"…the night will never end."
The words still hung in the air.
Lucas stood on the pile of dead. The heap had settled under his boots, slick and warm, making him a little taller than the world. The castle breathed against his palm through the stone—slow, heavy, satisfied. The banners in the Red Gallery did not move. They watched. Selena sat on her throne like a promise, blood bright on her mouth, eyes fixed on him with that soft, dangerous joy that always made the air feel thinner.
He raised his hand. The battlefield listened.
"Begin," he said.
Ghouls moved first. They slid from the kill alleys and the trenches, ropes ready, no hurry. Bone Dogs padded between bodies, heads low, tails of vertebrae ticking against armor. The last survivors of three broken Lords were on their knees in the mud—dozens, maybe more—hands bound, faces streaked with ash and fear, eyes wild with the kind of hope that doesn't know it has already died.
Lucas walked down the corpse-throne. Each step shifted flesh. Each step made a wet sound the ground accepted without complaint. He stopped at the front rank of prisoners.
"Look up," he said.
They obeyed. Eyes met his: young, old, stupid, brave. It didn't matter.
"You belong to me," he said. "Alive. Or as parts."
He tipped two fingers at Mirk and Var. The veterans grinned in the wrong way. Ropes tightened. Knees hit mud. The first man tried to speak; Var's hand closed around his jaw and turned the words into a cough.
Selena's voice flowed across the yard, low and smooth. "My King, shall I choose the music?"
"Use the Engine," Lucas said. "Keep ten for the kennels. Everything else feeds the ground."
The Fear Engine woke with a slow, red pulse under the gate. Hooks slid down on whispering chains. The prisoners stared. Some prayed. Some begged. Some laughed by accident. The ghouls worked like craftsmen—clean, quick, precise. The Engine did the rest.
[Ding!]
[Fear Engine — Public Rite engaged.]
[Vile Spark yield ×4 (witness bonus).]
[Civilian compliance ripple: +.]
[Mutation bias: deepened.]
He did not watch all of it. He did not need to. He listened to the numbers the castle loved.
"Selena," he said, turning his head. "We seed the soil."
Her smile widened. "At last." She rose from the throne in one smooth motion, bare feet finding the cold stone like it was a lover. She crossed the yard, and the night bent around her like cloth caught on a claw.
"Make it black and faithful," Lucas said. "I want this ground to remember the dead and work for us."
She stopped below the corpse-throne and looked up at him with crimson eyes that shone like wet lacquer. "As you wish, My King."
He lifted his hand again. The system answered.
[Ding!]
[Terraform Module — Necro-Soil unlocked (Mutation Path).]
[Requirements: Bone Dust ×1000, Carrion Tithe ×50, Vile Spark ×200, Sovereign Resonance (Selena) 20%.]
[Optional Catalysts: Night Core fragment (↑ fertility), Grave Mold spore (↑ spread).]
[Result: Soil converts blood and bone → Dark yield. Enables Grave Crops, Bone Harvest, Ossuary Growth.]
[Warning: Holy backlash risk; world attention ↑.]
"Accepted," Lucas said.
The castle drank the cost. The ground thickened underfoot, hungry and polite. Selena extended her hands, palms up. Blood bled up through her skin like dew—slow, dark, perfect. She turned her wrists; the blood fell in thin lines and did not splatter. It drew sigils on the dirt. It wrote circles around the Engine, around the pits, around the lips of graves. Inside the lines, the mud stilled like a heart that had decided to listen.
She looked beautiful doing it. She always did.
"Ghouls," Lucas called. "Plough."
They brought the Bone Ploughs up from the Forge—curved blades carved from the ribs of a giant, hitched to double teams of Bone Dogs. The teams leaned into the harness. The ploughs bit the blood-wet earth and turned it. Flesh and soil mixed in neat furrows. The air smelled like iron and rain that had made a mistake.
[Ding!]
[Bone Plough (E) — productivity +. Soil conversion 23% / pass.]
[Necro-Soil — progress 12% (outer yard), 5% (kill alleys), 0% (ridge).]
[New Building: Ossuary Seeder available.]
"Forge," Lucas said.
The Resonant Forge answered with heat and a pleasant clatter. Out rolled the Ossuary Seeder: a squat cart of bone and iron, tubed and ribbed, with a hopper filled with powdered remains and jars of black spore. Ghouls cranked it; a thin rain fell out of its mouth—bone dust, Grave Mold, ash.
"Lay lines along the trenches," Lucas said. "Then the ridge."
Selena's hair spilled over her shoulder as she tilted her head, smiling. "And in the barracks garden. I want lilies that drink fear."
"You'll have fields," he said. "We feed more than you."
Her laugh slid around him, soft and hot. "You're generous."
He moved through the work like a cold wind. Orders, corrections, angles. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The castle carried him. The Engine sang and hushed and sang again. The Bone Dogs dragged bodies to the plough. The ghouls cranked the Seeder and fed bone into soil. The Sentinels stood still enough that time forgot to argue with them.
