Chapter 321: The Conqueror’s Claim

Darion stood in the middle of the street.

The battle was over.

Yet somehow, the silence that followed felt louder than the fighting.

No more screams. No more clashing steel. No more warriors charging toward him with hatred in their eyes.

Only the occasional crackle of fire from a damaged building, the distant sound of a roof collapsing, and the heavy breathing of hundreds of men who had just watched their world end.

Darion slowly lowered his sword. Golden light still lingered faintly along the blade before disappearing, the magic fading like embers catching the wind.

He stared at the steel. Blood covered it, thick and dark. Some of it belonged to the warriors he had killed. Some of it belonged to Dross.

He couldn’t even tell anymore. It was all just red.

Darion slowly breathed in. The smell of smoke filled his lungs. Smoke. Sweat. Blood. Death. It all mixed together in the cold night air, clinging to the back of his throat. His body was beginning to feel the consequences of what he had just done. His arms were tired, heavy like lead. His legs felt weak. His breathing was still slightly uneven.

The adrenaline that had kept him moving through the battle was disappearing rapidly, leaving behind a hollow, shaking exhaustion. And now that the danger was gone... his mind had finally caught up with him.

Darion looked around. The street was almost unrecognizable. Market stalls had been reduced to splinters. Wooden structures had collapsed under the weight of the undead wolf. Parts of the walls had been smashed apart.

Weapons and shields littered the ground like discarded toys. Bodies were scattered throughout the streets, the fallen warriors of Vrethka lying where they had made their final stand.

And surrounding all of it... were his undead.

Hundreds of them stood perfectly still. Undead knights stood like statues, their weapons lowered but ready, their empty eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

Wolves remained motionless in the shadows. The undead snakes continued crawling silently between bodies and broken debris, their scales scraping softly against the cobblestones.

The Yuimons stood scattered throughout the settlement, massive and terrible. Bats circled above, silent silhouettes against the night sky.

Even after everything they had done, the undead looked completely unaffected. They were waiting. Waiting for him.

Darion looked toward the other side of the street. Hundreds of Vrethka’s warriors were still kneeling. Some were shivering. Some were staring at the ground, refusing to look up. Others occasionally glanced at Darion before quickly lowering their eyes again, terrified of making eye contact with the monster who had slaughtered their brothers.

They were waiting for their fate.

Darion stared at them. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the dried sweat and grime. The fighting is over. He paused. ’So... what the hell do I do now?’

He continued the thinking he had been doing before.

That was the problem. The battle had been easy to understand. There had been an enemy. Kill the enemy. Protect himself. Protect Seren. Prevent Vrethka from reaching the Kulidii. Simple. Straightforward. Survival.

But now? There was no enemy left to fight. There was an entire settlement sitting in front of him. And apparently... it belonged to him.

Darion looked toward the kneeling warriors again. His mind immediately began running through the possibilities.

He went over his options real quick.

Leave. That was the simplest option. He could gather Seren, recall his undead, leave Vrethka behind, and return to Percvale. It would be easy. It would be safe.

But Darion immediately rejected the idea. ’No.’

If he left, what would happen? Vrethka would eventually recover. The surviving warriors would rebuild. Someone would rise to replace Dross. And sooner or later, they would remember what happened. They would remember Darion. They would remember Percvale. And eventually, someone would want revenge.

Worse... the Kulidii would still exist. Darion had learned that Vrethka intended to seek it out. If he simply walked away, they could find it. They could acquire whatever magic it provided. And then he might have to come back here and fight all over again. Only next time, his enemies would be prepared. Next time, his Necromancer abilities might be completely neutralized.

Darion frowned. ’So leaving is stupid.’

That left another option. His eyes drifted toward the surviving warriors. Kill them all.

For a moment, Darion seriously considered it. He had the power. His undead could do it. They had already broken Vrethka’s army. If he wanted to, he could order his undead to slaughter every remaining warrior. No resistance. No future rebellion. No possibility of another war either.

What he would attain would be silence.

