The storm gathered faster than expected.
Smoke curled along the far hills, rising like black claws into the twilight sky.
Banners snapped in the rising wind — dozens, then hundreds, each bearing the sigils of neighboring warlords Ethan had defied by claiming Broken Fang Fortress.
Armored beasts roared as they dragged siege engines into place.
Spells hummed in the air, ready to rain fire and destruction.
Atop the battlements, Ethan stood like a dark star, the center of his newborn Dominion.His Bondeds — Lyra the Shadowblade and Lilith of the Thorned Bloom — flanked him, their weapons gleaming with deadly anticipation.
The System pulsed inside his mind, feeding him battlefield data.
[Enemy Detected: Coalition of the Crimson Lords]
Total Troops: ~18,000
Commanders: Five Lesser Warlords
Primary Objectives: Siege and Annihilate
[Warning: Forces Outnumber Yours 12:1]
[Recommendation: Utilize Defensive Structures, Bonded Abilities, and Psychological Warfare.]
Ethan smiled.
Outnumbered?
Good.
He had plans for them.
He turned to Lilith first.
"Delay their charge. Bleed them before they reach the walls."
Lilith's violet eyes gleamed.
"As you command, my emperor," she purred.
With a graceful step, she leapt from the battlements — vines sprouting from her body midair, lashing out into the earth below.
Where they struck, massive thorned blooms erupted, twisting into grotesque barricades that oozed poisonous mist.
The front ranks of the enemy forces stumbled, cursing and hacking at the vegetation — but every thorn they cut only spawned more.
Panic rippled through the enemy like a stone dropped in a still pond.
Exactly as Ethan intended.
"Lyra," he said next.
The assassin snapped to attention, her daggers already drawn.
"You know what to do."
Without a word, she vanished — nothing but a blur in the air.
Infiltration.
Sabotage.
Assassination.
The enemy commanders would soon find their trusted bodyguards bleeding out beside them.
And their morale would crumble.
Ethan turned back toward the rising army and raised his black saber high.
The Dungeon Core responded instantly, unleashing a deep, resonant pulse through the stones of the fortress.
Battlements shifted.
Hidden cannons emerged.
Defensive runes blazed to life, weaving shields across key chokepoints.
The fortress was no longer simply a stronghold.
It was a weapon.
And tonight, it would feed.
The enemy warlords finally realized brute force alone wouldn't win.
A group of them — mounted atop massive black war-beasts — rode forward, brandishing enchanted banners and shouting challenges.
Ethan stepped onto the battlements, letting them see him clearly.
Golden eyes.
Black blade.
A smirk that promised death.
One warlord — a hulking brute with iron chains wrapped around his torso — pointed a massive axe at him.
"ETHAN OF BROKEN FANG!" he roared, voice carrying over the battlefield.
"You are a usurper! A pretender! An upstart who defies the natural order! Surrender now, and we will grant you a swift death!"
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the coalition ranks.
Ethan chuckled.
The sound rolled across the stones like dark thunder.
He raised his saber again — slowly, mockingly.
"I am no pretender," he called back.
"I am your future."
"And you... are already dead."
The first volley of siege magic launched.
Blazing spheres of fire.
Shards of ice the size of boulders.
Stormspears crackling with lightning.
The air itself screamed under the assault.
But Ethan remained motionless, his gaze locked on the incoming destruction.
At the last moment, he spoke a single word.
"Unleash."
The Dungeon Core responded instantly.
An enormous dome of shimmering black light erupted over the fortress.
The magical attacks struck it — and shattered like glass against an unbreakable wall.
The coalition forces reeled back, stunned.
Ethan lowered his saber and gestured lazily.
"Return the favor," he said.
From the battlements, the hidden cannons and enchanted ballistae roared to life.
Bolts of darksteel and explosive arcane shells tore into the enemy ranks, ripping holes in their formations.
Lilith's thorn fields twisted tighter, dragging screaming soldiers down into blood-soaked pits.
Lyra reappeared briefly atop an enemy siege tower, driving her dagger through a commander's throat before vanishing again into the shadows.
Chaos bloomed.
Perfect.
Still, numbers were numbers.
Despite the carnage, the enemy kept coming.
Scaling ladders.
Grappling hooks.
Siege towers.
