“LORD DACUL” A slim man wearing a flowing black cape glides into the room, taking a knee towards an elderly vampire, who is busy donning crimson armor.

“Spill it” He grunts impatiently.

“Lord Skelor has arrived at the gates with what looks like his entire court and a few hundred soldiers”

Dacul stops what he is doing and turns his head towards the messenger with apparent interest.

“hmm, let them in and bring them to the main hall”

The messenger rushes off to carry out his orders.

“Only a few hundred eh? What a worthless ally” He spits on the floor in disgust.

…

Slowly, through a forest, a small army of Illithid and slaves march through.

Though the illithid number barely a thousand, the slaves are close to eight thousand, making it quite a sight to behold.

Some illithid are riding their slaves, while others a simply whipping the stragglers.

It is common for Illithid to have slaves, expertly trained to carry out any and all orders from their masters. Such devotion would not be possible except for the fact that Illithid have the ability to both mentally and physically torture their slaves, wiping all memory and then melding them into what they want.

On top of a freshly trained ogre, which slowly moves on all fours, is a group of four; three illithid and a drider.

Lith sits on the ogre, holding its reins, with the twin illithid playing a game behind her and Dyara, lazily spinning with her web at the back.

The scene would be almost dull on that ogres back, except for the fact that Lith is slowly seething in annoyance due to the childish laughter behind her. She almost regrets taking those two along, almost.

Soon, the playing turns bloody as they poke a sharp needle into eachother’s arms to see who screams first.

“Would you two please stop, it’s really getting on my nerves” Lith finally cracks, voicing her annoyance with a low growl.

The twin on the left, Ïllïtir, blows a kiss to Lith “Sorry Lith honey, but it’s just so boring out here, no killing to do”

“Yeah, I mean we’ll be getting there in around fifteen minutes, so just hold in your anger till then, that’s what we’re doing” Her twin sister Ritïllï follows up, blowing another kiss to Lith.

Her face twitching slightly, Lith returns to driving the ogre the correct direction, feeling suddenly excited that she will be participating in a blood bath in just fifteen minutes.

Just as Ritïllï promised, they leave the forest within the next fifteen minutes and enter a wide plain containing a large black castle with well kept walls.

Standing on the walls is an unbroken line of soldiers; mostly vampires dressed in shiny crimson steel and some skeletons wearing less well kept armor are dotted around.

“I see, so Skelor got here anyways” Lith muses.

“Well you did send Bariaxüs to hunt him down, what did you expect?” ïllïtir wags her finger towards Lith.

“He probably just had his army charge Skelor with no form of subterfuge whatsoever making it easy for Skelor to escape” Ritïllï continues.

Lith raises her hands with a sigh “Fine fine, next time I’ll ask you guys to do it”

“Nah, talking to people isn’t our speciality; I’m sure he’s done a better job at recruiting than us” Both respond synchronously.

While they talk non-chalantly about Bariaxüs, the same man appears on the horizon, followed by an enormous mass of monsters and the rest of the illithids and all look quite tired and beaten by the numerous fresh scars on their bodies.

Lith orders her people to meet up with Bariaxüs and quickly make their way over to him, asking a few logistical questions to the twins on the way.

Stepping down from her ogre, she storms up to him and gives him a loud, bloody slap on his face.

“What did I tell you?”

He looks back towards her, with no anger or defiance in his eyes ‘To make sure I recruited more than half, which I did Lith”

“So why are there barely twenty thousand? To my knowledge there are about fifty thousand residents in the civilized bit of Hellderworld”

He glances towards the twins, who are still on the ogre, to which they respond with sticking out their tongues playfully.

“I had managed to recruit about thirty five thousand of them, but we met heavy resistance when in pursuit” He begins to explain himself, before Lith stops him with a question.

“As far as I’m away, Skelor should have around two thousand soldiers in their ranks, how could that be such heavy resistance?”

“Well it was only about a thousand soldiers, but they were supported by a Necromancer Lord”

“Hmm I see” She nods her head in understanding, since a Necromancer Lord is a powerful being due to their abilities to raise and control hundreds, if not thousands, of undead with ease. “Did you kill him?”

“Yes, I ordered a full charge towards him at the beginning, ignoring everything else until he was killed. That caused quite a few casualties which were then raised and further caused casualties till we finally reached him. After he was dead, it was just simply destroying the few soldiers and the mindless undead” He explains his plan to which Lith nods.

“Wow Bariaxüs, you could’ve just had your ogres and ettins throw some of the smaller monsters at the Necromancer Lord, while using all sorts of ranged attacks against him which would have killed him with a lot less casualties” Ritïllï guffaws at him to which he grits his teeth in anger while still keeping his ear inclined towards the tactical advice, for he knows better than to ignore them on tactics.

“Ah no matter, he killed a Necromancer Lord, it could’ve been worse casualties” Lith shushes the twins before they can berate him more and gives him a pat on the shoulder before telling him to go get some rest while huffing that she can't begin a massacre today.

The army of around thirty thousand all rest beneath the dying sun, being watched from a distance by the barely three thousand defenders, who all quake in their shoes at the terrifying sight.

