It hadn’t been as long as they had said they’d need. Though it was damn close. It seemed I had wasted around two hours in normal time before they sped it all up in the chamber. So it turned out to be around a hundred and twenty-seven days or around four-plus months of non-stop training and learning, hampered only by the fact that to raise my skills any farther I need skill points to take them from basic. Points which I currently have around minus three for use.

Thankfully I could learn a pair of spells which netted me Basic spell casting lvl. 1 though it seems that it will take quite a lot to level this skill up as I only had around ten days, in the end, to even try to improve it, only to manage around three levels.

Németh told me that this skill governs first the speed at which I can cast my spells but once past advanced I can develop silent or even still casting with practice. And if the lich was to be believed if brought beyond expert rank, instant casting or even the ability to cast a spell from under the feet of a foe could be done. And what about Master rank do you ask? Well, Németh told me that it would possibly naturally empower my spells beyond what they should be.

Of course, there is an empower spells skill which simply infuses the spell with more power than it should be and it seems to follow the same sort of inherent skills that need to be practised. But if just casting a spell normally while getting a more powerful result without costing more mana to achieve is just as good in my book. If I can also empower such a thing if I so wish it is just icing on the cake.

The thing about these months of nothing but training is the fact I didn’t need to sleep at all, instead, a day was split up into physical, magical and mental segments to allow the other parts of myself to rest. I don’t really understand how that worked but it did, I’m thinking it’s some sort of magic or something, has to be. The mental parts were focused solely on meditation and working on my barriers, that translated to almost eight hours of uninterrupted meditation and mental fortification.

Oh and the Wuxia thing I spoke to O’Malley about at the start of these four and a half month’s? Well, we had to take a day off from training so he could pop into my world and around this one to steal some books. Basically manuals on cultivation, Meridian unlocking and arts using the spiritual powers of martial arts. Which I am now the proud owner of with not a page read. Yeah it was like being given a birthday present you could only open on your birthday but the sadistic bastards give it to you almost five months in advance so it just sits there, taunting you.

Well, they did teach me how to funnel mana into my body to empower defences, speed and power through it felt so damn unnatural to me that I didn’t bring the skill up to more than level two, only able to use it in short bursts before puking or feeling ill.

I felt a real need to check my character sheet but I decided that I wouldn’t check on it until I left Bedlev and neither would I do anything to any points I’d gain during my stay here. With that thought, I opened my eyes and breathed in.

I felt Dust's eyes on me as soon as I was fully back, looking to my side I saw him staring at me.

His black infused soulstone eyes staring at me as his body came into focus. He was perched on the edge of a stone slab of some sort that I lay on. Beyond him, I saw Abhorash, Morice, Charon and Vashanesh bickering.

I sighed just a little before I slowly got up and steadied myself. I felt that my body was going through adjustments to change to what it was back with Németh and O’Malley in their realm. It was just much slower and subtler than the rush I had before though it was still easily felt. I thought that perhaps it had been going on for the past four hours or so I had been under.

It didn’t hurt, no quite the opposite, it’s like you didn’t know you were flexing a muscle that finally relaxed, a tension leaving and coming back at the same time. It’s a strange and rather hard feeling to describe, the idiom, you have to feel it to really know it, comes to mind.

My ears picked up what they were all bickering about and I made my awakening known. “Then you shall go and kill him.” I said, my voice unusually cold, all four froze and then turned to look at me. For a moment there I looked at Morice as prey, that alone made me realize the vampiric tendencies that came with being a Halfblood, though it was a fleeting moment, thankfully easy to resist after my time trying to master my mind.

I flicked on my mental switch and welcomed the calming wave upon my mind, pushing my emotions to the back and lightly clearing my chaotic mind.

I stood up and arched my back subtly to feel it crack from the simple flexing of my back muscles. I noticed then what Vashanesh was holding and moved to grip the soul stone, holding it up and inwardly smiling.

The fun thing about the soul stone creation skill is that it allows me to manipulate the shape of the stones. Drawing my longsword I looked upon the hand and a half grip and screwed off the round pommel, pushing the blade into the gap between the stones that made up the floor.

I pushed my mana into the stone and began to shape it, using my rather vivid imagination to not only create a more fitting pommel, a dragon’s head. What I hadn’t thought through was the excess of the stone was left and I decided to try and integrate it in to the hilt and I felt as the wooden hilt grew veins of soul stone that came together in the middle of the cross guard of the blade. Like slipping molecules between molecules, somehow changing yet strengthening the whole at the same time. Perhaps I could do this to the entire blade with mastery? I had felt the metal fight the change a lot harder than the wood had.

