That second was all Ludwig needed.
But now, carrying him alone, the remaining werebat was struggling. Its wings trembled with strain, and its altitude dropped fast. Gliding wasn’t flying. They were descending. Fast.
Ludwig realized that he would probably either die or break a lot of bones from his current height, and began thinking of an idea before the second Reaver would hound him down.
He scanned below. Options flickered by—too many broken trees, too many corrupted ruins, and then he saw it: a tall, rotting tree that looked almost untouched by the Moon’s corruption. Almost. It would have to do.
Behind him, the second Reaver surged forward again.
“Throw me!” Ludwig ordered, and the Werebat didn’t hesitate, it flung Ludwig forward with as much power as it could muster. And instantly turned to the other Reaver. It dove at the oncoming Reaver in a last, suicidal act of defiance.
But two Werebats were nothing but a snack for the Reavers.
Two dead werebats. One falling necromancer.
Not to mention there were even more who flew slowly almost seemingly uninterestedly toward Ludwig.
Their elegant, slow movements weren’t close to laziness. But were more like confidence. Arrogance. The kind predators had when they knew their prey couldn’t escape.
Ludwig wasn’t about to tempt fate by staying there long to understand why the Reavers were ‘lazy’ in hunting him and simply dove down, in his left arm Ludwig used [Sentient Snake], his Soul Shackle’s passive ability to move the chain at his will.
The chain immediately shot forward, wrapping around the top of the old tree. The chain snapped taut. Ludwig swung downward like a pendulum, the momentum almost tearing his undead arm from its socket. He scraped inches above the corrupted ground, the stench of rot invading his senses even without needing to breathe.
He let go. Flew forward. The chain snapped back to his wrist with a hiss of metal.
Ludwig unlatched the chain as it snapped back to his wrist shackle and then flung it at another Tree, to swing once more, his eyes wide with both surprise that his undead muscles were allowing him something he only saw back in his world in comics and Tv, but now he was doing it himself.
“Damn they should call me Chainman!” Ludwig laughed despite the grim situation as he flung himself again, but this time when the chain wrapped around the third tree, the rotten husk of it gave away, breaking in the middle and Ludwig suffered the consequences.
The sudden snap of the tree unlatched the chain and Ludwig skidded and rolled and tumbled several times across the mud covered, grim littered and corruption infused lands of the Bastos March.
-699 Hp!
“Ugh, goddamn it!” Ludwig spat some of the grim that filtered into his mouth from having eaten dirt. “Don’t say a thing,” He said awkwardly at Thomas’s spectral form who was barely stifling his laughter.
Ahead, Bastos Manor loomed. Its black silhouette cut through the blood-red sky, and for once, no monsters blocked the path. Just silence, eerie and unearned.
Behind him Though, in the air lit by the red moon, and in the ground some distance away the same Moon Reavers who he thought made a good distance from were slowly walking toward him. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Some flying. Some walking. All converging.
“They really are persistent,” Ludwig cursed as he focused his eyes on the task at hand, run the hell away.
Just as he began sprinting, he realized that this path was a way he crossed before, especially with the many corpses of Werebats laying around, so every now and then when he would find a corpse Ludwig would slide next to it, slam his hand on the ground, “Rise Undead!” Ludwig would chant, and the Werebat or Werbeats if there were many of them nearby would rise to his bidding.
The response was immediate. Bone cracked. Wings flapped. Rotten eyes opened, loyal to their master.
They needed no order as they immediately understood the will of their master and took to the skies.
Though the werebats were dispatched and destroyed in seconds as they reached the Reavers.
It was a slaughter. One-sided. But that wasn’t the point.
Even a few seconds of delay meant everything.
“Even a mosquito’s leg is meat,” the specter of the Knight King said.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Thomas asked.
Ludwig hurried up as he ran ahead, “He meant that even if they are weak, they have a use.”
And he continued running until he reached the gated garden of the Bastos manor. And it creaked open as if welcoming him in.
But the moment he sat foot on the garden’s overly grown rotting grass, he heard a soul wrenching howl that seemed to collectively come from Everywhere. a choral eruption of agony and madness that echoed across the entire swamp. The air turned thick. Time seemed to stutter.
Turning he saw the Moon Reavers who were slow and lazy in chasing him doing something bizzar.
Their claws which would tear through steel and bones were digging deep into their faces and you could almost hear a weeping among the unholy screams they released. Black blood seeped from their faces and they all, at the same time stopped, stared at Ludwig who just entered the flimsy looking barrier surrounding the Bastos manor and the moment he blinked his undead eyes, out of habit not that he needed to blink as an undead, more than a hundred or so of the Moon Reavers were in front and around him. They covered the entire distance between them in the time it took Ludwig to blink. And right now the distance between Ludwig and the closest one of them was less than a finger’s length as it stared deeply into Ludwig’s face. Nothing but the flickering barrier of unknown origin stood between them.
All around the manor like a giant circle, the Moon Reavers stood, one next to one like guards staring deep at Ludwig, following him with their faces and eyes as he slowly backed away.
The Moon Reavers never moved an inch forward, they only stood in front of the barrier, never attacked it and never assaulted it.
They only watched.