Location: The Western Border – Camp of the Iron-Thunder Empire
The Iron-Thunder Empire did not believe in flesh and blood. They believed in steel and steam.
Their army was a terrifying sight. Ten thousand human soldiers marched in support, but the real threat towered above them: The Thunder-Walkers.
Five hundred massive golems, standing thirty feet tall, forged from enchanted iron and powered by high-grade Spirit Cores. They were walking siege engines, capable of firing lightning bolts that could melt castle walls.
General Lei, the commander of the invasion force, stood in his command tent. He was a man half-made of metal, his left arm and eye replaced by spirit-prosthetics.
"Report," General Lei barked, his mechanical eye whirring.
"General," a scout bowed. "The Qin supply convoy has arrived. They claim it is a tribute. 'A gift to appease the Thunder God,' they said."
Lei laughed, the sound grinding like gears. "Cowards. They think throwing money at us will stop the march? Inspect the cargo."
"We did, sir. It's Spirit Cores. Thousands of them. High-Grade Earth Cores. Pure energy."
Lei's human eye widened. High-Grade Earth Cores were rare. They were the preferred fuel for the Titan-Class Golems—the strongest units in his army.
"They are trying to bribe us with fuel for their own destruction?" Lei scoffed. "Typical weaklings. Distribute the cores to the Titan Squad immediately. We attack at dawn. I want our golems running at 100% efficiency."
The Glitch: Zero Hour
That night, the Iron-Thunder camp hummed with the sound of charging machinery.
Mechanics climbed the scaffolding of the fifty Titan-Class Golems, opening the chest cavities to insert the glowing, pulsating cores delivered by the Qin envoys.
To the naked eye, the cores looked pristine.
To the Abyssal Eye (watching remotely from the Qin Palace), they looked like ticking bombs.
Inside each core, Aris had used Forbidden Alchemy to inject a microscopic drop of "Void-Rot." It was a corrupted code that reversed the polarity of spiritual energy. Instead of pushing energy out, the cores would pull energy in.
[Remote Trigger Activated.]
At midnight, General Lei stood on his command platform. "Power up!"
Fifty mechanics pulled the levers.
VMMMMmmmm...
The Golems' eyes lit up blue. The engines roared.
Then, the sound changed.
VMM... GRRR... SKREEEE!
The blue light in the Golems' eyes turned a sickening, jagged Violet.
"General! Energy output is spiking!" a technician screamed, looking at his dials. "It's... it's over 300%! The cores are eating the engine casing!"
"Shut them down!" Lei roared.
"We can't! The cutoff switch is melted!"
One of the Titan Golems, a massive siege-breaker named 'Iron Lord', suddenly twitched. It didn't follow the pilot's command. It turned its head—slowly, jerkily—toward the command tent.
[System Protocol: Overwritten.]
[New Objective: PURGE ALL BIOLOGICAL LIFE.]
"Friendly fire!" someone screamed.
The Titan opened its mouth. Instead of lightning, a beam of Void-Plasma shot out. It hit a cluster of smaller golems, dissolving them instantly into molten slag.
Chaos erupted.
The fifty Titans went berserk. They tore through their own camp, stepping on tanks, swatting soldiers like flies, and firing wildly into the ammunition depots. The "Void-Rot" inside them acted like a virus, spreading to any other golem they touched.
General Lei watched in horror as his invincible army dismantled itself.
"What have they done?" he whispered, watching a Titan rip the head off another. "This isn't warfare... this is a plague."
From the chaos, a Titan turned toward him. Its violet eyes flashed.
General Lei drew his sword, but it was useless. A massive iron fist slammed down, silencing the Iron-Thunder command forever.
Location: The Northern Border – The Frozen Wastes
While the West burned, the North froze.
The Frost-Blood Kingdom did not use golems. They used the dead.
Their army was a silent tide of skeletons, zombies, and stitched-together abominations, led by Necromancers clad in robes of human skin. The air was so cold that breath turned to ice instantly.
In the center of the formation stood the Grand Lich, a skeletal figure floating on a throne of bone. He held a staff topped with a green skull.
"The living smell of fear," the Lich hissed telepathically to his subordinates. "The Qin soldiers on the wall are trembling. Advance. Add them to the collection."
The ocean of undead began to shuffle forward toward the Qin border fortress.
But in the shadows of the snowdrifts, something darker than death was moving.
Lin Chen crouched behind an ice shelf. His black armor blended perfectly with the night. His Shadow-Knight eyes scanned the battlefield.
[Mission Objective: Locate the 'Nexus of Control'.]
[Target Identified: The Grand Lich's Staff.]
"Move out," Lin Chen whispered to his squad of Black Jade Guards.
They didn't charge. They used Shadow-Walk, slipping underneath the snow, bypassing the thousands of skeletons. They moved like sharks under ice.
They surfaced directly behind the Necromancer circle.
Shing.
Lin Chen's sword, Solstice, decapitated two Necromancers before they could even chant a spell. The blade's Abyssal aura prevented their souls from escaping to phylacteries.
"Intruders!" The Grand Lich spun around, raising his staff. "Death Coil!"
A green skull shot toward Lin Chen.
Lin Chen didn't dodge. He caught the skull with his bare hand. His Abyssal Sovereign Body (gifted via the link with Aris) absorbed the necrotic energy instantly.
"You call this death?" Lin Chen mocked, his voice hollow. "It tastes like stale water."
He lunged.
The Grand Lich tried to erect a bone shield, but Solstice shattered it like glass. Lin Chen severed the Lich's hand—the one holding the Staff.
As the staff fell, Lin Chen caught it.
[Item Acquired: Staff of the Corpse King.]
[Admin Command: Injecting Abyssal Code...]
Lin Chen slammed the staff into the frozen ground.
"By the order of the Pale Alchemist," Lin Chen's voice boomed across the battlefield, amplified by the staff. "New Management."
A violet ripple shockwave exploded from the staff, sweeping across the entire undead army.
The skeletons stopped. The zombies froze mid-step. The abominations lowered their weapons.
The green fire in their eyes flickered out, replaced by a deep, obedient Purple.
The surviving Necromancers looked around in panic. "Control... we've lost control! They aren't listening to the chant!"
Lin Chen pointed the staff at the Necromancers.
"Eat them," he commanded.
The army of the dead turned inward. Thousands of skeletons fell upon their former masters. The screams of the Frost-Blood commanders were swallowed by the gnashing of teeth.
Location: The Qin Imperial Palace – The Strategy Room
Aris sat in the ruins of the Strategy Room (damaged during the fight with the Agent). He watched the two magical projections floating above the table.
On the left screen: The Iron-Thunder camp was a burning crater.
On the right screen: The Frost-Blood army was marching South—not to attack Qin, but to return home and slaughter their own King under Lin Chen's command.
"Efficient," Aris noted, taking a sip of tea.
The Emperor, General Thorne, and Marshal Wu stood behind him. They were trembling. They had expected a hard-fought war. They had expected casualties.
Instead, they watched two empires collapse in a single night without a single Qin soldier dying.
"Master Alchemist..." General Thorne swallowed hard. "The enemy armies... they are gone."
"Converted," Aris corrected. "Wasted resources are a sin."
He stood up. The Wings of the Moderator (stolen from the Agent) manifested on his back, glowing with hard-light and shadow.
"The borders are secure," Aris announced. "The local threats are neutralized."
He walked to the balcony, looking up at the night sky where the stars seemed to be rearranging themselves.
[System Notification: World Conquest Progress - 60%.]
[Threat Level: Cosmic.]
"The Dying God sent me a key," Aris whispered to himself, feeling the heavy iron Key to the Underworld in his pocket. "And the System sent an Agent to delete me."
He turned back to his stunned generals.
"Prepare the World Tree Chamber. I'm going to plug the Key into the Core."
"What... what will that do?" the Emperor asked fearfully.
Aris smiled beneath his mask.
"It will connect the Server of the Living with the Server of the Dead. I need more troops for what's coming next."
[Abyssal Nexus: End of Chapter Status]
Host: Aris Thorne
Level: 55 (Nascent Soul - Mid Stage)
Status: War Winner.
[Army Update]
* The Iron Legion: 32 Titan Golems (Recovered & Reprogrammed).
* The Dead Tide: 40,000 Undead Units (Led by Lin Chen).
[World Status]
* Iron-Thunder Empire: Collapsed.
* Frost-Blood Kingdom: Under new management.
* Next Objective: The Underworld Gate.