adbindia Chapter 252: Thanatos
Chapter 252: Thanatos
The sky of the Necrotic Realm remained an eternal, suffocating canvas of ashen
grey.
Across the cracked plains, an army of millions stood in harrowing silence. Rows
upon rows of skeletal infantry stretched toward the horizon, a literal ocean of
bleached bone and rusted steel. At the absolute vanguard of this host stood
Thanatos. Ten meters behind him, Lia kept her head bowed, her cascading silver
hair shielding her features from the biting, stagnant wind.
Further back, a ritual circle of several hundred Liches and tens of thousands of
Skeleton Archmages pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light. Their staves ignited
simultaneously, casting a blinding glare that rivaled a dying star.
Space began to moan.
A singular point of tension manifested in the void before tearing open into a
jagged, hundred-meter rift. Gray energy bled from the edges of the fracture,
swirling around a chaotic, light-drinking abyss.
This was the Planar Gate—the bridge to the Evernight Empire.
Thanatos did not issue the command to march immediately. He stood motionless,
his violet-gold soulfire reflecting in the shimmering surface of the portal.
"Another world governed by a Sovereign of the Dead," he murmured.
His mind drifted. He remembered a time long before he claimed the name Thanatos.
Back then, he was nothing. He had no designation. He was merely a pile of
calcium and lingering resentment that had clawed its way into sentience on a
battlefield of rotting meat and shattered iron. He had risen from the dirt,
staring at hands of bare bone—no flesh, no skin, no warmth.
Yet, he could move. He could process logic. He could perceive the world.
He didn't understand what he was, or why the laws of the universe allowed him to
exist. So, he walked. He wandered the wastes aimlessly, encountering the living.
The beasts of the field fled from his scent. The monsters of the wild lunged at
him with instinctual hunger. But the lower undead—the mindless thralls—began to
cluster around him, drawn to the flickering spark of his developing Od.
He didn't understand the attraction, but as time eroded the years, he stepped
into the threshold of Tier 1.
Eventually, he encountered his first human settlement.
It was a primitive cluster of huts—barely a dozen families. He stood at the edge
of the village, watching creatures that possessed frames similar to his own, yet
wrapped in the miracle of warm flesh. He watched them toil in the dirt, draw
water from the earth, laugh, speak, and embrace.
It was fascinating. It was beautiful.
So, he approached.
And the world screamed.
"Undead! It's a corpse-crawler!" "Run for your lives!" "Seize the axes! Burn the
abomination!"
Stones and heavy timber rained down upon his ribs. He stood frozen, unable to
process the reaction. He had done nothing. He only wanted to see them closer—to
understand what it meant to breathe.
Why was his existence a declaration of war?
An old man armed with a hoe lunged forward, swinging with a strength fueled by
terror. Thanatos instinctively raised an arm to parry; his skeletal grip caught
the old man's limb, and with a sickening crack, the bone snapped.
As the man's shriek pierced the air, the mob surged. Thanatos turned and fled
into the dark, pursued by the sound of rhythmic, angry boots and shouts of
"Monster!"
He didn't understand. He had done nothing wrong.
This pattern repeated a thousand times over the centuries. Every time he
attempted to bridge the gap toward humanity, he was met with steel, fire, and a
crushing, absolute rejection.
He learned to hide. He haunted the deep forests, the lightless caverns, and the
places where the living feared to tread. From the shadows, he observed. He
watched them build cities, plow the fields of Gusteko, and raise their
offspring. He watched them dance during festivals and weep during funerals.
He envied them. He hungered for that belonging. But the stars had decreed him a
creature of the night.
The years bled into centuries. His power scaled. From Tier 1 to Tier 3. He
mastered the weight of a blade. He learned to weave the fundamental threads of
Necromancy. He learned to command the silent legions that grew behind him.
But the solitude was a cancer.
Until the day he found a suit of heavy, full-plate knight's armor in a forgotten
ruin. It was rusted and caked in the dust of ages, but it was intact. He donned
the steel, encasing his bones in a shell of iron. He looked into a pool of still
water and saw no skeleton—only a knight.
A desperate hope sparked in his soulfire. If they cannot see what I am, perhaps
they will accept what I do.
He approached a new village. This time, there was no immediate purge. People
watched the armored stranger with curiosity.
"Who are you, traveler?" "From which border do you hail?"