Ethan descended from the battlements to the inner courtyard, where his elite units waited — constructs of bone and steel, animated by the Dungeon Core, and a handful of fierce human soldiers who had sworn loyalty to him after seeing his might.
He raised his blade.
"They want our walls," he shouted, voice carrying across the courtyard.
"Let them have our steel first!"
A cheer rose — fierce and hungry.
The gates shuddered as the enemy slammed against them.
Splinters flew.
The hinges screamed.
And with a deafening CRACK, the gates burst open.
The enemy surged in — a tide of flesh and steel.
Ethan smiled.
At last.
The courtyard became a slaughterhouse.
Constructs tore through invaders with mechanical precision, their blades humming with infernal energy.
Human soldiers fought with brutal efficiency, striking from behind shield walls and unleashing carefully timed firebombs into enemy clusters.
Ethan waded into the thickest fighting himself.
His saber danced — black light trailing behind every swing.
Each stroke cut through armor, bone, and soul alike.
He moved like a storm given flesh, weaving between attacks, striking down leaders, and leaving demoralized mobs in his wake.
Where he passed, the enemy fled or died.
Above, Lilith danced along the walls, unleashing torrents of thorned vines that ensnared and crushed.
Lyra sowed chaos deeper in the enemy ranks, slitting throats and severing command chains with clinical precision.
For every ten enemies, Ethan's forces lost barely one.
But still they came.
Endless.
Desperate.
Afraid.
The coalition knew they could not retreat.
Their warlords would kill them for cowardice.
Their only hope was to crush Ethan here.
They would find no mercy.
As the battle dragged on, Ethan spotted movement at the rear of the enemy forces.
A circle of robed figures chanting, their hands weaving complex sigils into the air.
A summoning ritual.
Reinforcements?
No — something worse.
A beast.
The ground trembled as a rift tore open — and from it, a massive creature heaved itself into existence.
A flesh colossus, stitched from hundreds of corpses, its eyes burning with unnatural fire.
It roared, a sound like the cracking of mountains.
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
Lilith appeared beside him, blood staining her lips.
"A pet," she said, voice dripping with contempt."A poor, ugly thing."
Ethan chuckled.
"Ugly or not, it will smash the walls if we let it."
He turned to her.
"Buy me five minutes."
Lilith's grin was all sharp teeth and wicked promises.
"As you command."
She leapt into the fray, vines thickening and twisting into monstrous forms to slow the beast.
Ethan sprinted toward the Dungeon Core chamber.
He had an idea.
A gamble.
But if it worked...
He reached the core — the heart of the fortress — a massive black crystal suspended over a pool of liquid mana.
He thrust his hand into the pool.
The System screamed warnings.
[Emergency Protocol: Forbidden Resonance Detected!]
[Warning: Overcharging the Core may cause irreversible mutations.]
[Proceed Anyway?]
Ethan's golden eyes blazed.
"Proceed."
Mana surged into him like wildfire.
His body screamed in protest.
Bones cracked.
Muscles tore.
His vision blurred.
But he held on.
He willed the Core to obey.
Outside, the ground trembled.
The walls of Broken Fang groaned — and then sang.
A resonant hum filled the air.
The fortress itself came alive.
Every brick.
Every stone.
Every weapon.
Supercharged with forbidden energy.
The constructs grew larger, faster, more lethal.
The humans fighting under Ethan's banner found their bodies burning with temporary, monstrous strength.
Even Lilith and Lyra gasped as the Core's power flooded them.
Ethan staggered back toward the battlements, half-dragging himself, his body still knitting itself back together.
The flesh colossus reared back a massive fist.
And Ethan met it with a single, brutal downward slash.
The black saber sang.
The colossus split cleanly in two — a waterfall of gore and corrupted mana spilling across the battlefield.
The enemy army froze.
Their spirit shattered.
And then they broke.
They fled.
Leaderless.
Terrified.
Defeated.
The siege was broken.
Broken Fang still stood.
No — it thrived.
As the first rays of dawn touched the blood-soaked stones, Ethan stood atop the battlements, surveying the battlefield.
Lilith joined him, her vines curling lazily around her ankles.
Lyra leaned against the wall, cleaning her daggers.
Both of them watched him with something new in their eyes.
Not just loyalty.
Not just awe.
Worship.
Ethan sheathed his saber and smiled coldly.
"Today, the world learned," he said.
"I am not simply a king."
"I am an emperor."
"And my empire... has only just begun."