I became a legion lich

193 Lineage oath

In the Mirkor kingdom, in the capital of the kingdom.

Tens of thousands of commoners were gathered in front of the royal castle. The royal castle was made almost entirely of white marble, with the kingdom’s gigantic flag flying atop the castle.

A 20 meter wall separated the inner area of the castle from the rest of the capital and dozens of magic cannons were installed on top of the wall.

The royal capital was divided into three sections separated by walls. The outermost and largest area of these was where commoners lived, the middle area is where nobility, mages, military officers and rich merchants could live, while the last and smallest area was the castle where only the royal family and their servants could live.

Many nobles had homes or businesses in the royal capital, so even if their territories were far from the capital, everyone had at least one property in the noble district.

Today, however, the middle gates have been opened and let in anyone who wanted to witness the fall of a noble house. Today was the day that House Mifar would lose its noble title and all who carried the family’s blood would be executed.

In front of the inner wall gate, a podium had been built and people were gathered around them, trying to get a better view of the execution about to take place.

The royal guards kept the commoners from getting too close, keeping the area around the podium empty. The nobles and important figures were not mingled with the crowd, but sat in luxurious chairs on top of the wall, watching the crowd from above.

All the major figures in the kingdom were here, but the mood was tense as if they were about to kill each other. They had already decided in advance how the Mifar territory would be divided and not everyone was satisfied with the division.

.....

Those who were given new territories or had allies who would benefit were watching the execution eagerly, certain their pockets would be full once heads started to roll.

On the other hand, those who received little or no territory were frustrated and wanted the execution to be as long as possible to take out their frustrations on the remaining members of the Mifar family.

But the one who got the most furious was Commander Ragnar. Everyone knew that a second fortress had been attacked and all communication lost, a shadow dragon appeared seemingly out of nowhere and attacked the fortress, decimating all the soldiers.

They sent court mages with teleportation crystals a day later and found only ruins, no living soldiers or corpses left behind.

The shadow dragon had apparently turned the corpses into undead as well and stolen the mithril plates and left for the platinum fist fortress, making the nobles of the kingdom suspect that the dragon was working together with the undead, but they didn’t see any sign of a dragon during any of the battles, so it was more of a mystery surrounding this new undead.

Court mages also used teleportation crystals to approach the platinum fist fortress and investigate, only to find the situation even more tragic. No building was left intact and several parts had sunk into the sewer.

The mages saw countless footprints towards the semi-human empire, so the concluded that the undead had departed from the realm, but no one was happy about it. Although the immediate threat was gone, they would now have to be extremely vigilant and fortify the borders for possible invasion.

The kingdom would still have a huge loss to rebuild the destroyed strongholds, but the worst was all the mithril plates that were lost. Magic metals were incredibly expensive and the number of mithril mines in the realm could be counted on one hand.

Adamant was a less rare magical metal and had more mines throughout the territory, but its low mana conductivity made it unsuitable for large-scale spells. The kingdom still had unenchanted mithril in the royal vaults, but the amount was not enough for two fortresses.

They would have to buy whatever was missing from the order of magic, which seemed to have an almost infinite supply of magical resources. The order avoided selling large amounts of materials in order to keep the rarity of the materials and their prices high, but whenever an emergency happened the order had all the materials they needed.

Despite all the damage and dark times the kingdom would have to face, the nobles were more interested in sharing the territory than dealing with the consequences.

The imbecile nobles who saw only immediate profit might not have realized it, but by annexing the Mifar family’s territories, they would be even closer to the exposed territory and would have to invest money out of their own pockets to increase the region’s defenses.

‘This is all this woman’s fault.’ Commander Ragnar thought as he looked at a woman sitting in the distance watching the assembled population.

Ragnar was sitting next to the royal family, as well as the head of the court magicians.

The king sat just above the gate while sweating profusely from the sun, but his royal robe was enchanted to cool the wearer and be self-cleaning.

‘If that damn woman hadn’t opened her mouth, the situation would be very different. The nobles would have remembered only when the meeting was over and between the appearance of a dragon and the threat of the undead. the kingdom would have placed the region under its rule as a state of emergency.’ Ragnar thought in frustration.

Florence, on the other hand, was calmly watching the event unfold, even ordering drinks from the servants around the wall. The dissolution of House Mifar was already certain and many of the nobles who got new territories were her allies or were on her payroll, so it was a great political victory for her.

Even if the new territories didn’t become profitable for the nobles, as long as she got what she wanted, the rest was not her problem.

‘Less than 15 minutes left until it starts.’ She thought as she checked the time on her wristwatch. A mysterious smile spread across her face for an instant, before she corrected her expression.

Time quickly passed and at noon, the king rose with some difficulty and greeted the people, before giving a short speech on why they had gathered here today. House Mifar had been accused of failing in two military operations and causing the death of over 30,000 soldiers, as well as merchants and their subordinates.

They also revealed the existence of the undead to the general population, assuring that they were already preparing preventive measures to ensure that the people did not panic. King Balfas toned down the power of the undead by hiding things like the undead spirit, bone abominations, and the storm cloud.

Balfas ended the speech by assuring the population that the army was already moving to eradicate the undead and quickly gave a signal for the condemned to be called, to divert the population’s attention.

As soon as the signal was given, the inner gate opened and a dozen royal guards came out, surrounding a small group of criminals. The remnants of the Mifar family were wearing orange jumpsuits shouting to the nobles and the crowd for help and begging for mercy, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

The remnants of the Mifar family were elderly people who had already retired or young people in their early twenties who were just beginning their noble careers.

None of the nobles moved a single muscle to help them, while the commoners cursed and hurled rocks or rotten fruit at them. The mob blamed the deaths on the Mifar as if they were responsible for the death, rather than the leaders of the house.

No matter how much the Mifar tried to shout, their voices could never match the angry crowd and the royal guards would not allow them to stop walking and forcibly dragged away those who did not walk fast enough.

They were dragged to the top of the podium, where the guards forced everyone to their knees. Commander Ragnar rose at that moment and floated to land softly on the podium.

Ragnar had requested to be the one to act as executioner, using the excuse that the Mifar family had always been a military house and that they had failed in a military operation. None of the nobles cared about this and their request was easily accepted.

“Sorry about that.” He whispered low to the elderly gentleman kneeling beside him, who just smiled wryly. The young people kept screaming for help, but the old man had already accepted his fate.

Ragnar raised his arm and activated his dimensional ring, making a two meter spear appear in his hand. The spear was made of enchanted steel and had the flag of House Mifar on the end.

The royal guard behind the old man forced the old man to bend down until his forehead touched the ground and the latter did not resist, knowing it was useless.

“By Mirkor.” Ragnar screamed before impaling the old man through the heart from behind. Blood seeped from the old man’s lips as his eyes widened for an instant, but they soon closed and his body went limp.