Kai looked at the adventurers, waiting for an opening. With a sharp exhale, Kai’s fingers curled into tight fists, his body tensing with barely suppressed emotion. The adventurers were stronger than he had anticipated. If he wanted to bring them down, he’d need to shift tactics.
As Joathan and Kaelred swung at the skeletons before them, Kai raised his hand.
He channeled a surge of dark energy, summoning his strongest undead from his shadow.
The ground trembled as a towering, armoured figure erged from the shadows. The Death Knight, as Kai learned the na from Orlin, from the lich battle.
It stepped forward, its large blade gleaming with necrotic energy, and locked eyes with Joathan.
Two liches materialised next, skeletal hands weaving spells of death and decay, their empty sockets glowing with eerie blue light as they turned their attention to Raltia.
Finally, Kai summoned Joran, the undead juggernaut.
Unlike Kai’s other undead, Joran fought with magically enhanced brute force. His muscles, enhanced by strengthening magic, bulged beneath his ragged clothes, and his fists carried an aura of anti-magic energy that warped the surrounding air. He cracked his knuckles, stepping forward to engage Kaelred.
’I really need to give my friends so better equipnt...’
Despite the reinforcents, the adventurers didn’t falter. They adapted, fighting with the sa seamless coordination as before.
Joathan t the Death Knight head-on, their swords clashing with earth-shaking force. He may have had an advantage when it ca to speed, thanks to strengthening magic that helped him dash around. He closed any distance almost instantly and left craters at his launch points. Each swing of his scimitar sent shockwaves through the battlefield, forcing the Death Knight to mostly shift to a defensive stance.
With every strike from the death knight, Joathan was thrown backwards. The strength of the large undead beat Joran, Joathan, and even Garrick from Orrinsby. If the death knight’s blows weren’t blocked, anyone would be slashed into pieces.
Raltia remained at the back, her hands glowing with divine magic as she bolstered her allies and unraveled the dark energies of the liches’ spells. Every curse they cast was undone in an instant, every wave of necrotic force neutralised before it could take hold. But she wasn’t just playing defence her flesh manipulation magic subtly guided Joathan and Kaelred’s movents, enhancing their precision and strength.
’This bitch... Without her gone, this won’t get anywhere.’
Kaelred dodged Joran’s crushing blows, his movents a blur. He weaved between the juggernaut’s strikes, landing precise cuts where he could.
But Joran was relentless, each strike carrying enough power to pulverize stone. He barely avoided being caught in a devastating blow, rolling away just in ti as Joran’s fist shattered the ground.
Frustrated by the relentless onslaught without making progress, Kai decided it was ti to shift the battlefield entirely.
His shadow pulsed outward as he called upon sothing that rivalled the death knight’s strength.
A paw reached out from the shadows and slamd onto the ground, creating a slight tremor.
All three adventurers turned their attention to the new addition to the fight for a mont.
A towering armoured figure erged, its eyes glowing beneath armour made from shadows. The undead bear’s presence alone seed to weigh down the air, its deep, rumbling growl sending vibrations through the ground.
Following the beast, three sleek figures materialised, their forms glowing faintly with arcane power. Ignis, Voltis, and Zephyr, Kai’s three sigil-marked arcane wolves, each infused with an elental force, stepped forward, their eyes burning with a blue glow.
Ignis, its fur wreathed in an eternal, ghostly fla, let out a howl that sent embers dancing through the air.
Voltis, charged with erratic streaks of violet lightning, prowled in restless anticipation, sparks crackling along its skeletal fra.
Zephyr, nearly silent in its movents, was surrounded by an unnatural gust, the wind twisting around its spectral body, ready to strike like a sudden storm.
The presence of his elite undead shifted the battle’s montum. The adventurers hesitated for the first ti.
Even with his losses, Kai allowed himself to smirk. "Let’s see how you handle this."
The battle escalated into sheer chaos.
Kaelred gritted his teeth as he dodged Ignis’s fiery bites and Joran’s relentless swings, his movents growing sloppier as the pressure mounted. Joathan, despite his imnse strength, struggled to fend off both the Death Knight and Tecton. He finally landed a decisive blow on the undead knight, sending it crashing into a building, but in that mont, Tecton slamd a massive paw into Joathan’s side, the impact cracking ribs and sending him skidding across the battlefield.
Raltia didn’t hesitate. She chanted rapidly, divine energy pouring from her body in a brilliant cascade of golden light. Joathan’s wounds sealed instantly, his bones nding as if they had never been broken.
But in her mont of focus, she failed to notice the two liches closing in.
Cold blue fire erupted from their skeletal hands, engulfing her in unholy flas.
Raltia’s scream pierced the night as the fire consud her flesh, her robes burning away to reveal raw muscle and bone beneath. She gasped, eyes wide with horror, trying to weave a spell to counteract the damage, but it was too late. In a final desperate attempt to aid her teammates, she sent a wave of divine magic towards Joathan, and his blade glowed brightly. Her body charred, fell to the ground beside her black book with a hollow thud.
The battlefield shifted in an instant.
Without Raltia’s magic reinforcing them, Joathan and Kaelred lost a third of their strength. Their movents slowed, their coordination faltered.
Kai capitalized on the opening.
Joran finally landed a brutal punch to Kaelred’s gut, the anti-magic negating his agility-enhancing runes. He coughed up blood, staggering back just in ti for Ignis to leap onto him, fangs bared.
Joathan, despite his injuries, tried to hold his ground, but without Raltia’s healing, Tecton proved too much. The beast crashed into him once more, sending him tumbling.
But before Kai could secure the kill, Joathan roared, gathering every ounce of his strength. With a single, devastating swing, he cleaved through Tecton’s form, separating the bear in half.
Kai blinked, montarily stunned.
Tecton didn’t move, and Kai felt the thread between master and minion snap. Tecton was gone.
One of his strongest undead had been destroyed.
Strangely, he didn’t feel sorrow.
He felt only a hollow sense of disappointnt.
Still, Tecton played his role well. He shifted the tide of the entire battle.
Kai exhaled slowly, watching Joathan and Kaelred deal with the swarm of undead. Their bodes bloodied, bruised, and exhausted.
Kai focused all of his undead friends on them before they finally fell beneath the swarm of undead.
It was over. Kai allowed his shadows to reabsorb all of his undead.
Kai breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. His body bled all over from the small cuts from Kaelred, but he felt happy. Accomplished. Productive.
After a short rest, Kai stood up and dusted himself off, walking over to the three corpes on the ground.
’Ti for a few new mbers to add to my reserves. You three little adventurers will help replenish my forces after destroying Tecton and my skeletons.’
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