Dragon Gods Reign

[Bral Kingdom]

Marching through the thick woodlands in one of the kingdom's less populated areas, Melidra made her way in the rough direction where she remembered her hometown to be. Trailing closely behind her while carrying her bags was the undead servant she accidentally created out of the aura user.

During the past few days, she had thoroughly tested his capabilities and had gotten great results. He had no core of life force like she did, something that was both a boon and a curse.

When she had ordered him to attack a small patrol they had encountered she had noticed the probably greatest of these boons.

Despite being slightly stronger and more resistant than during his lifetime, he quickly started to get overwhelmed by the coordinated effort of a mana user and the normal soldiers.

She was just to join in to save him when she noticed an ethereal tether connecting him to her, practically begging for her to channel some of the black energy she now knew was called death energy.

When an annoyed Cehlya had told her this after she had given it her own name, one she didn't find acceptable, she also gave her a quick explanation. Being the opposite of life energy, the energy that would become life force inside living beings, it served as the main foundation for the death element. And while life energy was also a central part of the element, life energy is only a secondary foundation.

And despite asking for more information on how to use it, Melidra only got the knowledge that her version of death energy was extremely diluted as its pure form was far too dangerous for her to handle.

At the same time, she learned that life energy is part of the death element despite the contrast, as pure death energy also carries pure life energy in it. Only due to the latter energy being split with the plant element is it not known as the element of life and death. Additionally, they can be separated though neither can exist in its purest form without the other.

With this knowledge she quickly gained ideas for more applications, slowly improving her control over the death energy. This allowed her to quickly act on this request, channeling some of her energy into her servant.

Being transmitted almost instantly, the energy started to repair the skeletal body of the former aura user while also refilling his reserves. This had allowed him to quickly turn the tide against the by now slightly tired opponents, with their life force being transferred to Melidra with the help of the same connection but notably not through it. Instead, it clung to its outside, losing a bit in the process of travel.

Another useful ability she discovered is the possibility for her to strengthen the knight by expanding his mana pool full of death energy with her own. During this, she also noticed the first drawback that likely came from his lack of life force core, the inability to grow stronger himself. This meant that he could only grow if she temporarily weakened herself, something that was risky due to the lack of death energy she found in the surroundings.

The second drawback she noticed was his lack of personality beyond the will to serve her. While this meant that she had another backup should her control via the tether fail, it also meant that his intelligence was limited when it came to social interactions. And with her now being unable to enter a village without risking discovery, she started to crave social interactions.

This was a major part of why she wanted to return to her village, hoping that they wouldn't judge her even if her nature was discovered.

Thus they ended up in this piece of forest, with Julius, the name Melidra had given him, giving her as much of the innate knowledge he had gained as he could express. One of the things she had learned due to this was the fact that the well-known classification of undead by which he would be a death knight had no basis in reality and only served to help humanoids standardize them.

When her follow-up inquiry revealed to her that yes, she could allow him to use magic if she had the skill to steer his growth, she was once again reminded why undead are so feared.

While they were in the midst of this, Melidra suddenly felt a mana presence on her right. And while it was still a few hundred meters away, the fluctuations in it were ones she had learned to associate with a being in the middle of a fight.

“Stay here.” She ordered her undead before grabbing a sword from the bags and making her way toward the source.

Sneaking through the woods, she slowly neared the fighting at a crawling pace. As soon as she came into the vicinity she noticed the extent of the damage, with trees toppled from a strong impact. Nonetheless continuing despite finding it harder and harder to find good cover as the rate of destruction increased, Melidra soon stood at the edge of an artificial clearing.

Using the canopy of a fallen tree as cover, she peered out onto the clearing before her. Standing amidst a few dozen if not hundreds of trees that were reduced to nothing more than splinters and the occasional larger piece there was a single Orc that fought a group of five humans.

The muscular green monster towered over them at nearly four meters in height, marking it as powerful even for its kind. This clearly showed in the fight, with the five humans being forced to constantly engage in a fighting retreat.

The two aura users that formed their vanguard would find themselves pushed back during every attempt to block one of the orc's swings, the improvised club made from the surrounding trees crashing into them. Only the fact that it often splintered when striking the shield one of the two was carrying allowed them to survive this long, their opponent needing a few valuable moments to grab a new weapon.

The other man had meanwhile less luck, his two-handed axe being not great at blocking the swings without causing him to be showered in splinters of wood.

