The Castle in the middle of nowhere.

We teleported right into a war room, where Irene immediately cast Heal on us. It was a far smoother and much more pleasant experience compared to whatever Zephyr did to heal me back then. But only now I noticed that both Zeus and Zephyr were wounded as well.

"What happened to you!?" Amber ran towards me and knelt, hugging me, and then she noticed both Eternals. "And both of you?!"

"Well... We fucked around and found out," Zeus muttered under his breath, dropped on his back, and spread his arms on the cold marble floor. "Thank you, Lady Irene, for the Healing. As for your question, Lady Amber, we encountered a Void Born. We can now mark Cridian King Korkas as the enemy of the world."

"It was he who almost killed Theon. We got beat up by his two generals, who are Void Touched for sure." Zephyr beamed his signature smile, but his face twisted with pain as he sat near Theon. "That will hurt for a few days..."

"You should have let us go with you!" Luna yelled at me.

"No!" I turned my head at her and realised how loudly I yelled. "Sorry, Luna. I can't risk your lives. I just can't... If I die, I will just respawn. I can't lose any of you."

"I..." Luna wanted to say something but turned away her head instead.

"All right. Break's over." Zeus started to stand up, and soon after Zephyr and I followed.

"What is a Void Born?" Amber asked slowly, as if she was trying to recall something.

"The greatest enemy of this world, a general of Void Gods and Chaos," Hera replied with fear in her eyes. "I can't fight yet..."

"I don't know if any of us can face them on our own," I added, recalling the pain of my broken limbs and shattered body... Wait... It had not been that painful. "Where is Hestia?"

"She is resting after exerting her powers, again..." Irene seemed to be concerned about that. "Theon, she used some intense power and pushed away the Cridians from the ruined Gatehouse in Section One. Thanks to that, the Ratkins were able to build an enchanted wood palisade and block the gap made by Korkas. I never thought to see the enchanted stone destroyed as if it were made of sand."

"I don't think Korkas has enough power to repeat it for a long time." Zeus sat near the war table, and Hera gave him a curious look. "He burned five times more mana than Theon used to build that gatehouse."

"Still, he is dangerous. We have to kill him..." I looked angrily at the Cridian Camp.

"I'm afraid it's not going to be that easy." Amber sighed and pointed at the regrouping enemy forces.

•••

"Son of a bitch!" Korkas snarled angrily. "Zeus and Zephyr summoned another Hero, and they somehow subdued this dungeon."

"Shit. We must kill them. If they–" Luia was silenced by a single glance from Korkas.

"I know that. But I hoped in doing this I would kill the Hero... Where's Frid?" He looked around and back at Luia.

"Dead. Kneht is injured. Zeus and Zephyr got him before they dashed to save their Hero."

"Fuck! I screwed this up. I thought this was Eriar's Hero." Korkas smashed his hand over the table. “I expected him to be strong but without the direct help of his God.”

"Don't blame yourself. We all thought so." Kneht entered the tent with a new scar on his face. "But you must get the fuck out of here before those two start looking for us. You must regenerate."

"Fuck this! I will shred them!"

"Yes, yes. Now get the fuck out of here before I report you to The Void!" Luia picked at the inside of her ear and smiled coldly. "I have enough soldiers to destroy this dungeon. Without it, their Hero will die."

"He is powerful enough to kill my spectre form with the buffs from Zephyr. So you better watch yourself." Korkas pointed out.

"And I can whoop your ass in full form. Once I become a full Void Born, I am going to replace Josla." Luia shrugged.

"I will retreat for now, regain strength and prepare for the worst case scenario if somehow you fail to subdue the dungeon. Don't get too cocky, and no matter what, don't rush inside."

•••

"They started retreating..." I powerlessly dropped on my throne in the war room. "Damn it!"

"Korkas is fleeing." Ban sounded impressed.

"That guy is problematic..." I frowned at the map for showing me that my enemies were actually using their brains. "Arani. Take your strongest Eagles and target Korkas. Ignore the people, just focus everything you have on Korkas to weaken him."

"Yes, my King!" Arani, who had perched himself on the balcony, took flight and quickly reached the fleeing army.

The thunderstorm hit the middle of the enemy formation where Korkas and the Void Touched should be. I wouldn't just watch as they fled from under my walls. The losses inflicted on the Cridians were severe, but far from crippling. If they just retreated now, I was going to face a long and gruelling campaign, which would drain the Kingdom and drop it to its knees. What's more, the Mountain Dungeon army was just half a day away from Avalon. The retreat was at least a strange decision in these circumstances, yet Korkas did exactly that. Maybe he wanted to meet with reinforcements? I hesitated upon seeing this illogical outcome. Another thing that concerned me was, my Eagles soon started dying, shot down by something. This something turned out to be the Cridian archers, strengthened by something very sinister. After killing an additional few hundred Cridians, I ordered Arani to retreat and focused on the map.

"What's going on?" I asked the air.

"My Lord! The defeated Cridians are just standing up!" Tulir jumped out of the shadow and bowed deeply to me.

"A Necromancer?" Zeus gritted his teeth, but I sighed a sigh of relief. "Why are you so relaxed suddenly?"

"Because now everything makes sense to me. With a Necromancer, they could try until they succeed. However..." I smiled in a very ugly way.

•••

Luia was wary of the new hero and two gods that surely were somewhere in the dungeon. She wasted no time and raised all the fallen pawns to finally make them somewhat useful. Her forces tore down the palisade and nothing struck her as odd when the dungeon creatures attacked her zombies. But she was not stupid and angrily cursed when everything went too smoothly. Korkas probably beat that Hero so badly he couldn't do anything, but with that damned Zephyr around, she wasn't that sure. As long as he breathed, he could be fixed, so she was riddled with doubts if she should push, because right now only the dungeon was trying to keep her away. Or everything was just a large trap. Granted, her zombies needed a few hours and being raised multiple times again to destroy that palisade, but still, it was too smooth. With the Mountain Dungeon reinforcements just a couple of hours away, she was tempted to just wait, but if she was right and the Hero was wounded, she had no time to waste.

She took out the coin and tossed it. She watched it spin in the air and caught it. Tails. With a grim smile, she waved her hand to order everyone to push. She still had plenty of Zombies, since they had brought all the corpses of the fallen soldiers. She reanimated everything in the area and, in shock, watched as the ground right in front of her broke. From below emerged the skeletal remains of a jester who wielded a large cleaver. She smirked and ordered it to join the assault while following it towards the gap in the wall. Korkas was their trump card, and as much as she hated it, he was far more important than she was, so every other Void Touched had to protect him since his death would mean a serious blow to their efforts of bringing their Gods to this world. But if she managed to kill that Hero and chase off those godlings, her Gods would surely bless her transformation to Void Born. After already imagining her victory and further ascension, she entered the gap in the wall herself and witnessed the carnage her zombies inflicted on the weak dungeon monsters.

As expected, the formidable walls hid nothing noteworthy inside. The conclusion they had come to previously seemed right. A subdued dungeon was forcefully fed with mana and was changed into a Hero base of operations, with nothing much but low-level monsters that could barely put up any fight on their own. However, Luia was still almost sure she stepped into a trap. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. As if to confirm her feelings, a large group of spider monsters started blocking the retreat path with their webbings as an entire pack of powerful wolves and snakes attacked from the sides. Luia instinctively responded by casting Dark Fire around her while tightening the ranks of her minions. She cursed, and by doing so, she became an easy target for the archers. That was probably the last piece that was troubling her. The archers had not targeted her since she entered the wall breach. She could relax a bit now, as everything was again under her control.

•••

"The Necromancer has entered Avalon, and she is steadily moving through the first defence zone," Sebastian reported aloud for the convenience of everyone present.

