Chương 65: The Purple Man

Aaron looked at the pale blue figure. His form was too blurry to make out, obscured by waves and shimmers of mana. The most he could tell was that he was slim and a little bit taller than him. It was more like looking at a silhouette than a man. He was trying to speak, but the voice was muffled and faded. He raised out a hand towards Tim, who was standing above the bat, covered in blood. He froze and grabbed his neck as if something was strangling him. A black, gloopy mass crawled out of his throat.

The same mass that Aaron once tried to purge. The black mass shot across the room at the speed of an arrow and combined with the blue man, turning him a sinister shade of purple instead.

"Ahhh, that's more like it," The purple man said. His voice sounded like it was playing double, slightly out of sync with itself and muffled like it was behind a wall. It was as if someone was speaking to them from far away, yet he stood right in front of them. Aaron ran over to his brother, ignoring the man. He had collapsed onto the floor and fallen unconscious. Aaron's hands became wet and sticky with blood as he tried to shake his brother awake. His True Sight told him that he was alive and well.

His injuries were superficial, and his heart and lungs were working fine, but his mana was low, and his body was in a state of shock. He dipped into his power and used Manipulate to seal up the worst of the wounds, but was careful to preserve some mana. There wasn't much to heal. Tim's injury wasn't physical. Tim's heavy breathing eased a bit as he lay on the floor in the middle of the room. Alex came along and lifted him up and dragged him across the room towards the wall.

It looked like a kind thing to do, but instincts told Aaron he was motivated at least partly by cowardice. Looking after Tim meant being out of the line of fire of the scary purple guy, who Aaron assumed was Selezar, or at least a copy or echo of him.

"SELEZAR! You made a mistake cursing a child. I'm going to make sure you suffer for your cruelty," Giddeon hissed. Aaron had never seen the old man truly angry. He was always grumpy and sarcastic, but not like this. Selezar's evil laugh fizzled around the pit. It was echoic and staticky, as if he wasn't quite in the same plane of reality as the rest of them.

"Well, it brought about my liberation, so can you really blame me? Without that little curse, Aaron would have never so kindly freed me." Aaron's heart skipped a beat, and he felt sick. Selezar had tricked him. He'd had no expectation that he would actually follow through and kill Giddeon.

"And as a reward, his brother's curse is gone, as promised," Selezar said, peeling the corner of his mouth up into a smirk.

"Liar. You asked me to kill Giddeon, and I denied you," Aaron shouted. He couldn't believe he'd been fooled. But he tried to hold back his rage. The necromancer was clearly toying with them and trying to make them angry. Selezar smiled. Aaron got the impression he enjoyed being cruel and evoking negative reactions from people. Paige charged at Selezar with her sabre out and stabbed into his neck. His purple body phased around the sword as she struck. Wafting around it like a thick purple mist.

She pulled it back and sliced across his chest, but the same thing happened again. She repeated it a few times, slashing and stabbing, but nothing connected. His purple body snapped back into place once it had passed. An evil cackle bellowed around the pit. Selezar put his hand out through Paige's chest, and she shrieked in pain. All of her breath was forcefully exhaled through her mouth in a shrill hiss, and her face went pale. Blue particles of mana trickled out of her mouth and into Selezar's chest.

Giddeon threw out a swirling sphere of wind. It landed in front of Paige and exploded like a stick of dynamite. Selezar was completely unaffected. His body simply stuttered and fuzzed as the air blasted through him, but Paige was launched back. Aaron and Giddeon broke her fall. She felt heavy as they lowered her to the ground. Her face was pale, and she was gasping for air. Aaron didn't need to use his True Sight to know what happened. Selezar had drained her mana.

Aaron had the same ability, except he couldn't use it on unwilling targets, especially not those with magic like Paige. This Necromancer's powers were clearly orders of magnitude stronger than Aaron's. Paige would be alright though. The effects of mana draining were temporary, especially since Giddeon knocked her away quickly. Selezar cackled manically and held out a purple hand. An orb so black that it seemed to suck in all of the light surrounding it rose up. Small streaks of deep purple orbited it.

In turn, they fired off like darts towards Giddeon. He quickly placed a giant sphere of light in front of him, but the darts didn't even come close to it. All four darts curved mid-air and redirected towards Aaron. He had anticipated the attack and jumped behind the pillar of stone Giddeon had created earlier. The purple darts impacted the rock fast, but didn't make a sound. Four circles in the rock began to rot and crumble.