Aiding them was the third and last aura user of the group, a man wielding a thin rapier. Sadly for him, his choice of weapon was a bad match again the orc, its thrusts barely even registering.

The last two members were the only ones to have any real effect as they engaged from afar. One was a woman with active mana but no aura or magic rank wielding an enchanted bow, the other was a female mage that seemed to be the orc's main target.

Considering that her spells seemed to be the only way the group could deal any meaningful damage as well as the orc's missing left tusk that should grow out of his lower jar, Melidra could guess why he was targeting her.

“Lara, tie him down!” She heard the shield-bearing man shout, making her increase the attention she put on observing the fight.

“I'm trying but he's too strong.” The mage shouted back.

Along with those words, Melidra noticed a small layer of ice that had formed below the orc's feet and was trying to grow up along his legs. But each step the monster took quickly shattered the ice, stopping him for not even a second.

“Lester, now!” The archer shouted though the orc reacted in time to strike against the incoming man.

“Don't shout timing, those above three meters can understand you.” The axe-wielding aura user shouted back.

Mentally noting this fact down, Melidra focused a bit more on estimating the orc's power. The only thing she knew was that they would reach about two meters by adulthood and would then grow in power, intelligence, and size until they reached four meters tall. By then they would have enough intelligence to learn aura and magic, making them great subordinates, mostly for more morally flexible individuals.

Aside from their destructive and monstrous nature, they were essentially a human with a longer base lifespan, stronger bodies, and more resilience. Even their intelligence was on a similar level, while their instincts to follow the strong can be seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage.

So when she focused and saw the orc's life force to surpass even the aura users it was fighting, Melidra was both wary and excited for the haul. Deciding to let the group tire him out further, she ordered Julius closer but not too close. The last thing she needed was a beacon that screamed undead stepping into the group's sensory range.

Slowly following the fight that carved an ever-growing chasm into the forest, she concluded that the humans would be the first to fall. Even if they had some luck, she was sure that they wouldn't come out of this with everyone alive.

This presented a conundrum for her, having to decide between saving them and risking discovery or letting them die. Considering that they had yet to scream undead, she believed that their senses weren't good enough to spot her but she didn't know if that would change if they were closer.

On the other hand, was the fact that they were likely adventurers hired by her village to defend it against the orc, in which case they were protecting, among others, her family.

While she was internally debating this, her attention on the fight was long enough reduced that she missed the last possible moment she could still save them all. By the time the mage's shout interrupted her thoughts, it was already too late.

“Allan!”

Looking up, Melidra saw the shield-wielding aura user lying amidst a pile of wooden derbies at the end of a thin line of toppled trees. The orc was meanwhile running straight for Lara, the mage, with rapid speed.

While the archer tried to block him, she was only a mana user and still had the body of a normal human. A single hit by the orc's hand was all it took to knock her out and injure her critically.

And with the axe wielder being left in the dust by the sudden dash while Lester, the rapier user, couldn't stop the orc, she was left alone.

Panicking, she stamped her staff onto the ground and created a thin sheet of ice between her and the orc. Along with this, she stretched her free left hand forward, sending a volley of sharp ice blades toward his leg.

Exhausting her entire reserves and being left panting, she already thought herself saved when she saw the sudden wounds causing the orc to stumble. While he probably could have caught himself on normal ground, the icy surface made him slip and topple over.

But at the same time, it prevented him from losing the momentum he had already built, leaving the even angrier hulking monster slithering towards her.

Staring at the incoming orc with wide, fearful eyes, Lara barely had time to even attempt to escape. Despite knowing that it was fruitless, she hurled herself to the side, barely managing to dodge the main mass. Nonetheless, she was catapulted away when the orc's weapon hit her. Landing harshly, her battered body crashed down amidst a quickly forming puddle of blood.

“Lara!” Lester shouted in shock.

Rushing towards her, he only realized the stupidity behind his action when he saw the orc's sinister smile as the makeshift club struck him in the chest. Just as he lost his consciousness he saw a black lightning impacting on the monster's chest, leaving him with at least some satisfaction when it stumbled back.

The two other aura user's heads had meanwhile snapped towards Melidra's position just as she walked out of her cover. Allan had even momentarily forgotten to continue freeing himself from the trees that had collapsed on him after he had been flung away.

“Who are you?” The axe wielder asked her, his voice filled with suspicion.

