The name tasted like venom on my tongue. His presence pressed on us, crushing and suffocating.
His eyes—twin pits of molten hatred—swept across us with cruel amusement.
"Well, well," he rasped, his voice layered, echoing like whispers of the dead. "Rats still scurry in this dungeon."
"I have killed hundreds of rants from this dungeon and still many are lingering. HAHAHA!"
Everyone was feared. One dropped his sword; its clang rang like a death knell.
"Dakin Dagger…" I spat the name. My jaw ached from how tightly I clenched it.
"You traitor. You monster."
He only smiled, and the fire around his staff flared higher. He raised his hand, and the corpses of fallen shuddered.
My heart sank as bones snapped and flesh withered, twisting into grotesque forms.
The stench hit first—rot mixed with the metallic tang of blood. Then came the sound, bones cracking as if joints were being forced to move against their will.
The dead, the soldiers of this castle and this dungeon, rose from where they had fallen.
Their eyes glowed a sickly green, empty of all humanity. Their mouths hung open, drooling, not with hunger of their own, but with the hunger of the curse that bound them.
One of the younger soldiers behind me choked on his breath.
"No… gods, no…" His voice cracked with terror, and I could hear the tears in it.
"Don't hesitate to kill!" the captain said.
"They're gone already! They're not themselves anymore!"
But the warning came too late.
The risen charged us, screaming without sound, their blades swinging with unnatural force.
Their movements were jerky, stiff, like puppets tugged by invisible strings. The clash of steel rang out, but it was chaos—shields fell, men stumbled, the line broke almost instantly.
Kai was a storm at the center of it all. His sword blurred as he struck down one corpse after another, black ichor spraying across the stone.
Yet even he faltered when a familiar face came rushing toward him, twisted and ruined, once a comrade, now an abomination.
His strikes slowed, hesitation dragging at his hands.
One of our soldiers spoke crying. "I knew the same torment. My blade cleaved into the chest of a man who had once laughed at my side during campfires, who had shared his last piece of bread with me only nights before."
His head toppled from his shoulders, and bile rose in throat. His stomach churned so violently that I thought he would be sick right there.
Over the screams, the clash of weapons, and the desperate cries of men, another sound rose—a laugh.
Dakin's laugh.
IHis voice followed, dripping with cruelty.
"Do you see? Loyalty, courage—they mean nothing! Flesh is mine to command. Life and death…" He raised his staff, green fire curling higher around the skull at its tip.
"…are my tools to play with."
The green light flared, and more of the fallen began to twitch, rising to their feet. The battle had only just begun, and already despair was sinking its claws into us.
Then came the fire. A torrent of it roared from his staff, cracking stone, devouring three men whole.
Their screams ended only for their corpses to rise, blackened and aflame, and stagger forward to join his horde.
(My men's cries filled the dungeon. Despair surged again.), the captain thought.
She tightened her grip until her knuckles ached. Her voice broke free:
"Do not give in! For every one he raises, we'll cut down two more!"
Beside her I turned my eyes on the Warlock. For a moment, I swore I felt something behind him—a shadow, a presence that was not his alone—but he pushed forward, planting his foot against a demon's chest and driving his blade through its skull.
I spoke.
"You'll regret stepping out of your shadows."
Dakin tilted his head, amused, his lips curling into mockery.
"Will I now?" His fingers danced, dark glyphs spiraling around him like serpents.
"Then come, little worm. Let us see if your defiance burns as brightly as your corpse will."
The dungeon shook as fire and necrotic power gathered in his staff.
I stepped forward, armor scorched, lungs burning, but my will was unbroken. I lifted my sword until it pointed toward the Warlock's heart.
"Together," I told him, my voice fierce. "We fight together."
The storm answered us.
Flames licked the vaulted ceiling of Shadow Castle, molten stone dripping from the arches.
Screams filled the air, twisting together with Dakin's guttural chanting. Each syllable he spoke was heavy and wrong, words of death that wrapped around the fallen like chains.
One by one, the corpses shuddered, their limbs twitching before they rose to their feet—his new soldiers, bound to his will.
The smell was unbearable. Rot, smoke, and burning flesh clung to every breath until it felt like poison in our lungs.
Around me, only twelve soldiers still stood. They formed a ragged circle, shields lifted, swords and spears trembling in their hands.
Their armor was cracked, scorched, dripping with blood—but still they stood, backs straight, eyes blazing with stubborn defiance.
Pride and agony knotted inside my chest as I looked at them. They should have fallen already, yet here they were, refusing to bow.
Steel rang out again and again. We cut down the demons that rushed us, blades slicing through black flesh, spears piercing bone.
For every one that fell, another took its place. The horde seemed endless, pouring forward like a tide that could never be stopped.
And then I felt it.
His gaze.
Across the chaos, through smoke and flame, Dakin's crimson eyes locked onto us.
The weight of it was crushing. My spine stiffened, cold spreading through me.
Even the stone walls seemed to groan, as though the dungeon itself feared his presence.
Beside me, the captain spoke. "This… this is only one man?"
I shook my head, whispering back, my throat dry.
"Not a man. A warlock."
But I didn't tell her the rest. That Dakin was not the only one. That there were eighty-eight others like him scattered across the Vast Castle. Each one a curse born into flesh.
Some could summon storms strong enough to drown entire continents. Others could raise forests that swallowed cities whole.
Some turned dreams into nightmares that drove kings to madness.
And we were standing against just one of them.
And here, before me, was just one.
The storm in his staff swelled, despair thick in the air. Embers rained down, burning the stone.
"Hold!" one of them cried through despair.
But Dakin only laughed.