100 million

Nero walked up to a small metal door and gave a heavy knock. Of course, he could instead just open the door, but he had already made that mistake once and wasn't about to make it again.

He had to wait almost 5 minutes before the door finally swung open. Behind it stood a huge Polykenas. He was around 8 and a half feet tall, towering even over Shire.

However, he had almost no muscles on his body, instead was unnaturally thin and had pale white skin. He wore a beaked mask, such as the plague doctors often wore, as well as a long black cloak. Through the lenses of the mask, two large yellowish eyes could be seen, as was so often the case with this species. Magical aura emanated from all of his clothing, indicating that many powerful symbols were embroidered on it.

When the Polykenas recognized Nero, his already wide eyes widened even more, and he bowed quickly,

"My Duce. Please come in."

"Is it safe then?"

"Yeah, no worries. I removed all explosives from my laboratory, so last time's situation won't happen again."

Nero and Ester stepped through the door. The room was quite large, not as imposing as the throne room, but still quite impressive. The room was split up into four parts:

A place with a large counter, on which there were countless piles of different colors and shapes. Besides those, there were also countless inscribed notes and parchments and some rather thick books.

The second area was willed with dozens of shelves in which, countless different plants and herbs, and stones lay. There were also scattered notes and parchments everywhere. Nero did not understand how Ester managed to find his way through this chaos.

The third section consisted of many differently shaped cages with all sorts of creatures. There were even humans and Polykenas in some of them. While the Polykenas were in a much better state than the other prisoners, Nero knew that these weren't here by choice.

They were weak and useless members of the species and therefore were dispensable. The most amazing thing was the absolute calm that prevailed despite the unwilling imprisonment. This was of course, due to the myriad symbols engraved on the cages that suppressed any sound.

And last but not least, there was the "surgery area" which had been arranged in the middle of the room.

It consisted of a bloodstained bed, on which lay a bound human, covered in blood from top to bottom. There were cuts all over his body with a wide variety of tubes inserted into them, that were pumping multi-colored fluids into the body.

The subject was a woman in her early twenties, who was more or less hanging on for dear life.

Next to the bed was a counter on which lay more piles of notes and surgical instruments. The woman had probably once been quite respectable, but this did not matter to the Polykenas, as he had ruthlessly performed experiments on her.

By now she was no longer human, instead had mutated into something entirely else. Horns protruded from her head and her eyes were unnaturally yellowish. On her right hand, two fingers had atrophied into small shriveled things, but one of the other fingers had become a claw.

Her left hand had completely disappeared, in its place only a gaping wound into which a red thick liquid had been initiated through a tube.

"How can I help you, my Duce?"

Nero ignored the sight, which would have been disturbing to normal people, and smiled coldly at Ester,

"Ester, I didn't see you when we opened the portal. May I ask why you weren't there?"

While Nero was a bit irritated because the Polykenas had once again disobeyed his orders, he wasn't angry at all.

He knew very well that Ester wasn't doing it out of disrespect, but simply because he preferred to continue his research. Ester was what Polykenas called a blood mage. That meant, he could control blood with his magic, as the name suggested, but that was not the reason why Ester was one of his top generals.

Ester didn't just deal with senseless blood control, he researched blood. He researched diseases, viruses, and mutations, looking for ways to use them to Nero's advantage. And he was quite successful in this, having already created many new mutations that took effect in the birth of new Polikenas.

On top of that, he was not only a very competent scientist but also one of the strongest Polykenas in his army. All those things even created slight reverence from Nero.

Ester scratched the back of his head with his claw and answered meekly,

"I was engrossed in an experiment, and completely forgot about the appointment. What's the situation in the other world?"

In brief words, Nero summarized what the messenger had told them.

After speaking, Ester scratched the back of her head again, and small white scales fell off,

"Thats amazing news. If we destroy that planet, our birth rate will increase by several percent. What wonderful news."

Nero nodded, then looked to the bed where the mutated woman lay,

"What are these experiments that are more important than your duce? I hope they're worth it."

The creature's eyes lit up, its pupils opening to almost full size,

"Oh yes, definitely my Duce. I'm currently trying to figure out a way to create a hybrid of Polykenas and humans. If I could just..."

Now it was Nero's eyes that lit up with brilliance. If Ester could actually do this, then they could mix the extreme reproduction of humans, and the strength of the Polykenas.

This would be an extreme improvement to his army and could bring their strength to a whole new level. The renewal of casualties from past battles could be doubled, if not tripled.

"How is the research coming along?"

Ester shook his head,

"So far, not very well, as you can see. I suspect several more years of research before I'm able to get usable results. However, this is not my only progress. I have managed to increase the effect of the healing potions by more than 12 percent. With further research, they could become even stronger. Unfortunately, I'm lacking the right resources at the moment, so I've tackled a third experiment. It's about the magic heart. Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to find out how and why it changes over time. Also, I researched why it changes faster for some and slower for others. The new world would be a great help for that since there are many different mages and magic hearts present."

Enthusiastically, Ester rubbed his claws.

Nero laughed,

"I am pleased to see such good progress, but we have more important things to do now. We start our assault on the new world at dawn. Until then, we still need to go over our strategy.

I desire your presence."

"Of course my Duce... "

With that, they walked out of the lab, towards the throne room.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon the morning came, and one could already see the first outlines of the sun on the horizon. Nero followed Fril down a long spiral staircase that led up to the highest tower in the center of the castle.

This was the center and also the origin of the building. From this tower, he had brought chaos and terror to several worlds already.

At the bottom of the stairs, a trapdoor opened and he walked out. He stood on a relatively large platform surrounded by several battlements. A peaked roof rose high above him, supported by four pillars. Xersies, Shire, Ramor and Ester were already waiting for him and bowed at the sight of his appearance.

He wore a black robe and the long cloak fell from his shoulders.

On his head was the golden crown. Slowly he walked to the battlements and looked down, at the courtyard of the castle and beyond.

Countless Polykenas had clustered there, looking up at him. A huge cheer erupted, which hurt his ears due to the terrible voice of the Polykenas. Nero simply raised his hand, and silence fell. He looked at Xersies,

"How many casualties after the last battle have been regenerated?"

"Of the 22.000, 13.000 new ones have been added again. This is unfortunately still a deficit, but according to my calculations we should reach a new high after conquering this world."

Nreo knew that even with those losses, the number of living Polykenas was still at over 100 million, and such low numbers made no difference.

Among those waiting were several dozen Xersie-level mages. These were the generals of different areas of the army, but they were still ranked under the top 5 generals, Ester, Xersies, Fril, Ramor, and Shire.

Naturally, those were all under the command of Nero.

Nero looked over this vast army once more and sighed inwardly.

While this number is huge, this was not a war between provinces or countries, what was about to come was a war between worlds.