I smiled at the creation I had begun to make in my mind. A soul-devouring sword that would hopefully scream, it was edgy as all hell yes, but imagine the fear factor of a master necromancer advancing at you with a screaming sword that would swallow your very soul. Chilling isn’t it?

“Have you found him?” I asked then as I sheathed my fledgeling attempt at artifice, it was stable for now so that worked for me. I looked hard at the four before me, I saw how Morice shrank from me and my memory snagged on the key points Morice had argued for came to my mind.

I softened my look at him and smiled gently, though thinly as I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Thanks for looking out for me and Akasha. Now I’ve slept long enough, lets get this Necroshade out of my hair so I can get out of this damned city.” I said as I scratched the side of my head and began to move out of the stone chamber I found myself in.

I felt giddy, ready to go, to test what I had spent so long learning for real. I had spells for crying out loud, an honest manifestation of my personal magical power. Nothing like the power loaned to me when I was Aona’s paladin, something I’m thinking was also done half-heartedly.

I breathed in as I left the hallway and came to a cross intersection. Opening my senses that I had been taught to feel and to see. It seemed not only could I manipulate souls or the like with my skills but that they would also open up a sixth sort of sense. A sense that would allow me to feel the emanations of powerful soul-type creatures, such as a certain shade, and even interact with them on an almost physical level.

It took a few moments to sift through everything before I felt the Necroshade’s soul footprint. The emanations only came from one hallway and they seemed to stop before even reaching the intersection. From that, I guessed that he must have only come so far before ordering an attack and leaving. Given what I had seen of him at the black market I began to think he couldn’t manifest away from someplace for too long or perhaps he had some other restrictions?

With that in mind I began to walk down the hall I had sensed as I began to whistle in the hall of the mountain king. I thought back on some of the lessons and the one conversational point they didn’t want to speak to me about. That is the paths I needed to bring my three classes to the utter nth degree to make prime classes and the matter of my corruption.

Through that, I began to form two ideas, one my corruption that Chernabog was arguing about with the council was my ancestry of the Void strider. He seems kinda eldritch like when I think of just the description of him. That has to leave a mark even if just very faint. The other idea is that…. Well, I have no idea really, I don’t know enough about it to really form another proper idea, but this one is that the council has something they aren’t telling me. I have a feeling it might concern my emotions being so in flux since my rebirth or perhaps an intersection of the rebirth magic and Aona’s age regression and my transference to this world. All this magic thing is really new to me, to be honest, it wasn’t anything near what I had thought.

Shaking my head I went back to the other thought I had, that on my path to become something they called Grand Necrarch. I’d have to reach level seventy in my necromancer class while also reaching level fifty with the classes of Apothecary, Enchanter and Artificer. These classes would actually be very useful as through Apothecary I might be able to conduct biological experiments, perhaps I might be able to create this worlds or rather my versions of Varghulfs and Vargheist for some decent air power. And of course with Enchanter and Artificer, I could not only create very interesting weapons, armours and trinkets but that could also translate into much stronger elite kind of minions I could create.

An idea for this I have for example is a sort of undead vampire draugur knightly order with the same abilities as Abhorash. The armour talisman that has now become a part of him. I might not even have to make him vampiric if I can recreate him better though I have several ideas for him in fact. It’s just picking which one is the most feasible and practical to take.

The same I should say about my other named minions. There was still room to improve them, strengthen them more. Setting better foundations for them until they reach a combined level of thirty which will lock out any more chances to improve them. Which meant I had to move fast in growing in personal power so I had more options to strengthen the core of my forces to come.

I was now determined to wage war upon Wolfsgarde, I had to. I couldn’t get near my old party though thankfully I wasn’t as pressed for time as I thought I was. Since they were now high humans they would live for three centuries, staying in their middle ages or late thirties the longest. But then again I was up against leaders of an empire, the head general, two of their greatest magicians, an archpriest and the queen her fucking self. If I actually wanted to get close enough to kill them it would most likely be the battlefield and at the head of a massive army.

That and all might have three classes at level 100, prime classes though I wasn’t sure. Apparently most prime classes needed at least two or three extra classes to reach a specific level to synchronize into the least version of a prime class. Once you reached level hundred in Archwizard, for example, you’d get an increase in your statistics and you could live longer, get another into level hundred and you could evolve your very race.

The journey to Archwizard, however, takes one through fifty levels of Apprentice wizard to be reset to 1 as a wizard which has to reach level seventy-five to be reset into Archwizard. Thankfully all of your skills will only drop down to proficient moving from apprentice to wizard and down to expert when moving from wizard to Archwizard. With the skills taking longer to level with each change. Of course to become an archwizard one also had to master the Mage and Alchemist classes to fifty.

This sort of system makes it so that those that manage to reach level 100 in any class are dangerous as all hell as they’ve learned well how to use their skills, I think creative use of skills is required to actually reach the master if not pinnacle ranks of skills so that makes those at level 100 with high master skills doubly dangerous.

Many of the knights of Wolfsgarde were close to becoming Archknights and there was even a requirement of being at least level 100 in the Archknight class to join the royal elite army. Charged with protecting high-value nobles and formed the backbone of their elite fighting forces. To be a member of the royal guard for the king or queen and their family? That was at least having a fully levelled Archknight and another fully levelled magic Arcknight classes. With such monstrous forces guarding Amelia and then having to deal with her at most likely three fully levelled classes makes it all the more daunting of a task I’ve taken upon myself.

This would also make me have to create back up places of power. Places where I could place powerful minions with the ability to create more minions and build hidden bases that I might retreat to if I failed in an attempt upon the empire. I just hoped I wouldn’t end up like the original Vlad von Carstein, I had little wanted to be staked in a death hug with some old priest. Well, that and turn into a Saturday morning cartoon villain with all these plans only to be sent packing swearing vengeance another day. I’d have to make sure to test myself against a small kingdom to perfect my force combinations and build my numbers up as well. More than just Wolfsgardians would die in my quest it seems. Then again I had at least two hundred years if I managed to beat my Corruption time limit, plenty of time as apparently once you reach your third level hundred class then you become immune to almost any non-magical ailment or disease so no dying of the common cold for my targets.

And with that cheery thought, I stirred from my musings and looked around. It had been a very long corridor which leads to a huge chamber that looked to be structured like a pyramid only upside down. It was more like a ziggurat with descending floors with a staircase on each of the four sides that connected them all down to the bottom floor of what at first seemed like a pit.

A total of five floors were there, all but the bottom one looked to be an extended nest of ghouls. A great tribe of the things, easily more than a hundred creatures. The topmost floor was the densest population of the ghouls. The denizens there at the top much more gaunt and bestial.

Each successive floor seemed to be like an evolutionary step, giving more meat on their bones and slightly more upright on the second. The third seemed to give them something close to wolf or pack like animal cunning. Each grouped up like hunting parties and wielding bones as weaponry, though as rudimentary as it could get.

The fourth and final one was the most interesting of the lot, for these, all seemed to be in a caveman-like level. Their tools were rudimentary yet they wore more in the terms of clothing, lumbering around like gorillas walking on two legs yet slightly leaned forward as they walked. Whereas the third floor’s weapons were mostly femurs and sharpened rocks those on the fourth had primitive spears and even bones with sharpened stones tied to them like some caveman style machete or axe.

The fifth floor and the last one was very strange, whereas the other four were made from stone-like slabs stacked close together, the last one was made out of carved black volcanic rock, not obsidian but the stuff I used to see all around in many of the spots in Icelandic nature. Yet it didn’t appear to be as porous nor as fragile as back home though another thing that put it apart were the sickly purplish-blue veins running through it, like it was some sick imitation of black marble.

In the centre of the fifth floor was a large crystal the same colour as the veins running through the floor. It looked like it had both shot out of the ground as well as grow out of it and in it’s middle I saw a wrapped up body as if encased within the crystal.

On closer look, I noticed that it was more like five long crystals that came up around the wrapped up body as if to protect it. It was very surreal as around this crystal was something that looked like a sort of laboratory, made out of third-hand and scrap objects to make up the laboratories equipment. And fussing around this? If you guessed a rather frantic, near lunatic like wraith you guessed right.

The Necroshade was fussing around the laboratory and making little clusters of the strange crystal grow out of the ground as he moved from one station to the other. Trailing behind him a sickly green ghostly smoke which somehow fed the crystals a little.

A convulsing ghoul lay upon a table maybe two meters from the central crystalline structure, it looked to be screaming yet no sound came out of its mouth. Well if you don’t count the frothing white bubbles leaking from its mouth. The ghoul also appeared to be slowly hulking out.

