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The kingdom’s nobles were in chaos and spent the last few hours discussing the outcome of the battle. Commander Ragnar and Cardinal Nicholas are insisting that they should organize a new expedition and attack the undead again before they become an even bigger threat, while the nobles insisted on reinforcing their own territories.

For some reason, the magic master representing the order had to withdraw in the middle of the session, despite the importance of the meeting.

All the nobles were angered thinking that the order was abandoning the realm in a time of crisis, but a different representative returned a few minutes later with devastating news that paled over two defeats at the hands of the undead.

The order’s portal network had been destroyed and the dark elder Louis Zahara had been arrested, accused of terrorism against the order, sabotage and murder. All his assets had been frozen and his apprentices investigated for collaborating with him in sabotage.

This took all the nobles in the throne room by surprise, for many different reasons. Knowing that the order’s portal network had been destroyed at the hands of one of the elders, the highest authority within the order, came as a surprise to all of them.

It also meant that until the order’s portal network was rebuilt, all military operations that depended on them would be temporarily suspended. The Mirkor kingdom relied on the order’s support to speed up its military operations, so it would be impossible to send troops in cases of emergency.

But what surprised them most was the order to divulge this information so easily. One of its leaders had sabotaged one of its most important resources and that would damage the order’s image. In place of order, the nobles would cover up the incident with all their might and pretend that everything was fine.

The way the order was handling the situation it seemed that they wanted to spread the attack as much as possible and ensure that the dark wyrm took the blame for all the trouble that would be caused by the destruction of the portal network.

.....

For nobles experienced in political intrigue and warfare, they could almost smell a scheme but say nothing. Whatever political war was going on within the order, none of them were involved and, more importantly, nothing to be gained by getting involved.

And they really were right. What Elder Louis didn’t expect was that Water Elder and Magic Master Lukas Ripha, his greatest political enemies within the order, had secretly met with Earth Elder and Mana Elder.

Master magic Lukas Ripha had proven his genius once again by developing a more efficient and safer way to maintain portals than the tower they currently used. He intended to pitch the idea to his allies first to secure their support before requesting an audience of all the elders and pitching the idea.

Lukas had arranged the meeting at the order’s headquarters to ensure neutral ground between them. Despite being allies, they all had their own political agendas and avoided meeting on each other’s turf where their rivals would have a clear advantage.

The water elder quickly understood the situation after questioning the dark elder, who had no choice but to mix truths with lies to at least lessen his mistake. The order had a record of his call requesting a portal, so trying to clear his guilt would be futile.

In his version of the story, he intended to test the power of a new undead while solving the undead problem of Mirkor’s borders. Perhaps by coincidence or already expecting enemy reinforcements, the undead broke through the portal and used a teleportation crystal to teleport after touching the mithril arc.

This destabilized the portal and teleportation of the undead using miasma interfered with the portals and caused the anomaly that destroyed the tower.

The changes to the story were minimal, but placed the blame for the accident on the undead rather than his incompetence. The anomaly only got out of control after your zombie dragon stupidly entered the anomaly after all.

Water Elder didn’t let him off so easily, however. Using his authority and that of the elders with him, the water elder trapped Louis until investigations were done and the dark elder did not resist, knowing that things would only get worse if he tried to resist.

He was shackled with manacles that prevented the circulation of mana through his body and stripped of all his current magic items, including his current clothes. The dark elder had never felt so humiliated in his entire life, but without mana, any of the mages around him could easily kill him.

Half naked and surrounded by heavily armed guards, the dark wyrm was taken and teleported to the order’s maximum security prison, the Dungeons of the Forgotten. The elder was confident that he would be released soon, but his situation only got worse.

Despite the elder’s best efforts to silence anyone who was present during the incident, more than a few dozen mages survived the anomaly. They were mages who were near an open portal when the zombie dragon came through the anomaly and were smart enough to flee without looking back.

The investigators took their statement and they all stated that the anomaly only got out of control after the zombie dragon entered the anomaly on the elder’s orders. None of them directly heard the dark elder order the dragon, but they all knew that an undead would only move on the necromancer’s orders.

Additionally, dead bodies and pools of acid were found in the wreckage of the tower’s upper floors, as well as the half-melted mithril arc. The acid the elder used to erase his tracks failed to destroy all of the corpses, as the tower collapsed before the acid corroded everything.

Most of the corpses crushed in the fall, but the ones found in the wreckage on the fifth floor were different. They all had a hole in their chest and rock fragments inside, so investigators concluded they were murdered rather than killed in the crash.

The stone shards also bore the elder’s energy signature, so his killer was obvious. When the water elder found out about it, a smile naturally spread across his face and he immediately ordered that his assets be frozen and his disciples investigated.

His disciples would hardly have anything to do with this mess, but no one could stop him from making a thorough investigation and that would further shake the dark elder’s faction.

Furthermore, the Water Elder had a lot of incriminating evidence about Elder Louis, many of the cases of abuse of power and talented mages who had their careers destroyed by Elder pettiness.

Normally, such trials would be useless as the other elders weren’t much better, but this was different. Such evidence would only add to the dark elder’s already extensive accusations.

The nobles in the throne room had no idea of the intrigues going on in the order, but there was one thing they all knew. It would be impossible to move troops quickly to deal with the threat of the undead, whether to reinforce nearby towns or organize another expedition.

“Fuck...” was all Commander Ragnar could say, trying and failing to find a way to reverse the situation. There was no way to gather troops quickly to face the threat of the undead, so all they could hope for was that the undead would take as long to organize as they did.

An awkward silence settled in the throne room, no one daring to say a single word. Well, almost nobody.

“Why is everyone looking at their feet as if the answer is coming from them? Have portals made them so complacent that you forgot how to walk on their own feet? Or have you forgotten that even a few decades ago there were no portals?” Cardinal Nicholas asked sarcastically in quick succession, causing the nobles to look at him in surprise.

“The portals have really made troop transport easier, but that doesn’t mean our soldiers can’t march on foot. It’s going to take a little longer to organize defenses, but that doesn’t mean we’re defenseless.” The cardinal concluded.

“He’s right, we should start organizing our defenses. I’m sorry Ragnar, but without the portals, it’s impossible to gather troops quickly to launch a new offensive, so we’ll have to focus on saving those who are alive, rather than avenging our fallen soldiers .” Alexander, the head of the court of mages spoke and the commander was forced to agree.

Now that they had a direction to take, the meeting progressed quickly and the nobles collaborated as best they could, much to the surprise of the commander and head of the court mages. Nobles weren’t stupid, and for all their political intrigue and pettiness, they knew how to stick together when they felt threatened.

And what better than an undead threat to unite the nobility. They knew it was impossible to negotiate with the undead, it was kill or be killed and become an eternal slave.

Even those with distant territories collaborated. The more they collaborated and sent troops to the front lines, the less chance the undead would have of approaching their territory.

They managed to organize which cities would receive reinforcements, the supply lines and planned to start food rationing as soon as they returned to their respective territories.

The meeting was almost over when a person who had been silent since the beginning suddenly raised his voice, bringing up a topic that most of the nobles had forgotten about.