Chương 185: AF Chapter 184– Requiems for more than the Dead

Banishing the depressing thought, Master Ben Ten gave his orders. The nets so painstakingly prepared were readied for use. If all went well, there would be no losses whatsoever in the coming fights, although the magic of the enemy was powerful enough that it was likely not going to be the case. That would be fine. Every undead slain rose again at midnight and would run back to the fight from their grave. It was not just the shades who did not die easily here, in the end.

The pit that would accept the bodies of the slain to burn in vivic fire was shallow, but it did not need to be deep. The bodies would Burn down to less than ash, after all. It was there to contain the mists more than anything else. Their duty was not yet done. He and all the other undead had looked upon the misty unwhite flames, more real than anything else in the shrouded world altered by their undead states, and knew that to throw themselves into them was to find final rest. But, no.

Those who had arranged for this were not yet punished for their arrogance and mockery, and the living were not yet re-established on Dereth proper. When the princess led a force to relieve them permanently of their duty, it would be time to die. The great swordmaster placed a skeletal hand into the purse at his side, clasped what it held, and withdrew it to gaze upon it.

A Diamond Heart, the intact surviving core of one of the powerful and fearsome D iamond G olums that could be found in all the more dangerous areas of Dereth. It was a rough and uneven thing, although residual lights of magic glimmered within it to his empty eye sockets, hinting at remaining power. The Magos had said that, given time and a Diamond Heart, she would be able to return the dead to life. She simply had to make it to Thirteen to do so.

When that happened, she could potentially reach back as far as thirty years to return the dead to life. Securing a heart hadn't been hard, as Diamond Golums formed out of the Linvak mountain s' flows of magic all the time. They were avoided by the living locals for the crushing power of their bludgeoning magic and the strength of their crystalline limbs, so hunting down a few of them and finally securing an intact Heart had not been all that difficult. Restoring the dead to life!

Truly the power of Matrix magic was beyond anything he had imagined, although the Magos had specifically said that Divine approval was needed for such a thing to work… and that meant the gods she worshiped would be involved. If they were the ones to gift mortal humans with such beneficial magic, good for improving the quality of life and not just for war, then he was perfectly willing to pay heed to more of their teachings.

He had particularly enjoyed it when Princess Kristie had spoken of Mithar and Valus, two very different gods with very different approaches to combat, both of them masters of their crafts, both of them used by Heaven in the fight against Evil. Both of them Masters of the Thunder in a warrior's soul!

The chance to play a game of go against the Grandmaster of the Gods was a big enough lure to almost guarantee he would walk into the vivic flames of his own accord, but the Warlord had just given him a look as she fought him to another draw over the chessboard, and said, "You aren't tired enough, and you don't need to rest. If you want to game with Mithar, then get stronger, walk on up to Heaven, and play a game with Him."

And if I can be restored to living, breathing life, that was exactly what I will seek to do, the old swordmaster promised himself. A quarter-mile away, the twisted, living black energy spirals of the Shadow Vortexes twisted, ripped open in an unpleasantly organic shrrrrwpppp of dimensions tearing, affording a momentary glimpse into a place of blood and shadows that might have affected a living person with nightmares, but which the undead only saw as the place of torment and hatred that it was.

Six shades, three each of the armored males and smoke-riding females, were disgorged into the world, stumbling and uncertain as they looked about at the other Shaded stationed patiently there, unmoving Summons waiting for something to 'proc' them – hah, such specific terms for alarming a Summoned! - and saw nothing to immediately enter battle with. The Lures had been taken down.

Ben Ten watched from afar as the new Shaded made out the unmoving lines of undead now completely encircling the ruins of Tou-Tou, the town's soil and stone long since corrupted black as pitch and ash by the energies of the Shaded home dimension leaking through here. Then one of the Void Lords seemed to utter a scream, a wicked morningstar trailing acid materialized in his hand, and he went charging out to the northwest and toward MacNaill's lines.

Companies of undead rippled, bows rising as the other shades followed the first one in a death rush towards them. The flanking elements that would close in on them from behind, if any survived the arrows soon to be unleashed, were kneeling and waiting for the order to envelop them and drag them down. There was another terrific ripping and shredding sound as the second Shadow Vortex split open, and half a dozen marguls tumbled and rolled forth from the madness within the place beyond.

They reclaimed their clawed feet quickly with flaps of their wings, looking about to the hills, and the Moon Legion undead patiently waiting for them. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Their wicked, hate-filled eyes found him, and he obliging ly drew Giri to fix their attention on him.

