"…My daughter… Your soul can finally rest in peace… once I reduce this kingdom to ash."
The Mad Mage stood atop a cliff overlooking the glowing spires of the kingdom, her tattered white robe dancing in the wind like a mourning veil. Her laughter cracked through the silence—wild, broken, unhinged. It echoed through the mountains like a curse from the gods themselves.
Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, hot with anguish, cold with centuries of betrayal. The glint in her crimson eyes was not one of madness, but of relentless grief sharpened into purpose.
"I will not forgive them… I will never forgive them…"
---
Hundreds of years ago...
She was once a woman of grace and warmth. Her name forgotten by the world, but once spoken with affection by those she loved. Her life had been simple, filled with laughter, garden strolls, the gentle hum of lullabies, and the sturdy arms of her husband—a valiant knight, a hero honored and respected across the land.
Her daughter, a gentle soul with curious eyes and a laugh that could melt even the coldest heart, had been her joy. Together, the three of them lived a life of peace in a small, sunlit manor gifted to them by the king himself, a reward for her husband's countless victories on the battlefield.
But peace, like dreams, can shatter in an instant.
One fateful winter, the horns of war howled. The demons had breached the outer borders. Her husband, duty-bound, rode off with his silver blade, promising to return. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.
Then the banner came—folded, black, and bloodied.
He had fallen.
But there was no hero's funeral. No golden compensation. No statues in the plaza. No honor.
Instead, the kingdom turned its back.
The officials closed their doors, whispering excuses behind curtained windows. The treasury denied her the pension promised to all fallen knights' families. "Records lost in the fire," they claimed. Lies coated in silk.
The once-kind neighbors who used to laugh with them now eyed her purse more than her pain. The house was seized, sold. The walls that once held memories were torn down and auctioned like scrap.
Left penniless, she begged for work, for food—for dignity—but the world was cruel to the grieving. Her daughter, once filled with light, shrank with every passing day, growing thinner, sadder, more afraid.
And then came the breaking point.
One day, desperate for answers, she dared to approach a knight—one of her husband's comrades. She begged him for help, for justice. Her voice trembled, her hands held tightly onto her daughter's. But instead of compassion, she was met with cruel laughter.
"Why should we care about vermin like you?" the knight sneered.
"We fight every day while leeches like you drain the kingdom's gold. One less mouth is a blessing."
And before she could scream, before she could run—
Her daughter was beheaded.
Right in front of her.
A clean cut. A cruel laugh. A splash of red.
The world stopped.
Her legs collapsed. Her scream was soundless, her breath stolen. Her heart shattered into a thousand shards. Something inside her withered that day, never to return.
---
She buried her daughter's broken body in the woods with trembling hands and no coffin—only a lullaby and a vow.
Something ancient stirred in her soul that night. A whisper, a calling, a madness that was earned. She turned to forbidden Spells, to ruins and rituals long lost. Her love twisted into vengeance. Her tears became incantations. Her grief, an endless well of power.
Years passed. Then decades. Then centuries.
Her name was erased from history, but her shadow remained—haunting cemeteries, collecting corpses. She unearthed the bodies of knights fallen and forgotten,
pulling their souls from slumber, warping their flesh into hollow soldiers. She experimented on the living, turned prisoners and thieves into lifeless husks, all to understand the secrets of undeath.
The auxiliary kingdom was not able to notice it since there's only few casualties.
For she had built an army—fifty thousand strong. Undead, unfeeling, unbreakable. Each one a monument to her pain. Each one a reminder that justice, denied in life, would be exacted in death.
Now, at last, her moment had come.
---
She raised her arms. The sky darkened. Thunder cracked as a blackened mist began to pour from the cliff, creeping like a living tide toward the capital.
Her laughter returned—louder, colder. It wasn't joy. It was release.
And as her army marched, bone and blade clattering in unison, the Mad Mage whispered to the wind
"Now, my sweet child… Watch with me. Their screams will be your lullaby."
---
The thunder of hooves shook the air as a grotesque horse, its flesh decayed and bone exposed, leapt over the ridge and stormed toward our defenses. Atop it sat a nightmare—a Black Knight clad in jagged, rusted armor, its eyes burning with a haunting crimson light. The banners of the kingdom trembled as the undead cavalry charged, their skeletal steeds snorting black smoke from rotten nostrils.
I stared at the oncoming horde, my breath catching in my throat. My hands trembled slightly as I watched thousands of decaying bodies swarm toward the fortress wall like a living tide of death.
This… is madness.
For a moment, despair wrapped its cold fingers around my chest. My vision darkened at the edges, my heart racing. But then, I forced myself to act. With a flick of my hand and a whispered incantation, I activated Calm Sea, a mental spell I had mastered to steady my mind.
A wave of clarity washed over me.
My heart slowed. My focus returned.
Just in time.
The Black Knight struck.
With one devastating swing of its obsidian blade, it cleaved through the defensive wall. Stones exploded outward as though struck by a siege weapon, sending soldiers flying like ragdolls. Dust and debris clouded the air.
The breach was open.
And the undead surged through it like water breaking a dam.
But Queen Evelyn moved. Fast.
There was no hesitation, no moment of fear. With a flick of her jeweled wrist, a dozen spells ignited around her body. Barrier of Flame. Mana Surge. Ether Shield. Warcry of the Moonlight. Arcane light danced around her like a tempest, her golden hair whipping around as the sheer force of her aura surged.
Though she was a 7-Star Archmage, even she knew that underestimating a Peak 6-Star undead warlord—especially one bolstered by ancient necromancy—would be suicidal. The Black Knight wasn't just another zombie. It was a general of the dead, and its presence made the entire battlefield tremble.
Evelyn faced the creature head-on, her eyes gleaming with wrath.
She clashed with it, spell against sword, fury against madness. Lightning and fire crackled in the sky as they fought, shaking everyone
Meanwhile, chaos ruled the battlefield.
The outer lines faltered as the endless tide of undead poured through the breach. Knights gritted their teeth, forming shield walls and defensive lines. The clang of steel and the screeches of the undead filled the air.
I didn't waste time.
I raised both hands and chanted rapidly, my mana flaring with raw urgency.
Spell after spell burst from my fingertips, each one incinerating a cluster of the grotesque green zombies that swarmed like locusts. Their rotting flesh burned, their bones shattered. For every group I destroyed, another took its place.
They were endless.
"Hold the line!" someone shouted from below.
But the knights guarding the lower gates were beginning to falter, their strength waning beneath the weight of the horde. Blood stained the stones, shields cracked, and swords dulled.
I clenched my fists.
Focusing my mana into my core, I began weaving a high-tier spell. A circle of glowing hundred no 200 of sword
i controlled all of it helping the knights below
No matter how many we cut down, no matter how many I incinerated with magic, they just kept coming. Their numbers felt infinite, their resolve unbreakable.
And up above, Queen Evelyn's clash with the Black Knight shook the sky