CHAPTER 134: CH 134 CONQUEST - 7

The tavern was loud, filled with smoke, chatter, and the smell of cheap meat sizzling on pans. Men laughed, dice rolled, and boots thumped against the wooden floor. A young man walked in, his cloak drawn tight around his body.

He kept his head low, but his movements were sharp and precise, not like a drunk wanderer. He reached the counter and dropped a gold coin onto the table with a dull clink.

"One big jar of booze" he said, his tone tired but steady.

"Right away, gentleman." The old man took a large jug from under the table and started serving the man. While the booze was being served, the man looked at the bartender with one eye. The man looked like a wise person from age, so he decided to ask.

"I heard the kingdom was shut down from the rest of the continent. How is there a stable supply of alcohol in this area even after a month of lockdown?" The old man looked at the young man in front of him. "Oh, you don’t know?

The Riverdale kingdom has set up a new trading association after they banned the Golden Merchant Association from their territories," the old man said as he served the next customer.

The young man retorted, "But that doesn’t answer my question. I asked where this beer was coming from, old man. I know for a fact that the Riverdale Merchant Association only trades inside the kingdom’s boundaries and has no connection to the outside world, so where do they get booze?"

The old man froze for a moment, then slowly looked up. His eyes locked onto the man’s, and for the briefest second, something strange flickered in them. Then his wrinkled face twisted into a smile that was no longer warm but cold and unsettling.

"For that... you’ll have to ask my lord."

"Huh ?" The man’s question died in his throat as the room itself warped.

The tables bent. The walls twisted. The air folded in on itself, like space was tearing apart.

Shades of black seeped through cracks in reality. His vision blurred, his senses screamed, and he was forced to shut his eyes before the flashing lights blinded him.

When he opened them again, the tavern was gone.

He was in a dark cellar. The air was damp, the walls cold stone. Chains clanked against his wrists and ankles when he tried to move.

His body stiffened, but his mind stayed clear. He was a trained assassin at SSS rank, raised by the Elven Dominion itself.

His real form was elven, but his body had been altered by a potion to appear human. He had infiltrated kingdoms before, slit the throats of influential nobles, and escaped from many unbreakable prisons.

He understood immediately. "I’ve been caught."

His tongue searched his mouth, reaching for the poison capsule hidden under his artificial tooth.

The assassin’s fallback plan had always been simple: if he was captured somewhere where there were no chances of escape, he would simply swallow the poison and die rather than go through a gruesome torture."

In this case too, he wanted to keep the poison sack ready in case he felt his game was over.

But when his tongue touched the tooth, there was nothing. The capsule was gone. His instincts roared in alarm.

A voice slid through the silence, dark and heavy. "No use trying to die, mortal elf. You won’t die that easily."

The assassin froze. His eyes scanned the shadows. From the far end of the cellar, something moved. A figure detached itself from the darkness, tall and cloaked, eyes glowing faintly in hollow sockets.

The assassin’s blood ran cold. He had never seen such a being before.

Necrolord stopped before him, his presence suffocating. His aura pressed down like a mountain, and the assassin recognized it instantly. Pseudo-transcendent.

Since Necrolord too had started cultivating after Klaus had told him to. Although his cultivation technique was based purely on the darkness element and was much more sophisticated and higher ranked than what Klaus gave to Lysandra.

Necrolord’s voice was deep, stripped of warmth. "Let’s cut to the chase. I don’t waste time on insignificant beings like you."

The assassin’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

"One thing you should know," Necrolord continued, "is that I don’t give 2 shits about your life. The information you try to hide, I’ll get it from your peers soon enough. The only reason you’re here first is convenience. You save my time."

He then leaned closer, his hollow gaze unblinking. "And the second thing you should know is I don’t give second chances."

The assassin swallowed, his muscles tense, every instinct screaming at him to resist.

"This is your only chance. Tell me the location of the other spies from the Elven Dominion. Speak now, and you might avoid the worst."

The cellar fell silent. One minute passed. Then two.

The assassin stared back, his eyes burning with stubbornness. He had been trained from childhood never to betray his mission. Death was acceptable. Torture was acceptable. Betrayal was not.

Necrolord watched him, then finally straightened. "Very well. Rest in peace."