Although the army outside slept peacefully, the defenders took turns staying awake in case of an attack.

Even Dacul and Skelor sat around a table with their ministers worrying about the news Skelor brought about his Necromancer Lord Kel'kor being killed as well as stressing over the latest news a spy finally told them but a few minutes ago:

It had been barely over a week since the ‘recruitment’ happened in the city. However due to all undead being massacred without reason, almost all of the spies were killed and thus no information was given to either Skelor or Dacul.

Thus they had no idea about the recruitment, until this spy had told them of it.

This spy was none other than Ankorr in the guise of Lucille.

They had been told that only around thirty five thousand had been recruited, the others had fled from the city and are slowly gathering with the help of a zombie which he does not know the name of.

Of course that is all complete lies, but both Skelor and Dacul take it as truth and a slight shimmer of hope appears in their eyes.

They are told that if they could hold out for just a few weeks then help would arrive.

Although there is a slight doubt in their minds about the truth of the report, believing it does no harm but give them necessary hope.

After some quiet debate between themselves they finally call the spy back in.

“Your information is useful, enough to give us the necessary hope our men need to survive this war. Name your reward and if it is just we will deliver” Dacul speaks towards the small girl, a slight glint gathering in his eyes as she looks up at him with a innocent smile.

“I’d like to spend a night with my Lord, since I’d like to have the taste of an older man in me if I were to die on the morrow” Her cute, innocent face belittles the lusting words which shock quite a few members in the room, but cause others to salivate slightly at the sight and request.

One of those entranced is Dacul himself, who quickly recovers and chuckles heartily.

“A bold request, one I shall not deny” With that, he walks out the room, taking the small girl gently by the hand.

Dacul’s right hand minister, Morkien, claps his hands to gather the attention of the room

“Let us follow his lead and get some rest for the night or we won’t last these next few weeks”

…

Making their way to the bedroom, Dacul locks the door and slowly begins to take off his armor.

Giving him puppy eyes, Ankorr asks him whether he can help speed up the process.

Chuckling, Dacul allows it and Thus Ankorr begins to help take off the chestplate.

“Wah, you have such a nice neck my Lord” He licks his neck and then cutely giggles “May I have a bite?”

Dacul, one hand rubbing his crotch at the alluring childish voice saying such arousing things allows it and he feels a small pair of fangs bite into the back of his neck, on his spinal cord.

He drops to the floor unmoving a few seconds later, the paralysis poison kicking in.

Ankorr, standing over the collapsed body of Dacul, lets out a haughty laugh as his body transforms into his Blood Drinker self “Did you really think I liked an old fart like you?” He spits on him “Now Windhsaw told me you probably kept your key around here”

Dacul, paralyzed from head to toe could to nothing but watch as Ankorr slowly sliced his torso open and like opening a door moved the skin and muscle out of the way, claws poking at the internal organs probingly.

Soon, he reaches the decrepit, unbeating heart of Dacul, and slicing that open reveals an old yet still not rusty key.

Taking the key, Ankorr steps on Dacul’s face before dragging him to the bed, covering his open chest with the sheets, which soon soak with dead blood.

Transforming back into Lucille, he walks out the room making a snarky remark “I thought he’d last longer” Which is heard by a nearby guard, much to his delight, before walking off towards the vault.

Since most of the guards are on the walls, none remain on the lower floors guarding the vaults. Thus Ankorr makes it to them with ease and places the key into the hole.

With a single turn, the door opens, revealing a wide room filled with crates upon crates.

Looking through the crates, quite a few are found to be empty, but after barely a few hours of scouring the room, he fills over twelve slots in his inventory with Aethelx’s blood making almost twelve thousand vials of blood.

Quite shocked by the number, Ankorr wonders what is so special about this blood, since he was never told by anyone much less Windshaw what this blood is for.

Shrugging his shoulders, he takes a vial and sip, spitting the scorching concoction out.

He bends over double, screaming from the burning sensation that sears under his skin in an uncontrollable rage.

Flailing around in pain, he quickly stumbles onto the floor and wriggles to try remove the spiking pain from his body, which is does quite abruptly.

Letting the after effects of the pain recede, he stands up and places the vial back into his inventory like it was a bomb.

Leaving the vault and closing it back up, he sneaks his way back up to the ground floor and taking out his weapons walks over to the guard manning the eastern gates.

“I’m here to take over, get some rest”

The guard, thankful for the shift change, doesn’t question it and goes to get some rest.

Making sure no one is around; he opens the portcullis a tiny amount, making little noise, before crawling under it and sneaking outside.

Making his way to the forest, he soon disappears into the trees, making his way towards the House of Lith.

“Windshaw, I hope to god this helps get me a level before this next harvest” He mutters to himself as he runs through the forest, very aware of the single level he has and the one week that remains before the next harvest.

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Author's Corner: Hey! slowly but surely this arc is coming to a close! i know quite a few of you haven't enjoyed it since lack of the MC as well as dunno you're feeling confused about things?

Well whatever, hope you're sill enjoying the read and will continue to do so!

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRD