Chương 36

The undead had assembled again at the banquet organized by General Skullthrax. More specifically, they were there because the general had told them there would be merry, merry developments in the war against the humans. Even though, so far, said war hadn't really gone according to plan. And so the dark goblets full of blood were now only half drunk, because everybody was on edge.

Many were now sighing in relief, while General Skullthrax balled a fist in victory when he saw that Queen Zosma's body had started to shake.

"It finally all goes according to plan," Count Vorthug exhaled. General Skullthrax looked at the man but didn't say anything. For once, he was thinking the same. That "finally" was really warranted. It had been a series of unfortunate events involving this Diver John. Never before in a tutorial had General Skullthrax met someone so in the way of his people. John O'Donnell was a thorn in his side. But now he was about to excise that thorn and get rid of it once and for all.

Queen Zosma had been branded with the Mark of the Beast. It was a ritual spell so powerful that it would let them take control of one of the strongest bosses on the entire first floor. And General Skullthrax had used this as his greatest backup plan, because Queen Zosma needed sacrifices in order to complete her transformation. The Mark of the Beast would slowly unravel her and then turn her into an undead of incredible power.

But to do so, she needed to consume extremely powerful flesh — and not in terms of levels. He looked at John O'Donnell and Alice Moon. Those were the names of the two Divers who would provide the main feast for Queen Zosma. He would have them both eaten on the spot. The rest of the team didn't even matter. They wouldn't make much of a difference, as Rankers were blessed by the System with innate talents that were impossible to see with the naked eye.

But an undead consuming them would absorb those powers and grow infinitely stronger. That still wouldn't be enough to let the Mark of the Beast take hold completely. Queen Zosma would just slowly become thinner and thinner, until there was only skin and bones, because of the lack of nourishment — if John and Alice were the only two meals prepared for her. However, there was one more person that General Skullthrax was looking at.

He was a very tall man by now, and apparently, from the reports of his underlings, this human was undergoing some sort of race evolution. General Skullthrax made small talk and said, "Have we ever recorded a race evolution this early into the tutorial?" The undead all shook their heads.

"Lord, there's usually not enough mana, even if someone has the right inclination. So he is an anomaly."

"Should we feed them to Queen Zosma, or—""We'll have to. We don't have a direct line with the liches, and they have orders to consume them all. If they were so farsighted as to save the man and turn him instead, perhaps, after the change was complete, I would promote all of them myself and get them elixirs of undeath to grow stronger. They showed great promise in terms of magical power and intellect. We shall see."

Those three liches that General Skullthrax had sent had had to recreate the slave scrolls from scratch, and not even General Skullthrax would underestimate the magnitude of such a task. It wasn't something just anybody could do. You had to be incredibly gifted in magic in order to be able to do something like that.

"Your Majesty," Xivitz suddenly said, making everybody go silent. And General Skullthrax immediately incinerated the lanky zombie with a glare of his flaming eyes.

"Xivitz, do not say a word. You've clearly been cursed, and I shall not bear any more comments from you until that bastard John is dead. I don't want you to act as his guardian angel anymore. So please, quiet, until they die. It won't take much longer anyway." Xivitz swallowed, even in his undead form, and then simply pointed a finger at the screen. General Skullthrax turned and saw bright fireworks going off in the Cathedral of Undeath.

"What the hell is that?" General Skullthrax shouted, revealing some panic — and immediately feeling ashamed about it afterward, because why was he feeling afraid of a simple human over some shiny light show? This was nothing, he told himself. Then he repeated it out loud.

"This is nothing. He shall perish." But something deep inside of him was experiencing a strong feeling of unease. I looked at Queen Zosma and immediately activated the fireworks, tossing them on the ground. The little wooden box opened itself to reveal the usual cylinders, already pointed upward, and I typed in chat real fast: "Queen Zosma is about to turn undead — or against us. Alice, focus fire on the liches. It's a boss fight. They can't escape. Everybody else, support her." The group obeyed without a word.

We had already agreed to use the chat as a way to communicate in front of enemies such as these. And now it was time to put it into practice. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. So Alice immediately raised her guns and shot down the three liches in a matter of instants. They disintegrated. But even with their bodies half blown apart, the dust from their bones gathered together moments after.

Lucas typed into the chat: "Liches have phylacteries, so we have to find them. I'm seeing some weird constructions at the very end of the cathedral with my Farsight skill. Alice, keep them busy. Tina, come with me. Marcus, Hailey, cover us and stay behind us." Lucas and Tina started running past the liches as Alice turned down the power of her guns to just incapacitate them momentarily, before their bodies could reform. Even while taking all this damage, however, the fireworks were doing the biggest job of all.

All the monsters in the room, including Queen Zosma — whose skin was starting to be fully covered in runes — were looking up in awe at the fireworks. That's what the fireworks had been designed for. I ran up to Queen Zosma and racked my brain for a solution. I didn't want to try and kill King Pussycat's wife outright. But looking at that complicated magic all over her body, I prayed. I genuinely prayed to whatever divine being was out there, because this was not a moment for non-believers.

And I wished so hard: Please, Sphere of Intuition, please let me fucking see what I can do to help her. I put a hand behind Queen Zosma's neck — she was so stunned by the spectacle that she was still doing nothing — and then I fully immersed myself into the Sphere of Intuition. And so I started looking. Everything went silent around me. Even the loud explosions in this enclosed space felt like nothing as I felt the warm runes shifting under the skin beneath my hand, trying to rearrange the bones of the woman.

I breathed in and out. Then, seeing all the flux of power coalescing right under her belly, I saw the core that held all of Queen Zosma's power. It was a ball about the size of a large marble, and it was made of gold and energy and darkness. I looked at that, and the Sphere of Intuition told me what to do.

Just as one of the last fireworks was about to go off — the grand finale — before Queen Zosma would start turning, I sidestepped, got in front of the woman, looked into her eyes, whose cat-like pupils had started reddening, and said, "Sorry." And I stabbed the spear, using the Sphere of Intuition to guide my hand, piercing that small core right above her belly button. The spear found some resistance from the powerful woman, but my Strength came in handy.

And right as I pierced that core, I thought, If I had one less point in Strength, this would not have worked. It was an instinct — or one might call it an intuition. The spear pierced the ball, and a light brighter than any of the fireworks — which had left behind quite a thick smoke curtain in the Cathedral of Undeath — shone upon everybody. It shone blindingly bright, but with dark streaks in it. I suddenly felt all the air cut from my lungs as Queen Zosma punched me in the chest and then grabbed my throat.

Her features had started to monsterify. She had started to turn into a feline-like monster whose flesh was rotting. And as Queen Zosma pulled my head closer, about to bite me before her energy drained out, I did the only thing that my human mind could think of. Instead of resisting the pull, I grabbed the back of Queen Zosma's head and gave her the biggest headbutt on the nose that I could.

"It's these ones," Lucas said, pointing at three columns of bone that brimmed with power. Tina quickly used three Empowered mana balls, downing two mana potions in between, to reduce all three phylacteries to dust. The liches screeched, and the next shots Alice put through them killed them for good. But it was Lucas who had turned toward John — the only one, thanks to his Farsight skill, who witnessed what had just happened.

Queen Zosma had started turning into a monster right after John had pierced her belly and a blinding light had come out of it. Then, with her head turning into a feral undead creature and about to bite John's face off, John had done the unthinkable, grabbing the back of her head. He had—"What the fuck is he doing?" Lucas muttered in disbelief, almost crying as he saw John about to get killed. He was about to draw his bow. But the headbutt hit Queen Zosma right on the animal-like nose and made her recoil.

She dropped a half-unconscious John, who wheezed on the ground and started snorting and coughing. Then all her power started draining from her, and Lucas saw her tag display a change. [Queen Zosma - Level 22 (Boss)] [Queen Zosma - Level 18 (Boss)] [Queen Zosma - Level 14 (Alpha)] And it went all the way down, until her tag displayed: [Queen Zosma - Level 1] No other title beside it.

"Holy shit," Lucas said. But then he heard a rumbling. There was something coming down the huge stairs that had just opened behind the cathedral.

"Guys, let's get out of here," Lucas said. They quickly looted the lich corpses and everything they could find. Then Marcus took both John and Queen Zosma on his shoulders, and they ignored all the blinding notifications about defeating the boss. Lucas put the rest of the C4 that John had given him before the fight onto the walls of the cathedral, and they made their way back. But right when Lucas heard and saw the first undead starting to come off the cathedral stairs on the other side, he saw something.

The giant boss-fight win text that had literally appeared above them shot a beam of pink light. Lucas saw what such a beam had dropped. And looking at the Apprentice Death Knight that was charging, and at Hailey, Tina, and Alice, who were about to pull the boss doors closed, he said, "Fuck. Wait." He ran back with them screaming at him.

"Lucas, what the fuck are you doing?" Tina shouted at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face.

"Have you lost your mind? Don't kill yourself."

"Fuck you," Lucas replied.

"I'm not killing myself." They swore at each other, as Lucas was the only one who had seen what had actually dropped. A hero's heart. Lucas slid on the ground and grabbed the much larger heart that was resting there — right when an Apprentice Death Knight was just a few feet from him, already raising its large spear. Then Lucas thought, I'm about to die. Fuck. He clutched the hero's heart. But then he saw the shoulder sockets of the undead explode.

And he turned to see that Alice had stepped into the room again, shooting with both her guns.

"Run!" Alice roared as she held back the tide of undead. Lucas scrambled up and made his way back faster than any undead, thanks to his Dexterity. They made it to the double doors of the boss room, which had opened when they had defeated the boss, and closed them behind them. The undead clattered uselessly against the doors as the team ran.