'I'm a horrible person...'
How many people can say that with a straight face? With clear, absolute certainty?
Not many will say it like me, I'm sure, with eyes like a dead fish and a tone of resignation. While staring at the ruined capital city of Chromalos being buried under the tide of undead.
The once proud city in flames, spires of black smoke rose in great columns from the devastation as they twisted and turned in the air. Forming a great looming mass of darkness over the city. So thick and blighting was the smoke cloud that from the distance, it looked less like smoke than a malevolent eldritch horror with tendrils reaching down the ground, burning all that it touched. The city's once great towers and walls were reduced to ashen and shattered husks. The dead either littered the streets or walked with a clear purposeful gait toward the nearest sound of fighting, eager to add to their numbers. Screams and sounds of battle pervaded all the way to here, which was a considerable distance from the nearest fight.
Battle reports from my minions flowed back to me. A mix of actual spoken reports to vague feelings of exhilaration and battle lust, visions of combat and executions, requests for reinforcements or chittering war cries echoing in my mind. All in all, the battle was going well. I was winning on all fronts.
A few pockets of resistance still remained. The biggest being the Temple of Hvilsear, the God of Light. I always knew the Priesthood would be the bigger problem than the City Guard or even the Royal Family. The Royal Palace was actually the first place to fall. I always thought the palace was too big, even by my standards of seeing some pretty outlandish fortifications in movies and cartoons. It was painfully easy to hit with explosives from the Skeletal Dragons.
The City Guard was a bit more troublesome. since they didn't have a single fortress or structure that I can bomb to oblivion. Fortunately, most of the veteran troops with combat experience or officers with real leadership ability were miles away from here, fighting the Demons who were in something of comeback. The remainders were a haphazard mix of civilian volunteers, green troops, and cowards who bought their way to power and a safe position through bribes or nepotism.
That didn't mean they were all incompetent. I remember some knights and commanders during my time at the palace whom were the epitome of duty and honor. Yet, many of them have died since then; either by my hand or others. Other than a lucky imbecile that I missed during the purges, or some hidden talented individual, they were not a threat.
The Temple was the last remaining bastion left. The priests have activated a dome of bright white light that blocked all the spells my Liches and Sorcerers threw at it. Balls of fire, strafes of lightning, masses of concentrated gravity, and dark energy all impacted the barrier; leaving nothing but ripples along its surface. Bombs and explosives would have been more effective as the barrier only repelled magical energy, but I already used them all on the palace.
I gazed through the eye sockets of LC-2319, my nearest troop commander to the Temple. The situation has descended to close-quarters fighting as my legions stormed the gates. I ordered my forces not to let up the magical bombardment. The barrier that covered the temple was maintained by a series of runes and arrays deep within the temple and cannot be disrupted from the outside, but it was powered by the collective will and mana of their most powerful and devoted priests. Having those priests occupied with maintaining the shield will allow my forces to better sweep through.
That said, it wasn't an easy fight. The power of Holy magic, particularly of the God of Light, was effective against undead, even mine. Hundreds of priests, paladins, clerics, and bishops fought alongside City Guards and Adventurers throughout the temple in its defense. Simple spells that could barely bruise a fruit or light a room decimates my zombies and skeletons. A bishop blasts back an Abomination with a wave of holy light. A squad of paladins defeated a Triad, one of my most elite heavy infantry units. Not only was barrier strengthening the defenders, but weakening my troops. Worse, I can feel a form of desynchronization between myself and the soldiers inside the barrier. A time lag that shouldn't be there. The barrier was weakening my connection to my minions.
My mood and expression darkened. The faint emotion of annoyance and anger towards the Priesthood escalated to a maddening frenzy amongst my army as their assault on all points intensified. I stood from my seat and activated a series of runes my rings.
Suddenly, a surge of energy of such power that it disrupted space itself erupted from me. The earth cracked and rumbled beneath my feet. A wave of wisps and smoke resembling skeletons and agonized faces burst from my body as if struggling to escape, only to be pulled back in. My eyes and body glowed with a menacing green light and red lightning snarled around me (I still haven't found a way to change the color of the energy emission to something that wasn't Christmas colored). I raised my right hand and concentrated, my army at the Temple blazed forward in a mad charge.
Glowing with arcane power, my more expendable minions rushed forward into the Temple. Rather than attacking, they just ran and spread out everywhere. Their pursuers delayed by Death Knights, Abominations, Liches, Banshees, Triads, and more. Each were normally a high-ranking monster that needed an entire team of knights and paladins to defeat individually. With the power-up from me, they were fighting as if they were legendary monsters from myths.
The low-level undead swarmed the temple, ignoring all the enemy before them. After a sufficient number of them have entered, I channelled my will on to them. Following a delay thanks to the barrier, a burst of foul light lit up the sky as the temple exploded in a splendid series of detonations as each low-level undead overloaded their limited and broken souls in an immolation spell.
My work complete, I collapsed down to my seat in a daze of exhaustion and ordered LC-2319 to lead the remnants of its legion to clear out the rest of the compound. I wasn't naive enough to think that the explosion has actually killed off the rest of the Priesthood. There was a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers beneath the temple that existed for purposes that the priests would never bring to light.
I grabbed a potion from an attendant and drained it to stave off the mana sickness. Immolation spells were fairly high tier. Casting it on thousands of undead from a distance of over five miles, through a barrier that disrupts magic, all while maintaining several massive area of effect buff spells took its toll on me even with the power doping. As I struggled to make the world stop spinning around me, a troop of Triads dragged in a prisoner in chains.
The last time I seen him face to face, he was wearing shining golden armor that glittered with runes. He wielded a greatsword of such gaudy and elaborate design that it was questionable that it can even be used practically in combat. Back then, he stood before me triumphant with an arrogant expression on his face. Now, his armor was scrap, his right leg broken at the knee and twisted in an angle. He was covered in burns and wounds while barely lucid due to the pain as he stared off into space. He noticed me. Anger and hatred slowly transformed his once handsome face into a murderous mask.
He is Levinn Duralt Ehe Chromalos, the 23rd King of Chromalos.
He moved his lips, a barely audible, "...traitor..." escaped from his mouth.
I didn't admonish him for the statement. I was undoubtedly a traitor, as well as a murderer, a fiend, a tyrant, crook, psychopath, and worse. I have massacred millions, terrorized the continent, and destabilized the balance of power between nations so much that the map of the world when I first arrived was completely unrecognizable.
And he was the one that made it all possible.
"Greetings Your Majesty. It's been a while, why don't we catch up?" I said nonchalantly.