Its arms lengthening while its muscles corded up, its spine bending inward slightly as the body expanded to strangely complement the new look of the limbs.

“Is that an anorexic crypt horror?” I asked aloud though in a low tone. Because to me, that was what it was, of course, the spine hadn’t left the confines of flesh and skin fully nor had any bony protrusions sprouted out of its back.

“A what?” Asked Morice before he looked down to the table and then looked at me. “I think that’s a ghoul fiend, crypt horrors are a lot bigger and… well horrific. Lot’s of mouths, hands and” He swallowed and shivered. “Girth.” I looked at him with a disbelieving look and a raised eyebrow, what in the nine hells was he talking about?

Shaking my head I resolved to get a better picture of what he was describing, perhaps I was still on Warhammer in my mentality after taking the name of my favourite vampire as my own. I looked down all of the levels and felt a little bad at the waste of resources and hardship to get through them all this would be.

There has to be a way to get down there and beat the Necroshade without having to go through such an army of ghouls… unless… yes, unless I have an army of my own. Better made and better prepared, I still had several if not almost a hundred full skeletons and body parts in my soul space!

In fact, I was almost full to bursting and I made a few hand signals to my minions and Morice to go back. He just looked at me strangely but followed as we made our way back to the intersection in silence. I was deep in thought and didn’t know if it would work but I had to, this fight would most likely push myself into the twenties of the Death squire class and as I looked at my named minions I almost coughed up in surprise.

Abhorash was at a combined level of 28, Vashanesh was at a combined level of 24 and Charon’s combined level was 19. Dust and Ashes were at levels 16 strangely enough with Garm coming in at a level 18 Guard dog. Apparently all my spectral skeletons all had classes and my animal type ones also apparently were cheating a little by having racial evolutions also available to them like before.

I needed to increase their strengths as best I could. I was already just at a combined level 34 with 16 in Death Squire and 9 in the other two. So If I was an undead construct I’d be about as good as I could get foundation wise. I halted at that thought if they are somehow made into something like living undead would that remove the restriction? Or would it mean they could evolve and synergize their own abilities and skills?

With no time to waste I ordered Abhorash to lie down on the stone sarcophagus, I had lain on previously once we reached the chamber off the intersection. “Morice, Vashanesh!” I called. “Come over here and help me out, I’m going to try something out to try and strengthen Abhorash’s foundation as much as possible and I need to put organs into him.” I called and both looked at me like I had gone insane before then at one another then shrugging before moving to me and helping me out.

I put all the organs a normal human has into Abhorash’s skeleton frame, thankfully it was like it was in stasis as I worked so it didn’t spill everywhere. I had to spend a soul to infuse the organs with half-life.. and a screaming ghoul. If I was just some poor schmuck with a barely passable relation to a great ancestor then I’d excel on my own with my mind and imagination in making my minions. A thought of an ever-growing dragon skeleton with a steel reinforced ribcage that could hold a large house or even fortress inside of itself came to mind and I filed it away for another day.

Once all the organs had been put into Abhorash’s body, along with a fresh pair of creepy bloodshot blue eyes and a brain. I stretched out muscle fibres and began to clad his body in that as well. Using the soul-infused parts we had appropriated from an unlucky ghoul. Simply shoving in a blood circulation system in places I thought were appropriate. Thankfully I had a dissected quite a lot of bodies so I think I got it rather close. Morphing and changing the skeleton to both protect the organs in the chest like my own skeleton had become as well as try to work the inner structure of his bones like carbon nanotubes. His fingertips would end in slight claws like my nails now did naturally though as sharp as I could make them.

I added in a thin layer of flexible bone to cover the muscles, like small flexible plates of armour that wouldn’t get in the way while constricting and holding the packed muscles in place. Then I stretched ghoul skin around his body, I made sure to sow on what extra skin was required which left him with a wide-open cavity in his chest that had to be sewn up once I was done. The flaps laying on either side of his chest.

I began to realize what actually put me apart from others. My understanding of the world around me, though it was very basic like physics, biology as well as the fact the world is made up out of molecules. Those fundamental truths that I knew but the people of this world didn’t, thus I had been able to literally meld wood with soul stone. By slipping the molecules in place, imagining it and knowing of this state of matter seemed to allow mana to flow better towards my intent if not outright will. Though it was more akin to forcing your brain to go out your eyes while you're also trying to get an annoying song out of your head at the same time in terms of sheer effort of will to accomplish.

