The Necro-Industrial Revolution

“Everyone, hold your positions!” Giles bellowed, his rough voice cutting through the howling winter wind and echoing across the snowy valley.

The frantic ringing of the alarm bell had mobilized the entire village in minutes. There was no panic, no screaming, and no chaotic running. Every single person capable of contributing to the defense knew exactly what to do. They had been preparing for this exact moment for months, drilling their roles until it was pure muscle memory. There was absolutely no room for errors.

The heavy labor of the defense fell to the men, who rapidly climbed the wooden ladders to man the watchtowers and the elevated platforms along the palisade. They carried crossbows, their breaths pluming in the freezing air as they took aim into the dark.

Behind them, the women and the able-bodied few teenagers formed a highly efficient assembly line. They hauled heavy crates of iron-tipped bolts from the storehouses, distributing them to the firing lines to ensure the men never had to look away from the encroaching darkness to reload. Those who had no role in the immediate defense—the young children and the elderly—were swiftly ushered into the massive central square, the safest location in the village.

Down by the main gates, Roland and Barnaby stood by one of the heavy ballistas. The massive siege engines were already locked and loaded with spear-sized bolts, their tension springs groaning softly in the cold. However, they held their fire. The ballistas took too long to reload and the ammunition was too precious to waste on scattered stragglers; they were waiting for the true density of the horde.

It took less than ten minutes for the entire village to transform into an impenetrable fortress.

Up on his high castle balcony, Jack looked down at the illuminated perimeter and smiled. The sheer efficiency of the mobilization was a beautiful thing to witness.

Through the dense, falling snow, the shadows in the southern woods began to shift. Over hundred glowing, starving eyes pierced the darkness, drawing closer and closer to the village walls.

Jack gripped the stone railing of his balcony. He couldn’t use his Necromancy overtly. He couldn’t send Grim, the skeletal Alpha winter wolf, or the skeletons or any undead mage from the crypt charging out into the snow. The villagers had lit dozens of massive torches along the palisade, illuminating the kill zone for several dozen yards. If Jack sent an army of literal walking bones into that light, the Church mages watching from the towers would instantly flag him as a heretic, and the Inquisition would be knocking on his door by spring.

But Jack had a much more subtle plan. Just like last year, he intended to wait for the villagers to shoot the beasts dead. Once the corpses piled up in the dark edges of the torchlight, he would covertly reanimate them, leaving them devoid of overt magical auras, and simply let them loose to tear into the living beasts from behind.

However, Jack was currently facing a highly frustrating personal dilemma.

He closed his eyes and looked inward at his mana core. He was at Layer 2 of the Iron Core. He knew his core had grown incredibly dense and powerful after the agonizing strain of forging the steel in the blast furnace. But now, that progression had entirely stagnated. He didn’t feel even a fraction closer to breaking through to Layer 3.

Is there some specific, hidden trick to advancing past the second layer? Jack pondered, his corporate mind hating the lack of a clear, instructional manual. Does it require a specific magical catalyst, or just raw, sustained friction? I have no way to know.

Deciding to rely on the only method that had worked so far, Jack prepared to push his multitasking to the absolute limit tonight. He would use his Necromancy to micro-manage a horde of undead beasts in the dark, hoping the sheer mental strain would force his core to grow.

Down at the palisade, the horde of winter wolves and frost-boars finally breached the tree line, charging blindly toward the scent of warm flesh.

Giles stood on the central watchtower, his eyes locked on a series of tall wooden stakes planted in the snow—the range markers.

“Loose!” Giles roared.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Dozens of crossbows fired in unison. A hail of arrows tore through the freezing air. The projectiles rained down on the disorganized beasts, piercing thick hides and shattering bones. Wolves howled as they fell, tripping the beasts running blindly behind them, creating a chaotic, bloody pileup into the snow.

But the men on the walls were ruthless. There was no hesitation. The women shoved freshly loaded crossbows into their hands, and they fired a second volley, then a third.

The beasts fell one after another in a relentless slaughter.

Standing on the eastern watchtower, wrapped in heavy cloaks, the four Church mages watched the spectacle in stunned silence.

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“By the Holy Light…” James muttered, his eyes wide as he watched a massive frost-boar get pinned to the snow by four simultaneous bolts. “The peasants are the real monsters here. Just look at those poor animals. It’s an slaughter.”

“I knew they had prepared well, but this…” Carla sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is just execution.”

“Don’t be so quick to praise them,” Banty said, crossing his thick arms, though he couldn’t entirely hide his own impressed expression. “This is just the vanguard. The first tide is always the weakest. The main horde will tell if those giant wooden toys of theirs are actually worth the timber.”

Suddenly, James narrowed his eyes, pointing a gloved finger deep into the chaotic mass of beasts near the tree line, just on the edge of the torchlight.

“What in the world is that? What are they doing?” James asked, thoroughly bewildered. “I didn’t know the beasts from the rifts attacked each other.”

