The soldiers were extremely curious at Dyne’s words. When he was brought closer, everyone was amazed at the strange rocky object at Dyne’s chest.

“Can you feel it? His entire body! It’s hard! It's as if he is made of stones!”

“What magic is this?”

“Look! The jewel in his chest is creating magic?” More and more soldiers approached Dyne, who was carried over and placed on the ground beneath them.

“Is he truly not from this continent?”

“What if there was a portal nearby? We haven’t explored most of the mountains and the caves…”

“That’s right. He must have crawled out of a hole or something!” The soldiers were now gathering around Dyne.

The Archers began to use their abilities to look for enemies hidden inside the illusion but could not detect anyone.

“There seems to be no one else in the illusion. He’s alone.” One of the archers is finally confirmed.

With that, the remaining soldiers emerged out of their hiding place to observe the curious boy.

“What’s this purple thing on his arm?” One of the soldiers asked.

“It has a similar jewel of the one in his chest. What is this?”

“We probably have no way of understanding this. We need to contact Archbishop Lazarus.” Another soldier added.

“For Legaia!” Dyne began to shout randomly, but the soldiers continued to hold him down.

“He’s right. We must- ARGH!”

An arrow shot and struck the commander's arm.

Several arrows emerged and struck the archers.

“What?!” The group was stunned.

“Archers…!” The commander retreated and hid behind the knights but found that his legs were not moving.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Fireballs descended and blew up the knights who couldn’t raise their shields.

“Paralysis Mist!” Dyne laughed as he flipped backward and summoned Grim.

Dyne held his scythe high and channeled the Earth energy from the Monster Hive.

“Ripper Blast!”

BOOM!

The earth shook, and several earth spikes shot out and struck the surrounding soldiers and threw them off formation.

“Kill everyone except the commander! But don’t dismember their bodies!” Dyne ordered.

Jaden and Chad had already arrived and began to attack the falling soldier.

The Golden Compass gave them the camouflage they needed to hide from the scouting skills of the archers. And with Dyne’s signal, the group attacked.

The soldiers tried to muster their strength to resist the paralysis. But their vision was all distorted, and they couldn’t even land a single blow on Chad and Jaden.

Dyne was secretly releasing the smoke of his concoction and the Confounding Mist before the field of illusion.

With paralysis and confusion, the guards were immediately defeated.

The commander was crawling away from Dyne, who was walking with Grim held in his hands.

Dyne slashed down and stabbed the sickle on the foot of the man.

“AHHHH!”

“Jedo, harness a thick death energy for me,” Dyne ordered, and Jedo followed.

Dyne held on the head of the commander, and with Dyne’s power, he used the Imaginarium Bond to create a startling vision.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Dyne was standing but behind him was the grotesque figure of Jedo.

“Please! Don’t kill me!” The commander pleaded as it felt the horrifying death energy. It was so dark and twisted that the ground below him began to get wet.

“You have two options… Become a sacrifice to the death god, or serve me!” Dyne shouted.

With his power of Brimstone, a terrifying heat began to scorch the face of the man.

“I serve! I serve! I serve!” The man screamed in panic.

“We shall see about that. Jaden… tie him up.” Dyne ordered, and Jaden complied.

The commander was knocked unconscious.

“Get whatever weapon you suit. Is there an armory inside?” Dyne asked Chad.

Chad still had a look of disbelief. He still couldn’t believe that they managed to defeat a group of soldiers so easily.

“Lord Dyne.” Amorien approached with Dyne’s clothes.

“Allow me to put this on you.”

BOOM!

A firebolt struck the ground beneath Amorien as Ishreth moved to grab the clothes of Dyne.

Ishreth created a fire that charred off the dirt, grime, and blood on Dyne’s clothes, making them look clean using a strange spell.

“Allow me, lord Dyne.”

“Oh boy. Cultivator Catfight.” Dyne waited expectantly as he saw Amorien stand up.

“Oh, for the love of Martsirt! Ishreth! Behave yourself! I order you! And Amorien put down the bow!” Jaden howled.

“Yes… my prince.” Both grumbled lightly as they looked at the ground in shame.

Dyne felt saddened that the two didn't fight.

"Pervert." Strafe insulted.

“Oh. So there's some secret thing going on here?”

“Indeed. I never had the chance to tell you. But these three are placed by my father to serve me. I am sorry if I hid it from you. I am an illegitimate child to the king, as you have guessed. But not many know of my existence. I only revealed my lineage to our king later. He tasked me to be a guardian of the Kingdom. I am to rally the people in case both my father and my brother would be slain.”