With this in mind, I had compacted the muscles and the bones, shrinking them down to increase their density as I worked. The only reason I could work flesh like this was both thanks to Morice lending me his flesh crafting skill and my basic minor undead creation skill. I still had to learn flesh crafting from Morice.

The basic minor undead creation isn’t actually a weak skill, it covers the fundamentals of all types of undead and can create up to medium higher undead if enough time and effort is put into it. It’s literally designed to create undead that one imagines. It also allows of cooperation between two or more necromancers, allowing them to pool their skills into creating the undead.

It was that aspect of the skill that allowed working with Morice in this endeavour.

I sighed a little as I saw Abhorash get used to the new things around his body, nothing had fully bonded to him so it was kinda weird to see the little pinpricks of light look at me but the eyes in the sockets staring straight up. Then came the hard part. Everything up to this point had been tiny expenditures of mana and stamina in terms of what was to come. By using the first part to get everything to fit and work together. I then needed to use a skill that would drain me much more than the others.

Removing a soul stone I drew out five souls and melded them together, removing everything that didn’t pertain to skills Abhorash wouldn’t need, such as a memory about basket weaving. I cleaned the souls as best I could before using the entire thing to imbue everything that would make up Abhorashs’s new body binding it all together and leaving a large pool of energy to draw upon when the changes were finalized.

I also tied this to his amulet which I had fused into the sternum for more protection as it had been fused to just the front of it. I created and melded a soul stone into one the obsidian steel rings I had, then this alloy I melded into the amulet completing its collection of metals from two to three. Now I just needed to find a very, very good metal to finish its collection.

Hopefully, this world had Adamantium, Vibranium or some equivalent to make Abhorahs a tank.

This last part was a gamble, I hoped that with this the armour could perhaps take in the souls of those Abhorash kills then either stores them for me or maybe uses it to strengthen his armour. Though this is only my little hope and fantasy.

I could put souls into higher types of undead to allow them to have massive stores of energies to draw upon to complete their creators wish. This might also upgrade an undead to a higher level if done correctly, I, on the other hand, didn’t know how to do that so I was just brute-forcing it and hoping for the best. I also hope that this might change Abhorahs from an undead to a living dead. That little distinction was the difference between vampires, liches and death knights for example from other undead and allowed them to grow like the “mortal” races did, increasing their power immensely in the long term as only animal type undead could evolve in time with experience.

Lastly, I did something I felt I needed to do to get what I was going for done. It was a strange sort of compulsion to do this, like my own instincts were on full blast all of the sudden. With a knife, I cut my palm and let my blood fill up a vial I made out of bone around the size of a normal cup. Taking a portion of my own soul, the size of my little toes fingernail, I imbued it as well as I could into the blood. Empowering this mixture with another two completely empty souls, using the powerful material as nothing more than power for my blood as part of the concoction.

Then carefully I poured half into Abhorash’s heart through a small incision I made and the rest went down into his mouth, onto his eyes and brain. The vampiric fangs now very appropriate but I elongated his lower ones just a tad to fit in with my own. I’m vain, so what?! I want him to look as badass as possible.

Then as all three of us stitched up Abhorah’s chest, making the skin as tight as possible around him I let out my mana to fill up my minion and to finalize the changes and kickstart the process. I immediately felt as if I was bared before a funnel of mana, draining my core and even the air around us utterly dry and even the mana I had invested into my own body. The mana I had been seeping into my muscles and organs to try and strengthen myself was utterly emptied, then I felt half my remaining stamina be drained out as well. It was like getting punched in the stomach, the testicles, your brain and your soul all at the same time. Sufficed to say it was rather unpleasant and I predictably fell to my knees with a gasp as it took barely a second to happen.

The undead lay there for a very long time as the skin began to slowly tighten slightly around him, growing as tight as possible in around three minutes. This allowed me to recover just a little. Then he began to convulse. All of my humanoid minions and Garm along with Morice and I held him down as he convulsed for almost five minutes, it might have been longer or shorter as the moments felt like such a long time passed with each one.

The body bucked and squirmed under our hold making it harder to hold him down if it weren't like eight of us holding him down, discounting Garm who almost lay on top of him.

Then as he grew still his skin grew a pale grey shade and tightened even more, almost to the point of being an emaciated mummy, a starving man just barely alive. Then he opened his eyes and a bright glow came into his blue eyes which turned them a shade of purple while in the very centre of it was the blue ethereal glow that then muted down to almost nothing more than a blue glint in his eyes.

