After I died, my personal maid rebelled.

Under the moonlight of the deep night, the magical barrier enveloping the Duke's mansion rippled slightly.

Medivh passed through the barrier without making a sound, dispelling his flight spell and landing quietly in front of the main building's entrance.

However, when he pushed open the half-closed door, several lights suddenly lit up in the previously dark mansion, and several blurry figures quickly swept past.

Medivh, revealing himself directly, waved his staff, and a complex and infinitely growing magic circle twisted from the ground to the ceiling. Once the magic circle was completed, a strong magical fluctuation sealed off the entire space of the Duke's mansion.

The assassins stood frozen in place, with the closest blade to Medivh only three or four meters away.

"Tell me where the Duke is?"

The staff trembled slightly, and the surging magic drew the assassin to Medivh. The assassin's entire body floated in mid-air, constantly breaking apart under the terrifying magical pull.

With a snap, the assassin, unwilling to endure the torture, bit the poison between his teeth, bleeding from all seven orifices and dying instantly.

Medivh silently discarded the corpse, sighed, and made a fist with his hand. Countless gray magic lines burst forth from the distorted magic circle, spreading in all directions.

Whether they were assassins, servants, maids, or guards in the manor, they were all dragged one by one to Medivh by these magical threads.

However, the Duke of the Southern Territory was not among them.

Medivh's expression turned grave. Impossible. He'd confirmed it just yesterday; he was indeed in the Duke's mansion…

Looking at the last magic thread, Medivh beckoned with his finger, but the thread didn't budge. However, when he released his magic again, the thread suddenly snapped.

A burst of applause suddenly rang out in the quiet mansion.

Medivh frowned, and saw oil lamps spontaneously lit, quickly illuminating the entire mansion.

In the lamplight, a figure slowly emerged.

"Old sir, it's been many years. How have you been?"

With a series of splattering sounds, clumps of rotten flesh, teeming with maggots, fell to the ground. After clapping, the man, whose features were no longer recognizable, shook off the sticky, black blood and swarming flies, and continued speaking in a hoarse voice.

"You're too late, sir. It's all too late."

Medivh's eyes widened in surprise as he stared intently at the half-skeletal figure before him. "You are... Rona?"

Rona, the chief mage of the Duke's mansion in the Southern Territory, is a talent even Medivh acknowledges. Years ago, Rona came to the royal city and studied under Medivh for a period of time.

Even though Medivh tried everything to persuade him to stay, he couldn't change Ronaldo's determination to return to the Southern Territory.

"It's me, sir. I'm so glad to see you one more time before I become an undead."

Upon hearing this, Medivh clutched his forehead in anguish, his rapid breathing tinged with heartache. He never imagined that the innocent and lively child of yesteryear would turn out like this.

Medivh's personal visit to the Southern Territory was also partly motivated by a desire to take Rona away. He was getting old and needed a stable and capable successor to look after the human kingdom for him.

But, but...

As Rona's body and soul slowly decayed, he explained softly, "None of us expected this. Yes, sir, eliminating the calamity was just the beginning. The Duke has been corrupted by the magic of immortality."

"To prevent the Duke from becoming another calamity, I used forbidden magic to bear half of the contamination for him..."

"So the aura you sensed with magic has always been mine."

Infection...

Medivh drifted into a daze, recalling Duke Oswald who slew the undead serpent and Baird, the dragon slayer who vanished with the bone dragon.

So, after the bone dragon disappeared, was the necromancer who suddenly appeared in the Western Territory always Baird?

Oswald's decision to travel to the Western Territory to deal with the necromancer—was it because he already knew about the corruption?!

All of this made sense to Medivh. He felt incredibly fortunate. If it weren't for the strange man Oswald in the human kingdom, the calamities afflicting the undead would probably still be ongoing.

After suffering a series of setbacks, Medivh sighed and, ignoring Ronaldo, sat down on the steps and lit a cigarette from his pocket.

He thought the war with the Southern Territory was just another political struggle, but he never expected that the Southern Territory's calamity of immortality would continue.

Medivh exhaled thick smoke, looking like a listless old man, and muttered, "Where is your duke?"

After donning a cloak and a mask to conceal his terrifying appearance, Ronaldo sat down next to Medivh, and the two chatted like old friends who hadn't seen each other for years.

"In the heart of the valley, the Duke, having been corrupted by undead magic, has gained some kind of talent. He has been trying to control the undead army and has declared that he will teach His Majesty Frank a lesson."

"He can control the undead?" Medivh turned his head, surprised. "So the walls on both sides of the valley are just a smokescreen, and don't actually have the ability to imprison a large army of undead?"

He quickly shook his head and explained seriously, "Each time the Duke activates his ability, he can only control a maximum of four thousand undead. Ensuring that the undead army stays in the valley region is already close to his limit, given the frequent use of his ability."

"If there were no city walls on either side, the undead would more or less escape, which is a problem we have never been able to solve."

Upon hearing this, Medivh angrily stubbed out his cigarette and shouted, "If you couldn't solve it, you should have told me sooner!"

"You're always selfish in this respect, old man."

Rona chuckled, no longer giving the other man a friendly look (though he never was), and stood up to question him: "After I tell you this, you can openly attack the Southern Territory and then offer our homeland as a treasure to the king, right?"

"The wealth of the Southern Territory is sent to the Central District every year and every month, with the excuse that humanity is a large collective and that all regions must pay taxes to defend against invasions by other races. But can anyone explain why the gold coins in the royal palace treasury are piled up higher than mountains!"

Medivh smiled wryly. So many years had passed, and it was rare that he still retained such a childlike heart. But even Duke Oswald had never considered letting the kingdom fall apart!

After the Northern Territory developed the antidote for the plague, it was shared with the Kingdom almost immediately. Moreover, sharing the antidote did not conflict with Oswald's southward expansion to plunder.

If Oswald wanted to replace Frank and establish the human kingdom he envisioned, then the Southern Territory represented the rampant rise of local conservative forces.

This is division, it is the dismemberment of the human kingdom, it is a pronouncement of humanity's doom!

Medivh took a slow breath, deciding to try to persuade him one more time. "But son, why don't you think about how we can also help you solve your problem?"

"No need to say anything more, sir. Things have come to this point, and the Duke and I are both prepared to go to hell."

A magic wand suddenly appeared in Rona's hand, and his hoarse voice resounded loudly throughout the hall.

"You don't need to treat us as pitiful victims of immortality magic. The Duke and I don't care about our status. This war is still a war for the independence of the Southern Territory!"

After the Duke left, Rona, who had effectively become the leader of the Southern Territory, remained steadfast in his beliefs.

The secret that he and the Duke were nearing the end and would soon fall into the undead was known to only a very few people even in the Southern Territory.

The Southern Territory need not bear this sin; after he and the Duke leave, the Southern Territory will surely achieve de facto independence.

By then, they would no longer need to submit to the so-called king, and the wealthy southern territories could use their own taxes to cultivate more magicians and talents, becoming more powerful than ever before!

"I must admit, sir, your decision to let the Northern Territory get involved was indeed a brilliant move, and it has certainly brought us trouble."

"but……"

I glanced at the tattered wand in Rona's hand and sensed the chaos and weakness of the magic within him.

Ignoring Ronald's provocation, Medivh's hand, which was about to light another cigarette, suddenly froze after Ronald finished speaking.

Wait, he seems to have forgotten about Luna. If they don't capture the Southern Duke, the Northern army that is feigning an attack on Honeywater City will actually be besieged by the Southern army!