Already ready to pounce on her, he suddenly notice the orc still moving and quickly made the decision to ignore her for now. Even though he was sure that she couldn't have reached her spot just then as he was confident that he would have noticed, his anger over her inaction had to wait.

By the time the orc had managed to get up again, Allan had already rejoined him with a grim expression.

“Do you think we have a chance?” He asked, eying the black spot on its chest where Melidra's lightning had hit.

“We won't know until we try.” With this answer, Allan rushed towards the orc.

And while the other aura user followed closely after him, Melidra stayed back without any care in the world. Instead of casting a spell, she was watching the two dead's life forces leaving their bodies and again becoming life energy with an intrigued look.

Noticing that the life force core they had was quickly dissolving into death energy, she wondered whether the opposite would also be true. Focusing on her death energy, she carefully guided it through her body and to her hand where she forced it to form a sphere above her palm.

Attempting to recreate the phenomena in reverse, the sphere suddenly ballooned in size. Panicking, Melidra lost control over it which caused it to disperse in the form of a wave of death energy pulsing to all sides. While it didn't harm her, the trees and ground around her all instantly started to whither and die.

And while nature all around her died, Melidra suddenly found something from deep within her calling out. Following this instinct, she once again drew on her death energy reserves and repeated the same actions. But instead of it again growing uncontrollably, the sphere initially remained exactly the same size before constantly expanding for minuscule amounts after a few seconds.

Focusing on it, Melidra noticed a foreign energy flowing into the sphere, an energy she quickly recognized as life energy. With the realization dawning on her that whatever she had attempted had turned the surrounding life energy into death energy, she observed the process with care.

'Life and death are two sides of the same coin wasn't a metaphor.' She suddenly thought as she saw the change the life energy undertook.

As soon as the life energy entered the sphere, it would shift to become death energy and enlarge it. But as soon as she stopped her attempts to force the shift to life force they would instead remain as life energy and bind themselves to the death energy in a one-to-one ratio.

The two acted a bit like a coin that would always turn the same side to an onlooker no matter from where one looked. While it had two sides, only one could show at any given moment.

With this new understanding, Melidra waited for a few seconds while still ignoring the fight before her. Soon the ball of energy had regained its equilibrium, now being indistinguishable from the outside in both normal vision and her death and life vision.

Trying again, she took control of the life energy that was in the area where the sphere once was while being careful to separate it from the surrounding energy. Slowly she sensed an imbalance return, she smiled as a white ball of life energy formed above her palm.

As soon as she completely turned it into life energy, she pointed her palm toward the dead aura user and controlled it to shoot into his heart. As soon as it sunk into the ethereal space that is the mana pool, it started to change to life force and spread through his entire body.

This caused his wounds to heal at a visible rate, the broken bones snapping back together with a crunch while the skin mended itself.

“Color me impressed, I expected it to take longer.” Cehlya suddenly spoke to Melidra, “As a reward, I will even return these two souls, but for the future, you will have to learn how to do so yourself.”

As soon as she finished speaking the aura user's eyes suddenly shot open and after staring into the air in shock for a solid few seconds, his hand started checking his body in disbelief.

But Melidra was already ignoring him, instead focusing on the second idea she had gotten. Creating another sphere of life energy, she created one of death energy in her other hand. Emboldened by Cehlya's words that she doubted were reserved for learning something even some human mages can do, she instead interpreted it as her meaning this idea.

Slowly and carefully moving her hands together, she forced the two spheres into each other while still keeping the energies separated. Initially noticing it to be far easier than she had expected, she suddenly lost control of the spheres for a moment as they snapped together.

Seeing the ball with both black and white swirls of energy flowing inside, Melidra started smiling from ear to ear. Wanting to get her final confirmation, she shot the energy toward the mage's body.

Sinking into her mana pool similarly to how the life energy had done with the aura user, her body suddenly started to dissolve into ash. The disappointment was just about to set in for Melidra when she noticed the life energy around that spot to start moving after a few seconds.

Slowly an ethereal copy of the mage's body formed where she had been. Another few seconds later, it started to slowly solidify and became more physical with each moment. Barely a few seconds later this physical body had completely replaced the ethereal one, leaving her completely healed.

After a few uncertain seconds, she shot up in a similar state of shock as the aura user had been. And while she was working through this shock, Melidra couldn't help but laugh as she felt a tether connecting them like the one she had with Julius. But instead of being solely for death energy, this one could also transport life energy.