“Worry not, my precious ones, soon you will not fear the pains of the flesh, your bodies shall become eternal and undying. You shall become an undead, just like yours truly.” Kanka smiled, his rotting flesh made his facial expression seem a little disturbing.

There were a total of ten prisoners; the last two were brought a few days ago. All of them were kept unconscious and chained to the walls of the room where the ‘change’ was going to take place.

While he could painstakingly have turned his victims into undead one by one, it was easier to accomplish his goals by gathering all his victims in one place and have his subordinates perform the ‘change’ on them.

Undead possessed the ability to convert the living to their own kind by a usage of their power, it manifested as a green light, it had to be used manually, the light touched the bodies of the victims, and the portions of the body will be converted to that of a non-living.

Those of weak willpower will not retain their personalities, they end up being mindless pawns, but those with stronger will had a partial will of their own, but they still were subservient to Kanka, their creator.

Undead who were made from weak willed people were mindless zombies or skeletons, in a sense they were brutes who could not utilize the gifts their undead physique offered them, their minds were so far gone, even if they had the power they could not hope to use it with their broken minds.

Those with stronger will were converted into liches; they retained their will and could use their undead abilities to the fullest. However, due to their hunger for life, they followed Kanka, their creator, because at the end of the day, they had the same goal, consume all life and turn it into their own kind.

Kanka sent the undead mooks accompanied by liches to capture their newest subjects. Soon, many more will be converted. So far, he has managed to turn about a hundred people into undead, but the ones with strong will were rare, so only ten liches were created.

He was hoping that the new batch used for the undead would prove to be more lucrative. Maybe he would get lucky and at least one lich could be created.

Liches, because they retain their will, they can use magic and convert other living being into undead.

All undead have the same abilities, but whether they can use them is another matter altogether. The more will and intellect an undead retains, the more undead’s abilities could be used.

Undead had no physical limitations placed by human flesh, so their strength was much greater, and they did not feel pain. The more mana they consumed, the stronger they were.

Of course, if a mindless undead levels up by consuming mana, it will develop intellect, thus allowing it to use its powers more effectively. But it takes an undead to consume lots of mana.

“Still, I hope at least one lich is created. The more we can spread our wings, the faster our kind can spread.”

* * *

Three liches entered the room; other seven went outside to gather more victims to convert. They were given orders by their master, Kanka, to convert all of the victims chained inside the room into undead.

All of them were unconscious.

With a wave of its arm, Lich manifested a laser-like green light that extended vertically.

The vertical light moved from right to the left, first encompassing the prisoner’s right side of the body, then moving to the left, and then the rest of his body was slowly shined by the green light.

The parts of his body that the green light touched started to lose their flesh, and by the time the light passed over his entire body, the prisoner was reduced to a skeleton.

Conversion was complete. He was one of them now.

Liches proceeded to slowly turn the prisoners into undead, one by one.

In the end, there were only two prisoners left.

One lich proceeded to handle both of them.

One of the victims was a human while the other was a snake type demon.

Lich chose to start with the human.

Shining green vertical light from its palm, it began the process, moving the light from left to right.

The victim’s body, on the right side of him started to turn into skeleton. His right hand, right leg, right side of his face, and right side of his body was turning to skeleton.

The process was half complete.

Now it was time to finish the job.

However, before the undead could fully turn him into a skeleton, the prisoner awoke.

With a mad frenzy, using his newfound strength of his undead right hand, he broke free of the chains that held his right hand and proceeded to lunge at the lich that was in the process of converting him.

He grabbed the lich’s bony neck with his right skeletal hand and snapped it with ease. Lich’s body fell to the floor, with its severed head following the suit.

Curiously, the lich was still moving, but frantically without any direction, as it was sprawling around the floor. Apparently it was hard to control the body without a head in place.

Using his right hand he freed himself. His body felt strange, he did not know whether he was hallucinating or not, but now it was not time for that.

He found his companion chained to a wall, using his abnormal strength, he tore off the chains that shackled him.

“Camilla, wake up! We need to get out of here!”

“Dark Lord….What happened to your face!” Camilla woke up from his dream only to scream out in panic as he saw Dark Lord’s face.

