Darkness swirled around Alaster as the sensation of falling consumed him. He saw nothing but blackness and wisps of Necrotic Green, swirling around him as if he was in the eye of a massive hurricane.

Yet it was not the sensation of falling or the blindness that stuck Alaster. It was the raw emotion. Since that cursed night all those years ago, there had only been rare occasions where Alaster felt emotions in such a pure form. His mind had long since dulled them.

He felt only a fraction of the emotions his mind expressed.

However, in this vortex, he felt them all, in their raw, unfiltered, forms.

It was overbearing. Alaster felt like he was getting crushed under their weight.

‘Calm yourself.’ Alaster heard Belgroth’s voice.

‘Take a deep breath. Let it fill your lungs. Now slowly exhale.’

Alaster followed the Demon’s instructions, feeling his mind become less erratic. As it did, the vortex around him began to slow down. Slowly, it began to dissipate. Through the remaining wisps, Alaster saw light.

Free of the blinding vortex, Alaster was finally able to see his Soul Domain.

Alaster saw all of his Forgotten standing in a neat formation in front of him. He had long since stopped counting them, simply making more as he had the time. Now they stood before him in all their glory. Arranged in groups of a hundred, further separated in groups of a thousand. At the head of each Thousand, one of the Death Knights stood.

A Forgotten on each corner of each Thousand held a banner. Each banner depicted the coat of arms that Alaster had eventually created under Azemar’s instruction.

A shield with a sword behind it, pointing down, and a fire burning behind them on a field of black. Underneath, written in Runic, were the words, ‘Loyalty to Family. Blood given Blood.’

Above each coat of arms, a number was written in roman numerals, one through twelve.

Alaster looked at Catherine, standing before the formation with the banners of the number one.

“At-ten-tion!” She called out.

As one, each formation snapped to military attention.

Their clenched fists slammed into their armored chests in a single ‘bang’.

“At ease.” Alaster called, despite speaking normally, his voice carried.

The formation relaxed, returning to a more relaxed position.

Alaster took this moment to study them, as well as look around.

Each Forgotten wore the same equipment. Armor plates over chainmail. It was not heavy armor, but did provide significant protection against bladed weapons. They all wielded a large shield, the same shield on his Coat of Arms, and a spear. They all had a sheathed dagger at the small of their backs, easily accessed if they lost their spear. The Bannermen had their shields hanging from their backs and a short sword sheathed at their hip, in addition to the dagger.

Their armor was sleek, but sharp, different parts seamlessly connecting. Their stomachs had plates of plate, but their sides had dragon pattern scalemail. The armor of their elbows and knees extended a few inches past the limb into a sharp point. The fingers of their gauntlets also ended in sharp claws. However, their pauldrons had the metal extend upwards slightly, giving additional protection to the neck.

The most noticeable thing about the Forgotten were their hooded helmets. The helmets had a smooth face, with two lowercase t shaped cuts, with the tail of the t extended to the middle of their cheeks, to serve as their eyes.

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The colors of their hoods served as their ranks, both in power and in the military structure. Alaster could feel their powers and quickly learned the color coding.

Red for Novice, Blue for Adept, and Purple for Expert. There were only a handful of Novices in each Formation.

However, at the front of each formation, just behind the Death Knight, Alaster spotted four Forgotten that were different. The armor was the same as the rest, but the smooth faces of the helmets had gold outlining the eye slits and their hoods were white.

Looking into their Mana, Alaster was able to see that all of these White hooded Forgotten were Experts, and while he could sense something else, he could not decipher it, at least from his surface scan.

“Catherine.”

She marched forward, leaving her formation.

“Yes sir?”

“This is impressive. Truly. I see that you have color coded them, but what are the white hoods? They seem special in some way.”

“Sir, the white hoods are the only Forgotten to have survived all the way from Novice to Expert. Their power is deeper and more intricate than the other Experts. They are also smarter. As such, they command two hundred and fifty of the other Forgotten in their legion.”

“Legion?”

“Yes sir, these are your Legions. Under direct command of one of your Death Knights. Every single Forgotten is capable of summoning Undead of their own. While these secondary summons are weak, they add to the number. And I’m sure you are aware of just how powerful numbers can be in a battle.

Each Novice is capable of summoning two Skeleton Soldiers. Each Adept can summon ten, with three being Skeleton Archers. Each Expert can summon thirty, with ten being Skeleton Archers and five being Skeleton Warriors.

Then there are the Golden, we are still working on a special name for them, they can each summon a hundred Undead, including ten Skeleton Berserkers.

So while each Legion only has a thousand Forgotten, their practical size is much larger than that.”

“How long do you think it will take to train up the last few Novices?” Alaster asked, keeping his voice steady, even as his heart grew excited.

“In the Soul Domain, all your Minions grow stronger over time, so if they are left here, then maybe five months. If we let them out to kill and hunt, while we risk them being destroyed, I would not think they would remain as Novices for more than two weeks, maybe three.”

“Besides their summons, what are their own abilities?”

“Each one has been thoroughly trained in melee combat, specializing in spear and shield, however each one can use a sword proficiently. As all of them were created using your own personal Mana Cores, they can all use [Necrotic Bolt] and [Bone Crafting].”

Alaster imagined the effect of all twelve thousand casting [Necrotic Bolt] at a target. He almost wanted to try it out, but he held himself back. In the long term, [Bone Crafting] would be the most valuable.

In an attempt to keep his rapidly increasing excitement hidden, Alaster began to look around.

His Soul Domain was not just empty or full of Forgotten only. There were also many buildings now.

“Tell me, what have you been doing in my Domain?”

“Well it started off pretty small. Just a small stone building for each of us Death Knights, courtesy of John. But then you began to throw in the Forgotten. So we created barracks for them, then we constructed a smithy to arm them, then we built obstacle courses and training grounds to train them. Eventually we ended up with a small town.

One barracks for one hundred Forgotten. Ten barracks per Legion. We even began to pit the Legions against each other. Usually one legion against another, sometimes two against two. Just last week we fought six against six.”

“Very good. How are the Forgotten handling themselves individually?”

“Well sir, while they have intelligence, it is limited. If monitored, they do just fine, however. The Golden are the only ones I would really say could be their own person. But since the only real personalities they have been exposed to are us Death Knights, our Legion’s Golden act quite similarly to their Death Knight.”

Alaster chuckled, “I’m sure Adam is having a blast with that.”

Catherine smiled, “He is. Whenever they have down time they are always competing against each other in mind games. Just yesterday he had them compete in chess games to see who would get to play a game against him.”

“So if the Golden are acting like you guys, and they command the Legion, I imagine your Legions do as well?”

“Yes. Given time, as they grow stronger and mature, they will begin to emulate us of their own accord.”

Alaster nodded to himself as he thought about that. Each of the Death Knights were uniquely powerful, but also uniquely personal. Catherine was wise and commanding. Adam was smart and adaptable. John was honest and proud. Samantha was quiet and inquisitive. If their Legions began to copy their Death Knights, then they would become quite a unique force that he could send to accomplish specific goals.

They had already built an organized town without his direct command.

“Catherine?”

“Yes sir?”

“I want you to construct a fortress. Something practical that normal people would build and defend. Once it is built, I want you to run the Legions through defending and attacking it. I want them prepared for siege warfare.”

“It will be done. With John’s Earth Magic and the ample workforce, it should not take long to construct. However, may I ask, is this just a precaution, or should we expect siege warfare in our near future?”

Alaster turned back to the Legions. His Legions.

“I’m not sure. But the larger my force grows, the more I see the conflicts growing as well.”