He dared not speak; his voice was a hollow rattle that would betray him
instantly. He relied on sharp, measured nods and gestures. The villagers assumed
he was a mute—a wandering knight of Vollachia who had lost his tongue in some
distant border skirmish.
They granted him a roof. They shared their space.
Though no one sought his friendship, they no longer sought his death. He was
content. He began to pay his debt through labor. He repaired their plows with
tireless precision. He drove off the wolves that harried their flocks. He
carried boulders that would have required a team of oxen.
He needed no sleep. He required no bread. He worked through the cycle of the
moons without pause.
Under his protection, the village flourished. Slowly, the rejection softened.
Some even offered words of gratitude.
"Thank you, Sir Knight." "You are a good man, regardless of your silence."
For the first time since his awakening, his soulfire throbbed with a sensation
resembling joy. He believed he had finally found a home.
Until the night of the patrol.
A small child, mischievous and full of wonder, had taken to following him. He
was aware of the girl's presence, but he didn't mind the company. Then, she
tripped on a loose root.
Thanatos spun around to steady her. But as she fell, her hand snagged the latch
of his helmet.
The iron shifted. It tumbled away, clattering against the stones.
The moonlight struck his face—a bleached, hollow skull illuminated by twin pits
of burning violet flame.
The child didn't cry. She simply stared, paralyzed. And then, the shriek tore
through the silence of the woods.
"UNDEAD! THE KNIGHT IS A MONSTER!"
The village erupted. Torches flared to life. Weapons were drawn from beneath
beds. He stood at the center of the square, facing the people who had thanked
him only hours before. Their faces were now masks of pure, unadulterated hatred.
"Demon!" "Filth!" "Purge the abomination!"
He tried to gesture, to signal his lack of malice, but panic had rendered him
clumsy. He could only shake his head as the mob closed in.
His "best friend," the blacksmith who had called him a good man, stepped forward
with a heavy forging hammer.
"I knew something was wrong with you!" the man roared. "Undead are evil! They
are the rot of the world!"
Thanatos watched the hammer descend. He did not defend himself. He stood still
as the iron pulverized his skull.
Armor shattered. Bones splintered. He hit the dirt, his soulfire fading to a
mere ember. He heard their cheers.
"It is finished!" "The village is safe from the shadow!"
Thanatos dampened his soulfire and closed his senses. He played dead. Only after
the village slept and the torches died did he drag his broken frame from the
dirt. He left that village and never looked back.
The cycle repeated. New villages. New identities. Same conclusion. Every act of
benevolence was met with betrayal the moment his nature was revealed.
The vacuum in his heart turned into a cold, hard logic.
I have done nothing wrong. It is the world that is broken.
If the living would never accept the dead, then he would remove the variable. If
the entire world were undead, then no one would be an anomaly. The undead would
not be the "Other"—they would be the standard.
And so, his conquest began.
Over thousands of years, he harvested his entire Plane. Every heartbeat was
silenced. Every soul was bound to the grey. The Necrotic Realm was born.
He sat upon his throne, the undisputed King of a world of the dead. He expected
to feel the joy of acceptance. Instead, he felt only a new, deeper emptiness.
When everyone is undead, "acceptance" loses its meaning. He didn't want the
uniform, mechanical obedience of thralls.
He was lost once more. Until he discovered the existence of the Planes.
Infinite worlds. Infinite life. Worlds where the living still breathed.
He found a new purpose. He would conquer every Plane. He would turn the
Multiverse into a singular Necrotic Realm. He would become the God of the Dead.
By then, the entire universe would recognize him. Not through fear or force, but
because he would be the Rule. He would be Truth.
When he reached Godhood, "Undead" would no longer be a synonym for evil. It
would be the natural state of existence.
Only then, he believed, will I truly belong.
Thanatos's soulfire flickered, pulling him back to the present. The Planar Gate
was now stable.
The High Lich dropped to one knee. "My Sovereign. The gate is anchored. The
legions await your command."
Thanatos gave a slow, measured nod. He turned to face the millions of hollow
sockets watching him. He raised a hand of black bone.
"March."
The command was a low vibration, yet it echoed across the cracked plains like
thunder. The army moved as a single, coordinated machine. The rhythmic stomp of
millions of boots shook the earth.
Thanatos stepped into the rift first. The world warped. Light and shadow blurred
into a frantic strobe.
And then, his boot struck solid earth.
☆☆☆
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