The flas had mostly died down in the village, leaving only trails of smoke curling into the sky like ghostly tendrils. The scent of scorched wood, ash, and cooked flesh lingered thick in the air. The village square, once a quiet communal space, was now a graveyard and was silent except for the occasional crackle of embers.
Kai and Vepice stood amidst it all.
They had looted what they could. A ntal inventory ford between them. Vepice had found dried ats, smoked fish, preserved fruits, root vegetables, and two whole crates of salt-pickled rations that would last for months inside Kai’s shadow space. She’d also gathered a small pouch of alchemical powders, herbs sealed in wax, and a short blacksmith’s hamr inscribed with runes of minor reinforcent.
’I’ve considered trying to learn how to make weapons. I’d trust my work more than a stranger’s, but I’d have to spend so ti on it. Maybe that hamr is a good starting point.’
Kai had recovered enchanted thread, fine wire, a few enchanted stones, and various minerals. The most interesting piee was a cracked crystal filled with dense mana. Odd pieces, but with hopeful potential.
They regrouped in the village square, their packs full, their expressions unreadable.
Kai looked out across the field of corpses, bodies in armour, in robes, in nightclothes. Old n with weathered hands. Won with magic glyphs still half-ford on their arms. Even teenagers who had barely summoned their first spell. The village was quiet now, truly quiet.
He let out a slow sigh.
"What a waste," he muttered. "All of this... because of one rumour from the church. Silver hair. Demon blood. That’s all it takes for people to pick up their weapons and throw away their lives."
Vepice was quiet at first, then glanced at him with conflicted eyes. "We had to... right?"
Kai looked at her for a long mont, then nodded. "We did. If we hadn’t fought, we’d be dead. But just like hunting, the least we can do is use what’s left. Waste nothing."
Her expression was still unsure, but she nodded. "I agree. But how?"
Kai didn’t answer with words.
Instead, he reached into his shadow space, and sothing imnse responded. The ground trembled softly beneath their feet.
A towering, bloated figure erged from the dark, dragging itself forward on dozens of thick limbs. A grotesque fusion of fur, bone, and necrotic flesh.
The undead Rat Broodmother.
Vepice stiffened beside him. "What... is that?"
Kai walked beside the creature and placed a hand on its back. "A friend. Of sorts. She’s been with for only a short ti, but I have high expectations for her."
He turned toward the bodies.
"Consu the flesh," he commanded. "Convert it. Make more."
The creature opened its maw, an impossible, ringed tunnel of gnashing teeth, and began to work. Silently, steadily, it crawled over the corpses and stripped the flesh from bone with horrifying efficiency. But there was no gore, no spraying blood. The process was too practiced. Too neat.
For nearly a hundred bodies, it labored.
By the ti the last of the at had vanished into the broodmother’s belly, the creature let out a deep, hollow rattle, and dozens of rats spilled from her back and sides. Pale, blind, reeking of grave soil. Each was larger than a normal rat, most the size of small dogs.
Kai watched them with quiet satisfaction. "Forty-two," he murmured. "Not bad. Almost a fifty percent return."
He stepped past the newly born swarm and knelt beside the skeletons.
All still intact, just clean of flesh.
"Raise Undead."
A pulse of magic, black and thick as tar, spread through the square. Bones rattled. Empty sockets flared with dim red light. One by one, the corpses rose.
Simple, unadorned skeletons wearing the sa garnts and holding the sa weapons that they died with. A tide of death waiting in silence.
[Necromancy: Skeleton (96) Raised.]
Kai’s eyes flickered with dark calculation. Weaker than most, sure, but an army is an army.
Vepice stared, uneasy but fascinated.
"That’s... interesting," she said. "Rats and skeletons. But why rats?"
"They’re mobile," Kai said. "Good scouts. Good for swarms. These ones are stronger than the usual. They can slip into tunnels, listen, spread across cities. The ones I used in Forne helped map out nearly the entire underground network."
Vepice looked down at one rat as it chittered quietly and vanished into Kai’s shadow space.
"...They’re disgusting. But effective."
Kai smirked. "That’s necromancy in a nutshell."
He began returning his minions into the void, first the rats, then the skeletons, then the towering wyverns, which let out low growls as they dissolved into mist. Only the two of them remained in the square once the final shadow flickered out.
Kai stepped closer and placed a hand gently on Vepice’s shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
She didn’t answer at first. Her gaze lingered on the still-burning houses, on the scorched signs, on the lifeless windows.
"...Will everyone treat us like this?" she asked.
Kai didn’t answer right away.
"No," he said at last. "Not everyone. So people might understand. So might even fight with us. But most won’t. Because they’re afraid."
She gave a small nod and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "Okay..."
Kai squeezed her shoulder lightly. "We’ll find the right people. But for now, we keep moving. There’s too much left to do."
Vepice took a deep breath, straightened her back, and turned her eyes northward.
Together, they turned from the flas and the blood-soaked square. Not once did they look back.
As they walked along the old dirt trail winding northward, Kai’s fingers idly flexed at his side. A soft pulse of mana stirred in his chest.
Familiar, cold, and steady.
