“Take notes, Ludwig,” Van Dijk commanded, his voice a blade honed by centuries of authority. Shadows pooled around his feet like liquid night, and the air itself seemed to thicken with the weight of his power. His crimson eyes glowed faintly, not with malice, but with the cold, calculated focus of a predator.
“If you wish to peruse the path of necromancy, many will disdain you. Many more will hate you, fear you, and would wish nothing but your demise and destruction. Not because necromancy defies the natural order, but because it is power. Raw, unbridled, and indifferent to the bleating of sheep. Go forth Undead, and bring them down!”
The dead which have just risen, their jaws hung slack upon hearing the order revealing yellowed teeth and tongues shriveled to leather. Empty eye sockets glowed with faint blue embers, and their limbs twitched with unnatural vitality, as though puppeteered by invisible strings. They surged forward, a tidal wave of rot and bone, their collective moan echoing like a funeral dirge.
Unlike the organized soldiers in front of them, the undead ranks were the complete opposite. They screamed and hollered and rampaged forward, climbing atop each other and crawled under their brethren’s feet. All seeking to obey their summoner’s order.
This was chaos incarnate
A guard’s sword cleaved through an undead’s ribcage, only for the creature to lunge forward, snapping its teeth at the man’s throat. Another guard severed an arm, but the limb scrabbled across the ground, fingers digging into his ankle like iron hooks. The undead fought with a feral desperation, as though their very existence depended on violence. And perhaps it did.
They didn’t care if they lost an arm, they’ll fight even with their feet, and if you’d cut their feet too, they’d crawl using their chins and bite at you until you die. The Undead are Restless.
“They’re… relentless,” Ludwig breathed, his voice barely audible over the cacophony.
“Relentless?” Van Dijk smirked, watching as a headless corpse staggered forward, its hands blindly groping for a guard’s face. “They’re hungry But their hunger isn’t for food or sustenance unlike these disturbing things. Their hunger is for something else, these slime-borne fiends only hunger for death, but the undead, they hunger for life. Ludwig, there is a great difference between something that would stuff its face until seeking death, and the dead that wish to taste Life again.”
The guards, disciplined by instinct, perhaps the years they spent in training had carved order in their bodies. They regrouped and stood together, in an orderly fashion, their Shields locked into a wall, swords thrusting in unison. For a moment, the tide turned. An undead’s skull shattered under a mace; another was pinned to the ground by a spear. The guards’ formation tightened, their strikes methodical, efficient. But efficiency meant nothing to the dead.
A guard screamed, which was a first, these things though not living nor were they dead, never voiced a word, they only acted like ‘humans’ but were far from it. Slime in the form of people that had some sort of conscious though far too gone from the hunger. However, it still screamed, perhaps because even though it was no longer conscious, it felt the fear of death, perhaps deep down in his subconscious it still felt fear.
A skeletal hand clamped onto the screaming guard’s wrist, yanking him into the horde. The undead descended, not to kill, but to consume. Fingers pried open his visor; teeth sank into his cheek. His cries were drowned by the wet, tearing sounds of flesh being stripped from bone.
The other guards faltered, their discipline cracking like glass.
“They’re breaking,” Ludwig said, “But something feels wrong…”
Van Dijk’s expression darkened. “Indeed Ludwig, they’re adapting,”
The guards shifted tactics. Fire bloomed in their ranks—torches snatched from sconces, oil flasks hurled into the fray. Flames licked at the undead, their parchment-dry bones catching like kindling. The stench of burning rot filled the air, thick enough to choke on. An undead collapsed, its ember-eyes sputtering out as flames consumed its ribcage. Another stumbled, clawing at its burning face until its fingers crumbled to ash.
“Pathetic,” Van Dijk muttered. “Fire? They think fire will help them?” He raised a hand, and the temperature plummeted. Frost spiderwebbed across the cobblestones, and the flames guttered out, smothered by an unnatural chill. The undead, unharmed, lurched forward anew.
But the guards were ready. They pulled Crossbows from their sides and clicked, bolts streaked through the air. One struck an undead’s skull, and the creature collapsed, its green eyes dimming. Many had struck the advancing undead turning them to pincushions. The guards pressed their advantage, they were breaking the horde apart, disassembling them with utter ease this time.
Though three hundred almost undead against barely thirty or so guards, the guards were rapidly gaining ground as they gathered together, hacking and slashing with orderly fashion at the dead.
“Hmm… quite the sight, but master, your undead are losing,” Ludwig said.
“Ludwig, Necromancy isn’t about how much power one has, but how delicate one’s control is over his power. To raise the dead is simple, to guide them is far harder…Sadly,” Van Dijk added “I’m no lich, I cannot micromanage them, a lich would have a far better understanding of the prowess of each and every individual undead, a far more advanced understanding and a better control at managing the undead,” Van Dijk said as his undead were being rapidly dispatched.
“A lich would also be able to support his undead with revitalizing auras and offerings, even spells that would further empower them. I didn’t delve too deep into the path of necromancy, it’s too appealing but at the same time it’s like an endless spiral that would further push you deeper and deeper into the art of necromancy.”
“I don’t mean to sound disdainful, but why did you use necromancy if you’re not fully proficient?” Van Dijk said.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Van Dijk said, “Though it appears that we’re losing,” he stalled as the last few undead were dispatched and taken out from the battle. Corpses and bodies were littering the place while the guards were making sure that they finished the job.
Three hundred bodies completely eliminated in less than three minutes.
Van Dijk pointed his hand forward, “raising the dead is a child’s play, everyone can do it, but this is a spell that I’ll be teaching you personally,” he said
“Corpse Explosion!”