With spiteful curses in whatever passed for a tongue between them, the drakes flapped and hopped in his direction, moving with deceptive speed and marshaling energy for the ir first volley of spells as they did so. His students stepped up beside him, their own Weapons, agleam with power and strength that came from within, earned in battle and discipline and not the whims of whatever uncaring system of magic had been drawing on the treacherous ley lines, sliding silently to hand.

They were pulsing with the power and will of the Soul of those who held them, Weapons wielded by Profound Axe, Glaive, and Sword smen, the equal of anything they had ever held in their lives, even before the Fall. The darkly burning forms of the marguls hit eighty yards, and the War Magic came slamming in… Pyreal in tier, he judged, even as he moved, flowing into motion, and his students did the same, each of them picking a spell.

Ki and Soul cut in rippling motions, and the incoming flurry of Force and Fire magic was sliced apart harmlessly, dissipating about their teacher in ineffective sparkles of fading magic. The Vulns to Slashing and the Imperils from the Casters flared out in return, the little drakes lighting up in the same moment they Cast with the deadly D ebuffing magic. The archers, bows drawn and in Stance, released as one, and a hundred arrows streaked out from some of the finest bowmen, living or dead, in Dereth.

Archery could be Profound, too, after all. Some missed, erratic motion and the like doing the job, but four of the marguls were smashed right over, impaled by a dozen arrows that did not care for how dangerous they were, either. The remaining two stumbled forwards, arrows buried in them, leaping and winging forward as the archers calmly drew again. The two reached forty yards, and Ben Ten and his students cut.

The Sharding slices rippled out as their own living arcs of force, flashing across the intervening distance unerringly, and chopped the marguls into several pieces. Ben Ten just nodded as everyone lowered their Weapons.

"Officers, stand in front of your companies with your Weapons drawn, it will draw their eyes. Give them something to focus on." He waved forward the squad of the nimblest undead, who dashed out to grab the bodies of the things before they could dissipate and hurry them to the vivic pit, there to be ignited and join the Shaded things that had come before them.

The Moles who had joined them once their own surveying duties were superfluous watched from the side, Vivic Weapons drawn, there to make sure the corpses were set alight the instant they were brought in. Around the town, the elite of the Moon Legion stepped forth.

C ompany commanders and their lieutenants drew Weapons that gleamed with a purity and strength that was not natural to anything normally associated with the undead, and which certainly caught the eyes of the scores of Shaded positions scattered around inside the town in their knots and clusters. But they were slaves to the Summons system, and would not proc unless the undead advanced.

They could be lured forth and killed, but something would respawn to replace them within a mere handful of minutes, and he had personally come with the teams that had tested how long the Spawn Points could be Sealed. It was less than an hour before the vivic barrier to the respawns was forced away by the shadowy energies staining the Veil in this place, so a fool's game.

The six Shadow Pillars scattered around the ruins, either molded into place by willing shades or simply extruded from the earth in revulsion of what they were, all had to be brought down. The four vortices of unnatural fire, spewing hateflames and filling the air with mindless pain and fury, had to be sundered and quenched. Once they were gone, the Shadow Vortexes had to be cut through and disrupted and ever-burning vivic flames laid atop the long-standing ruptures in reality until they were properly Sealed.

It all had to be done with vivus and Vivic Weapons, and so the undead could not do the job. They'd probably Burn themselves to death just venturing into the area once the mistfires started spreading everywhere, fueled by Shaded deaths and the sheer amount of corruption in the land. Ben Ten did not begrudge the living the honor or the glory of their task. The next generation succeeding where their elders had failed was the proper way of things.

They had destroyed the Shaded One's attempt to fortify its defenses here, in wave after wave of disciplined and valiant efforts, and were now chewing through the last of those waves before resting, recovering using the time the undead were now buying for them. As they had for a generation, the Moon Legion and the Freeholders stood guard between the enemy and the living, and allowed the living to rest easily for yet one more night.

It was pretty quiet. The army of the living had stopped about five miles short of Tou-Tou. The last of the Shaded waves, a mere handful of dancing grievvers, had died to Vulns and arrow fire before it could reach their lines, Warlord Kris not even bothering to go out and lure them, the archers eager to affirm that yes, they could indeed kill them all before they came in range.

All the Disks that I'd spun up over the course of the day were occupied and the women unapologetically ceded them, covered up in their cloaks. The men unpacked bedrolls onto the sands or grass, some of the Aun just going out into the water, laying down, and dozing off in relief. The supply wagons had come barreling in at the end, dispensing alchemically-boosted food and drinks. While mostly restoring health and vigor, the fatigue was as much mental and magical as physical.

Everyone had indulged some of the best food they'd had in some time, or ever for some of the younger generation, and then everyone basically collapsed into heaps as soon as they got their armor off. the entire camp was quiet, save for the blowing of the sea-laden breeze and the low crackling of the fires.