He pulled his focus inward.
A screen of information flickered in his mind’s eye, each line sharp and sterile. He reviewed the state of his body, mind, and soul:
[Na: Kai Tensen |
Age: 15 Years |
Specialisation: Necromancer |
Rank: 6 |
Advancent Requirents: Command an army of 10,000 - 767/10,000. Find E⸮o⸮b⸮a⸮d’s final resting place. |
Life Essence Stored: 1/115,000 (2,750/11,500 - Phylactery Reserves) |
Mortality Deviance: 6/10 |
Artifacts: Abyssal Band, Dampening Gloves, Mirage’s Veil |
Soul Vault: 108/1,000 |
Souls Absorbed: Winfried Drummond (Greater), Angelica Trunsdale (Greater), Lesser Human Soul (5), Greater Human Soul (41), Grand Beast Soul, Grand Wyvern Soul, Grand Human Soul (20), Sovereign Thieves Guildmaster Soul, Mari Tensen (Grand), Lady Elerin (Primordial) |
Souls Tethered: 2 - Kleo Carmine, Carter |
Undead Army: 767 {Mari Tensen (Divine Lich), Joran (Brawler), Rhea (Commander), Finn (Flight Unit), rri (Shadowsworn), Berrus (Elental Cerberus), Kael (Splitspeed Rogue), Ralts (Sentient Chaos Lich), Joe (Death Knight), Princess Aliza of Forne, Arcane Wolf, Skeleton Novice Fire Mage (12), Skeleton Novice Shadow Mage (10), Skeleton Novice Elentalist (3), Skeleton Warrior (38), Skeleton (292), Zombie Warrior (41), Zombie Sprinter (59), Zombie Shambler (110), Ghast (13), Shadow Death Knight, Greater Lich, Grave Maw, Grond (Undead Ogre), Undead Rat, Undead Pup (4), Skeleton Magister (14), Skeleton Knight (7), Undead Wyvern (12), Undead Rat (42), Undead Rat Alpha (40), Undead Rat Broodmother} |
Languages Translated: Irian, Salan, Forebearers (62%) |
Skills: Mana Manipulation, Mana Tempering, Mana Sense, Elental Magic (Minor), Thrall Control, Combat Arts (Interdiate), Shadowld, Precision Targeting (Magic), Shadow Space, Death Sense, Murmurs of the Departed, Shadow Decoy, Sigilcraft (Fortification, Elental), Aura of Undead, Undead Fusion, Umbral Mantle, Overchannelling |
Spellcasting Ranks: Mage (Greater), Necromancy (Greater), Shadow Magic (Greater), Strengthening Magic (Greater), Ice Magic (Greater), Fire Magic (Greater), Sigilcraft (Greater: Speed, Fire, Strength, Ice, Chaos, Anti-Chaos, Shadow, Flight, Shared Senses), Barrier Magic (Greater) |
Necromancy Spells: Raise Undead, Wither, Gravebound, Mass Raise Undead, Tether the Fallen, Undead Enslavent, Bone Lance, Soul Manipulation]
Kai scanned it quickly, ntally ticking off his growing progress. Nearly a thousand undead. The number had crept up over ti with each battle, each skirmish, each grim choice adding another body to his growing horde.
’Ten percent of the way to the ten thousand the system is asking from ...’ he thought.
It would be a proper army. One worthy of standing against the gods, or perhaps even alongside them.
The image of a throne carved from bone and shadow flickered through his imagination. Sothing more of an instinct, not a dream.
But it wasn’t what weighed most on him.
His mind brushed against sothing else. A tether. Gentle, old, familiar.
’Kleo...’
He paused his stride and closed his eyes. Reaching inward, he grasped the thread that bound her soul to his own. She had gained her strength, her chance. He had gained her trust, and through her, his own survival in the underbelly of the citadel.
With a breath, Kai severed the thread.
The taphysical cord dissolved in an instant, vanishing like mist.
"She’s free now," he whispered to no one. "I’m no longer her master."
Vepice glanced over. "Who?"
"Kleo," he replied. "An old ally of mine. A pact we made. One that is now complete."
Vepice watched him carefully. "You let her go?"
Kai nodded. "I gave her what she asked for after she gave what I wanted. And now she can decide who she wants to be. No chains."
"That’s kind," she said.
Kai’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Not kindness. Obligation. A debt, repaid."
"...Still kind," she murmured.
He didn’t respond.
Instead, he turned his gaze behind them, where plus of dark smoke still floated in the morning air. In the far distance, faint screams and ragged cries echoed from the ruined village. Survivors. The few who had chosen not to fight. They were waking up to the horror left behind.
They would find only ash. No corpses. No graves. No closure.
Just silence, and the blood-stained mories.
Vepice slowed her pace.
"Do you think they’ll co after us?"
"Eventually," Kai said. "Survivors always talk. The church listens. Rumours beco bounties. We’ll be hunted again. But I’m used to that by now. You will get used to it as well, I’m sure."
Vepice nodded. "I guess so."
The wind picked up, pulling at the hems of their cloaks.
"Let’s go to the citadel, Vepice."
"Let’s."
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