"We should go now!" Zephyr stood up rapidly, but Zeus grabbed his arm.

"Wait! She still could flee if we act rashly." Zeus looked deeply into Zephyr's eyes. "Leave that to Theon."

"Zeus is right," I nodded and looked at the fields in front of Avalon where the first fast units of the Mountain Dungeon arrived, but they seemed lost. "We must be sure that she doesn’t flee like Korkas."

Luna looked at a few reports brought to her by Tulir and she bit the fingernail on her thumb nervously. Just looking at her calmed me down. It was the same for all of my wives; their presence alone gives me strength. This brief moment steeled my resolve even more to protect them at all costs. I focused on the battle and smiled when everything was almost ready.

•••

Luia couldn't believe that simple monsters could be this persistent. She felt the murderous intent behind their actions, but the dungeon itself refused to respond to her call. There was no anger or wrath she was so familiar with, only the cold contempt and calmness that started to terrify her. With each step inside the dungeon, moving closer to the centre and probably its core, Luia faced new traps, ambushes and fresh waves of monsters. At first, she was irritated by the insolence of this upstart, but suddenly her heart dropped when she understood what was going on. But unfortunately, it was too late to change her tactics. She heard the sounds of battle outside the walls and smirked, knowing that soon Giants would aid her struggle. She just hoped that the big morons would get here quicker, as she had started running out of mana.

That dungeon or the Hero guiding its forces was cunning. To think someone was able to let her guard drop was commendable. Her Zombies had already turned into skeletons and skeletal golems, since they had lost any semblance of what they were. Some of them were even too destroyed to be reanimated again. Luia kept pushing on, hearing the battle just outside of the spider silk barrier. Suddenly, a wolf made its way towards her and jumped at her throat. Luia managed to cover herself with her arm and felt pain for the first time in almost a century. Her shock turned into wrath when she tried to shake off the dungeon monster, but her spell missed her mark. Fortunately, the jester she reanimated before cleaved the wolf in half, grazing her side a bit. She screamed with pain as the jester’s cleaver bounced off her ribcage but smiled, as it was only unpleasant due to her inhuman resilience. The jester mindlessly turned around and returned to fighting with the other dungeon monsters. Luia could swear it was smiling, but that was for sure just her imagination. All skeletons smile...

Her mana dropped dangerously, and she cursed as she had to retreat. But when she almost gave mental orders to her minion, the spider silk started burning. Her reinforcements would be here anytime now. She pushed forward, but paused when she felt a searing pain in her back and started to cough blood. She couldn't understand what was the cause of it at first, but then, right in front of her, she saw the Hero Korkas mentioned. He just appeared from the thin air, walking menacingly towards her, holding two longswords. In her terror, she realised that he was unscathed. So that bastard Korkas had lied to her. She threw her hand in front of her to conjure a barrier, but a swift movement near her made her lose her focus. She realised it was just the jester that started running toward the Hero, waving his cleaver around like crazy and she smiled, knowing that it would be enough to distract him. But the jester suddenly turned in his tracks and smashed its cleaver at her arm, almost cutting away her outstretched hand. The flesh, tendons and bone, reinforced by the forces of Void, gave up and she started screaming when pain took over her world.

"Farewell, Void Touched." A sweet scent and a calm voice she had heard only once before made her jump away, but another painful blow made her stumble and fall when she landed.

"You won't get me that easily!" She scowled, silently cursing her own boldness. Korkas warned me…

The Hero calmly stopped near Zephyr, who was holding a dagger stained with her blood. She gritted her teeth and realised that they had grown too complacent and had grossly underestimated their enemy. She stood up, her wounds still bleeding, and she knew that she had to use it.

"You will lose," she hissed and took out a sacrificial dagger. At the last moment, she saw with satisfaction that Hero jumped to stop her, but it was too late and she screamed. "Void Gods! I call upon you to smite your enemies!"