novelnext Chapter 270: The Flight of the Damned
Chapter 270: The Flight of the Damned
The Necrotic Realm.
Under the suffocating, ashen sky, a Planar Gate suddenly tore through the void
like a jagged wound.
Thanatos's silhouette was violently ejected from the warped shimmer, tumbling
through the air before slamming face-first into the cracked earth. The impact
carved a shallow crater into the obsidian stone, sending a cloud of grey dust
spiraling into the stagnant air.
The silence that followed was absolute.
There were no high-ranking Liches to offer a groveling welcome. No elite legions
stood in formation. There wasn't even a single sentient undead left in the
palace perimeter who could recognize the broken King.
Only a few mindless Skeleton Thralls—creatures that hadn't even achieved the
spark of Tier 1 sentience—wandered aimlessly across the bone-strewn wasteland.
One of these thralls rattled over to the edge of the crater. It tilted its bare,
hollow skull downward, staring at the shattered monarch. Out of a dim, primitive
curiosity, the thrall detached one of its own ribs and used it to poke
Thanatos's shoulder.
No reaction.
The thrall poked again. Still nothing.
Losing interest, the creature jammed the rib back into its own chest-plate,
turned around, and resumed its eternal, meaningless trek toward the horizon.
A second later, Thanatos's fingers twitched. With an agonizing effort, his
blackened gauntlets pressed into the dirt, and he began to hoist his frame from
the pit. The teleportation tunnel had collapsed mid-transit; it was only by
virtue of his Tier 7 durability that he hadn't been atomized by the shearing
forces of the Void. A Tier 6 unit would have been reduced to sub-atomic dust.
His crown was gone. His robes were a shredded ruin. His bones were mapped with a
network of hairline fractures that throbbed with a cold, spectral ache.
He lifted his head, scanning the familiar, wretched landscape of his kingdom.
This was his world. He had spent millennia subjugating other Planes, turning
their husks into the very soil he now sat upon. He had stood at the summit of
this world, the architect of a universe's end.
And now, he held nothing.
His million-man elite host, his most trusted officers, and even Unit One—the
daughter he had crafted from the essence of his own Od—had been liquidated. The
war-chest of several thousand years had been vaporized in a single afternoon.
Thanatos looked down at his hands. The emptiness where his Mana should be was a
physical weight, making every pulse of his soulfire feel like a guttering candle
in a gale.
"Was my logic... flawed?"
The question was a raspy whisper that vanished into the grey wind, receiving no
response.
Unbidden, the image of the Sovereign of Evernight manifested in his tactical
processors. He saw that nameless skeleton standing atop the Bone Dragon—a being
whose mere presence had triggered an instinctual urge to grovel, even in a
Tier 7 King. He saw the monster who could mass-produce Tier 6 powerhouses with a
casual wave of a hand.
"No."
"My logic was sound!"
"I was simply... insufficiently powerful!"
Thanatos forced himself to a stand, staggering toward the distant silhouette of
his palace—the monolithic fortress forged from the remains of ancient titans.
His gait was a stumbling, broken thing, but his pace accelerated with his
growing mania. Finally, he broke into a heavy run, charging through the empty
halls of his seat of power.
Within the Great Throne Room, only the hollow echo of his own boots remained. He
didn't stop at the throne. He sprinted past it, heading for the deepest sanctum:
the Planar Observatory.
Inside the crystal spire, thousands of light-specks representing Planar
Coordinates remained suspended in the dark—a captured galaxy of worlds waiting
to be harvested.
Thanatos stood in the center of the tower, his soulfire scanning the motes with
a frantic, predatory intensity. His gauntlets trembled as he reached out,
clawing at the air.
"Find me... give me a target..."
His voice was a jagged rasp, saturated with the madness of a cornered predator.
"Anything... any world that can sustain me! A world I can use to reforge my Od!
A world to make me stronger!"
Arrays of coordinates flashed before his eyes.
Tier 3 Plane? Too weak. The energy yield wouldn't even suffice to mend his
cracked ribs. Tier 4 Plane? Insufficient. A drop of water in a vacuum. Tier 5
Plane...
Thanatos's soulfire paused.
A Tier 5 world. It possessed the biomass and magical density to serve as a
high-output battery. It was enough to restore his parameters and perhaps even
provide the catalyst for evolution. More importantly, its global strength was
within his capacity to handle alone—even in his current state, it couldn't offer
the absolute suppression he had faced in the Evernight.
If he was cautious, he could rebuild.
His hand clamped onto a pale blue light-speck. The projection unfurled,
displaying the plane's primary data.
[PLANAR DESIGNATION: THE ELDRITCH SCOURGE] [PLANAR RANK: TIER 5] [THREAT
ASSESSMENT: MODERATE] [NOTE: SUBJECT PLANE IS UNDERGOING LARGE-SCALE SPIRITUAL
CONTAMINATION. INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATIONS ARE NEARING TOTAL COLLAPSE.]
Thanatos stared at the data, his soulfire finally beginning to steady.
Tier 5. Moderate threat. Total civilizational decay.
It was the perfect harvest. He didn't need to conquer the entire world; he only
needed to pillage its core essence to restore his own vitality.
And then... he would find the path to Tier 8.
A spark of raw, delusional fire ignited in his eyes.
"Yes... Tier 8. The realm of the Divine."
His voice grew louder, echoing through the cold crystal of the tower. "Once I
achieve Tier 8, I will be the equal of the Evernight Sovereign!"
"We are both Undead! We are of the same logic! The same kind!"
"Our objectives should be aligned! He only opposed me because I was weak—a
variable to be processed!"
"But when I return as his equal... I will convince him. We shall become
partners! Together, we shall harvest every Plane in the Multiverse! We shall
become the singular Truth of the cosmos!"
Thanatos's mania reached its peak. He could see the future: two Sovereigns of
the Dead standing at the apex of the Multiverse, with a trillion conquered
worlds beneath their feet. No force would remain to challenge their reign. They
would be the new Gods.
"Yes... that is the only logical conclusion."
Thanatos's grip tightened on the blue coordinate.
"I will persist." "I will evolve." "I will prove... that I was not wrong!"
He turned, dragging his broken frame away from the observatory and toward the
ritual chamber at the other end of the palace. There stood a massive,
independent array—the Solitary Transit Gate, designed for high-tier individuals
to cross Planar boundaries without a supporting legion.
His army was gone. His resources were spent. But he was Thanatos, the King of
the Necrotic Realm.
A Tier 5 world with a fractured Will was a playground. He would process it
alone.
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