The air shifted. Shadows folded. The chains snapped. The cellar itself crumbled, dissolving into smoke.

The assassin staggered forward, suddenly free. He looked around, confused. "Why did he let me go...?"

He didn’t wait to question further. He bolted down the corridor, his footsteps echoing.

On both sides of the hall, cell doors stood open, revealing mangled corpses inside. Some were twisted, broken beyond recognition.

Some of these corpses were half alive, struggling to be alive; they stared at him with hollow eyes, pity flickering strangely across their ruined faces.

The assassin’s chest tightened. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. But he kept running.

The corridor opened into blinding white.

Snow

Ice

A barren frozen wasteland stretched in every direction. The air bit at his skin like knives. His breath came out in clouds. He stumbled forward, the cold already seeping into his bones.

Then he heard several growls.

Shadows moved in the snow, huge shapes circling him.

Beasts, demons, skeletons, and weirdly mutated humanoids appeared in his sight; his mind shook as survival instinct triggered.

The assassin drew a dagger from his boot, his hands shaking despite himself. He could fight. He had killed stronger beasts before.

But soon his hopes shattered as the number of death monsters kept on increasing and increasing until he realized that there was a huge army of them around him.

Out of fear he tried to turn back to the cellar, but when he turned around there was no cellar, only a few human figures looking at him with cold eyes.

The monsters circled him, not attacking, only pushing him back, herding him like prey. One beast lunged not to kill, but to knock the blade from his hand. Another slammed its paw into his chest, not crushing, but leaving him gasping on the ground.

And then the torture began.

The beasts toyed with him. They tore his flesh, then let it heal under the influence of the sanctuary. They froze his limbs, then thawed them with searing heat. His screams were carried away by the endless wind, unheard by anyone except the creatures that laughed in the hollow silence.

Hours bled into days. The assassin lost track of time, of self, of everything but pain.

His training, his pride, and his will were all shattered as the long-drawn-out torture intensified slowly so that the person didn’t get used to the same type of pain.

The last thing he saw before his mind broke were the human figures watching from the distance, cloaked in black, their hollow eyes glowing.

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In the capital of Riverdale, Klaus studied a map glowing in the air before him. The silver dragon banners now spread across vast swathes of land. In just one month, Riverdale’s borders had grown larger than most kingdoms.

To the north, nearly every control point was under his rule. The mountain passes, the iron mines, and the trade routes are all secured.

The northern kingdoms were cut off completely, isolated like trapped rats. They could not reach allies, nor send for aid. Klaus’s armies had built fortresses across every choke point.

The north was now like a cage.

To the east, the grain fields and river routes had been seized. The eastern kingdoms still lived, but due to the vast expanse of desert and the small amount of pastures that had been seized by the Klaus,

The chances of famine and drought breaking out loomed over them anytime. Riverdale had shut down food exports and merchant routes.

Their people starved, their wells dried, and desperation clawed at their gates. Klaus had sent them a simple offer: surrender peacefully, join the Riverdale Empire, and relief would come. Refuse, and they would wither.

Only the west and south remained free from his control. And specifically in the west, only the Lionheart Kingdom stood.

Lionheart was strong, and this time it was not alone; various empires had stationed their armies on its borders in a last-ditch effort to save the west part of the continent.

And unlike the others, it had something more, a coast and also a very powerful navy.

If Klaus conquered it, Riverdale would gain access to the sea as well as a strong navy.

His eyes glinted as he traced the coastline on the map. Soon.

The chamber was silent, the torches flickering with cold light. Then the air shifted. Two shadows appeared behind him and dropped to one knee.

Necrolord and Lyssandra.

Lyssandra was no longer the fragile girl she once was. Her aura crackled with power, her illusions sharper than blades.

She had already reached SSS rank, her bloodline strengthening with every passing day. Under her command, the Zero Division had become a silent weapon, cutting down enemies before they even realized they were being hunted.

Both of them bowed. "Reporting, my lord," they said in unison.

Klaus did not turn. His eyes remained on the map. "Speak."

Necrolord’s hollow voice echoed. "A new spy has been caught. Stage one of interrogation failed. Stage two has begun."

Lyssandra’s eyes gleamed faintly, her voice calm but laced with pride. "The Zero Division is working day and night, my lord. The rest of the spies will soon follow."