Kael stood at the head, cloak drawn over one shoulder, eyes fixed on the chart of Pride’s border. Five towns were circled in red, each one pulsing faintly with Great Orion’s protective runes.
“Velmire. Crestweld. Ashmoor. Duskryn. Hallowford,” Kael said, tapping each circle.
“Every one of them has a reason to listen. They’ve been taxed dry, starved, or bled for the capital. They don’t love Virelion—not anymore.”
Nanari rested her hands on the table, glaive leaning against her shoulder. “And you think they’ll love Wrath instead? You’re gambling resentment outweighs fear.”
Kael didn’t flinch. “They’re already afraid. All we need to show them is that fear cuts both ways.”
“Clones prepared. Dialects calibrated. Projection stable. Deployment ready.”
The anchor stones embedded in the table flared with golden light. Mana threads wove upward, and five copies of Kael stepped from the glow. Each carried subtle differences—stance, tone, posture—all tuned for the towns they were heading toward. A miner’s hunched shoulders. A baron’s controlled poise. A soldier’s clipped edge.
Nanari’s eyes narrowed. “You’re poking the lion.”
Kael’s gaze stayed on the glowing map. “No. I’m luring it into a trap.”
The clones raised their hands in silent salute, then dissolved into streaks of golden flame. They shot through Emberleaf’s wards and vanished into the horizon, scattering across Pride’s borderlands.
Some arced toward the mountains. Others skimmed rivers or slipped between quiet farmland roads. Each carried the same fire, the same words, but dressed for the ears of the towns they approached.
One streak of light curved south, dimming as it crossed the treeline. It descended into a border town where tavern smoke rose faint against the dusk sky.
Velmire wasn’t the kind of place that drew nobles. The border town clung to the edge of Pride’s southern forest, its taverns filled with log-cutters, miners, and farmers who smelled of earth and smoke.
So when a man in a travel-worn coat with gilded buttons stepped into the Gleaming Tankard, the room froze.
He carried himself with the posture of a baron, but his boots were dusty, and his voice, when he ordered ale, was low. Unthreatening. Calm.
The locals whispered, but the man paid them no mind. He drank once, set his cup down, and leaned casually toward the barkeep.
“You ever hear the one about Emberleaf?” he asked. “The city Pride calls a den of monsters.”
The barkeep frowned. “Heard plenty. Fires. Heretics. Wrath’s Scourge playing king.”
The man smiled faintly. “That’s what they want you to believe. But it’s not what I’ve seen. Emberleaf has schools. Roads. A forge that burns day and night—not for weapons alone, but for homes. They don’t tax their children into hunger. They don’t call survival a sin.”
A miner snorted. “Sounds like rebel talk.”
The man’s eyes flicked toward him. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s truth. Pride taxes harder every year, bleeds its borders while the capital grows fat. But Emberleaf…”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
He let the words hang, soft enough that they sounded like a secret. “Emberleaf stands for survival first. Then dignity. Then choice.”
The room went quiet. Suspicion lingered, but so did the weight of his tone. Farmers shifted on their stools. A hunter muttered about his cousin starving in Ashmoor after another levy.
The baron—Kael’s clone—rose slowly, left a few coins for the ale, and walked out without another word. His coat trailed dust in the doorway as he vanished into the evening.
The tavern buzzed again, voices hushed but sharper now.
Behind the counter, the barkeep stared at the half-empty mug and whispered, almost to himself:
“…Emberleaf. The city that shouldn’t have lived. And yet it does.”
The barkeep’s whisper lingered in the smoky air, but the clone of Baron Thalric was already gone, footsteps fading into the night.
And Velmire was only the first.
In Crestweld, a miner’s hall echoed with talk of Emberleaf’s roads.
In Ashmoor, farmers leaned on their tools, hearing of a city where no harvest was left to rot.
At Duskryn’s crossroads, travelers traded rumors like coin, the Scourge’s name passing from mouth to mouth.
Stoneveil’s hill-fort watchmen listened in silence, then watched the horizon as if waiting for something.
And at Hallowford, riverfolk whispered over lanterns, wondering if Emberleaf’s fires could warm waters gone cold.
The words spread differently in each place, but they carried the same weight. The same spark.
The war tower pulsed with quiet light when Kael entered, his cloak brushing the stone as the doors sealed behind him.
The tactical map spread across the chamber floor, its pins glowing like scattered embers. Some shone steady green. Others flickered orange, wavering between loyalty and doubt.
