I looked down from my throne of bones that skeletal guards were still carrying. I had twenty-seven new citizens or pledges or something of Westiral. I didn’t entirely like the fact that I picked them up, but in my heart; it was slightly better than killing them. If only just a little.

I looked around at them and gave a cold tight smile. I had no deep care for them or their lives. If they were still alive at the end of the day, I could figure out what to do with them. However, at this time, I just needed to send them through the portal to help soften the trade hub.

I didn’t even need them, but there was no reason not to use free resources. I was oddly upset at how most of those who followed Death managed to get around me using their bodies. I was even more upset that when they dissolved, all their equipment vanished as well.

I pointed at the now-deactivated gate. “Someone get it opened to the hub. We are going through to take it.”

My new followers looked at each other. As they were still coming up with what to do, the woman, whose name I still didn’t know, took a few steps forward and slapped one of the men. It was one of those slaps that started behind her back and sailed all the way to his face.

As her hand hit, she screamed. “Your lord just told you to open the portal! Make it happen now, or I’ll use a knife next time!”

The man nodded his head as he was rubbing his face. Then, he turned and ran for the controls calling out to two others as he went. The slightly crazy woman turned and smiled at me before lowering her head and returning to where she had been standing.

Kasidy caught my eyes and asked. “Who’s that?”

I shrugged. “Just someone that was in the kitchen when I got here. I still don’t know her name.”

Kas nodded to me and turned to the woman. “Who are you, and why didn’t you stay with the others?”

The woman looking down at the ground, turned towards Kasidy. “My lady, I am but a cast off from my family. I chose to follow my lord when I saw his anger at how we were treated. I have never seen someone like him.”

Kasidy nodded and asked. “What’s your name?”

The woman lowered her head in deference to Kasidy and answered. “I am Lilac.”

“Well, Lilac, I am Kasidy, and I’m no lady. I’m just a bard.”

Lilac shook her head. “No, my lady. He will break the merchant’s guild today, and all who stand against him will be torn to pieces. He claims to be a simple marquess, but I have seen his power and anger. He has the right to rule about him, and for you, he may very well burn everything under The High Heavens. You are his, and so you are not just a bard.”

Kasidy gave a smile and started to laugh and then stopped abruptly. I saw her eyes looking kind of up and at an angle. She had just seen her curse again. It was something that I knew I needed to get fixed and sooner rather than later. I needed to keep her from dying.

One of the former guild’s men yelled, and the archway opened up. I pointed through and yelled. “Those of you who just joined up, head through first. Try to close to your former allies and kill them before they get a chance to put up much of a fight. Our main target is the Manager. Either kill them or capture them. Understood?”

Many, not all, of my new fighters, yelled. “Yes, my lord!”

Then they headed through. I wished that I had had the time to screen them all. To check and make sure that they weren’t evil people. That said, I wasn’t sure right now what all counted as evil and what counted as just getting by. After all, I had just ripped the soul out of a man to make a point. I figured at this point, I might be running down that path if I had any feet.

While waiting for my turn to go through the portal, I looked over at the lich. I would love to take him through and let him soak up some damage. However, I wasn’t sure if I would then have to reclaim him at that point, which meant he would be playing clean up here in the castle.

I reached into his mind and said. “Go start claiming more of the undead in the castle itself. Then defend the castle from the orcs and their armies while I am through.”

The boy lich turned and pressed his right hand to his left shoulder. “As you command, Master.”

Then he turned and walked off. As he left, I nodded to Renfry and pointed through the portal. He smiled and started forward. As he went forward, a group of skeletal guards moved forward with him. I counted to thirty and then charged my hell dogs through the gate.

A few moments after that and the rest of my army moved through. I was moving through first to take control of the battle, and then after me would come the rest of the guard and my spell casters. I wanted this to be a fast and easy battle, but I hadn’t had one of those in a long time. So I didn’t have much hope that it would be that way.

I couldn’t pause to think through passing through the portal as my throne was carried right into it. The surface felt like water as it hit me. As my body passed fully, I knew I was in a place that wasn’t. There was just nothing where I was. There was no light, no darkness, no hope, no heat, no coldness, no air, and no pain. It was a void, not the void of space, but a real true void of everything.

Just as my brain was trying to figure out the passage I was in, I got snapped out of it as my throne passed through to the other side. It couldn’t have taken more than a third of a second to go from the castle to the hub.

As I came through, I saw that the fight was mostly over. I had thought we would have a massive battle, but instead, we just had a slaughter. In the middle of the room was a group of people sitting down with their arms above their heads. There was another group lying down with weapons pointed at them.

However, the thing I noticed most was the single man standing in a magical shield about two hundred feet away. He was about six feet tall with scales for skin and several horns sticking off his face. Even at this distance, I could see his eyes glowing red. He wore a deep purple robe and held a staff in his right hand.

