Conquest of the Underdark

The Underdark, Dragon Shadow City.

It is always dark here; they have never known what daytime is.

The city, once ruled by the Shadow Dragon, hangs above a vast Abyss, where the icy winds that cut through Abyss scream forever.

The city is covered with charred marks and thick ash everywhere. These broken walls and ruins silently record the past when the Red Dragon cruelly burned the city, and record the buried history.

"Call--"

The cold wind blew through the cracks of the city, making a piercing whistle, as if those lingering souls were howling.

However, on this ruin, a brand new city was built, with a simple yet grand and powerful architectural style—clearly an imperial style.

In this new city built on ruins, Half-Dragon, humans, Hobgoblin soldiers come and go as often as you can see, but the most numerous are the mindless low-level undead skeletons.

Even some small vendors appeared in the city, selling items commonly used in the Underdark, such as lanterns, walking sticks, and leather boots.

Hiss hiss hiss

A chilling sound.

Outside the city, enormous skeletons of Azure Foot Dragon Snake wriggled and crawled on the ground, like a moat, tearing any intruders to shreds.

On the newly built city wall, Hart stood silently, gazing down into the bottomless, Howling Abyss.

"I too once had a beating heart, and I too was able to savor fine food and wine."

The corpse demon sighed.

He possessed all of Hart's memories, obsessions, and even hatred from his previous life, but he lost his vibrant physical body and his original emotions.

Corpse demons rely on their obsessions and hatred from their previous lives to awaken fragmented souls and support their decaying bodies.

Hart's lips trembled, and his two dark eyes gleamed in the darkness.

"However, this is not bad either. Immortality, killing one enemy after another, conquering the vast Underdark for the master."

He is a completely new existence.

Unlike the original Hart, and unlike an ordinary corpse demon.

Hart stiffly forced a smile from his pale lips, but the expression looked particularly strange to Pang Ren.

"General Hart the Elder."

A familiar voice came from inside.

"What's up?"

Hart turned his head and said calmly.

—That was his colleague, a living person, or more accurately, Half-Dragon, who was also a member of His Majesty's family.

His name is Zhaike Granger. He is also a veteran member who joined the Empire during the Ember Nest era. He is now an Imperial Earl, on par with Hart.

Interestingly, he was also one of the original slave traders and had once been Hart's subordinate.

Due to his status as Undead Creatures, Hart did not become the Empire's governor of the Underdark. The cabinet ministers preferred a profitable Underdark —rather than a dead zone of the undead.

If Hart were alive, he would be furious, but Hart, whose heart had long since turned cold, didn't care about any of that.

The situation at the rear is this: he only needs to lead the Undead Legion to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the battlefield, obey orders, and fight bravely. But what the people at the rear are considering is... Zayko flipped through the documents and said in a low voice, "Lady Ingrid is about to return to the surface. She has already helped us dispel the Shadow Curse of Dragon Shadow City."

"According to the plan given by the Strategic Department, we will construct [something] near the Howling Abyss."

Ingrid.

Hart, or rather, the Corpse Demon, remembered this name.

He had seen that woman before; she was surrounded by an aura of holy light that made him nauseous, and her hostile gaze made him quite uncomfortable.

If Ingrid hadn't been an envoy sent by the Empire, he would have gladly cut off the Cleric's head and hung it atop the city wall.

Thinking of this, Hart interrupted directly.

"You know, Zayko, I don't care about or need you to tell me these things, and I don't want to know where that damned Cleric is."

"I only need you to tell me one thing—where His Majesty wants me to conquer, and where I can kill living beings at will."

The corpse demon's dark eyes gleamed faintly in the darkness, sending a chill down the spine of even the battle-hardened Zayko.

"Ha"

His lips trembled slightly, but he still couldn't utter a word.

Hart was certainly brutal and selfish, but to his fellow slave traders who had also come from humble backgrounds, Hart played the role of "family."

The corpse demon chuckled self-deprecatingly, then said in a hoarse voice, "Hart is long dead, at least the Hart you know is."

"What appears before you now is merely an undead monster that thirsts for killing living beings and lives for His Majesty."

"."

Zayko remained silent for a long time before finally pulling out a document and slowly unfolding it:

"Near Dragon Shadow City is a city called ' Black Wing,' which is ruled by the Jezzred Family, the offspring of Mortifer, the Shadow Dragonkin Drow Elf."

Mortifer, he had certainly heard of that name.

That was the legendary "Emperor's Enemy," possessing vast power in the Underdark, which was torn apart by His Your Majesty Keosius in New Era.

"After the destruction of Dragon Shadow City, the Jezzred Family, which had been under the control of the Shadow Dragon, began to expand rapidly, taking over the former Shadow Dragon's power and trade relations. Their scouts even appeared around Dragon Shadow City."

"This is undoubtedly a provocation against the Empire and an insult to His Your Majesty Keosius."

Zayko closed the document and said solemnly.

This was a Declaration of War —even though he knew the scout had been captured from hundreds of miles away.

The Embers of the Burned Empire merely wanted an excuse to demonstrate its presence to the Underdark and, incidentally, to eliminate Mortifer's descendants to prevent future trouble.

Zayko said, "General Hart, you should know what to do."

The corpse demon simply turned its head, staring at the other party with its pitch-black eyes, and casually asked, "Is it permissible to massacre the city?"

Zayko did not answer directly, but instead introduced the situation by saying, "' Black Wing ' is the stronghold of the Shadow Dragonkin Drow, and sixty percent of its population are Shadow Dragonkin Drow."

He pulled a brand-new letter from his pocket, stamped with "Top Secret Document," and handed it to the corpse demon.

Hart opened the envelope and immediately saw the words inside.

[Special Permit]

[This order is hereby approved for a thorough purge of the Shadow Dragonkin Drow. Make sure it is done cleanly. —Chief Minister, Lang Pu] "Very well, I understand."

Hart's bloodless lips curled slightly, and his dark eyes curved into an eerie arc.

He drew the skeletal staff from his waist, went to the top of the city wall, and raised it high.

In an instant, the skeletons of hundreds of Azure Foot Dragon Snake and snakes that had been wandering outside the city, along with tens of thousands of undead skeletons, gathered together, forming a pale white torrent.

The old bones rubbed against each other, making a crisp "crackling" sound that sent chills down one's spine.

Hart leaped off the city wall and into the sea of skeletons, riding atop the largest Azure Foot Dragon Snake skeleton and wielding its skeletal scepter.

"Long"

Hundreds of skeletal Azure Foot Dragon Snake emerged simultaneously, wriggling and roaming the earth.

The ground in the Underdark trembled, and the pitch-black sky seemed to emit mournful cries. The white torrents stood out starkly against the black ground.

"Come forth, undead legion!"

"Slaughter every single one of those living creatures that dare to stand in the way of the empire's expansion."

The corpse demon said so.