Nanari stood near the central dais, a slate in hand. She didn’t waste words. “Velmire’s holding. But Crestweld and Ashmoor…”
She tapped the glowing markers. “Supply unrest. Off-the-record messages. They’re restless, Kael. Testing the water.”
Kael’s eyes fixed on Crestweld’s pin—a mining hub pulsing faintly as if waiting for him. He folded his arms, face unreadable.
“Pride’s scrying defenses remain compromised. Their nodes detect anomalies but attribute them to internal leaks, not Emberleaf interference.”
Kael’s lips curved in a thin smile. “Good. Let them turn on themselves.”
Rimuru floated in through the high archway, glowing faintly pink, her outline wobbling. “Sooo… do I get to impersonate a bishop next time? Staff, robes, big hat. Maybe I’ll start blessing the ale.”
Kael shot her a flat glare. “You get the hat. That’s it.”
“Tall hat?” she asked innocently.
“Tall hat,” he muttered.
The map shifted under Kael’s hand, orange pins quivering.
“Recommendation: amplification nodes. Broadcasting to ten additional towns increases probability of defection by thirty-six percent. Crestweld is strategically vital.”
Kael pressed his palm against the mining town’s marker, the orange light flaring brighter under his touch. His voice was steady, but it carried an edge like drawn steel.
“I’ll break their pride,” he said. “Before they use it.”
The council chamber at Virelion’s central spire seethed with noise. Crystal sconces glowed along the walls, throwing fractured light across polished marble floors and ivory pillars. Nobles crowded the long obsidian table, their voices overlapping in a rising storm of accusation and disbelief.
“He’s inside our borders!” roared one baron, slamming his fist against the table hard enough to rattle the rune-panels. “I heard the miner’s chant myself in Crestweld—he spoke as if he was born there!”
“Idiot,” snapped a duchess draped in gold-threaded robes. “That’s the point! The speeches are designed to sound local. You think Wrath can be in six towns at once? He’s turning our people against us.”
Another noble, gaunt and pale, leaned forward, voice sharp with contempt. “Or perhaps Emberleaf doesn’t exist at all. A myth. A puppet city spread by tricksters and foreign enemies. Why else would no banner armies march with him?”
The chamber erupted again, nobles hurling accusations across the polished table, their pride unraveling into paranoia.
Then, with a hiss, the tall doors opened. A messenger in silver livery entered, his face pale, scroll clutched like a weapon. The nobles fell silent as he raised it high, the wax seal gleaming in torchlight.
“The Outer Court has issued decree,” he said, his voice trembling. “Virelion is declared vulnerable. A Watcher’s Circle will convene at once.”
The words dropped like stone into water. The chamber fell into an awful stillness. No one shouted now. No one moved.
Pride had been shaken—not by fire, not by armies, but by whispers in their border towns.
At the far end of the table, one old councilor sat back in silence. His jeweled hand hovered over the sprawling map of the western frontier, tracing the borderlands where Velmire, Crestweld, Ashmoor, Stoneveil, Duskryn, and Hallowford lay flickering with unrest. His finger stilled on a single mark etched faintly in crimson ink.
Emberleaf.
He whispered it under his breath, not as a name, but as a warning.
And for the first time in decades, the nobles of Pride felt something unfamiliar.
Not contempt.
Not arrogance.
But fear.
A Transmigration Progression Fantasy
LitRPG Transmigration Progression Anti-Hero Lead Grimdark High Fantasy Local Protagonist Non-Human Lead
Death is a minor setback for the Night Lich.
Quill, commander of the Rotten Scourge and the most feared necromancer of the Westlands, is cornered by the Circle mages. In a final act of defiance, he casts a soul-transfer, only to awaken in the frail body of an elf orphan with his Black magic stripped away.
Yet fate grants him an ironic gift: a rare White Core fractured by Black. Creation is stained with death and decay, but when light meets darkness, it instead births something strange. Something unique. Something unstoppable.
Quill will claw his way back to power, forging a new army with centuries of forbidden knowledge. He’ll master reanimation along with creation–and this time, revenge will be absolute.
But dancing with death always comes at a price, and the Forgotten World doesn't take kindly to a missing soul.
- Steady Progression: Studying magic is hard.
- Crunchy Magic System: Raw and intimate spell theory.
- Army Building: Necromancer-turned-Golemancer.
- Morally Gray MC: Balancing morality with convenience.
- Competent MC: Wise and avid book reader protagonist.
- Lite-LitRPG: No +9999 notifications except for stat sheets.
- No Harem: Only one character at a time.