialot the Lich King, Ruler of the Kellar region for the Council of Awakened replied.

Liches didn't actually have a king. The title was merely a consolation prize for getting the short end of the stick during the last raffle to determine who would represent the undead Awakened for Council duties.

"It's the same funny guy I had fighting to the death in a Foul Moon ritual."

"What do you make of him?"

"A cunning, devious, untrustworthy young Awakened." Inxialot checked his diaries before answering. A brilliant man like him would write down unnecessary things so that he could afford to forget them and keep his mind busy only with the important stuff.

"He will make an excellent Lich and a fine addition to our ranks, if he survives the process, of course."

"Mogar is changing, Inxialot. Our eternal life has made us become accustomed to sitting on our asses for so long that by the time we get up we have more cobwebs than clothes covering us. We can't afford that anymore." Dusk tapped his skeletal finger on his throne made of Davross.

He wasn't so frivolous that he would waste the most powerful enchanted metal on Mogar for a chair. It was simply the shape that his prized equipment assumed during peaceful times.

"A lonely, downtrodden man has achieved for sixteen years what we could only dream about. Balkor kept the entirety of the Griffon Kingdom hostage, he forced the very society that chased him out to change according to his twisted beliefs.

"Not only did he refuse my little sister Night when she courted him, but he also ended up drawing the Guardians' interest and now he works for them instead that for us. A Necromancer found us, his family, so untrustworthy to side with our enemies."

The Black Night had tried for a long time to bring Balkor in her fold, but had always failed. Just like Solus, cursed objects needed consent to bond with a host. Ilyum Balkor knew what Night was and trusted her even less than what he did the Kingdom.

Whenever she tried to lure him with promises of power, revenge, or even to give him back his family, the Lost Magus had simply struck her so hard that she ended up landing in the Gorgon Empire.

"Another loser, another pitiful not even Awakened human, in less than a decade has brought Abominations back on the path towards evolution, whereas we are still focused only on tearing each other's throat.

"This Master brought fresh water to their pond, while ours remains stale. Is there any news concerning them?" Dusk asked.

"None." Inxialot took out another booklet before answering. He had no idea who they were talking about. "Some of their followers are more ancient than us and reacted to our inquiries with extreme prejudice."

"We need to take them out." Dusk said.

"The Mister?" Inxialot had forgotten about their unknown enemy's name the moment his eyes had left the report.

"The Master, the Abominations, every single one of them. We have tolerated for too long those failures feeding off our prey. With Jiera gone, we can't afford our munificence being mistaken for weakness.

"We've become so pitiful in everyone's eyes that even the Guardians only care about Abominations while we lay forgotten!" Dusk slammed his fists on the throne's armrests so hard that the resulting shockwave pulverized Inxialot's form for a split second before reforming.

"Laruel was our first real chance to make a breakthrough. To fulfill my sacred mission, yet we failed by the hands of a bunch of insects and an overgrown flower." Dawn's mission was to find a way for the undead to assimilate knowledge along with the life force of their victims.

Night had been tasked with making undead immune to darkness magic, the only element that could truly harm them, no matter if they retained or not a physical form.

Dusk, instead, had tried for centuries to make all forms of magic accessible to Baba Yaga's children. It was the reason why, unlike his sisters and his own mother, he didn't despise Liches.

Quite the contrary, he had recruited most of them for his Court, whether they were Awakened or not. The Red Sun admired their ingenuity and believed that, even though the need for a phylactery crippled their potential, Liches were the key to his success.

They were the only undead who were capable of freely using all elements.

"Plants live until something kills them. Their lifespan rival our own without the burden of our limitations. Beasts know almost no war and are the only ones who can become Guardians.

"Humans keep spawning monsters like Manohar, Thrud, and now even this whatshisname who kicked my sister's ass to the moon and back. Last but not least, Abominations are the only thing Guardians are afraid of and the Council is even thinking about offering them a seat since they were all once Awakened."

The Red Sun was mad with rage, emitting uncontrolled pulses of mana that were seconds away from destroying his own house despite the countless protective arrays he had laid himself.

"Mogar keeps spinning every day. Yet where are we? What are we doing to prepare ourselves for the tidal wave that threatens to wipe us out of existence?" Dusk asked.

"We're in your tacky underground castle, listening to your rants. By the way, there's no tidal wave incoming. I forecast a mild winter and plenty of snow." Inxialot checked the entire Garlen continent's weather to make sure of it.

"I was asking a rhetorical question!" Dusk roared.

"And I gave you a practical answer. With all due respect, my liege, if you're done getting on my nerves like an annoying brat, I'll go back to my lab. At least there I can use my time productively." Without waiting for an answer, Inxialot bypassed the dimensional blocking arrays and Warped back home.

"By my Mother! It's in moments like this that I understand why my sisters don't deal with madmen. To make matter worse, now I'm talking to myself and sound like one. This doesn't bode well at all."

***

Free country of Lamarth. Beyond the eastern borders of the Gorgon Empire, in the Headquarters of the Master. After learning about the Horseman of Dawn.

The near-extinction of the human race on the Jiera continent and the ensuing undead invasion had thrown enough monkey wrenches in the Master's plan that they could open a hardware store.

"Damn, if once the presence of the undead was an asset, giving me a perfect scapegoat to blame in the case something went wrong, now they are worse than an enemy, they are our competitor." The Master had summoned a general meeting to discuss the issue.

Only the most ancient Eldritch Abominations and those who had evolved into a stable monster-Abomination hybrid participated. They were the backbone of the Master's Organization and among the most powerful creatures on Mogar.

"Indeed. Feeding our ranks, finding specimens for your experiments, and even restocking our supplies has become very troublesome. Between the arrays and the rigorous checks, the black market is on the verge of disappearing. With it also goes our main source of income." Xenagrosh said.