His fingers stretched out and the amulet that I had imbued and worked into his breastplate was the only thing left visible on his chest with a single metal shield symbol visible under stretched skin as he rose up and looked at his new body.

He looked like a draugur from Skyrim, all tight skin and much too skinny arms for his large frame before he suddenly flexed and got ripped. I mean Arnold Schwarzenegger at his prime type ripped before it shrunk to become like a well built but very skinny athlete. It was an explosive growth of muscle as he flexed before shrinking and got up before donning his armour.

It seemed the souls had empowered his bodies transformation as much or rather beyond what I had hoped when I bound those five souls into everything relating to his body. It was sleek, matte black yet somehow had a slight purple shine to its surface which had something like a liquid effect. The armour taking key elements from the Vampire counts, Dark elves and the Depth guard of Warhammer fame in its design, most likely due to my own imagination.

The pauldron’s had a sort of spiked bat wing laying over the shoulders in a sharp scale-like layering on its sleek design. Abhorahs had lost a bit of height, half a meter in fact so he now stood at two meters tall, still intimidating as he had this larger than life air about him. His armour was sleek, stylish and what I’d say most dark lords would drool over. He seemed to admire himself in it as the helm took on ints shape, it had a sharp and angled feel to it, with a raven motif to the face plate’s form while still keeping a type of Italian Armet helm style. His softly glowing purple eyes just gave him even more of an ethereal feel as they peeked out from the black of the visor. That is if one ignored the trim of white ethereal fur around the edges of his neck with shadowy grey fabric that came down out from his hips like he wore a long fur-trimmed great coat underneath his armour. Frayed and tattered at the edges, like it had served centuries in combat while looking like part smoke, part spirit, part chain mail, and lastly part fabric all rolled into one article of clothing.

The fabric flowed and looked ghostly in its appearance, giving the horrific vampire knight a deadly and otherworldly feel to him. He had grown sleek like an Elf yet was built like a Viking, just perfectly proportional to be what he was, a knight of a race of apex predators.

Then the notification came along.

Congratulations! By subverting the norm and going against the grain you’ve managed to create a new vampiric bloodline! This bloodline is subservient to another yet as of risen bloodline of vampires, the flaw of this bloodline will instead be tied to their creator until that bloodline is made. Please take the time to name this bloodline before its strengths and weaknesses of this bloodline are shown.

“Abhorahs kneel.” I said with a dry mouth, having to work saliva around it to be able to talk as the terrifying knight kneeled before me. Drawing out my blood drinkers sword, I held it up with the blade flat against my face as I breathed in and then placed the flat blade on his left shoulder.

“I, as the progenitor of your bloodline and future lord of another, name you my knight. My squire in arms but son in blood. You are the first of your kind and as such shall be the strongest of your new line. Unless conquered by another your line will lessen with each member turned by another. Twenty shall be your generations. No more, no less. Those you sire shall be the strongest of your line second only to yourself. Sunlight shall merely weaken you if you allow it, it shall not burn.” I spoke with authority while my exhaustion tried to get its claws into me.

“ You will be able to turn the living but henceforth shall they never sustain you. From death, you were born so from the dead shall you feed, animal or sentient it will not matter. Magic will have a hard time touching you but in turn, your bloodline will rarely have the touch of magic either but be gifted with a connection to death. Death will forevermore be a sustaining force to you, curses cast upon you will become blessings. Yours is a martial bloodline and shall be made of the greatest of warriors should you decide to induct into your bloodline’s ranks with care.” The words came unbidden to my lips as I carried on the sermon, realizing I was telling Abhorash the weaknesses of his bloodline as well as some of the strengths it will have. Even my hopes for his bloodline to become the strongest warrior this continent has ever seen.

It was rather… strange having my mouth work without my say so. Though I was so drained by the creation process I simply focused on speaking and making this as auspicious as I could. For as little control over my words as I did I could

“The aspect of your line will be the wolf, noble and honourable shall be the hallmarks of your line. Knights without equal with strength of arm and of blood. With steel in your veins, you shall stand against my enemies. If you let it.” I put an emphasis on the last bit, a heavy promise.

As you begin created as my squire your line will be granted the ability to create your mounts once knighted, these will lie within your very shadow, dormant until needed. On Nightmares shall you ride, shadows shall shield and mend you yet flesh will be your armour. Now, will you pledge yourself as my knight?” I ended as I turned the blade over to his right shoulder.

