The Black Heart

The orc rushed towards the 5 skeletons and with a sweep of his great-axe, destroyed 3 of the skeletons. He then raised his great-axe and let it down upon a skeleton, crushing them from the force of the impact. Lastly, he took out a hand-axe with his open hand and threw it at the remaining skeleton, hitting the skeleton's skull, making it shatter.

The orc then turned to the group of 3 kobolds. "I apologize for not introducing myself immediately, I am Garrick of the forest, but you can just call me Garrick." He laid his great-axe over his shoulder while talking.

Zack spoke up and said, "It is an honor to meet you, Garrick, as you can see, me and these other two kobolds are in quite the predicament and are seeking help."

Garrick responded to this with "I see, and I accept. I will aid you kobolds in your battles."

"Ok, well there should be a necromancer somewhere in the palace we are in, they seem to know our position whenever we destroy their skeletons."

"Huh, interesting." replied Garrick

"Anyways, we should probably leave this armory before we get swarmed by larger amounts of skeletons."

With that, the kobolds each grabbed new weapons from the racks of weapons as well as Nev grabbed a small buckler shield, then the group with Garrick now in it move onwards, continuing through the halls.

Garrick made the fights quite easy though, easily crushing the brittle skeletons. After going through the halls for about 30 or 40 more minutes, they arrived at a large room. In this room, there was a large pitch-black beating heart larger than even Garrick inside of a large container.

Connected to this container there were many tubes and pipes. The group of 4 then heard someone talking from across the room.

"Ugh, how are they destroying so many of my undead?! Aren't they just kobolds?!" The voice was furious and said by a person in a black cloak, it seemed to be the necromancer.

Zack grinned, they finally got to what could be considered the final boss. The necromancer also was undefended, this should be easy. After acknowledgment from Zack, Garrick and the rest of the group rushed towards the necromancer to catch them off guard.

The necromancer turned around, surprised. It took only a few seconds before Garrick's great-axe split the necromancer in two. This felt too easy, the necromancer was killed meaning their undead should be as well. Though something wasn't right, all that was left to do was claim the territory.

To claim territory in Kingdoms, a person had to first defeat all soldiers in the territory and then place a banner there. Banners were free to place once the territory was cleared though. He felt that something was off.

He decided to check out the black heart to see what was special about it. When he got up to it all he could see about its info was the following:

Corrupted Heart of the Giant King Xurmorh:

'There is no info on the Corrupted Heart of the Giant King Xurmorh'

It was at this moment that a black smoke formed above the container. The smoke gathered into a human-like shape and the smoke which seemed to of hardened cracked a shell-like substance and now standing on top of the container which had the black heart, there was a demon which was human-sized and had 2 horns curling up from its temples, and had bright red eyes.

The demon then spoke in a deep, raspy voice and said, "and you thought you were done? You thought that was it, just appraise this heart and claim these lands? You must be joking."

Zack responded to the demon by saying, "uh, kind of,? Was the necromancer not the final boss?"

"No," replied the demon holding out his hand as a spear formed in it out of nothing. "I am what you are calling the final boss." The demon now had a wide smile and before Zack could say anything, the demon dashed forwards, trying to stab Zack's heart.

Luckily, Garrick parried the attack, smacking down the spear with his great-axe. After this, the 2 kobolds besides Zack both rushed the demon, who jumped a great length backward making the kobolds not pursue him.

Garrick leaped towards the demon though, bringing attempting to bring the great-axe down upon its head. The spear that the demon was previously using faded out of existence and a sword appeared in its hands, allowing it to parry the attack and make a counterattack.

The demon used this counterattack to swing its sword at Garrick's right arm. Nev stepped in and blocked the attack with his newfound shield at the right time for the other kobold to use this opportunity to slash his sword at the demon's left leg.

The demon backed away again and once far enough away, once he was about 20 feet away, black smoke formed around the wound and gathered into it, and once the smoke was gone, the wound was as well.

The demon was able to heal, so they would have to defeat it quick enough to destroy it in one go. This was going to be a tough battle, Zack's current party knew this, but they still felt confident. On Zack's command, the group attacked, the demon couldn't parry all of them at one time which was quite helpful.

The barrage of attacks went on for a while with Zack's group landing blow after blow after blow on the demon. The demon was bleeding a black ooze-looking substance, but this didn't stop them from fighting back.

The kobolds started getting exhausted though and the onslaught of attack was slowing down. Nev who had pushed himself quite hard this journey tripped over his foot and fell to the floor, ruining the group's rhythm for a moment.

This moment was enough for the demon to recover though, and the demon did more than just recover. The demon backed away from the onslaught as it was easier for it to parry attacks because one of the kobolds wasn't attacking. The demon was able to jump far back, about 30 feet away from the few who were assaulting it. The black smoke then formed and flowed into the demon's body, empowering it as well as healing all of its wounds.

"NOW THE REAL FIGHT BEGINS!" The demon exclaimed, followed by a maniacal laugh.

Zack and his party prepared for the demon's attacks now that it had been empowered.