Almost entire right side of Dark Lord’s face, except for the nose was skeletal. He still had his white demon eye, but there was no eyelid covering it now. He looked like monster stuck in between living and the dead.

“Now is not the time for that, we need to get out, now!”

Both of them proceeded to run for it.

They managed to ambush the two liches and struck them at their neck areas, sending their heads flying.

The bodies of the liches were still walking, but now they had no heads, so they seemed to be trying to find their missing pieces by holding their hands forward.

Looking closer, those liches had their belongings hanging on the wall, so Dark Lord and Camilla proceeded to take back their stuff.

Ring of Death, and crystal dagger, the only possessions Dark Lord had, he needed them to achieve his future goals, so losing them is not an option.

But then, they realized the liches were not the only ones they had to be concerned about.

Zombies and skeletons were coming towards them. Lots of them.

But there was nowhere to go but forward. They will just have to break through them.

“Charge!” with a made cry, Camilla and Dark Lord, cut through the masses of undead, clearing their way, but the undead were relentless.

It was obvious they had to flee now, or they would be swarmed by the ever-increasing undead forces.

So, by they escaped by jumping out of the window.

Luckily, they landed in a river, which carried them further away from the undead palace.

* * *

Cough. Cough. Cough.

Camilla and master managed to lose them. Apparently undead don’t like water, so master and Camilla should be safe from them.

Dark Lord and Camilla now climbed to the shore.

Both of them wet from the unexpected swim.

Dark Lord was unusually silent. He took off his shirt and examined his body.

His right side, entire right hand, right side of his chest, ribs, and even his right leg were all skeletal now, not even a single piece of flesh remained on the right side.

Funnily enough he still had his genitals, nose, and right eye.

Then, he proceeded to take a look at himself in water, with the light of the moon showing his reflection.

He cringed.

It was the face of a monster, half living, and half dead, stuck in between.

Without thinking twice about it, Dark Lord proceeded to behead himself with a crystal knife, hoping that this time; his curse would send him further back.

All he heard was Camilla’s scream before everything turned black.

* * *

“I still ended up here, huh.” The curse only sent him a minute into the past, the moment before he saw his reflection in the river.

With a wave of wrath, he clenched his fist.

And with a mighty blow, he struck at his reflection in the river.

Splash!

Ripples spread across the water…but his reflection refused to change.

He was stuck like this. With half of his body turned to that of an undead skeleton. He still had a heartbeat, and lung, but he noticed while he was in river that he no longer needed to breathe, he can but it was no longer necessary.

While he felt normal on the left side, on the right side, he felt almost nothing. He could feel sensations like touch, but no pain, no muscle, and no itching skin; in short, he was left with nothing but the bare skeleton.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” He kept striking at his reflection with his fist every time he cursed at it.

Yet, the reflection refused to change.

This reality, this kingdom, and this cursed city, it took everything away from him.

First it took away his family, then it took away his sanity, and now it took away his humanity.

He has had enough.

“Milord…” Camilla looked concerned, seeing his master’s emotional outburst.

“If this is what humanity, gods, this world has in store for me, I will just have to act accordingly. I will save Chronos for last…Yes; I suppose there is no other way of going around it. The kingdom, the gods, the humanity… They already took away so much from me. If I do not get rid of them, they will keep being a threat. That leaves only one option. I will just have to kill them all.”

Now Dark Lord’s face adorned a maniacal smile, well, more like left side of his face, the right side no longer had lips, only teeth remained.

Originally he just wanted to escape this cursed place, but maybe, just maybe he had some business he needed to take care of here.

That is right! I do have a goal to accomplish in this cursed city, and that is…

Dark Lord chuckled as he realized what now seemed obvious.

…Destruction of this city, of this kingdom, and humanity while I am at it. Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do. Everything is so clear now!

“Camilla.”

“Yes, Milord?”

“Our goal has changed, we will not be exiting the Holy City. Instead, we will destroy it.”

Camilla’s eyes opened in shock, but then he obediently nodded.

“But before that, we have much to accomplish.”

“Yes. Milord.”

The first matter would be…finding a base of operations…