“I do not pledge myself as your knight, my liege.” His words made me distinctly aware I had no mental connection to him as I had before. I gripped my sword tightly, ready to decapitate him if needed. “Instead I pledge my line to your own line as it’s knights and guardians. I pledge that as long as one of my line lives, they shall be in the service of the Von Carstein line.” Abhorash spoke with a reverent tone and I felt a weight behind those words. I then knew that Abhorash’s bloodline would serve mine till its dying day, I felt a lump in my throat. Despite being Abhorash’s creator I had only felt he was loyal to me as an honourable knight should, but for him to show such utter loyalty and devotion made me feel honoured and kinda privileged to have him as my servant.

“Then so it shall be. A Von Carstein shall never be without a member of your bloodline at their side. As you will be my knight and guardian so shall I honour your pledge with the same reverence as it was given. Now rise Abhorash! Rise as the progenitor of the Svartritter bloodline, the bloodline of honour, the bloodline of the royal knights of the court of the Von Carstein's.” I paused as I raised the sword up and placed it on the top of his head. “Rise as you and your bloodline will forevermore. Rise as the knights and guardians of the house of Von Carstein! Abhorash Svartritter, first of the Umbral Knights and first among my generals!

From this day forth your rise shall follow my own! As my power grows so shall yours!” My voice while not feeling like my own was commanding, kingly even as if I had mastered the way to move not only those watching but the one receiving the honour I bestowed the most. It was a wondrous moment yet the fact it wasn’t fully my words nor inflexions made me a little uneasy.

Abhorash knelt before me still, his head bowed. “I accept and receive this honour with pride.” His hands raised up and held his blood drinker greatsword up for me to see. I did the same to the pommel of his sword as I had done with my own. Though this time I managed to blend the soulstone into both the almost spiked pommel, through the grip and into the crossguard itself. Once done I turned the point of the blade over to Abhorash, offering it as he had to me though from the position of power.

“I am humbled by your faith and generosity towards me, Lord Von Carstein. I will serve you with pride, honour and loyalty!” He said so reverently I felt like he was receiving a gift from God before he stood up, with his hands on the crossguard and the point against the floor.

Congratulations! You’ve achieved what none has before! Through shrewd manipulation the world around you or sheer dumb luck you’ve created a secondary bloodline that will be loyal to you at its core and will serve your own bloodline wholeheartedly.

A new prime class has been created due to your actions and you will have to figure out how to bring this class into full fruition and to the end of its permutations. As such you’ve been granted the class Vampire Baron Lvl. 1, through your actions your new subservient bloodline progenitor can receive the class Vampire squire lvl. 1. Do you wish to grant Abhorash Svartritter this class and allow him to take the first steps to become your houses knight?

►Yes? No?

It was a no brainer, why not make my servant as powerful as possible with such devotion within him? I felt I needed to reward him for what he had just done in some way and this was a nice icing on the cake with the gift of his sword’s changed effects.

Bloodline created!

Name: Svartritter

Type: Martial focused knightly bloodline

Feeding habits: Can turn the living but requires at least a five-minute dead corpse to feed in any way. Alchemically what they feed upon is dead man’s blood, though sentient races aren’t the only things this bloodline can healthily feed on.

Strengths:

1) Martial skills and classes come easy to this bloodline, due to the progenitor’s circumstances each member of this bloodline will be granted the Vampiric Squire class. Once they become Vampiric knights they can raise a mount of their own, either skeletal or creating them by turning them into vampiric thralls.

2) This bloodline can create armour of their own, able to create it through ingestion of the metals it shall be made out of.

3) Slightly increased regenerations outside sunlight, preferably within shadows but natural armour is strengthened the darker it is.

4) The Svartritter bloodline will have the ability to turn into large dire wolves as the aspect of their bloodline. Practice might unlock more forms depending on natural ability. This also makes this bloodline work very well together in groups, packs or even companies.

5) Necrotic power runs through the veins of the Svartritter, as such nearly any necrotic type spells will have a positive effect on this bloodline instead of detrimental effects.

Strength and weakness:

1) Sunlight will weaken this bloodline but through strength of will, this can be negated.

2) Magic has a hard time touching this bloodline making them naturally resistant to magic yet they will be very limited when it comes to any magical ability to manifest within this bloodline. Despite this however dark magic is still effective though always skewed towards positive effects when cast on this bloodline.

3) While not as desperate for their food as other bloodlines the living can only be turned not fed upon, a corpse is required to feed properly, leaving a window of around seven to eight hours to feed. While able to feed on animals and the like feeding too much on animals will cause the vampire to become more bestial or feral.

