The servant ushered them through a series of hallways and rooms, which was an unintentional demonstration of how unlikely it would be for anyone to reach a precise destination without assistance from someone who was already familiar with the layout, because not only was nearly every single space in the crypt distinctively different from one another.

One would be hard pressed to point to two hallways or corridors that had the same width or height to ceiling, rooms that bore the same sort of design or purpose, the only constant were the knights that stood around like statues or patrolled the place, it could be sworn that some were actual statues in fact.

Some doors led to pitfalls, staircases led to dead ends, some areas would mysteriously be fashioned from different materials than the durable stone that seemed to be everywhere, without anyone being capable of remembering exactly when the shift had occurred.

The royal crypt was a veritable maze, a labyrinth that was simultaneously built to be confusing, but also imbued with incredibly potent illusions of all kinds, in fact, as the zombie servant explained all of this with pride, he even mentioned that there were arrays of teleportation set to transport one directly inside of a wall.

This place being the heart of King Nitok’s dominion, it could be changed and modified as per his will alone, and even though the construct itself was gigantic, it was even larger on the inside than it was on the outside, even when taking into account the parts hidden below ground.

“Wait, doesn’t this mean that we could technically just have entered through anywhere and ended up directly into the throne room?” mentioned Irlke, making the servant stop right in his tracks.

“Now that you mention it… But wouldn’t it be a shame to not get to see a little bit of this magnificent architecture?”

The zombie was much too enthusiastic about everything.

“And- Here we are! Seems like you were the first to arrive… You see that red carpet stretching throughout the room? Just stand next to it and in front of the throne” instructed the undead.

And just like that, he went away.

“I kind of wanted to ask how the hell he knew where to go if the layout can just change whenever…” Jaral scratched the side of his face.

“Don’t worry about it, when I run into something I can’t explain, I just think it’s magic and move on” replied Alisart, stepping inside first.

King Nitok’s throne room was simply immense, they had passed through oversized chambers to get here but none could compare to the sheer size of this one, pillars wider than the trunks of any trees they had seen before thrusted into the sky of pure dark, the ceiling so high that even with darkness awareness, none of the four was capable of sensing its existence, in fact as soon as they entered the room, the way they had gotten in from seemed to glide away until it was also swallowed by darkness.

Apart from the pillar, only that red carpet, the throne and the wall behind it were different from the emptiness that permeated the rest of this room, it was oddly comforting, reminiscent of that small amount of time they had spent in between life and undeath…

“Mmh…” Derdlim shrugged her shoulders, if memory served well, the most absolute realm of death in which they should have been during that short instant was called Oblivion, said to be where the truest of death resided, the death this empire worshipped.

Neither of the warlords was very knowledgeable about death just yet, but from what they understood, the concept of ‘death’ could take multiple appearances, but that all were governed by the one that dwelled in Oblivion, which was the realm all undeads would arrive in if they were destroyed.

Somehow, the atmosphere of this room seemed similar to it.

Getting into place within this reign of absolute silence, they looked up to the overelevated throne, empty for now, behind its great, yet rather simple grandeur, the wall was covered by a wide banner of the empire, representing the sky of the eternal night which could be seen in most of the empire territories.

Including Belliste now.

Each of the celestial bodies representing a specific undead, the gravelords surrounding their king, the thing that had surprised the four was that Loimos was not included in this banner, which was simply odd to them, he had seemed like a most important individual, being the sole bearer of the title of champion, Death’s Chosen Champion to be precise, he controlled the vanguard, all of its member fiercely loyal to him.

They had somewhat thought that he would turn out to be a gravelord himself, or at least a minor lord, but for some reason, he seemed to be held separately to them all.

Did that mean that the gravelord’s were more fearsome than he was? That was a most terrifying thought.

However, as far as they were aware, the great undead lords were not going to be part of this meeting, in fact, they had been told that this gathering was specifically arranged by King Nitok to see what the rulers of Belliste looked like.

The first other undead to arrive was another regional lord, either of this continent called Belliste or of one of the larger conquered islands perhaps, but most of the land conquered besides the continent was under the watch of a Poitirus, who served as the guardian and lord of pretty much all bodies of water, although not quite a regional lord, it was not impossible for him to show up.

“You four must be the newest additions, just arrived and already arriving earlier than everyone else” the man was approaching them, carefully jumping over the red carpet to get on the same side.

He certainly wasn’t the sort of undead they had been expecting to see at the very heart of this empire, dressed in a lavish red cloak, fingers riddled with silver rings, head adorned with an ornate silver crown, hair a bright blond.

This lord seemed so bright that it took them a few moments to discern the signs of undeath, his skin wasn’t quite pale, having shades of some sort of dark blue, this colour most prominent in his eyes as they glowed.

“It is my pleasure to be making your acquaintance, I am Allang Allantir, the one who rules over the region of Glittegoyaume, we specialise in all that is jewellery, flashy and dare I say- Utterly fabulous?” seizing their hands and giving them a good shake, except for Derdlim, who for which he instead gave a light kiss on the back of her hand.

After a few moments of silence, the four finally presented themselves, trying to emulate the introduction Allantir gave for himself.

“Fantastic, we didn’t really have true warmongers amongst the regional lords, you know? You’ll make for a nice addition to the beautiful collection we all are!” Allang was a bit hard for them to follow, the way he spoke, moved around and just felt a bit alien to them.

“By the way-” he was about to start another topic when another lord decided to arrive, instead making him call them over to see the freshly dead lords.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep