Dark Parasyte

Corvin stood atop a sloped ridge just beyond the sightline of Verranus’ outer walls. Beneath him, a valley bristled with the quiet movements of an army. Four thousand undead, all covenant bound. Clad in the tattered but unmistakable regalia of Holy Verrenate. Purifiers, battle clerics, sanctified soldiers, and flame marked priests. All once sworn to divine light, now repurposed under his banner.

Each step they took was measured and unnervingly precise, a mockery of the sacred drills they once followed in life. Shields bore visible scripture, holy symbols hung from necks with reverence twisted into irony. Their discipline was intact, from a past life stubbornly etched into new purpose.

"We camp here," Corvin ordered aloud.

He watched them move with perfect rhythm, tents being staked more for theater than shelter, supply wagons unloaded to simulate logistics they no longer required. The dead did not eat. They did not sleep. But the show was a message to the sanctified council.

Bob tilted his head toward him, ears flicking. The huge undead Bearkin’s war scarred snout wrinkled with anticipation.

This entire operation was theater now. A performance for the Sanctified Council who still clung to the illusion that this was rebellion. A discontented uprising. Let them believe it. Let them imagine battle lines and demands. The truth would be colder.

Behind him, the mock camp rose in chilling precision. Banners of white and crimson flame fluttered from broken masts, the very standards once used by the Verrenate. Shields were stacked with care, pikes embedded into earth. Hollow hymns murmured from the throats of dead priests, like the fading echo of a prayer half remembered.

One purifier captain adjusted his collar out of reflex. Another polished a blade stained by its owner’s last breath. Each motion told a story of life and the grotesque mimicry now moving their limbs to their master’s orders.

To Corvin’s left, a pair of undead warhorses were tethered with iron chains they could easily shatter. They didn’t try. Nearby, rows of undead priests stood in motionless reverence, their eyes aglow with perfect loyality beneath golden helms. Their mouths never moved, but the aura they radiated screamed conviction, unnatural, precise, merciless.

And in his private reservoir. His invisible war chest waited, another two thousand soldiers. Dark Elves from the Umbral Synod, savage Feralis berserkers, magically augmented corpses and prototypes. Each one covenant bound, enhanced by his virutic strains. Weapons waiting to be unsheathed.

This moment required illusion. The next might demand truth.