[EwulSpif]

Chapter V: The King of the Balcony.
The staircase groaned under the weight of three hundred pounds of scaled muscle.
The IMS moved up floor by floor, a silent, rhythmic ascent through corridors that smelled of dust and old linen. They did not stop to clear the side rooms. They did not look back. Every shadow that lunged from the doorways was met with the dull, mechanical crack of Krazz’s fists or the wet crunch of Gorg’s axe.
They were clearing a path.
At the end of the upper hallway stood a set of double doors, their bloated wood warped by the mountain mist. Beyond them lay the balcony.
Sszar did not pause. He kicked the doors open.
⸻
The night air of Dagnor’s Cauldron rushed into the room, cold and sharp.
The squad fanned out instantly into a practiced semi-circle, their boots clicking against the wet stone of the terrace. They did not strike. They waited for the signal.
The Skeleton Lord stood at the far edge of the balcony, his tattered royal surcoat fluttering in the wind. He did not look like the ghouls below. He stood straight, his ancient steel blade resting against his collarbone.
The undead king turned his head. The hollow sockets of his skull locked onto Sszar’s amber eyes.
A shiver, cold as a Kunark swamp, raced down Sszar’s spine. It was not fear. It was recognition.
The Lord threw his head back. A manic, dry-boned laughter erupted from his throat, echoing off the pale walls of the estate. Then, the skeleton raised a single, bony hand. The air between them warped, sucking all remaining light into his pale palm.
No sound. No warning.
**Harm Touch.**
⸻
It hit Sszar like a dark meteor.
It was not physical force; it was a concentrated blast of a thousand years of isolation and pure, unadulterated malice. The unholy energy ripped into his chest, blackening his green scales and tearing through his veins like acid.
Sszar’s knees buckled. He was thrown backward against the stone railing, his heart struggling to beat under the weight of the shadow pressure. Smoke rose from his charred armor.
Fluffy let out a low, vibrating growl, his hackles rising as he bared his canines, ready to spring. Gorg gripped his axe, his muscles coiling.
Sszar raised a shaking, blackened claw.
“Stay your hands,” the Shadowknight rasped.
His voice was different now. Deeper. Hollowed out, as if spoken from the bottom of a dry well.
He forced himself upright, his claws digging into the cracked masonry until the stone split. The darkness the Lord had sent to kill him did not dissipate. It met Sszar’s own deep, cold-blooded hatred—the fury of an exile, a dreg from Cabilis who refused to die in the mud.
The two forces melted together. The pain stopped destroying him. It became fuel.
Sszar leveled his mace at the king.
“This one... is mine.”
⸻
The duel was a brutal, back-and-forth symphony of splintering bone and grinding iron.
The Skeleton Lord moved with a speed that defied his ancient frame, his blade flickering like a serpent’s tongue. Sszar was losing ground, his blood staining the wet stone, but he did not retreat.
He grew colder. He grew heavier.
With every jagged cut, the hatred inside him burned deeper, turning into a black sun in his gut.
The Skeleton Lord lunged for a final, decapitating strike. Sszar did not dodge. He stepped directly into the blade, letting the ancient steel bite deep into his shoulder muscle, locking the weapon in place.
He looked the dead king in his empty eyes.
Sszar unleashed the darkness.
A wave of pure, concentrated malice erupted from his chest, traveling down his arm and slamming into the Lord. Sszar felt his own life force, which had been flickering out, suddenly roar back to life, replenished anew as he inhaled the very essence of his enemy.
The Skeleton Lord staggered, his ancient frame rattling as the stolen vitality withered what was left of his form.
Sszar gave him no time to recover.
Behind him, Jingles’ lute reached a high, agonizing drone. Sszar’s mace began to vibrate in sympathy, emitting a piercing scream as he swung it in a wide, punishing arc.
The iron head connected.
The Lord’s skull did not crack—it shattered like glass. Fragments of bone sprayed across the balcony, and the ancient crown clattered uselessly into the dust.
⸻
Silence returned to the estate.
Sszar stood over the remains, his chest heaving, his body glowing with a faint, predatory violet aura. He did not look at his wounds. He looked at his hands.
“I am the hunger now,” he whispered.
Voksh stepped from the doorway, his new bloodstained tunic pulsing in the darkness. A thin, skeletal smile touched his snout.
“The transition is complete,” the Necromancer noted quietly. “The dregs are gone. The Murder Squad has arrived.”
Sszar turned toward the interior of the house, his eyes burning with a cold, permanent violet light.
“We aren't done,” Sszar said. “The basement is next.”