The Night Core sank into the altar like a seed too eager to root. The floor rumbled. The altar bled light, not outward, but downward, into the veins of the stone. The hum grew until the bones of the crypt shivered.
Lucas stood steady, one hand on the throne, as if keeping score of the tremor. Selena swayed like a dancer testing a new rhythm, crimson eyes gleaming with anticipation.
The crypt did not collapse—it bloomed.
Walls stretched. Pillars broke their modest shapes and grew barbed ridges like vertebrae learning how to be towers. The rib-arches of the Ossuary cracked, shed dust, then locked into sharper angles. Runnels of red light climbed the walls, split, and wove into lattices. The chamber above cracked open to the sky, and what had been only a gate of bone ribs thickened into a keep's jaw.
The Dark Crypt was no longer a mausoleum. It had become a foundation. A castle in embryo.
Outside, the wasteland felt it.
The plain shook. Ribs thrust higher from the ground, fusing into spires. The arch at the gate rose until its tips curved inward, like claws clasping the sky. Red banners materialized between the towers—cloth woven of shadow and dried blood, stiff but fluttering to a wind that smelled of iron. The domain expanded again, pushing fear into the gullies, pressing on the lungs of anyone fool enough to camp near.
[Ding!]
[Lair Evolution Complete — Dark Castle (Tier E foundation).]
[Structures Unlocked: Blood Gate, Crimson Spires, Night Barracks (E), Bone Kennels.]
[Domain Radius +200m.]
[Passive Aura Intensified: Dread of the Threshing Gate II.]
Selena tilted her head back, laughing low, delighted. "Do you see it, Lucas? Even the air bows. We're painting with stone and fear now."
Lucas descended the steps of the altar. He walked through dust and shaking light until he stood at the new gate. His eyes traced the height of the forming keep—still crude, jagged, dripping with the wet sound of stone birthing stone.
"A castle," he said flatly. "No longer a tomb."
"No," Selena corrected, her lips curling. "It's both."
Inside, the transformation kept unfolding.
The Red Gallery's banners flared into full existence—rows of crimson cloth stitched with sigils that shifted when stared at too long. Spears leaned against racks; armor, black and ridged, hung waiting for wearers who had not yet been born.
The Night Barracks swelled outward. New cells opened, each lined with bone slats. Space for units to rest, but not to sleep—creatures like ghouls did not need rest. The barracks were for containment, for readiness.
The Bone Kennels opened beneath the ground. A hollow where the Bone Dogs padded restlessly, chains of vertebrae clinking in rhythm with their skeletal tails. Their sockets glowed faintly, as if already eager to spill out and hunt.
Above, the Crimson Spires jutted from the forming keep. Each spire was hollow, its walls honeycombed with narrow slots. The slots whispered a promise. Lucas felt it in the marrow of his teeth.
[Ding!]
[New Unit Path Available: Blood Moon Archers.]
[Tier: E (Elite).]
[Requirement: Bone Dust ×500, Carrion Tithe ×20 (fresh), Vile Spark ×100, Sovereign Resonance daily.]
[Abilities: Lunar Volley (suppression), Pierce the Heart (precision strike), Dread Banner (fear aura projection).]
Selena read the text over his shoulder. Her smile was not kind. "Archers. How poetic. Death from above, painted across the moon."
Lucas let the information settle. He could already imagine them—silhouettes in the spire-slots, their bows not of wood but of bone strung with sinew that remembered screams. Each arrow tipped with clot-red light, falling like cursed rain.
"We'll make them," he said. "We'll need them."
Selena's eyes flashed. "Then give me the captives. I'll tune their voices until the arrows sing correctly."
Her laughter rose, bright and merciless, carried through the new keep like a hymn to cruelty.
The castle stabilized.
The altar dimmed, sated. The throne glowed faintly, a vein of red trailing from crown to base. The pedestal at Selena's side pulsed, recognizing her authority. The Sentinels took positions without command, spreading across the new walls as if they had always known them. Ghouls scuttled through the barracks, rattling chains, sniffing alcoves. Bone Dogs padded to the kennels, circling as if trying on the new cages for size.
The Dark Castle lived.
Lucas stood in the courtyard where stone was still wet and steaming. He looked up at the spires, at the slots waiting for archers that had not yet been born. He thought of Ramius. He thought of the ultimatum. He thought of the horn on the ridge.
The castle was no longer just defense. It was a stage.
Selena appeared beside him without sound, her presence cool, her gaze fixed on the spires as well. She leaned close, voice playful but edged. "What song shall we play with our new strings, my King?"
Lucas answered without inflection. "A requiem."
The system interrupted, its voice colder than stone.
[Ding!]
[Notification: New construction complete.]
[Access unlocked — Blood Moon Archers.]