Chapter 78: Undead Army
The news of the total defeat did not travel through the palace via a messenger.
It arrived as a sudden, violent fracture in the communication orb embedded within the Grand Frost Sanctum’s obsidian floor.
The runic item connected to General Tagar’s life force simply shattered, its glowing blue light snapping into static before dissolving into gray ash.
When the Troll King’s chief advisor finally gathered the courage to step forward and deliver the full report, the air in the throne room instantly turned to liquid ice.
"My King....." the advisor whispered, his knees hitting the frosted stone with a sharp clatter. "The second invasion ... it has been entirely cut off. General Tagar’s life item have gone completely dark."
"He has been killed!"
The Troll King sat perfectly still, his newly evolved Martial Lord aura rippling off his massive, deep blue skin in thick, visible waves of freezing fog.
His jaw remained locked, but the sheer anger radiating from his frame caused the towering ice pillars lining the hall to develop deep, groaning fissures.
"The army?" the King’s voice rumbled, the low vibration rattling the teeth of every general present.
"Wiped out, Your Majesty," the advisor stammered, keeping his eyes firmly on the floor.
"And it is worse. The divine frost relic Tagar carried—the anchor entrusted to his brigade—has gone entirely missing from the Hudeii Desert."
"We attempted to track it down, but every trace of it has been erased. Mandraxx... it must be them." the advisor claimed.
"Their intelligence networks have systematically erased every single trace of information regarding the battlefield. We do not know who struck the final blow.
All we know is that the army entered the Tempest Forest, and nothing returned."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the chamber.
To lose five thousand heavy combatants was a blow, but to lose a Martial General and a divine relic to an unknown entity without a single scrap of battlefield data returning was an absolute humiliation.
The northern border was no longer a minor skirmish; it was a black hole swallowing their military might.
The Troll King slowly closed his frost-white eyes, taking a deep, freezing breath that caused the moisture in the vast room to turn into falling sleet.
When he opened them, the raw, frantic rage had been replaced by a cold, ancient malice.
"If the living cannot conquer those forest," the King murmured, a ruthless, tusked smile slowly spreading across his face, "then we will let the dead crush them."
He raised his massive hand, waving it dismissively toward the assembled leadership.
"Clear the sanctum. Order all outer garrisons to hold the city walls. I am invoking the dead."
The Troll Generals, General Ryokan and the advisor didn’t dare question him.
They bowed frantically, scrambling backward out of the massive obsidian doors until the grand audience chamber was entirely empty, the heavy doors grinding shut with a hollow, echoing thud.
The Troll King rose to his full, monstrous height, his bare feet stepping down from the permafrost dais.
He turned his gaze toward the deep alcoves beneath the palace floor—the sealed, ancient catacombs where thirty thousand mummies, a dormant, decades-old undead army bound to his lineage, lay waiting.
They didn’t require supply lines, they didn’t feel the burning heat of the southern forest, and they would not stop until every living soul in Tempest City was dragged into the dirt.
"A magnificent display of tribal stubbornness, Razarak."
The smooth, muffled voice broke the silence of the empty hall.
From the deep, pitch-black shadows stretching behind the frozen throne, the two human knight-priests from the Church of Damascus slowly emerged.
Their heavy silver battle armor gleamed with protective runes, and their crimson capes trailed silently over the frosted stone floor.
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their twin Martial Lord auras expanding outward, perfectly balancing the freezing weight of the room.
The first knight-priest stepped forward, his hand resting casually on the cross-guard of his massive broadsword. "Your army is broken, and your borders are blind." he exhaled deeply.
"This ’Mandraxx’ network is moving with calculations that exceed your crude tactics." the second knight-priest mocked, "We can pay them a visit. It’ll only take us an hour to turn Tempest into a wasteland once again."
"Accept our aid" the second knight-priest added.
"No"
The Troll King stopped.
He slowly turned his massive, scarred head, his glowing white eyes locking onto the two human visors with a look of absolute, unadulterated contempt.
"You forget your place, humans," the Troll King rumbled, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hiss that made the silver armor of the priests vibrate.
"This is the Hudeii Desert not the ten continents" the Troll King growled, "This is my home"
"You are here for your father’s descent, nothing more. You will not hunt down my prey, neither will you claim the heads that belong to my lineage."
He stepped closer, his towering frame casting a massive shadow over the two knight-priests, entirely unfazed by their Martial Lord pressure.
"I refuse your help," the King declared, his fists clenching as the freezing mana around him exploded into a howling gale.
"My thirty thousand dead will tear through those trees. I will personally march at their head, and I will decimate Tempest City until nothing remains but ash and bone."
"Well whatever" the first knight-priest shrugged, "This may be your home but you must never forget who made you the ruler of this home of yours"
"Domini Kingdom invested in you because Damascus found you worthy" the second knight-priest stepped forward.
"You belong to us, to the Church of Damascus"
"The reason why you still exist, Razarak is because you are needed for our god to descend into this world"
"All this schemes and wars is insignificant to our grand plan, you must never forget that" the second knight-priest declared.
"I won’t" the Troll King smiled, "Lord Damascus will descend, but until then...."
"Do not interfere in my world!"
Hidden in the shadows, a small lizard was watching. The eyes of the reptile flickered for a moment.
’Interesting...’ Roy chuckled.