It was like watching decades of erosion happen in an instant as the affected areas disintegrated into dust. The pillar collapsed under its own weight where it had been weakened, splitting in half and creaking as it toppled over. It shattered on the floor, and rocks scattered around the pit. Aaron turned away as the impact sent a shockwave of dust into his face. Giddeon created a huge sphere of fire. It was so hot that it stung Aaron's nearest hand, even though it was five paces away from him.

The flames roared as the sphere went hurdling towards Selezar. Aaron wanted to look away because it was so bright, but forced himself to watch in case the Necromancer fired more spells and he had to run. The flaming sphere glided through the purple man as if he wasn't there. His ethereal body flickered and morphed around the ball like a boat passing through thick fog.

"See how they hate us?" Selezar said as he strolled casually around the put.

"I didn't have a choice but to embrace my power. It was the only way to survive in a world with men like the Crystalblade."

"We hate you because you're a murderous power-hungry bastard!" Giddeon shouted. He and Paige fired several balls of light towards him. These had previously been effective against the undead, but were as useless as the fire this time. Darts of purple fired out of his hands and shot into the bodies of the guards on the floor. The mage and the two guards bent at the hips and slowly cranked up into a seated position. Their bones crunched and rumbled as they moved.

In perfect unison, they rose to their feet, heads slumped sideways on their shoulders. Their blank, expressionless eyes glowed a deep purple.

"Attack that man," Thomas shouted. But of course the guards didn't respond. They weren't amongst the living anymore. They were undead husks, puppetted by Selezar. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Giddeon and Paige peppered them with balls of light. Each time one touched the undead, part of their skin fizzed and burned, releasing a thick black smoke into the air. But the wounds healed rapidly.

Aaron had seen the same effect when he raised the dead, except the healing directly drained the mana he'd put into the spell. Selezar was much more powerful than him, and it was impossible to know how long he could keep these undead topped up. Paige unsheathed her Sabre. She channelled a small orb of light and stabbed the blade into it. The orb split into a bright gloopy liquid and ran down the blade, coating it and dripping to the floor. It illuminated the room, casting deep shadows behind the three undead.

Selezar didn't cast a shadow. Like the physical weapons and attacks, light simply passed through him. Giddeon and Paige faced off against the three undead. True to his name, the Crystalblade held his glowing green dagger towards the creatures. Paige slashed her sabre back and forth in the air in a display of strength, leaving a trail of light behind it.

"Go for the heart!" Paige growled. Her eyes were focused on the creatures ahead of her. As the fight erupted, Selezar spoke directly into Aaron's mind, "I will not harm you. Necromancers are meant to be united. Ask yourself honestly, has Crystalblade treated you well? Do you trust him not to stab you in the back the moment you stop being useful? Has he even taught you anything about your power? He is not your friend."

"Get out of my head!" Aaron shouted. The purple figure was staring straight at him, now hovering above the staff. Thomas was behind him, running at full speed through the door out of the pit. But the coward was not his concern anymore. He had to rid this place of the man who cursed his brother. Giddeon and Paige ran forward towards the charging undead. All three of them ganged up on Giddeon, presumably to take down the strongest target, or maybe because Selezar had a personal vendetta.

The two guards held up their swords in front of them with arms straight and stiff like branches. The mage had no weapons, but didn't appear to have access to any spells. Giddeon charged into the three undead. The mage was the first in his path. A powerful gust of wind battered it from the side, knocking it to the left, away from Paige. It landed on its side and scrambled to its feet like a scared cat.

The left-most guard swiped the sword towards Giddeon's exposed belly, but he masterfully jumped back and caught the back of its hand. The oncoming mage ran straight into the blade as it charged back at Giddeon. It pierced through its chest and erupted out the other side. The undead man went limp and fell forward, sliding down the blade all the way to the hilt. The guard used its other hand to push him off, but Giddeon was too quick.

He had already sunk his glowing green dagger deep into its chest, piercing the breastplate with breathtaking ferocity. A loud crack echoed out into the pit. This wasn't the sound of the metal breaking. It was the sound of bone crunching. The blade had hit with such force that it pierced through the sternum below and directly into the heart. The final guard held two hands on the sword and threw a heavy overhand swing at Giddeon's head, but the undead creature was hulking and slow.

He pulled his dagger back out of the guard's chest and leaned backwards, avoiding the blow. He was slow and cumbersome, and took a while to recover from throwing a heavy swing. Paige took advantage and swung her sabre hard into the back of the man's neck. The force of the blade wasn't enough to snap his head off, but it still toppled him over onto his front. She placed her boot on the back of his shoulder and flipped her blade around. With both hands on the hilt, she stabbed it into his back, piercing the armour.

The blade must have hit the heart, because the man instantly stopped moving and his arms thumped the ground, splayed out by his sides. Selezar laughed and shot purple darts out of his hands into the corpses. Rather than sending one per person, he fired flurries of dark projectiles into them. Impossibly, they rose up from the floor, faster this time. The man Paige was standing on practically lifted her up off the floor as he stood up. She had to quickly jump off to avoid being taken up on his shoulders.

How is that possible? Aaron thought. The heart was a core part of the Animate Corpse spell. Without it, he couldn't create undead. Selezar was messing with them. He was clearly enjoying showing off as he grinned and laughed. Giddeon and Paige took down the three undead again, but it looked more difficult this time. One of them almost got a hit off with its sword; it would have certainly killed Paige if she hadn't parried it aside with her dagger. The undead were noticeably stronger and faster.

Selezar kept reincarnating them stronger every time. It didn't even feel like he was touching the limit of his power. It felt more like he was testing them or playing with his powers after being trapped in the staff. Aaron approached, dagger in hand. Cuthbert flew down onto his shoulder. The light from his wings illuminated his shaking hand as he walked up to the Necromancer. The spell was a bit rusty, but Aaron still had it in him to pull it off.

He felt for the enchantment he absorbed from the guard's armour; he could still isolate the mana. But it felt more difficult, like it was sticking to his soul. He used the mana to cast Curse of Rotting and channelled it through his hand towards the Necromancer. Unlike the other spells and attacks, the curse took hold. Aaron was casting the spell at Selezar's mana signature, so it had a better time latching on than physical attacks.

"Mmmm, Rotting." He rumbled, pulling a creepily pleased smile.

"There is potential in you. We will make a fine Necromancer of you." Selezar opened up his arms as if to absorb the spell. Aaron could feel the dark mana flowing off of Selezar, like a blizzard. Aaron's mana drained out of him fast as the curse flooded into the purple man. The spell was agonising to sustain. Curses on powerful beings took more energy to use and were much shorter-lived and weaker. Not that it mattered. All he needed was a moment of weakness. His knuckles went white as he clasped the bone dagger.

The tail wrapped around the hilt and bit into his finger. He pointed it upwards towards Selezar's face. His eyes beamed as he saw the dagger.

"Cute dagger. You are a natural!" He said. It wasn't clear whether he was being sincere or mocking him. Either way, he clearly hadn't noticed the enchantment which came with the curse. Aaron's power was so weak compared to his that the curse didn't show any tangible signs of actually rotting him. He appeared to enjoy it like a breath of cold air. Aaron capitalised on the moment. He lunged forwards and thrust the dagger up towards Selezar's heart. The man didn't flinch at the oncoming knife.

What reason did he have to be afraid? To his demise, he had grossly underestimated the Journeyman Necromancer. Beams of black light erupted from Selezar's chest, except it wasn't really light—it didn't illuminate anything. It was better described as beams of void projecting from the Necromancer. It darkened the pit and sucked in light around it. It was nothing like Aaron had ever experienced. The purple silhouette staggered backwards with an outline of an arm covering the wound.

The black rays stopped projecting as he doubled over and covered it.

"You'll regret that," he said with a raspy cough.

"I don't need you yet anyway. I believe there is a deal to be made with that cowardly man and his father." He let out a couple of pained chuckles followed by a coughing fit. Aaron reached out with his knife again whilst he was weakened. But it was too late. The purple apparition shifted form into a dense mist and whisked away over the wall towards the exit. They had to chase after him. Inflicting this Necromancer on the Northern Expanse would bring nothing but ruin.

And Aaron felt at least partially responsible for freeing him. Alex and Tim supported Paige to her feet, and they exited the pit through the broken door. Aaron was close behind, but hesitated. The cool mana of the relic called to him like an invisible wind pulling him back. His True Sight and Curse Lore screamed to him that Selezar was gone and it was purified. They also told him that it had immense power. Before Giddeon could notice, he ran back and grabbed the staff.

His mind's eye instantly lit up with a new notification. [New Artefact Weapon Detected] Name: Staff of Accelerated Manipulation. Rank: 1 Description: Amplifies the Necromancer's power to Manipulate the living and undead. Spells will cast faster, use less mana and grant increased gains in proficiency. Multiplicative effects are powerful tools to grow in strength and rank of skills and talents. Warning: This item is damaged, seek an expert in artefact weapons and repair before use.