NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 80: Turning tides
[Destroyed village]
Now in a tense standoff, Melidra slowly started formulating a plan. The pressure she felt from the three mana users had considerably lessened, but against all three together she was still hopelessly outmatched.
Luckily the surrounding soldiers didn't seem to try and keep a distance, encircling her and leaving only a small gap for the three. This would work well against the more common among lesser undead, with the shield wall acting as a barrier that zombies, skeletons, and their likes had no chance to overcome, it was less effective against intelligent enemies.
But as this was the only tactic these soldiers were taught they still fell back on it, trusting in it even as Melidra turned around and jumped towards the wall they formed. And even though the shield offered a bit more resistance against her strike than the armor even after she had strengthened the energy around her fist, it still fell rather quickly.
With her fingers having left a deep cut on the man's neck, she didn't wait before moving towards her next target. Dodging the sword that swung from above with little effort, she drove her arm through the attacker's now exposed side.
Before she could follow up on this likely non-lethal strike, she noticed the energy surrounding her fist to have left traces of it in the wound that were now slowly corroding the rest of the man's body. Spreading while eating through his life force and funneling it towards her, it allowed her to continue towards the next target a second earlier.
But even more importantly, it gave her the knowledge that her strikes didn't have to be fatal, allowing her to soon just weave between the mana less soldiers and leave cuts in her wake. And with each cut her power grew, though with lessening speed as the life force that mana less humans provided started to become too little.
This didn't go unnoticed by the three mana users but the location of her rampage in the midst of their own soldiers prevented them from interfering without risking friendly fire. So they could only watch in frustration and shock as their prey started to grow into an opponent. Thus they kept circling around the chaos and searching for an opening.
Then the mage finally lost his cool and with total disregard towards the lives of his own men, the spell in his hands shot towards Melidra.
“Don't!” One of the aura users barely managed to shout but it was too late.
Impacting on the soldier's armor, the electricity inside the sphere unloaded itself and shot hundreds of lightning arcs in a circular pattern around it. Most of these latched onto the metal armor the soldiers were wearing, some only heating it up to dangerous temperatures while others struck less robust pieces and melted right through it.
But they all had in common that they transformed the armor into a death trap that electrocuted and burned the soldier wearing it.
Melidra was meanwhile spared the brunt of this, only receiving a minor shock as she tore open one of the armors. Instead, she had to worry about the lack of cover she now had, allowing possible follow-up spells to strike her far easier.
Trying to bring one of the scattered soldiers that were still standing soldiers between her and the mage, her gaze fell on one who was lucky enough to only receive burns on his forearm.
Dashing towards him, she only managed to cross half the distance before the nearest aura user reached her.
Jumping back to dodge the horizontal swing, she had to stumble back even further instantly as a concentrated lightning bolt flashed by her position.
“Get away from her, we'll take it.” The other aura user shouted at the soldiers scattered around, an order that they gladly followed.
With every soldier that still could crawl or run away doing so, the area soon cleared up considerably. And as Melidra was still absorbing the masses of life force that were flowing towards her, the three mana users pressured her with everything they had.
Despite being forced to constantly dodge the two swords striking from every angle and simultaneously keeping an eye on the mage, Melidra managed to keep up. Only when she tried counterattacking did this change, with the aura users not being as easy of a target as the normal soldiers.
Each of her strikes was parried, stopping her for long enough that the mage could send a spell or two her way. Noticing that his presence made it impossible for her to counter, she stopped doing so and waited for an opportunity to strike.
During this time she also slowly wore her opponents down, taking smaller hits to allow her to spread her death energy towards them and weaken them. Their mana stopped it each time, but she still burned through some of their mana reserves while her own still seemed bottomless.
And as they continuously grew weaker with each exchange, she refined her technique by mixing what she was seeing with what her instincts told her.
This allowed her to soon change the dynamic abruptly, having found the opening she was looking for. When one of her opponents stepped back a bit she broke off from the other one with whom she was still entangled in a fight.
Going for the man who stepped back in an attempt to catch his breath for a second, she tries to pressure him enough that he had no second or two to recover. This recovery from bursts of intense fighting takes an aura user only a handful of seconds, but during it, they are vulnerable until they stabilize their breathing and mana flow.
Utilizing the lack of such a weakness in her new undead physiology to still fight at her full strength, Melidra quickly started to overwhelm the man.
Simply catching a sword strike that trusted towards her with her left, locking it down by having it sink into her flesh before piercing her outstretched finger towards his head.
Looking on with a horrified expression as her hand struck towards his eyes, the man tried to move his head out of the way at the last second. Despite this attempt, he felt a piercing pain coming from his right eye, with Melidra's hand gauging it out while also ripping a chunk out of his skull.
“AAAHH!”
Recoiling in pain with his hand clutching the wound to stop the bleeding, he didn't have the time to focus on the luck he had that her attack didn't reach his brain. Instead, he saw a glimpse of her fist descending upon him, barely managing to roll out of the way.
This led Melidra to strike only empty air, shortly followed by a bolt of lightning impacting on her ribs. Grunting from the pain, she turned towards the mage just in time for her to see the second bolt forming.
Seeing the mana forming the spell in great detail, something clicked in her mind, and without thinking she pointed her left arm towards the mage. A moment later the lightning bolt impacted right on her chest, making her stumble back a bit.
But just a moment later a streak of black lightning flew out from her hand, similarly impacting the mage but with far greater results. Instead of leaving just slight burn marks at the point of impact, it tore through his entire body, leaving a gaping hole just above his heart.
As soon as the lightning faded the wound started excluding a black smoke that started to devour the already slowly fading life force of the mage. His mana could initially manage to hold back the smoke, leaving only the loss of life force due to the wound, though soon it was overwhelmed.
By the time the mage fell over, Melidra had already turned her attention back toward the heavily wounded aura user. Approaching him slowly, she enjoyed the feeling as the mage's life force rushed into her, bringing her more energy than dozens of normal humans could do.
The aura user also felt this as her presence grew heavier and barely halfway through the absorption the difference between them became great enough that he started shaking. Despite this or maybe because of this, the look in his eyes turned even more vicious.
“Fucking undead, how I wish to see the day when the higher-ups inevitably rip y-.” He started to curse before Melidra brought down her fist without hesitation.
Smiling in satisfaction at his death, she reminded herself of the presence of the last mana user. Turning around to face him, she became surprised as he no longer was there. Initially becoming alert in the case he attacks her, she soon started laughing as she noticed his fleeing from a few dozen meters away.
Focusing for a moment, she stretched out her hand and attempted to repeat the use of the spell with which she struck the mage. After focusing for a few seconds, a series of small sparks of black lightning started to come from her fingertips. Latching onto each other and congregating before her hand, the bolt of lightning shot forward.
But this time her aim was somewhat off, the bolt flying past the man by about a meter before impacting on the ground a bit further away. In an instant, the grass surrounding that spot withered completely. Even the earth turned black, becoming a spot of death that was hostile to any living being.
The mana user meanwhile tumbled to the side out of shock, barely staying on his feet. Despite this he didn't stop running, promoting Melidra to click her tongue in annoyance before stretching out her arm for a second time.
This time she put less focus on the energy flow and more on her aim, relying mostly on copying the path along which she guided the energy the last time.
While this resulted in her attack not missing a second time, the spell that manifested was a different one. Instead of the bolt of lighting, this time a sphere of the black smoky energy formed before her hand, shooting out after growing in size for a short moment.
Striking the man in the back with great speed, its energy quickly spread throughout his entire body. Before he even completed an entire step since being hit, the man collapsed with his body still carrying momentum that dragged him over the ground.
Walking to the unnaturally quickly decomposing body, Melidra only found a skeleton in the armor where he landed. Many of the joints were bent in strange angles due to the impact, something she noted only momentarily as her attention was drawn to the lack of life force she was absorbing.
Intrigued by this fact, she focused her perception on the pile of bones. Her inexperience combined with the lack of precision of her senses meant that she couldn't determine anything concrete, but just finding that his body had some of her energy moving inside it was strange to her.
Looking on in confusion for a bit, Melidra grew increasingly disappointed.
“At least it could have given me the life force.” She complained about the effect of her spell.
Saying those words, she didn't even realize the complete lack of reaction and remorse she showed toward absorbing the life force of these humans. Instead, she was even disappointed by the current lack of influx, missing the exhilarating feeling it brought her each time.
Walking away from the battle with little thought towards the massacre she just created, she decided to quickly gather the handful of items she had managed to gather before arriving here. Most were gifted to her by villages she had passed through in the past days and even though she had thrown away most of it, there were some helpful things among it that she would have missed had she escaped before the soldiers arrived.
Packed into two bags that she had gotten after saying her own had ripped during an animal attack, there were some basic survival tools. The most important among these was a large piece of flint as despite her eyes being better at night than a human's, they weren't anything too special.
The rest were mainly different tools, some of which she had taken from local smiths, that were useful in setting up camps or defending herself. She had yet to use the first group, but she still clung to the hope to have the freedom where she would find an opportunity. The second group was what she would have missed far more, a handful of small axes and a dagger that could come in handy should she need to defend herself a second time.
Throwing the two bags over her shoulder, she decided to pay another short visit to the battlefield to hopefully find at least some salvageable armor and weapons. Even if it would only be enough for herself she would be happy, anything beyond that would likely get her quite a lot of money from the next village she came across. And with weight being no trouble thanks to her virtually limitless stamina, it had no real negative to take some with her.
Thinking about her current main goal, to again be largely unidentifiable as an undead barring slip-up, she absentmindedly made her way back. While she was trying to figure out what had caused her initial reveal when there had been no trouble up until then and after it, she suddenly noticed movement at the position of the aura user's skeleton.
Seeing the bony figure slowly lifting itself up before turning towards her, she quickly let go of the two bags and grabbed a sword from the ground.
“I've killed you once I can do it again!” She shouted when the skeleton walked towards her, unsure of the truth of her words.
The skeleton's now black armor had had quite a bit of the black smoke she used flowing out between it and the body, with the same smoke fully covering the similarly black sword. This sight broke her confidence in the spells she had previously used, guessing that they would have little effect on what was already dead.
Instead, she lifted her sword before her and mimicked the energy's movement around the skeleton's weapon, creating an unstable copy of the smoky hue. Debating for a moment whether to run or not, Melidra decided against it out of fear that it had similar spells as she does.
Thus deciding to fight, she was just about to jump forwards and swing her sword when the skeleton fell on its knees. Stabbing its sword into the ground with both hands as bowed before her, it spoke in a strangely echoing voice.
“Mistress, this lowly servant is ready to fulfill your commands.” It said, shocking Melidra extremely.