“Typically, for a nation to annex another and turn them into part of their territory would be a thought-out matter, one that likely involved years if not decades or generations of planning. Sometimes, however, as history has shown us, it just happens on a whim.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Professor of Socioeconomy for the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 649 FP.

The main body of the Wings of Night, Second Division, arrived in Danna as Aideen and the others were having their meal. The cavalrymen quickly spread out and kept watch over the city, while at the same time also made sure not to worry or stress the survivors overmuch with their presence. Kino also came with them, as she had hitched a ride along when the Division was sent out ahead of the army’s main body.

From the reports Kino and the cavaliers had offered, Aideen realized that she had made a mistake in judgement on how the Vitalicans would react to the Divine Punishment. They had reacted rapidly, but not in the manner she predicted. When the Vitalican nobles saw the Divine Punishment, they instead took it as a sign that their King had fallen from grace and that it was now their time to rise up.

Aideen had thought that some of the nobles would head to the capital to look for survivors, but the nobles were instead too busy as they indulged in a free-for-all land grab. The Royal Family had kept the territory near the capital to themselves, which meant that the Vitalican nobles were mostly positioned further on the outskirts of the nation. They raced and competed against one another to see who could claim more land faster than the others.

Naturally, they weren’t shy of using violence to reinforce their claim either, and unbeknownst to Aideen, the past month had seen a messy civil war break out all over Vitalica… except for the region closest to the capital where she was.

While the capital city would indeed serve as a fitting crown jewel, all the nobles had rivals or enemies with whom they possessed bad blood with, and were too wary of those foes to make a break for the capital. They were aware that if they made a break for the capital, it would likely draw the ire of multiple forces at once, which was not good for their own continued survival.

The other houses thought in similar manners, which resulted in the fighting mostly taking place away from the capital over the past month. In fact, the Vitalicans were so engrossed fighting each other that they failed to realize that a large force from the Lichdom had crossed their borders from the south and threatened to engulf them in their entirety until it was far too late.

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So they were indeed, engulfed in their entirety without much resistance.

It was close to the border that Kino ran into the Lichdom’s army, and upon hearing of the situation from her, the Bone Lord sent out the Second Division of the Wings of Night to ride ahead, as they were faster and could reach Aideen in the capital sooner than the main army. The Second Division rode with haste, anything that stood in their way trampled and pulverized, including the armies of the nobles Aideen and Eilonwy saw earlier.

Apparently, according to the Division Commander, the Bone Lord had expected Vitalica to fall upon itself after the Divine Punishment, and rather than leave a lawless mess of a land on the Lichdom’s north-eastern side, he decided to just directly annex what was left of the nation instead. Other than the main army and two divisions of the Wings of Night, there were other troops following to take over the land, around a week or so behind.

Naturally, there was no need to worry about the main force. Between the Bone Lord’s own presence and the First Division of the Wings of Night, they were likely enough to demolish Vitalica on their own, as it was. The main force just progressed more slowly as they were taking over the land as they moved, like a creeping horde poised to consume the dying nation whole.

What resistance the Vitalicans managed to pose were simply put down by the Lichdom’s forces with extreme prejudice. Nobles and zealots were directly executed even upon surrender, while conscripted peasantry were sent back to their home villages after being deprived of military equipment. Unlike Aideen’s parents at the time, the Bone Lord has far less tolerance for shenanigans, and directly put down his foot on them before they could even start.

It would probably be quite a mess to integrate the Vitalicans, much less with the generations of anti-undead propaganda that the nation spread amongst its people, but between the uncompromising Bone Lord and his abundance of tireless, watchful undead sentries, chances were that those who tried to cause trouble would have no chance whatsoever to do so.

Meanwhile, as time passed and more infrastructure was brought over from the Lichdom to the new territory, standards of living would improve. Most people were not too concerned over which lord was ruling over them so long as their needs were met, so those would likely pose no problem from then on. The fanatical remains of the nation would be more troublesome, but even fanatical belief would slowly be ground down by convenience and a better life.

Even if that failed, time itself was the Lichdom’s greatest weapon. It might be one thing for people who were born and raised in Vitalica prior to the Lichdom’s arrival to maintain their belief, but it was another thing for people of the later generation who would have received nothing but a good life from the “invaders”. Even if their elders wished to indoctrinate the next generation, it was harder to do so when there was no source of hatred for the young to draw from.

And eventually, the older generation would die out, and the fanatical flames of hatred they carried would slowly peter out with them.