Urist’s broken body fell on the spot. 

That one attack had caused all his reserves to be spent leaving him unable to move. Around him, the rats seemed to ‘wake up'. 

Without a leader to lead them, they scurried away, leaving the dwarfs confused before roaring for victory. Seeing the remaining rats retreat at this time the healers and noncombatants moved out of the cave.

But Urist felt too tired to care about winning or losing. At the moment he wanted to see if Uria was alive. Inch by inch he began to dig his hands into the ground tying his best to crawl to where Uria had collapsed. He kept muttering her name as he moved in agony.

The first to notice them was Ubel and Vlad who yelled at the healer Adster to come over and heal him immediately to which he replied.

“Save her first or I won’t forgive you.”

They looked at Uria shallow breathing then back to Urist who showed signs of weakening. With a curse under his breath, Vlad went over to the Rat King and stabbed into his chest to pull out the rats amazingly still-beating heart.

A torn look flashed over his eyes before resolving his inner clash> He ran over to Urist with heart in hand. Pushing away the healer and Vlad hung over Urist.

“The healer won’t save him in this condition. He needs life energy since he expended so much in this fight. Go, heal the lass while she still draws breath I’ll handle him.”

A frosty expression covered Ubel's dead-eyed gaze, “He better not die blood mage or I’ll have your head.”

With a chuckle, Vlad bent down and lifted Urist head to his lap, “Well I was planning on eating this heart for myself and face the danger. But seeing as your fading away it wouldn’t be right of me to take that chance after you gave me a meaning to live. 

“Boss are you ready to walk the true path of kings? Once you walk this path you will be walking the path made from corpses of friends, family, and enemies. Do you accept the blood oath boss? No, my King.”

Urist opened his eyes weakly, “Is she alive?”

Vlad turned around and yelled, “Is she alive?”

“Yeah, she’ll make it.”

“Well you heard will you accept?”

“Just feed me the fucking heart before I pass the fuck out and die.”

Without a second sooner, Vlad shoved the massive heart the size of Urist head into his mouth. The instant the blood and flesh enter Urist mouth an all-consuming hunger pushed the pain away. With surprising strength, Urist lifted his heavy arms and began to feast.

Each bite bringing agonizing pain to shoot through his body as his veins started to pop up along the skin. But the hunger, oh the hunger kept him biting chunk after chunk out of the heart filled with blood to wash it down.

Urist wanted to scream bite after bite, drink after drink as it caused his muscles and bones to break down and reform. Along with that, his blood began to boil through his skin and hair began to grow from his chin into a thick and lush scarlet beard.

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Vlad watched on as his king changed in front of his eyes in envy only to shake his head. No, I mustn't regret. Although he is inexperienced I am sure that he will do a better job in leading us.

After he finished up the heart Urist body went still for a moment, before it began to thrash and turn. Then a beastal scream of pain howled out as pain wreaked havoc throughout his body. Seeing this Vlad hurriedly called for help to hold Urist down and gag his mouth in case if bit his tongue off.

It took a bit for the medical workers to make Uria stable. When she was able Ubel had the healers go off and spread pain and life. He then returned later to Vlad’s side who was checking Urist vitals. 

Ubel narrowed his eyes and turned to blood mage, “What did you do to him? Is he going to die?”

Finish tying up the gag Vlad gave a chuckle and sat back, “I think he’s too stubborn to die. No, what I did was give him a king bloodline.”

“Will he still be himself or a mutated monster.”

And with that Vlad shrugged his shoulders, “It’s all theory at this point. I never got a chance to study a kings bloodline being transferred. I know he’ll be alive and he should be fine in mind. As for the legends about the body? Well, they always seemed to leave that out.”

And so as Urist body twitched in his unconscious state. The dwarfs able to move those unable to were moved into the cave. The healers and light mages worked around the clock to save those that were injured finding themselves unable to save a dozen commoners and a few warriors.

Ubel felt it was unexpected that so many had lived. From his calculations, he felt certain more than half their number would have been dead from facing such a swarm. He didn’t dwell on the acceptable loses anymore and took command. He first ordered after the injured were placed inside to begin to clean up and had Uria’s second in command Briana store them so they didn’t rot.

The earth mages who had been held in reserve began to fix up the wall that had been broken. Ubel spent some points to summon ten commoners on his tight budget. He then ordered them to start hauling the corpses with the larger one taking precedence. That set the tone for the rest of the day, with corpses hauled, dwarf licking wounds, and for those who were weakened food was shoved down their throats.

Thankfully with the baskets they had at hand, it made the job of hauling corpses less stressful. By the end of the night, the small able group had managed to move over ten thousand corpses With the rest being covered in water then ice to preserve them for tomorrow's moving.

With a sigh, Ubel looked into his glass filled with wine. He wondered to himself then looked at the two sleeping troublemakers Uria and the fool. Uria had been in critical condition and lost her eyes. Although healing magic is amazing it wasn’t at the level of growing body parts from exploded gore.

And despite his body not shaking anymore, Urist was diagnosed to be in a coma without knowing how long he’d wake. He was told it might be five minutes from now or take longer than a week. If it was the old him in such a position he’d slit their throats, gain command, and be done with it. He had done it a few times when higher ranking generals were incompetent and he didn’t want to die.

Now his temptation was just fond memories of the past he wasn’t fit to lead. He had learned the hard way that it wasn’t worth it. Taking his victory glass of wine he exited the cave and toasted to the two moons wishing for a better tomorrow.

After All, they had earned it, right?