Slaughter.

Jircniv wasn't unfamiliar with the concept. He'd even born witness to the occasional death. 'Alright, lots of deaths.' He acknowledged to himself as he recalled the bloody stains on the throne room of the imperial palace. He'd insisted on doing it that way, the useless nobles died by his order in his hall, and he recalled it all.

The scene played out in his head again as if it were yesterday. A cluster of faces, nobles whose arrogant eyes once looked down on the weak authority of the 'emperor' a figurehead without true power for a long, long time… the quiet jokes he'd grown up hearing about emperors whose heads 'fell off' when they grew too big.

Then, the day of reckoning. The palace guards slew them on his order, one by one. Dragged from where they sat in trapped chairs from which they could not rise, the sickening noise of metal slicing through flesh as head after head was removed from body after body. A little pile became a big one against the wall as Jircniv sifted through allies and enemies from above them all.

Even among those who carried out his will, 'I know some of these who obey me now, I will have to eliminate later… but they will at least have a moment in the sun.' He thought with very little pity. One by one he then went to the men who carried out his will, and gave them titles as they knelt in the blood of the men whose places they now took.

Those bloody patches on the knees were now sewn into the lining of every living noble's pants. Those who survived his massacre were made to kneel in turn to be reconfirmed in their estates, and to then dispose of the bodies…

By casting them into the street before the eyes of the people of Arwintar. 'It was a very effective display of imperial power if I do say so myself.' Jircniv thought, recalling watching them from a window on high as they carried the dead out and dumped them into the street while the crier read off the declaration Jircniv had written with his own hand.

And yet even that massacre of the useless and the corrupt had nothing on it compared to what he was now watching.

At first it wasn't entirely clear what they were seeing, just like it took time in the wrong light to discern that a wiggling mass on the ground was a war between ants. But as the picture became ever clearer and the scene came into focus, he realized what it was.

Beastmen were slaying beastmen and humans… undead beastmen and humans. The groaning was like the noise of a storm, desperate living beastmen cut and tore and ripped at the bodies of the undead, while the undead themselves shrugged off wounds as if they were nothing, climbing over the living and biting, clawing, tearing…

And it was all over a wall around a beastmen city, a sizable one at that.

The defending lionmen, bearmen, tigermen, and a hundred other kinds Jircniv had not even known existed, all battled with wild desperation as the masses of undead climbed overtop of one another, the look of grim desperation in their eyes told the story of what the days had wrought since they were driven from the Draconic Kingdom.

Somewhere, a scream must have gotten their attention on the walls, as the heads of the defenders all turned uniformly in that direction. Momonga skillfully manipulated the view to show that a gate had given way, and a stream of undead were storming through. As he zoomed out again, it was clear that this was a triple walled city, with the great masses of the population living on the outermost wall.

But as to the rest, if the population within were turned, how long could the inner walls stand? Jircniv didn't count himself an expert in military affairs, but he knew well enough that without relief, if the outer wall fell, the inner walls could only buy time.

'How much more true is that when the population of the outer wall becomes soldiers in the army of the invaders?' He asked himself, and knew that he was watching a city die.

In the stories of bards and historians alike, people spoke of the field of dead bodies that followed a battle, and in the battles against the undead, these stories changed little.

But now they one and all knew these stories to be false. The former friends of the living defenders were already rising to join their slayers, and the bellowing ululations of the undead went up through the streets as they stormed into wooden house after wooden house, smashing their way within to devour those who cowered inside.

Invariably the outcome was the same, though sometimes four undead would enter, and only one or two would leave, no living figure emerged from a house that anyone in Nazarick could see.

"This city is roughly two days from the border with the Draconic Kingdom," Momonga explained, "and it isn't the only one. I'm sure the whole of the Beastman Kingdom knows about the problem by now, and they're readying a response. However, I do not believe it will be enough. They lost their largest fighting force in the Draconic Kingdom. To muster the rest means calling up all their reserves, everyone able to fight, their artisans, their adolescent children, even their noble class… but they will probably win in the end, especially if they call on allies."

"But… you said it would not be enough?" Fluder asked and furrowed his brow.

"For them to win? Yes. For them to survive, probably not." Momonga said, "Every artisan who dies is one whose skills die with him. Even with their high meat diet," he paused to let the seated guests shiver and shift on their seats at what he meant, "they still need some farmers. Those will die in large numbers. So will many of their females, who reproduce slowly for the most part. In short, they will lose so many people that their kingdom will no longer be able to effectively rule itself. Their numbers will be very, very few, and completely stamping out the undead invaders will probably take a solid year. That year will be the last time they are properly united for a very, very long time. I did that with one spell."

He let that sink in, then clapped his hands together and said, "While that is something to think about, who is hungry?" He exclaimed, took a seat, and watched the door open again to admit silver carts pushed by the battlemaids and loaded with trays of food and goblets for wine.