Prisoners died fast or slow. The last handful were not for the Engine or the furrow. They were for the kennels.
"Ten," he said. "No more. I want new Hounds."
Mirk and Var selected with care. Knees. Lungs. Hands that looked stubborn. The chosen were dragged to the kennel arches—low doors with carvings of teeth. They did not come back out.
[Ding!]
[Kennel Rite — Bone Hound conversion (humanoid).]
[Yield: 6 viable, 3 feral (cull), 1 failed (Grave).]
[Trait mutation chance ↑ (necro-soil proximity).]
A feeder collapsed near the barracks door. Another picked her up and swayed while she sang a soft, wrong song. The key was steady. It pleased the Engine. It pleased the castle. It even pleased him a little, because it kept the numbers neat.
"Archers," he said, not turning. "Do not stand idle."
The Rare-class children in the spires heard him. He felt their breath lock into a new cadence. Bows lifted. Strings hummed. The ridge line twitching with watcher silhouettes went quiet all at once.
[Ding!]
[Blood Moon Archers [Rare] — Zone Suppression on Ridge.]
[Scouts eliminated: 11.]
[Red Eclipse density ↑ over fields.]
Selena finished the last circle. She lifted her red hands and pressed her palms together. The sigils on the ground pulsed in a slow, hungry rhythm. The earth itself shuddered, then relaxed, as if easing into a better shape.
"Now," she whispered. "Grow."
It did.
The first things to appear were hands. Not human hands—root-hands. Pale, thin, many-fingered, rising from the furrows and opening to catch invisible rain. They curled and twitched, tasting blood in the air. Then came shoots—bone-white stems with little thorny leaves like teeth. The leaves drank color from the dirt and turned gray, then black. The smell changed. It stopped being battle and started being farm.
[Ding!]
[Necro-Soil — active.]
[Enable: Grave Crops:
— Blood Flax (string for bows, garrotes).
— Skull Wheat (fodder for dogs, paste for ghouls).
— Night Lilies (Selena favored; ritual reagent).]
[Passive: unit regen +10% within fields; enemy morale − in line-of-sight.]
[Side Effect: Holy sensitivity ↑.]
Selena walked between the furrows. Wherever her shadow fell, the shoots grew faster. Night Lilies budded as she passed—small black cups with red throats. She bent and kissed one. It opened like a mouth.
"Beautiful," she murmured.
"Useful," Lucas said.
He looked up at the ridge. The smoke there had thinned. The new fire—thin, straight, angry—still drew a line across the far sky, but it did not move nearer. Not yet. It waited like a promise.
"Finish the executions," he said. "Then pull the Relay nets to the river bend. We extend the line."
Vicarius stepped forward out of shadow, helm low. "Acknowledged."
The Death Knight turned and began to move the world. Sentinels left the wall in units of two and four. Bone Dogs took paths that would become roads because he said so. The Relay's bone pillar shook itself and grew legs—spurs of filigree that cut little tracks as ghouls levered it onto a sled.
[Ding!]
[Crimson Relay — relocated in 18m.]
[Command radius projected: +.
Latency: ↓.]
Lucas watched bodies go to furrow, bone to hopper, soil to crop. He gave the world its jobs and felt better.
"Selena," he said, "we bake the field. No rot. I want the ground to sing, not stink."
She smiled over her shoulder and raised a hand. Flame slid up from her skin and ran in low veils along the furrows, careful and exact. It kissed roots, not seeds. It burned memory, not function. The Night Lilies trembled and then stood taller, as if pleased.
Ghouls hauled a heavy cart to the outer fields—stone drums fitted with teeth. They rolled them back and forth over the new soil. Teeth sunk. Earth tightened.
[Ding!]
[Soil Compactor (Ossuary) — durability +, field uniformity ↑, crop time −.]
[Grave Crop harvest in: 4h (first cut).]
Short work after long killing. Simple, clean, unkind.
Lucas returned to the corpse pile. It was smaller now. The work had eaten it. He climbed what remained and looked out over the growing dark. The yard was no longer a yard. It was a farm. The ground was a mouth turned downward, chewing.
He let himself breathe once, then once again. The castle breathed with him.
Selena appeared below, hair a pale river over one shoulder, hands still red to the wrist. "My King," she called up, "your fields are ready. Shall I bless the first cut with a throat, or will numbers satisfy you?"
"Numbers," he said. "Throats are for doctrine."
She laughed. "Then doctrine waits until evening."
A ghoul hurried up with a slate and a hand that shook. "Lord," it rasped. "Prisoners done. Ten to kennel, four to Vault, the rest to furrow. The Engine hums. The feeders sing."
"Good," Lucas said. "Put quiet children on bowstring. Busy hands keep dreams obedient."
Selena climbed a few steps up the pile, then stopped to look at him. Her eyes were soft and wicked at once. "You're happy," she said in a way that made it an accusation and a worship.
