From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 238: Awaken!

The former chieftain’s demise had been confirmed by multiple witnesses who’d seen Borg standing over the body but despite the widespread knowledge of his death, Kragg’s body had remained mysteriously missing, and this absence was genuinely strange in ways that made it look like there were some external factors.

This was more than a month since the killing had occurred, which made the situation increasingly bizarre with each passing day. There was simply no logical way his body would just disappear into thin air without leaving some trace, some evidence of disposal or burial. Orc bodies were substantial, difficult to move unnoticed, harder still to destroy completely without significant effort and resources. Bodies left trails, they attracted witnesses. They decomposed in ways that left obvious signs.

So the big question that haunted conversations throughout the settlements remained unanswered: where exactly was Kragg’s body? But that question, for all its apparent complexity, actually had a fairly simple answer that none of the orcs could have possibly guessed.

Kragg had been stabbed directly in his chest during the confrontation with Borg, the blade punching through his ribcage and into his heart with the kind of precision that showed remarkable skill.

It was without doubt a fatal blow, or would have been to any living thing with a heart. The heart was punctured, catastrophic bleeding was inevitable, death would follow within moments.

Leading up to that fatal encounter, Kragg had already been severely on edge, his composure deteriorating day by day under pressures both external and internal.

The weight of leadership, the invasion of the goblins and realizing their views of them were false, all of it had been grinding him down steadily.

The truth that no one understood was both simpler and far more disturbing than their speculation suggested. Kragg was neither conventionally dead nor truly alive in any meaningful sense.

Borg had indeed struck him directly in the heart, this much of the story was completely accurate. And Kragg had been confirmed as dead by Borg, who checked his body immediately after the fight, his heart silent, his breathing stopped, all vital signs absent. By every conventional means, the former chieftain had died on that blood-soaked ground.

But there was one critical thing that absolutely no one present knew or could have understood in that chaotic moment when everything changed. It was the active presence and intervention of the dark dwarf, that ancient creature whose plans operated on timescales that no one could comprehend.

The dwarf had taken Kragg’s body the precise moment his heart stopped beating, moving with supernatural speed and stealth through tunnel systems that connected and ran below ground.

If anyone in this world possessed the capability to move completely unnoticed even in populated areas, it would be him. Because tunnels were literally everywhere beneath the ground, honeycombing the earth in networks that had been expanded over centuries.

Kragg was confirmed dead, his heart had stopped, his brain had been deprived of oxygen, his body had begun the initial stages of shutdown. Or at least, he absolutely should have been dead by all conventional understanding of biology and mortality. But like the dwarf had mentioned during his various monologues about his plans and capabilities, he possessed other methods to ensure his schemes succeeded regardless of initial setbacks or complications.

And during Byung’s visit to the underground complex, when the goblin had been compelled to wear that cursed armor for the dwarf’s examination and testing, the creature had managed to surreptitiously obtain multiple samples of Byung’s genetic material. Hair follicles collected from where the armor had trapped them, skin cells scraped from contact points, possibly even blood from minor abrasions gotten from his fight against the elves.

The dwarf had been collecting DNA samples alongside his other observations, gathering the biological components he would need for the next phase of whatever horrifying plan he was executing.

Kragg’s preserved body was being maintained within that same mine where so much of the dwarf’s work occurred, kept in a state of suspended animation through unknown means but it was one of the tools he possessed. The corpse hadn’t decayed, hadn’t rotted, remained pristine and ready for the purpose the dwarf had designated it for.

And now, finally, the dwarf had accumulated enough metaphysical energy, enough "juice" as he might crudely term it, to accomplish something that genuinely had the realistic potential to draw "IT" towards their location.

Some entity from beyond the barrier, some being of power that the dwarf had been preparing to contact or summon or invite through whatever remained of the weakening magical wall.

The barrier separating the dark continent from the civilized world must have been significantly weakened recently, the dwarf knew this with certainty. But even in its compromised state, stronger beings still couldn’t slip through even if they desperately wanted to, because the barrier’s core structure still held despite the stress and deterioration.

But it had weakened just enough, just for a critical moment, creating a microscopic gap in the magical fabric that should have been harmless as beings, themselves, couldn’t pass through but in that precise moment of vulnerability, something had managed to slip through from the dark continent to this side. Not a complete entity, not a fully manifested being, but something. A fragment of consciousness, a seed of power.

This thing could slip through the barrier’s defenses where larger beings could not specifically because the dwarf possessed both the DNA and other biological components of the only being who could properly wield that cursed sword, Byung himself.

The goblin’s unique evolutionary properties, his system-granted abilities, his fundamental nature that allowed him to interface with objects and situations that should have killed him, all of this made his genetic material valuable beyond measure.

But the vessel for this slipped-through entity was precisely Kragg’s dead body, that was its entire purpose from the moment the dwarf had stolen it.

The preserved corpse had been prepared specifically for this role, altered for this specific role that made it suitable to house something that living flesh would reject.

The dead could contain what the living could not, could serve as anchor for entities that would burn through a living host’s consciousness and destroy them from within.

Kraghul, the injured orc currently held captive deeper in the tunnel system, served an entirely different purpose in the dwarf’s plans. Be it insurance, leverage, perhaps even a backup option if this primary scheme failed. But he was not the vessel, that honor belonged to his former chieftain’s corpse.

But the process had to be executed with absolute precision. It required specific conditions, exact timing, perfect preparation. The entity could only remain stable in Kragg’s dead body for exactly seventy-two hours, three days maximum before the corpse would begin to deteriorate. Any disruption during this critical window could cause complete failure.

The dwarf stood over Kragg’s preserved corpse laid out on a ritual platform, surrounded by arcane tools he possessed. The air itself felt wrong, charged with mana that made everything perverse as the consciousness of an unknown being travelled.

He raised one scarred hand over the dead orc’s chest, positioning his palm directly above where Borg’s blade had pierced the heart months ago. His red eyes gleamed with anticipation and triumph as he felt the entity from beyond the barrier pressing against the prepared vessel, eager to manifest.

"Now awaken," the dwarf commanded.

And something answered. Something surely did answer.

Kragg’s corpse convulsed violently on the platform, his dead eyes snapping open to reveal something that was not an orc staring out from behind them.