Dragon Gods Reign

[Bral Kingdom]

Standing in front of the fortified town with a smirk, Melidra enjoyed the obvious rage of the necromancer. Wave after wave his mana washed over her as she ignored each of his attempts at intimidating her.

With any other kind of mage, she would never have dared this as her own estimates barely put her into the second rank. But just like how other mages leaned heavily towards one or two elements, according to the intelligence she gained from the converted commander, the necromancer never showed any strong proficiencies outside of the death element which she could counter.

Thus she now saw herself ready to confront him directly, the army of undead standing behind her giving her the power to do so.

Flaring her death energy in response to the waves of mana, she watched in amusement as the necromancer's mana momentarily grew chaotic. Before he could recover from the surprise she brought him, she stretched her hand forward and shot a beam of death energy at the wooden wall.

As soon as her attack struck, the wood started rotting at great speed. Becoming brittle within seconds, the necromancer's reaction of ordering the undead of the nearby parts of the wall was too late. Collapsing in on itself, the wall fell before they could follow the command.

Utilizing the opening before the enemy undead could fill it again, Melidra ordered her troops to advance.

As soon as she did, a salvo of arrows ripped through the air toward the walls. The normal arrows proved to be nearly completely useless, either just lodging themselves into the wall or sinking into the flesh of an undead with minimal effect. But the death energy arrow that the former commander and now leader of the ranged squad used proved to be more useful as it struck another part of the wall and visibly weakened it.

And though the rot was far from what she achieved, it wasn't nothing. Ordering him to continue, Melidra hoped to widen the breach without having to use her own reserves. And considering the speed with which the wood started to decay under the arrows that impacted it every few seconds, this was quite possible.

While the ranged squad did this, the other undead marched against the wall in a wide formation. Quickly the first skirmishers started reaching the breach, the groups consisting mostly out of animals from the surroundings that Melidra had turned.

Rushing into the gap in the wall, dozens of undead animals ranging from wolves to bears crashed into the defenders. Mercilessly ripping the lightly armored and armed undead apart, their momentum only slowed down very gradually.

When it did, they had already managed to rip apart a sizable portion of the enemy's lower-level undead. But when it came to the large specimens, mainly consisting of orc skeletons, their numbers fell just as quickly if not quicker.

Each swing of the giant weapons these undead carried flung dozens of Melidra's creations through the air. Most of these were permanently taken out of the fight even if they survived, the weapons either bisecting or crushing them. Of the few that weren't hit too hard by the initial strike, many were damaged enough by the fall to no longer pose a danger.

Watching the mass of her troops slowly thinning out, Melidra soon ordered them back. Even if they were easy to replace by using the sizable populations in the nearby forests, she had better uses for them than to waste them in this meat grinder when they had already fulfilled their purpose.

Following her order without delay, the undead rushed right through the approaching troops. Having ordered the larger skeleton commanders to leave lanes in the ranks of their zombie troops, the front-line exchange was executed with an efficiency that few living armies could show.

From then it took only a few seconds for the enemy leaders to find their matches. Giant skeleton clashed against giant skeleton, each of their blows mowing down nearby troops.

Quickly it became apparent that Melidra's side had the advantage despite their numerical superiority being largely negated by the choke point that the wall presented. When after about a minute of fighting the next piece of the wall broke down this difference suddenly widened even further.

Two of the orcs she had held back from the main fight instantly rushed through the newly enlarged part of the breach, leading the humanoid zombies under their command from the front. Before the defenders managed to organize a defense against them, they already crashed into their flanks.

The zombies quickly swarmed their opposites who were soon pushed back under the double-sided assault. And once the breach was fully crossed by Melidra's army, the necromancer's soldiers quickly fell like flies as she ordered them to use their numerical superiority to its fullest.

At the same time, the first leader also fell, with one of the two orcs that had rushed through the widened part of the breach surprising it with a strike to the neck. Cleaving right through the gap in the enemy's armor, it circumvented the great defense the full plate armor provided.

