Ronan wiped blood from his blade, breathing hard. The necromancer lay crumpled at his feet, the stolen amulet pulsing with dark energy in his grip. The Red King\u2019s bounty had promised a fortune, but now the real challenge began. <\/p>\n
A low growl echoed in the cavern. Shadows slithered, taking form\u2014half-rotted warriors, their empty eyes locking onto him. The necromancer\u2019s last curse had not gone to waste. <\/p>\n
Ronan sheathed his sword and sprinted for the exit. Clawed hands grazed his armor. A skeletal beast lunged\u2014he twisted, driving a dagger into its throat, then yanked the amulet free from its chain. The air crackled. <\/p>\n
No time for caution. He shattered the amulet against the stone floor. A wave of violet fire roared outward, incinerating the dead. Then silence. <\/p>\n
Panting, Ronan surveyed the carnage. The bounty was gone, the pay lost. But he was still alive. And in his world, that counted for something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bounty was his\u2014until the dead rose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-fiction"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"986","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}