"I am correct," he said.
The sky cleared its throat.
Not a sound—an absence. The distant straight fire on the horizon narrowed and brightened and took a step no foot took. Clean light smudged the far edge of the Red Eclipse until it almost looked honest.
[Ding!]
[Global Event: Sanction Chorus forming.
Multiple Judicant vectors aligning.]
[ETA: unknown.]
[World Message (public): "By order of Aegis, faith marches."]
Selena's smile sharpened. "A choir," she said. "Lovely. I'll teach them harmony."
Lucas did not answer. He lifted his hand again. The Relay finished sliding into place at the river bend; its filigree lit like frost under blood.
"Units," he said. "Rotate. No fatigue. Dogs to west, Sentinels to new hedges, archers to ridge two. Keep the line tight around the fields."
Orders rippled. The army moved the way an organism moves when all its nerves agree.
"Selena," he added, "the barracks garden. Plant the lilies there. I want the Engine to hum sweeter."
She looked pleased in the way only a queen who adores a tyrant can. "Right away, My King."
She turned and went with a glide that made the newly seeded Night Lilies open in a faint bow as she passed.
The first harvest began.
Ghouls cut Blood Flax with bone sickles. The fibers bled red, then darkened to a practical gray. They carried bundles to the Forge, where the strings for the Bloodthread bows would be spun. Skull Wheat toppled in neat clacks, each head a little white nut. The Bone Dogs ate the paste and wagged their tails. The Night Lilies were plucked with careful fingers. Selena received each flower like a prayer.
[Ding!]
[Grave Crop — first yield.]
[Outputs: Blood Flax ×320, Skull Wheat ×200, Night Lilies ×40.]
[Unlock: Ghoul Rations Plus, Bowstring Superior, Ritual Upgrade: Scarlet Hymn.]
[Territory Trait: Necro-Fertile acquired.]
[Enemy fear within sight of fields ↑.]
Numbers were clean. The world was ugly. Both pleased him.
He looked again at the horizon. The straight fire had become three lines now, weaving, then aligning. The air had that new taste again—clean water poured into iron, judged by someone who had never been thirsty.
"Prepare the hymn," Lucas said. "If the choir sings, we drown them out."
Selena's laughter drifted back from the barracks garden. "Oh, good. A duet."
He stepped down from the pile for the last time and walked to the gate. The stone under his palm was warm with work. The castle hummed, deeper than before. It liked eating. It liked growing. It liked him.
He lifted his hand one more time.
"Open the Vault," he said.
The Red Vault yawned. The prisoners for it were already there—two women with eyes that had chosen to hate rather than break, one man whose face was calm the way a coin is calm. The lattice lit. The ledger hummed. Selena's shadow touched the threshold from the garden, and the lilies shook.
"Keep spines," Lucas added. "I want answers about the choir."
"Gladly," Selena said.
[Ding!]
[Interrogation Protocol — started.
Subject tags: Witness (Sanction), Choir logistics (faith).]
[Expected yield: Aegis route data, host composition, ritual windows.]
He turned from the Vault to the fields, to the fence of ribs, to the new hedges made of knives, to the Relay asleep and awake at once. He felt the spires listening. He felt the dogs thinking. He felt Selena smile where he couldn't see her.
The ground under the nearest furrow shifted.
He felt that, too.
It wasn't collapse. It was movement. A slow bulge, then a crack, then a sound like a jaw unlocking after a long sleep. A root-hand pulled itself back as something larger pushed up from beneath. Bone showed first—not white, but old brown. A curve like the rim of a skull too big to be any beast he knew.
The Night Lilies around it opened and spilled red light into the crack. The thing below the soil turned toward the light.
Selena's voice from the garden changed pitch. "Lucas."
He didn't run. He didn't blink. He watched as the furrow broke open and a shape like a ribcage the size of a cottage rose through the necro-soil, dripping black. Inside the cage, something glowed. Not warm. Not kind. Familiar, in the way teeth are familiar.
[Ding!]
[Anomalous Emergence — Underthing responding to Necro-Soil.]
[Tag: Sealed Entity Remnant (crypt).]
[Risk: Unknown.
Opportunity: Ossuary Titan frame (E→D) possible.]
[Warning: Holy vectors will accelerate.]
Selena came to his side. Blood damp on her hands. Night Lily pollen on her wrist. Her smile looked like a blade. "A gift from the ground," she said softly.
"Or a debt," he said.
The horizon brightened again. The three straight fires braided into one. The system whispered into his bones, slow and heavy.
[Sanction Chorus will arrive when the next bell falls.]
[Countdown: 10… 9… 8…]
Selena laced her fingers with his and squeezed once, cold and certain. "My King, shall we show them what grows in our fields?"
He watched the ribcage rise. He watched the Relay burn brighter. He watched the choir of lights take shape like a noose.
"Arm the archers," he said. "Wake the Titan. And sing."
The bell kept falling.
7… 6… 5…