“I get it. I’m not bothered by it. We have to clean up this mess, though. I plan to keep that commander alive if Lazarus and his men go through here while we are gone. That way, they won’t know that anything is amiss.”

“But Lord Dyne… it would still be suspicious if only one of them remains here.”

“Don’t worry. I got that covered.” Dyne smiled as he approached the corpses.

It was then he began to do a strange chant.

Dark energy suddenly gathered and slowly condensed, creating a strange field.

“This is…?!” Jedo was amazed.

“That’s the chants Char made! He memorized it?! You managed to memorize it?!”

“A little busy here…” Dyne answered through the soul while he kept on chanting those things.

“You memorized it after hearing it once?”

Dyne sighed and used the Imaginarium Bond to show Strafe and Jedo.

“When they were chanting it, I was writing it and placed it on my Mind Palace in this very finely detailed calligraphy work,” Dyne revealed a long yellowish scroll that listens to the chants. As Dyne said, the calligraphy was very detailed and beautiful to look like.

“Mind Palace? You don’t have a Mind Palace Core! Wait, you are talking about those memorization tricks that people use in your world!”

“Yeah. That mind palace. Not the cultivation thing. That’s how I was always able to memorize stuff in my world, especially on those missions that I was tasked to memorize those long set of numbers. But with the Imaginarium Bond, it’s more convenient and easy for me to memorize. Something as long as this chant would stay in my memory for around two months if I don’t attempt to commit this to memory. But now, with this power, I think I can remember it indefinitely.”

“My Sovereign! You monstrous beast!” Strafe cursed.

“This changes everything! No wonder your alchemy skill is so disgusting! You memorized the books that Calamitus Slime read in his memories!”

“Yeah. I am memorizing what Calamitus was memorizing in his memory. Inception.” Dyne smiled as he kept on chanting.

Soon, the dark energy gathered. But right before the souls of the dead could return, Dyne gathered it and began to purge it with Brimstone. The souls died, but their soul's energy remained, and Dyne threw it in Jedo’s soul space.

The other souls began to attack and devour the energy and grow stronger.

Dyne waited for a few minutes and continued to do the chant so that the dark energy gathered from the fallen soldiers.

Finally, Dyne released the souls he captured onto the dead warriors, and they began to rise.

“Undead!”

The zombies began to slowly crawl and rise.

The two warriors and even the surviving commander that had awoken from his unconscious state were horrified at what they saw.

Ishreth and Amorien, however, had a different passionate gaze at Dyne.

The undead stood up and approached Dyne. Jaden and Chad were ready to attack when Ishreth stopped them.

“Wait! Look!”

They gazed back at the scene and noticed that the zombies were not attacking Dyne but stood on a line.

“So this is why he told us not to dismember the zombies!” Jaden immediately realized.

“But how? Who exactly is this Dyne? I sensed holy power from his fire! But how can he wield such darkness?!” Chad was confused.

“Dyne is not a man, but a god!” Ishreth declared as her eyes gazed hungrily like the zombies that Dyne’s summoned.

“Don’t worry, guys. They are all under my control! The souls here have bonded with me, and I can control them. These few will act as the guards. With them around and the commander, the Archbishop won’t notice it well. We just need to hide the wounds of these zombies and apply a bit of herb to make them give off the scent of life. Fortunately, we found a few poison herbs that can make them smell normal.” Dyne explained.

“You.. really can control them?” Jaden was stunned.

“Why don’t I show you…” Dyne smiled mysteriously.

Dyne harnessed the power of the Imaginarium Bond and created a strange field. There were no visions or sights when Dyne used it.

But what the group heard shocked them.

A magnificent, amazing, and catchy tune was heard. The sound of the long-forgotten disco-funk fusion erupted loudly for all the group to hear.

And just as it was before, Dyne burned the dance floor with pure awesomeness and performed the incredible ritual that was marvelous.

It was so marvelous.

The zombie’s stiff movements worked perfectly in Dyne's motions as he led his dance troupe to glory.

Amorien and Ishreth felt that they could not breathe.

“Cause this is Thriller! Thriller Night!” Dyne began to sing.

The audience was captivated by what they saw. Even the bounded commander fell into a trance.

“Hee Hee!” Dyne shouted.

It was too much for Amorien and Ishreth. The pair fainted.