"It's about time… showtime," a voice rasped from beneath the gray cloak, the sound dry and brittle, like old bones grinding together.

The far northern reaches of Blackridge were nothing but frozen desolation. The cold here was vicious, the kind that gnawed straight through armor and into the marrow. Even veteran players native to Blackridge rarely ventured this far north unless they had no other choice. With Fortress Wars raging across the continent, nearly every capable force had already been mobilized and drawn into battles elsewhere. This place was an Advanced Fortress, isolated and abandoned, and no one would come to defend it.

That was exactly why the cloaked figure had chosen this moment.

"Boss… boss," the figure muttered under his breath, the words uneven and hoarse. "You really sent me through hell. That place… it wasn't fit for the living. But this time… this time your mech is as good as mine."

Those words alone were enough to reveal who he was.

It was Meatball, the former core member of the Renegade Alliance who had just 'quit' the guild. Most players only knew that he had left the guild, and rumors about his disappearance had circulated briefly before fading away. No one knew where he had gone, only that it must have been somewhere far beyond the reach of ordinary players, and that it had been done entirely on Ethan's orders.

The truth showed itself in his current state.

Beneath the ragged gray cloak, pieces of high-grade gear glimmered faintly, equipment far beyond what his old self could have obtained. His level told an even clearer story. Level 59, standing just one step away from the threshold of 60. Meatball had not climbed gradually. He had skyrocketed.

On the Northern Frontier leaderboards, his name sat firmly in second place, directly beneath Ethan's. It had not inched its way upward day by day. It had appeared suddenly, as if carved into the rankings overnight. That alone proved his training ground had existed outside the normal limits of Ethereal's world.

Only two people knew where Meatball had truly been.

Ethan, and Morzan.

What returned from that place was not merely a stronger player, but someone completely reshaped. And Meatball was only one name on the list Morzan had secretly handed to Ethan. Leo, Williams, Victor, they were all on it too. Their time simply had not arrived yet. The list itself extended further, filled with names waiting for the same crucible.

Then the world announced the result.

[Ding… Global Announcement: The world's second Advanced-tier Fortress has been captured! Capturing Guild: Renegade Alliance. Nation: Dragonspire. Region: Northern Frontier. Rewards: 24-hour Invulnerability Shield activated immediately. Guild Level +1.]

A second message followed without pause.

[Ding… Global Announcement: The Renegade Alliance guild stronghold has been renamed: Aethelgard. It is the world's second named fortress. Rewards: Aethelgard Fortress Level +1. Original Advanced-tier Fortress upgraded to Bronze-Tier Fortress. Territory area tripled.]

As the announcements echoed across the world, Meatball slowly lifted his head and pulled back his hood.

What lay beneath was not flesh.

A skull of polished white bone was revealed, flawless and exposed to the frigid wind, its hollow eye sockets dark and lifeless.

"Signal received," he said softly, then let out a low, rasping laugh. "Hehehe… Forbidden Spell, Undead Cataclysm. First Phase… Boundless Skeletal Legion."

As the final words left his mouth, the world itself responded.

The blinding white snowfields that stretched to the horizon abruptly lost their light. It was not that clouds gathered overhead. The sunlight simply vanished, as if erased. An unnatural twilight spread outward, swallowing the land in every direction, its boundary impossible to discern.

The snow beneath his feet darkened, turning gray, then black, until it no longer resembled snow at all. It became ash, fine and dead, like the remains of something long burned away. A suffocating stillness settled over the area, heavy with the unmistakable aura of death.

Crack… crack-crack…

The sound rose from below, sharp and unsettling, like countless teeth snapping at once.

From the ashen ground, fingers emerged.

Then hands.

Skeletal hands, bleached white and stripped clean of flesh, clawed their way upward one after another. What began as a single movement quickly multiplied, spreading across the land in a wave of motion that refused to stop.

In the span of moments, the landscape was transformed completely.

What had once been white snow became gray ash, and then something far worse, a vast, unbroken expanse of bone. Skeletons stood packed together shoulder to shoulder, so dense they formed a living carpet of death stretching across the land. Within the empty eye sockets of each skull burned a tiny ember of crimson light, flickering softly but relentlessly.

As they moved, even slightly, the sound of rattling bones filled the air, a constant chorus of creaks and clicks that would freeze the blood of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it.

Meatball stood atop a slight rise, the ground beneath his feet buried under ash and bone. His undead host surrounded him in every direction, an endless sea of white stretching outward. His skeletal jaw creaked open, forming a grin so grotesque it could curdle a man's insides.

"Kill."

He lifted his gnarled staff and pointed calmly toward the fortress.

Clatter-clatter-CLACK!

There was no roar of battle, no shout of bloodlust. Only the dry, relentless sound of bone striking ashen earth. The legion began to move. At first it was slow, a grinding advance that pressed forward with eerie patience, then it quickened, turning into a run. The front ranks accelerated first, the rows behind falling perfectly into rhythm. Every skeleton moved with terrifying discipline, a meter and a half between ranks, a single meter between each body in line.

It was not a mob.

It was an army.

Meatball remained motionless on the rise as the tide of bone streamed past him, flowing downhill toward its sole objective, the towering walls of the Advanced Fortress looming ahead.

The NPC garrison reacted at once.

Defensive protocols activated. Arrow turrets along the walls rotated and fired, releasing a dense hail of projectiles into the oncoming mass.

The arrows did almost nothing.

They passed cleanly through ribcages, whistling through empty spaces where organs should have been. When they struck bone, they snapped limbs or cracked collars, but only the rare, well-placed hit that shattered a skull dealt true damage. When that happened, a flicker of crimson soul-fire leaked from the ruined skull.

Instead of dispersing, the wisps streaked backward through the gloom, homing unerringly toward Meatball. As they traveled, the red glow twisted and dulled, turning into a sickly green before being absorbed into the faint embers burning within his own eye sockets.

The arrow turrets were nearly worthless.

Then the fortress escalated.

The catapults fired.

Massive stone projectiles, each four to five meters across, arced through the darkened sky.

THOOM! THOOM-THOOM!

The impacts shook the land. Ash, shattered bone, and debris exploded outward where the stones struck. Dozens of skeletons were obliterated instantly, crushed into powder. Shockwaves rippled through the formation, hurling intact skeletons into the air, limbs spinning free as torsos tumbled across the ground.

It was devastating.

And yet, it changed nothing.

The gaps left behind were filled almost immediately as the ranks behind marched forward without hesitation. Then something strange became apparent. When a newly advancing skeleton encountered a crippled one, a body with shattered limbs but an intact skull, it did not help or hesitate. It calmly stepped forward and crushed the skull beneath its foot.

Whether this came from Meatball's direct control or some instinct shared by the undead was impossible to tell.

With every skull destroyed, another thread of green soul-fire was released and drawn back toward the necromancer.

That single volley from the catapults had killed many.

And every death fed him.

A surge of green energy poured into Meatball's body. The flames burning in his eye sockets flared brighter, swelling with stolen power as he stood unmoving, absorbing it all.

By now, the first wave of skeletons had reached the base of the fortress walls.

They began to climb.

Bony fingers dug into cracks and mortar seams, sharp knuckles finding purchase where flesh never could. As they ascended, they entered the true kill zone. Heavy defensive measures were triggered. Massive rolling logs were tipped over the battlements, slamming downward with crushing force.

Skeletons were smashed apart mid-climb, shattered into fragments as they fell back to the ground below. They dropped in waves, bone colliding with stone, ash billowing upward with every impact.

And still, the legion kept coming.

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