Nathen and Carla squinted into the dark. Sure enough, the shadows of several massive winter wolves were viciously tearing into the throats of their own pack members, dragging them down into the bloody snow.

The conversation caught the attention of a few nearby villagers reloading their crossbows, but they didn’t stop working. They simply kept their ears open while continuing to rain death upon the approaching beast tide.

Banty, being the senior mage of the group, adopted a knowledgeable, confident posture.

“It happens sometimes,” Banty explained smoothly, enlightened them with his years of supposed experience. “Normally, beasts from the unknown continent never attack each other. But the beasts on our continent are starving too. When a beast is severely crippled by the crossbow fire and smells of fresh blood, the rabid hunger overrides their pack instincts. A starving beast attacks the injured one, and seeing the chaos, others lunge in. It is a chain reaction of feral panic. It will stop once the sheer volume of the horde from the rifts pushes them forward.”

In reality, Banty’s confident ecological deduction was completely wrong.

It was Jack.

Standing on his balcony, Jack was currently manipulating the corpses of twenty freshly killed winter wolves. He was using them as undead puppets, forcing them to turn around and rip the throats out of the living beasts charging from behind.

Jack didn’t care if the Church mages harbored minor suspicions about the beasts’ behavior. None of these four possessed a core higher than his own; they couldn’t sense his heavily suppressed death mana through the chaotic ambient energy of the battlefield. More importantly, he had already secured the political backing of their Gold Core superior, Silas. As long as Jack didn’t openly summon a skeletal army, he was untouchable.

However, despite successfully orchestrating the hidden massacre, Jack was scowling in the dark.

He severed his connection to the undead wolves, letting their corpses drop back into the snow. The first wave of the beast tide was already over. It had taken less than an hour. The combination of the relentless crossbow fire, and Jack’s hidden sabotage had completely eradicated the vanguard before a single beast could even touch the palisade walls.

Nothing, Jack cursed internally, gripping the balcony railing. I micro-managed twenty undead beasts simultaneously in the middle of a chaotic battle, and I didn’t feel even a tiny spark of progression in my core.

“Damn it!”

Down in the village, the last few surviving beasts turned and fled back into the southern woods, terrified by the overwhelming smell of death.

The villagers lowered their crossbows, panting heavily, their faces flushed with adrenaline. But not a single person threw down their weapon to rush out the gates and greedily harvest the valuable corpses. Jack’s strict discipline held firm. Going out in the dark was a death sentence.

Giles rang a smaller handbell, signaling the end of the engagement.

“Hold the line!” Giles ordered. “First shift, step down and get some rest! Second shift, man the walls! No one sets foot outside those gates until the sun is in the sky!”

The night passed smoothly. The guards rotated on strict three-hour shifts, maintaining a vigilant watch over the blood-stained snow. The Church mages, seeing the perfection of the defense, retreated to their warm guest rooms in the castle, thoroughly satisfied that they wouldn’t have to lift a finger to earn their contribution points, maybe.

The next morning, the heavy snow clouds parted slightly, allowing a pale, gray light to wash over the valley.

The heavy steel-bound gates of the village groaned open. Under the strict supervision of armed guards manning the ballistas, dozens of villagers marched out into the freezing air with heavy iron hooks and ropes.

They moved with practiced efficiency. They hooked the un-ruined corpses that were not chewed on by the other beasts, dragging them back inside the safety of the walls as quickly as possible.

After three hours of exhausting, repetitive hauling, sixty-seven highly valuable beast corpses were piled in the village square. Because the mages hadn’t used any magic, not a single ounce of the meat was tainted. The pelts were flawless, save for a few clean crossbow bolt holes.

The village square erupted. Men and women cheered, hugging each other and dancing in the snow. They had faced the terror of the beast tide, and they had crushed it without a single casualty.

Just as the celebration reached its peak, the crowd parted respectfully.

Jack walked into the square, his heavy wool coat sweeping over the snow, flanked by the silent figures of Elias and Sylvia.

“Lord Jack!”

“Praise be to Lord Frost Grip!”

“The gods bless the young Lord!”

The villagers bowed deeply, their voices ringing out with sincerity. They weren’t just respecting his title; they were worshiping the man who had turned their dying, frozen graveyard into a fortress of wealth and security.

“There is no need for such formalities today,” Jack said, raising a hand to quiet the crowd. A warm smile crossed his face. “I am in awe of how bravely and efficiently you all fought last night. It was an astounding execution of discipline. You have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that all our preparations have paid off.”

The villagers beamed with pride, puffing out their chests.

“To celebrate this flawless victory, and to ensure we have the energy to do it all over again,” Jack announced, his voice projecting across the square, “we will hold a grand feast in the courtyard this afternoon! The butchers will prepare the freshest cuts of our harvest. Eat well, drink the hot broth, and rest your bodies, for we hold the line again tonight!”

A deafening roar of approval shook the snow from the nearby cabin roofs.