Weaknesses:

1) This bloodline can be killed as most normal vampires, a steak through the heart and decapitation.

2) When this bloodline sleeps its natural armour will take the place of a coffin or resting place.

3) This bloodline is limited in its generations if one is nineteen scions removed from the progenitor all sired will be bloodthirsty beasts as only vampiric spawn will be the result.

4) This bloodline has a flaw as they almost look emaciated with near leathery grey skin and as such is easily identified if the face is seen and cannot fully integrate in the society of mortals.

5) This is a subservient bloodline, as such a Svartritter line cannot be without a member of the Von Carstein line. If this bloodline is wiped out Svartritter will soon die out already if they did not go with the Von Carstein line as the line will be focused on ending those that ended the Von Carstein line before they die off.

6) Silver will cause more damage than other metals to the flesh of this bloodline and healing wounds made by silver will be twice as hard to do.

I was a little floored by it all, this was a bloodline now utterly tied to my own irrevocably. I just hoped I had managed to make as solid a foundation as I could have for Aborash, only to notice what it meant that he was no longer listed in my minion's lists.

No, he had managed to become my vassal as apparently gaining the vampire Baron class made me some sort of noble as well as he having gained full free will when he became this draugur type, vampire.

I remembered the feeling of panic at the time I realized that he was able to make his own decisions and could have betrayed me if he so wished. Then I felt guilty and ashamed of myself when he had shown such loyalty. The loyalty he had shown me with his own free will. Now that his line was so tied to my own I could well and truly trust him as his own person.

Vampire Baron lvl. 1 Confers the following to the user.

Basic Aura of Dark Majesty lvl. 1 (Passive)

The Vampiric nobility has an air of majesty about them tinged with the dangerous savagery that hides beneath their visage. (This ability grows only with the Vampire baron class as it grows in power.)

Basic Beguiling gaze lvl. 1

Vampires have often been said to be able to hypnotise or hold the attention of those around them with but a glance. This ability grows with use and mastery of its nuances along with the vampire's power as well.

Basic Vampiric Conversion lvl. 1

Creating another vampire is any vampire’s prerogative but creating progeny is just as much a skill as anything else. The most basic form creates vampire spawn, a weak vampire with more in common with a ghoul than anything else. Animal cunning but follow any of its sire’s orders to the letter.

Bloodline status has been unlocked for secondary status screens as well as who your vassals are.

Then the expenditure of power caught up with me and I fell down to my knees. Morice was next to me after that and thanks to him and Vashanesh I was placed against the slab that had served as our operating table.

Abhorash looked down at me, my face had grown pale and my breath came in ragged. Utter exhaustion taking me. “Lord Von Carstein, I will guard the entrance while you recover. I suspect you wish to empower as many of your minions as you can as well as create more of us before we assault the Necroshade?” At my nod, he took a slight bow. “Then I shall guard this chamber until you are done and rested for the battle to come.” He said as he placed his right fist to where his heart was as he bowed his head towards me, his sword held at his side point down. With that, he then moved towards the intersection and took up a guarding position at the entrance to the chamber as he said he would.

I was a little pleased as I saw him stand there like those old knightly statues with swords in their hands resting with the tip on the ground. Though his great sword still reached all the way to his chest. That reminded me that he would need to learn much more in terms of martial abilities, styles and different weapons.

I would make him live up to his name of Abhorash, he would be known as the strongest warrior in Imerith’s history. He also needed to begin adding to his bloodline, perhaps if we spared a ghoul or two then we could experiment on them having him turn them to see the effects.

With that thought filed away I began to speak with Vashanesh and Morice about how to empower my minions more and to build the greatest foundation as I could for what was to come while I recovered.

What would follow might be hours of painstaking work, creating and skewing the limits of each of my minion creation skills to get the strongest result possible. With one last look at Abhorash’s back, I realized I had just fully created the first of my inner circle of higher undead, my royal guard captain and general of my armies. However, if I wanted to succeed I’d require more, perhaps an admiral of some sort? I then looked at Vashanesh and knew who I’d work on next, he would be something like my high priest of undeath and the great engineer of my armies, engines of war and fortifications for when I made him, I poured every imagined undead I had ever dreamt up of along with every single type I had seen back on earth through fiction. To that, I also added in images of fantasy siege engines, some of my own ideas for such works as well as every fortification I had seen in pictures, movies, tv-shows and animation. I just hoped he would be able to live up to my hopes. Well, time to get to work.