With its head separated from its body and thus from the source of death energy, the skeleton lost all abilities to think. But instead of its body continuing to mindlessly strike around it due to the remaining death energy still animating it for a while, it simply collapsed as the enemy's death energy caused chaos in its body and interfered in the process.

Before the body even hit the ground, the two remaining leaders instantly switched to new targets. The freshly joined one rushed to intercept the reinforcements sent to block the new breach while the other one went to intervene in another fight.

Though with the element of surprise gone the effect it could achieve before another enemy leader attacked it was rather small. Compared to the lower soldiers, these leaders had enough intelligence to know how to wield a weapon and an armor that could block quite a few strikes.

So instead of felling another enemy, Melidra's troops only managed to push it back a few meters before another enemy arrived. But with the fighting on the left flank where the breach had widened now being pushed a few meters past the walls, more and more of her troops quickly started rushing in and dispersing into the town.

Some went and started subjugating the unarmed undead, nearly all of whom were once the civilians living in the village. The rest soon swung back around to complete the encirclement of the defenders.

Watching her leader class undead starting to overwhelm those of the enemy, Melidra started walking into the town herself. Accompanied by the wave of animal undead she had previously pulled back, she leisurely walked past the fighting and into the village.

Making her way straight towards the necromancer's location near the town's center, nodded in satisfaction as she saw her troops controlling the unarmed enemies. With the leaders using their far superior strength to force the rioting undead into closed-off areas, they managed to do so without doing much damage.

As Melidra neared the necromancer's position, she ordered the undead accompanying her to disperse and hunt down any armed stragglers.

Walking the last four or five hundred meters on her own, she soon felt death magic spells trying to affect her. Chuckling at the futile efforts, she used her energy to easily shrug them off before continuing on.

In doing so she created a small pause in the spells targeting her, with the necromancer being momentarily shocked. But a moment later another wave of spells came her way, this time no formless ones.

Watching as tens of death spears flew her way, Melidra decided to let her opponent feel true despair. Holding out her hand, she took hold of them before funneling their energy right into her core and expanding it ever so slightly.

Smiling at the scream of rage and disbelief that followed, she was just about to mock him when she watched the building he was in explode. Dodging the debris that was flung in all directions, she finally saw the necromancer directly.

Standing there was a frail, rather old man completely dressed in black robes. Using the staff he was holding to support himself, he stared at her in rage.

“Tell me wench, who ordered you to attack me.” He practically screamed at her.

“Oh, how come you think I am not doing it out of my own volition?” She asked him.

Scoffing in disdain at the notion she brought up, the man acted as if it was the funniest notion he ever heard.

“Come on, you don't want to tell me a bitch like you came about on her own. Undead serve a necromancer, that's the natural order of things.”

“Believe what you will but I promise that once I'm done, that worldview will crumble.” Melidra answered.

Before he could continue speaking, she had already pointed her outstretched arm at him. Right with the end of her sentence, a bolt of death energy shot out from it, causing the necromancer to panic and erect a hurried defense. When her attack impacted this shield spell, it managed to crack the shield before losing its energy.

Despite this, the necromancer started feeling pressured by the power she displayed, and after just a short deliberation he chose to use his trump card. Stomping his staff onto the ground and casting a spell, he caused two black swirls of energy to appear at his sides.

Before Melidra could react, two blurs of speed rushed out from these and towards her. Barely dodging by jumping back with all her strength, her eyes widened as she saw the two being now standing before her.

Two wolf-type beasts of about twenty meters in length stood before her, their forms well enough preserved that she needed a second look to identify them as undead. Both had differently colored fur, with one's being blue and the other red.

“Haha, how do you like my puppies? Getting a hold of them nearly cost me my life but in the end, they were worth it.” The necromancer boasted to her.