He was responsible for most of the damage to my side. There were at least two dozen dead hell dogs around his shield. Out from his staff came short bursts of lightning. He would raise the staff up, point at his target, and then it would blast lightning out. Then, after about half a second, he would put the butt of the staff back down, and the lightning would stop.

As fast as he could raise and aim his staff, lightning would shoot out. Each time it hit one of my undead, it would fall to the ground, and the bolt would jump over to another. By himself, he was dropping my army.

Renfry was sprinting across the hub to where the wizard in purple was. I directed my ranged units to attack him while the rest of my hell dogs were to seek out anyone else.

As I moved forward, I directed my throne toward my new men and called out to the one Lilac had slapped. “Is that the Manager?”

The man snapped his head around and saw that it was me asking. He dropped to a knee. “Yes, my lord, the Lizardman in purple is the Manager.”

I nodded, “Do you know his name or anything about him?”

The man shook his head. “Other than he is more powerful than any of us, I am without knowledge of him. He is the manager, and if the guild wants to change him out for another manager, they would.”

I wheeled my throne towards the manager. I didn’t need him to get away, which meant that I needed to keep the pressure on him and put myself between where he was and the exits. If I could keep him locked down, then I wanted to. After all, if I could control him, we would do much better.

Renfry hit the Manager’s shield like a ton of bricks. It looked like he sped up right before he hit, which meant that he might have triggered his charge active skill. The problem was that the Manager’s shield was the bricks in this case, as Renfry bounced off them.

With the equipment power-up, I had expected that he would have been able to do something to the Manager. However, there was a stark power level difference in this case. When Renfry hit the shield at full charge, it only slightly flared.

I could tell that Renfry had been expecting something other than stopping dead when he made impact. Truth be told, I was expecting something else as well; however, it just didn’t seem to show up. Instead, as Renfry tried to get himself back up, he got hit twice with lightning. However, unlike the other undead being hit, Renfry was odd enough that the magic didn’t seem to affect him for some reason.

This gave me enough time to start shooting dark bolts at the shield. Each one that hit caused a small circle of light to appear on the shield. When I shot a stone sphere, it hit with just as much effect as Renfry’s charge.

Renfry, for his part, managed to get up and then start to land blows with his claws. Each time they landed, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard as they left lines of light across the shield.

The Manager, for his part, just kept laughing and said. “You fools! You can’t hope to break through my shield! I will kill you all and then loot everything that you brought!”

My spell slinger had just come through the gate when he said that. So without any hesitation, I ordered them to attack. I wanted his shield to drop, and I figured the best way to do that was to drain it with attacks.

I called out to the Manager. “I’m going to give you this chance to surrender now. I don’t much care for slavers, but I’ll let you walk if you tell me what I want to know.”

He laughed again as it looked like his shield was now getting stronger as my undead army’s spells started to hit his shield. With just Renfry and me attacking, it looked like magical attacks were what could take out his shield. However, with all the mana hitting the shield, it grew larger.

Renfry jumped back as the Manager’s magical shield flared bright red. The change was enough of a warning that Renfry moved, which was good. The shield massively grew in a single surge. As it did, my dead hell dogs got consumed by the shield. It didn’t eat things that touched it, but if it moved over you, it seemed to do something with biological items as the floor and boxes all stayed in place. It was just my dogs that were absorbed.

This wasn’t good. I knew my dark bolts seemed to be causing damage, so I had only my mages with dark spells attack, dropping me down to just six. Unfortunately, those six were each doing way more damage than I was. However, even that seemed to create a place and a way for the shield to expand.

The Manager laughed again. I could tell that he was the gloating type. It wasn’t enough to beat someone. No, he was the type that had to tell you why and how he was beating you the whole time. I had worked for people like that before, and I could tell that, like them, he earned himself no loyalty. He might have been a big part of why so many of the attack team were willing to switch sides.

Then almost on cue, he yelled out at me. “Have you figured it out yet? The more mana this place has, the greater my shield. All of your attacks make it stronger. Even your monster’s just being in here will keep my shield charged forever. There is nothing that you can do to beat me!

I smiled at him and pulled out a dungeon seed.

With the Manager pushing us back as his shield grew more and more powerful with all the magic I was using, I chose to change tactics. He might not have been completely truthful with me about how he was getting power for the shield. I figured there was a chance he wasn’t and that it was all about to come down.

That said, I didn’t want to put all my hopes in him lying. He just seemed way too calm about the whole attack. It was almost like he wanted me to call his bluff. So I figured I would do something no one else was doing in a fight.

I would change the whole nature of the room if I could. Unless the hub was a cored building, which I hoped wasn’t the case, I would create a dungeon right here. Even if it was a cored building, provided that it wasn’t level ten or higher, I should be able to do so.

So I looked down at the dungeon seed in my hand and activated it.

* * *