The cycles bled into one another, marked by the steady expansion of Elias's power and the deepening of his isolation. His domain was a well-oiled machine of surveillance and defense. His Eyes of the Warden were his eyes and ears, mapping the movements of every significant creature within a day's walk. His skeletal minions, which he'd rebuilt to be even more formidable after the cave collapse, patrolled the perimeter of his compound, a tireless, unblinking guard. His forge glowed through the long twilights as he improved his gear, crafting wicked, brutally functional weapons and reinforcing his terrifying, metal-and-bone armor.
He had become a creature of pure function. He gathered power, fortified his position, and maintained a remote, invisible watch over Sunstone. He was the silent shepherd of his flock, and his crook was a necromancer's staff.
The peace of his grim routine was shattered by a message from the Corvid-Mind. It wasn't a simple caw or a flash of imagery. It was a direct, urgent telepathic pulse, a concept translated through the collective bird-brain: New thing. Wrong. Not of the wood. Metal men come.
Elias's head snapped up from the piece of armor he was shaping. Metal men?
He sent back a command. Show me.
His consciousness was flooded with a dozen different aerial views. The ravens were tracking a party moving through the forest from the south, a direction no one had ever come from before. There were six of them. They were not clad in hides or rough leather like the villagers or other tribesmen. They wore gleaming, full-plate armor that shone even in the dim light of the forest. They carried finely crafted swords and crossbows, moving with the disciplined coordination of trained soldiers. One, clearly the leader, consulted a map made of what looked like parchment.
They were invaders. Their life signatures were bright, confident, and utterly alien to the energy of the Blackwood.
Using Wraith Walk, Elias shot out of his compound, his spirit a blur of motion. He needed a closer look. He arrived, intangible and unseen, as the party made camp for the night. They posted sentries, built a professional campfire, and spoke in a crisp, unfamiliar dialect that the System, mercifully, translated.
"—the map shows the primitive settlement should be just past this ridge," one soldier said, sharpening his sword.
"And the bounty?" another asked.
The leader, a man with a hard, scarred face and a plumed helmet, looked up from his map. "Simple enough. Lord Valerius wants a foothold in this cursed forest. The bounty is for the head of this 'Grave Warden' spirit the traders have been whispering about. Seems it's got the local tribals spooked. We clear out their ghost, they see the wisdom in swearing fealty to the Iron Hegemony."
Elias's non-corporeal form went cold. They were here for him. His legend, which had traveled beyond the forest, had painted a target on his back. And they were using the subjugation of Sunstone as their justification. They weren't here to trade or explore. They were conquerors.
[New Threat Detected: Iron Hegemony Expeditionary Force.]
[Long-Term Objective Acquired: Repel the Invaders.]
This was a different kind of enemy. Not a beast driven by instinct or a Lich slumbering on its throne. This was an organized, intelligent, well-equipped military force with a political agenda. His usual tactics of fear and misdirection might not be as effective against men who hunted ghosts for a living.
But he had one advantage they couldn't possibly account for. He was already hunting them.
Over the next two days, Elias became a ghost of war. During the day, his ravens tracked their every move. At night, he used Wraith Walk to listen to their plans, study their defenses, and learn their capabilities. He saw them test their crossbows on forest animals, the bolts punching through hide and bone with brutal efficiency. He noted the way their leader, Captain Borin, positioned his men, always covering lines of fire. They were professionals. Killing them would be difficult.
He would not face them directly. That was a fool's game. He would use the forest itself as a weapon. His forest.
On the third night, as they made camp in a narrow gorge, Elias began his campaign. He started small, a psychological assault. He used Soul Whisper, no longer needing the skull as a focus, and projected it from the darkest parts of the woods around them. It wasn't a shout; it was the faintest whisper of a child crying. Just on the edge of hearing.
"Did you hear that?" a sentry asked his partner, his hand tightening on his crossbow.
"Hear what? It's just the wind."
Then, Elias layered in the sound of scraping stone. The cracking of a twig, just beyond the firelight. He used his ravens to knock small pebbles from the gorge walls, creating tiny, inexplicable sounds from all directions.
He was not trying to terrify them. He was trying to exhaust them. To fray their nerves. By dawn, they were bleary-eyed and jumpy. Their discipline was starting to crack.
The second part of his plan was attrition. As they marched, Elias used Wraith Walk to identify their path. He then sent telepathic commands to his skeletal minions, who moved unseen ahead of the soldiers. He had them dig pits, covered with branches. He had them weaken the trunks of dead trees, preparing them to fall.
A soldier at the back of the formation suddenly vanished with a surprised yelp, falling into a deep pit. They spent an hour recovering his body and his broken leg. Later, a massive deadfall crashed across their path, forcing them on a long, arduous detour through a swampy marsh.
Captain Borin was growing furious. "This is no spirit!" he roared, pulling his boot from the mud. "This is a coordinated enemy. A master hunter. He's toying with us!"
Elias was a phantom enemy they could not see, striking from angles they could not predict. He was turning their confidence into paranoia.
On the fifth night, he decided to reveal himself. Not for a fight, but to deliver a message.
The soldiers were huddled around their fire, their nerves shot. Their numbers were down to five, after the man with the broken leg was abandoned. They had seen nothing but shadows, heard nothing but whispers, and suffered nothing but "accidents."
Elias stood on the ridge of the gorge, a silhouette against the dim sky. He did not need to shout. Captain Borin's head snapped up as if he'd been struck. Sense Life was not a one-way street for a necromancer.
Every soldier followed his gaze. And there he was. The Grave Warden. Clad in his patchwork armor of black iron and bone, his face hidden in the shadows of a helmet fashioned from a prowler's skull. He held his wicked iron-tipped spear. He said nothing. He simply stood there, watching them. A declaration. I am here. I see you. This is my domain.
One of the younger soldiers panicked, raising his crossbow. "By the Light, it's him!"
Before he could fire, Elias acted. He used Soul Whisper, not on the men, but on their pack animals, the two mules tied up nearby. He sent them a jolt of pure, mind-shattering terror. The animals screamed, their eyes rolling back, and bolted, tearing their tethers and crashing into the darkness, taking most of the party's supplies with them.
In the ensuing chaos, Elias melted back into the shadows and was gone.
He left them with an image and a consequence. He was real. He was powerful. And he could turn their own assets against them.
But his most audacious move was yet to come. Later that night, while the exhausted soldiers slept fitfully, Elias used Wraith Walk to drift into their camp. He ignored the men. He approached the pack of Captain Borin, where the parchment map lay.
He couldn't touch it. He was intangible. But he could project energy. He focused a tiny, precise sliver of Soul Whisper, not a sound, but an idea. A subtle suggestion, an intrusive thought, into the mind of the soldier on watch duty. The fire is getting low. Add that dry scroll to it. Keep it burning bright.
The soldier, half-asleep and already on edge, acted on the thought without questioning it. It felt like his own idea. He picked up the "useless" scroll—the map—and tossed it into the fire, where it instantly curled into black ash.
Elias had not just exhausted their bodies and frayed their nerves. He had blinded them. They were now lost, without supplies, in a hostile forest controlled by a phantom who could seemingly command the very beasts and stones around them.
He retreated to his compound, a cold sense of satisfaction filling him. This was not a battle of strength. This was a battle of intellect and will. It was a grand strategy game played with real pieces, and he had just executed a devastatingly successful opening gambit. But the Iron Hegemony would not be so easily deterred. He had won the first engagement, but the war for the Blackwood—and for the soul of his solitary kingdom—had just begun.