Dragon Gods Reign

[Bral Kingdom]

Watching the undead march around the village, Melidra’s doubts over her own idea resurfaced. But knowing that this was the best idea she had kept them at least somewhat at bay.

When the adventurers told her of the war that was drawing closer to her home village, she had initially panicked. She was well aware that her current power wasn’t enough to protect her, let alone her parents and siblings.

So when the knowledge of the war spread through the village and more and more voiced their opinion in favor of leaving now, she was somewhat at a loss. Even just her parents, all three of her brothers, and her sister were nearly too large a group to protect but it could be done. But her siblings already had families of her own, making it practically impossible.

Overhearing the mayor pleading with the adventurers to guard them during their journey she remembered Isaac’s story. If, as they argued, they were too few to guard such a large group, then she would just have to organize more fighting-able bodies. And what better way to do so than to utilize her unique status to amass an army of undead.

This thought led her into the current situation, silently stalking around Isaac’s birth village. Inside the undead hordes were slowly wandering about, animated corpses and skeletons working tirelessly to repair and expand the small fortification it had been turned into.

Continuing to observe them from a safe distance, she soon saw the only gate opening and a small patrol marching out of it. About two dozen zombies, each armed with crude steel weapons and a battered breastplate, accompanied a nearly four meter tall hulking figure that can only have once been an orc.

Striding along behind the zombies, it lazily dragged the large axe it was carrying behind it as they marched into the forest. With each of its steps it crossed nearly twice the distance as the zombies, forcing them to practically run lest they be squashed to paste.

Watching them marching ever further from the camp, Melidra suddenly got an idea. Instead of continuing to scout out the necromancer's base while she waited for the adventurer group to arrive, she followed the group.

'Why did I even agree to wait for them before attacking, their only purpose is to serve as displayable guards for the journey.' She thought to herself.

Stealthily following the undead by using the former orc's marching as cover, she waited until they were far enough from the camp to make her move. All the while she scanned them, searching and soon finding weaknesses.

The most glaring of these was the orc itself, something that would seem counter-intuitive to most. Possessing the most death energy, he was clearly the most powerful of the undead and practically impossible to take down quickly.

But when Melidra focused closer on it, she noticed the reason for this unbalanced investment by the necromancer. Just like Julius was tethered to her, the orc was tethered to a being inside the fort, a being she assumed to be the necromancer. Contrary to that, the zombies were connected to the orkish undead instead of directly to the necromancer, making it function like a relay station.

Instead of the necromancer either giving each undead predetermined orders that they will follow no matter what or directly controlling them, the orc receives orders and gives them on. And due to its at least acceptable intelligence, it can better act as needed than the normal undead.

This, combined with the heavy armor the skeletal orc was wearing that made it even more difficult to take down, meant the group would be a formidable fighting force for nearly all equal opponents.

Taking note of this ingenious idea, Melidra was already refining it with her methods while she launched her attack. But considering that she was probably one of the worst matchups for these groups in existence, she didn't need to focus on it fully.

Gathering life energy from the surroundings, something she found far easier to control since copying what she did to Lara and reshaping her own death energy core to her mixed energy core, she became like a beacon for the undead.

Even the orc could no longer control itself as a primal terror crept up on it, the sphere of energy feeling like its greatest enemy. Before it could react, Melidra sent the attack toward its target.

Watching the life energy impacting the orc skeleton, she smiled faintly as she saw each last bit of the death energy that was sustaining it combining with the life energy of her attack. What remained was a complete equilibrium and a tiny bit of remaining life energy that continued onwards.

Before the pile of bones even crashed to the ground she was already walking toward them, satisfied with the accuracy of her calculation that led to only little wasted energy.

While she was walking closer, she also took care to watch the zombie's connections, waiting for the exact moment when they were the weakest to take them over. Instantly their attempts to reinforce the connection directly to the necromancer stopped, the unstable tethers simply breaking before being replaced by her control.

Without managing to make even one strike, over two dozen of the necromancer troops fell under her control. But despite this, Melidra still wasn't satisfied with her haul and turned towards the pile of orc bones.

With only a light upwards motion of her hand, it became enveloped by a fog of death energy, causing the bones to slowly rise up and reform into the skeleton. As soon as it did, she reestablished its connection with the zombies but with her own improvements.

Now the skeleton's connection to the zombies went both ways similar to that between her and Julius. This meant that the zombies who weren't capable of turning the life force of slain beings into their strength could transfer it to the skeleton who could. In turn, it could use it to strengthen either itself or the zombies.

This greatly reduced the impact the lack of a death zone had on large hordes of weaker undead. Instead of having to rely on high concentrations of death energy to grow stronger, the controlling undead could do so instead.

The amount by which this strengthened the viability of such hordes so much that Melidra wondered how no necromancer seemed to have gotten this idea. But despite these thoughts, she didn't dwell on them for long, chalking it up to it being a unique ability she gained due to her special circumstances.