“Shut up old man, be happy that we can't rip you apart due to this spell.” The red wolf instantly growled back.

This exchange surprised Melidra who never had seen an undead showing hostility to its master. Taking another look and confirming that they were indeed tethered to the necromancer, she found something to be different about them but couldn't quite figure out what it was.

“But it exists so kill her, now!” The necromancer shouted at the two wolves.

With hesitation visible in their eyes, the two beasts turned to Melidra. This caused her to tense up and use the full extent of her physique for the first time since the first fight in the village.

The world around her instantly slowed down as her mind was pushed to its limit and fully focused on the present. Not thinking for long, she pushed off of the ground and started running towards the two wolves.

Before she even managed to take the second step they started to rush at her with speed even greater than her own. It barely took a moment before they pounced on her, with the red wolf striking directly at her while the blue one blocked off her retreat.

Dropping to the ground to dodge this attack, Melidra slithered a meter or two before jumping up with her sword in hand. Encasing it in life energy, she tried to slash at the red wolf's now exposed underside.

Though before her strike connected, the wolf managed to jump back thanks to its instincts that had started screaming at it. Upon landing, it saw the glowing life energy blade and shuddered. Thinking for a moment about what would have happened had her strike connected, both of the wolves grew cautious.

“How?! And even without an artifact, tell me, now!” The necromancer screamed when he saw her blade.

Compared to previously only feeling someone using life energy, he now directly saw it being used by what he thought to be an undead. Mumbling incoherently as his entire worldview shattered, her barely even paid attention to the fight anymore.

Using the opportunity in the form of a lull in the fighting that this provided, Melidra spoke to the two wolves.

“If I can free you, would you switch sides?” She asked bluntly.

“That's a big if, but yes.” The blue wolf replied to her, amused by the ridiculousness of her request.

Before he could even say anything else, chains made of pure death energy erupted out of the ground directly below it. Winding around the wolf's body, they barely managed to bind the beast for a second before shattering it into thousands of pieces.

“Don't waste your energy little one, we still have our souls. Unless that prick of a man dies or you can overpower his spell, we're fated to serve him and experience every second of it.” The wolf said in response to this.

“So run, before it's too la-” The red wolf added, just to be interrupted as the necromancer took hold of her.

A moment later wave of fire erupted out of her maw, with the blue wolf attacking her with a highly pressurized mass of water from the other side. Seeing no chance to dodge these two attacks, Melidra was forced to conjure a shield of both death and life energy around her. The mix of the two energies formed a swirling sphere of different colored streaks similar to her core, their combined power giving the shield enough strength to endure the attacks.

Hiding below this barrier, Melidra waited for the attack to end. Simultaneously she thought of ideas of how to try and overpower the binding spell on the two beasts, seeing as defeating them was the only way to win against the necromancer.

Soon seconds became minutes as she still waited for the attack to end. And just as she was about to think that her opponents had endless energy, she felt the two attacks slowly dying down. Sighing in relief due to her own rather low reserves, she took a deep breath before enacting the plan she had concocted.

Dispersing the shield, she drew back as much of its energy as she could before adding most of her remaining reserves. Using another attack similar to the one she had used on the blue wolf, she changed it to also include life energy.

The two colored chains quickly wrapped around both beasts who quickly noticed them to be different than the previous ones. Using all of their willpower, they did their best to resist the necromancer's control in an effort to aid them.

Clashing against his spell, Melidra's energy slowly started to push it back and replace his control with her own. Noticing this, the necromancer panicked and without thinking, he cast spell after spell on her.

Realizing too late that this was a mistake, his eyes grew wide as her body erupted in a wave of death energy that instantly shattered his spell. Grasping his chest as he felt the two tethers breaking, he fell to his knees.

Still seeing Melidra collapsing from exhaustion, he didn't have time to celebrate as the two wolves turned to him. Gulping, he felt a chains of water that rose from the ground garbing a hold of him as the two beasts slowly walked over.