Darion stared at the kneeling men. They were terrified. They had families. They had lives. They had been following orders, just like soldiers everywhere. But they were also the same men who had been fully prepared to march on Percvale and slaughter his people.

His expression slowly hardened. ’No.’

He couldn’t do that. He wasn’t some saint. He had killed plenty of people. He had ordered his undead to kill without hesitation. But these men had surrendered. They had dropped their weapons. They were no longer fighting. And killing them simply because it was convenient...

That wasn’t something Darion wanted to become. He had crossed a lot of lines since coming to this world, but he wasn’t going to cross that one. Not unless he had to.

Besides, there was something else. They were warriors. Trained warriors. Men who had spent years learning how to fight. Killing them would mean destroying something potentially valuable.

Darion’s eyes narrowed. Then another thought entered his mind.

Take control.

He stared at the settlement. The thought sounded insane. Absolutely insane. He had come here to investigate Vrethka. Now he was considering taking the entire place. But the longer he thought about it... the more logical it became.

’If I leave, they rebuild.’ His eyes moved toward the warriors. ’If I kill everyone, I waste hundreds of soldiers.’ He looked around at the buildings. ’And if I take control... I keep everything.’

The settlement. The warriors. The resources. The territory. The walls. Everything.

His thoughts suddenly drifted somewhere else. To the Imperial Palace. To his father. The Emperor.

Darion remembered the enormous throne room. The countless nobles. The armies. The territories. The maps spread across enormous tables. His father had ruled more land than Darion could even comprehend. An entire continent. Millions of people lived under the Emperor’s rule.

Darion had once been nothing compared to that. A bastard. A weak son. Someone who existed in the shadows of the imperial family. He remembered watching the Emperor from a distance. Watching him command. Watching nobles bow. Watching armies move at his word. Back then, that kind of authority had seemed impossibly far away.

But now... Darion looked around Vrethka. An entire settlement was kneeling before him. He had conquered it. His undead army stood behind him. And suddenly, something clicked.

’The Emperor rules a continent.’ Darion looked at his bloody sword. ’I just took my first settlement.’ His eyes hardened. ’This is how it starts. This is how empires are built.’

A system notification suddenly appeared.

[System]

[Killing a leader in this region transfers the right of rulership to the conqueror.]

[The Law of the Strong.]

Darion stared at the notification. He blinked. Then he looked at Dross’s head lying somewhere in the street. "Seriously?"

He almost laughed. The world itself seemed to be telling him that he had just inherited Vrethka.

Darion thought about it. It actually made sense. This wasn’t Earth. There was no international court waiting to decide who had legitimate ownership of the settlement. No army from another country was going to arrive and tell him he had broken some treaty. No UN peacekeepers were going to drop from the sky.

This was Valvanos. A continent where territory was taken by force. Dross had taken Harrowhold’s territory. He had imprisoned its rulers. He had claimed their land because he was strong enough to do it. And now someone stronger had done the same thing to him.

Darion slowly looked around. ’It’s not illegal.’ He paused. ’It’s just how this world works.’

The realization was strangely uncomfortable. A part of him still thought like the man from Earth. That part of him kept asking whether he had the right. Whether this was morally acceptable. Whether taking another man’s territory was wrong.

But Darion was beginning to understand something. Hesitation was a luxury. If he didn’t take Vrethka... someone else eventually would. And that person might be far less merciful.

Darion looked toward the settlement again. "

He had made his decision. Vrethka was his. Now came the next problem.

How exactly was he supposed to rule it?

Darion frowned. He couldn’t stay here permanently. Percvale still needed him. Garren was handling things there, but Darion couldn’t simply abandon his own territory. There were farms. Construction. Defenses. Knights. People.

Percvale had changed dramatically since Darion became its Baron. The castle had been repaired. The farms were producing more food. New structures had been built. The people were finally beginning to live without constantly fearing for their lives.

Darion had done all of that. He wasn’t a terrible leader. Actually... he was pretty damn good at it.

But he couldn’t be in two places at once.

That was when a name entered his mind...

Garren.