Wasting no time, she ordered the orc skeleton to hide close to the village's gate and take a defensive position there before rushing back to the fort ahead of them. Just as she arrived there she saw two similar groups marching out of the gate, their hurried march showing the necromancer's anger.

But instead of waiting like previously, Melidra drew the sword on her waist and charged at them. Enveloping it with a layer of life energy, swung the glowing white blade in a crescent arc. Cutting a trail through the empty air before her, the sword's energy flew forward as a slash-like projectile that barely dimmed even after splitting one of the two orc skeletons in two.

Not staying to watch it impacting the wooden walls and causing new branches to grow from them, Melidra turned tail and ran into the forest. The remaining group of undead on her tail, she managed to disappear into the forest before the rain of arrows from behind the walls could come down on her.

Taking care to not lose their pursuit, she used the opportunity to refill her life energy pool. At the same time, she spread her perception as wide as she could, picking up each of the smaller groups of undead soldiers chasing after her.

Gauging how far she would still have to lead them before none should make it back to the fort in time when she attacks, she continues onwards. Suddenly she felt another group of presences entering her awareness, though this time it were living beings.

Unsure whether these were soldiers, adventurers, or civilians, she made the snap decision to bank on one of the first two possibilities. Changing her path towards them, she controlled her presence to radiate life force by channeling life energy through her body before expelling it.

Apart from the main intention to cover any death energy she might radiate, this had the secondary effect to intensify the fervor with which the undead chased after her. While life energy was deadly for them by returning their death energy to an equilibrium, the change it undergoes by becoming life force upon fusing with living beings makes it a tasty meal instead.

Continuously weaving through the dense forest, Melidra watched with a smile as the group sped up toward her. This increased her confidence in her previous assessment, unconsciously making her speed up as the last bit of hesitation flew out of the window.

From that point it took barely over two minutes for her to come close to the group, making them out to be soldiers once she saw them. Continuing to rush towards the wall of spears without hesitation, her eyes suddenly grew wide as she saw the glint of arrowheads between the soldiers.

Barely ducking as around fifteen projectiles flew out of the formation, she avoided the handful that would have hit her torso. The rest flew past her, hitting their target just like those whose line of fire she blocked.

Ignoring thuds coming from behind her as the arrows lodged themselves into the zombie's flesh, she did her best to keep herself from stumbling. Managing to do it with some success, she came to a stop only to find herself right at the point of collision between the undead and soldiers.

Right as the shock of this sank in and she prepared to change her plan, the soldiers got the order to attack. Piercing their spears forward, they impaled nearly all of the zombies. But one of these spears first found itself piercing through her abdomen before striking the zombie that had been creeping up on her.

Turning her head to the soldier holding the spear, she stared at him with rage in her eyes.

With their heads barely twenty centimeters apart she could clearly make out the steeled eyes as he stared back at her, making her sure that he was a veteran who knew combat against other humans.

“I just wanted to use you to lessen the depletion of my reserves but fine, your way. But don't forget, this is your fault.” She said in a calm tone, her previous agitation completely gone.

Before the man could even realize what she meant with her words her hand had already shot forward and grabbed him by the throat. Lifting him up, her eyes became an endless black expanse as death energy rolled off her body in streams.

Finding its first target in the soldier she was holding up, it invaded his body. After about a second of nothing happening, his eyes suddenly turned black and he momentarily became limp. But as soon as Melidra dropped him he caught himself again and ripped his spear out of her with one strong pull.

Wincing slightly while ignoring the zombie that crashed into her back, Melidra watched as the soldier searched and found a new target before simply marching on. Now behind the line of spears, only the crossbowmen and the terrified commander were before her.

“Aim!” He shouted in a panic, raising his crossbow.

Feeling him to be an early first rank aura user and his crossbow to be a weak magic weapon, put some attention on him. Before he could lift his crossbow, her arm shot forward and fired a spike of death energy at him.

At the same time as this projectile seemed to become liquid and started seeping into the man's body, she shot similar attacks at the other crossbowmen. Watching with a dangerous smile as they became similarly covered by death energy, she watched out for the battle as she waited for their transformation to finish.

After a few seconds, the liquid death energy covering the commander suddenly started seeping into his body, slowly revealing his mostly unchanged form. Only those who can sense mana would be able to feel the difference, mana-less people could only hope to spot the black eyes.

Suddenly his frozen figure moved, instantly lifting the crossbow and letting a blackish arrow manifest in it. With his transformation the enchantment of the crossbow was also changed, now having the ability to form bolts of death energy instead of using fire aura for it.

Aiming at the nearest soldier, he shot his former subordinate in the back. A moment later the crossbowmen around him mirrored his actions, reducing the number of soldiers to three in just one salvo.

This salvo was accompanied by a flash of white as Melidra fired another attack made from life energy that caused the orc skeleton to collapse.

Her smile widened as she took over another group in the same manner, she waited not a moment before ordering them to move out. At the same time, she commanded the first group to block any reinforcements from the fort or any returning groups.

The hunt was on and she wasn't willing to leave even a single undead out of her control.