Chapter 312: What happened in those few hours?

"Follow me," The centaur said, finally fully lowering his spear. Having kept it raised a few more seconds after learning about Eldrian's identity. 

Eldrian did not mind his delay and followed as instructed. He decided to not ask questions right away. As clearly this centaur did not wish to talk. 

Entering the inside of the damaged wooden walls of mostly logs, Eldrian was truly shocked by how bad things looked. However, contrasting the last battlefield he had been on, there were no corpses.

More specifically, there were no human, centaur, or demi-human corpses. There was plenty of rotting beasts and piles of bones. The contrast making him all the more curious. 

The only place that was unaffected was the cabin, the centaur having told Eldrian to enter after leaving. Doing as he was told, Eldrian approached, realizing that the door of the cabin was no longer present. 

Instead, he knocked on the wall to let those inside know someone was approaching. Entering through the door, a centaur and two centaurettes turned to look at him.

"Ah, so your back," Pelaros said with a slight smile growing on his face. The other two's mood did not lift upon seeing him. 

"What happened?" Eldrian asked as he nodded in greeting to Evale and Katania, the other two who both looked quite depressed. 

"A few things..." Pelaros said, causing the other two's eyes to twitch. 

"Do you really consider this just a few things?" Evale questioned, unable to accept such a casual attitude after a surprise attack. Especially when they had started it, only to be later caught off guard themselves. 

"Yes, it was only a few things that had gone wrong. And not much damage had been done, in fact, we gained some more valuable intel."

"What do you mean?" Katania asked. She was quite depressed at this point, as the task Pelaros had given her had almost turned into a failure. Almost.

"We know which horde this likely was," Pelaros said, turning to Eldrian, "However I do not think they managed to follow him. I had witnessed how he can disappear from this world. I doubt they would have waited there until his return, if they even knew where he disappeared."

"What does that matter? I was not blaming him," Evale said, hoping that Pelaros was actually taking this seriously. 

"It informs of what they are capable. That they have either very small scouts, or ones on par with Kydone. Both are scary in their own right. The Drekavac they use as sentries would certainly not be capable of finding us without us noticing them too."

Evale nodded, knowing that this was true. Especially since she had long since shared the fact that they had Drekavaces, not to mention Eldrian having also reported being discovered by them.

"The other thing this attack told us is that they have a way to communicate with each other. The communication must be long-distance, without physical movement. Most likely, it is similar to what we use to send messages between noble families."

"Still, we do not know how they accomplished either task, so the information does do little for us." Pelaros conceded, "However, we now know we can't let our guard down, from now on each undead infested area must be scouted, and then cleared."

"The scouting won't be done like last time, rather it will only be to determine the number needed to efficiently clear the area. And..." Pelaros paused, "From now on, if there is an unwilling, a divine magic-user must go to the area."

"What? Pelaros you know there are only three divine magic users here." Katania said, feeling like she and her fellows were soon going to be worked to the bone. 

"There shouldn't be that many unwilling. However, what happened with the revenant can cause massive damage if neither a divine magic user nor I am present."

"Wait, what happened?" Eldrian asked, the other two seemingly understanding. 

"Right, you don't know much about the undead." Pelaros turned to Eldrian again as he said this, "I was going to inform you upon your return. Seeing as you will join Katania in researching them."

Hearing this, Katania's eyebrows raised in surprise. However, she did not complain, recalling how Eldrian had found a basic spell -albeit one of the most difficult in its Tier- to help in the detection of undead. 

"Explaining it all will be hard, and you know some of the basics already. Here, read through this latter. For now, you just need to know that while an unwilling can turn into a higher undead."

"The reason for their name is also the reason for them being weaker than their higher undead counterpart. They have been turned into undead without their content, they are unwilling to live in undeath."

"However, in some cases, this can change. We don't quite know how nor why. That is what happened with the revenant. At first, it was not a problem for me to kill all the undead, it included. However, as it saw all those around it dying... It changed."

"The biggest problem was not it becoming a higher undead, but rather that in doing so it also regained its original Tier. Instantly going from a Tier 5 revenant, to a Tier 7."

"With its special class bonuses, it was a tough fight for even me. And at that time the camp was attacked, with most of the others out attacking the other infested areas."

So that is what happened,  Eldrian felt like things made sense now. Especially the reason why there were no corpses. The following sentence confirming his suspicion. 

"The few who had still been in the camp had been killed, however, this had alerted those nearby. In a way, them trying to catch us off guard had worked in our favor."

"You say that like those who died do not matter," Evale grumbled, causing Pelaros to laugh-sigh. 

"It is natural that people will die in a fight, and only twelve of those who had died were too long dead. So I would say, considering the amount of undead we killed, the numbers are truly in our favor." 

Evale couldn't argue with that, however, she still wished that the loss would way heavier on Pelaros's mind. Instead, of just being a statistic used to justify the loss. 

"Right, that might sound strange to you. Considering the damage clearly visible everywhere." Pelaros said, turning to Eldrian again, who shook his head in denial. 

"No, I realized something was off when the place wasn't littered in corpses. I wasn't gone so long that you would have time for a massive fight, as the damage to the surrounding indicated, and clean up the dead."

Laughing in agreement, Pelaros decided to finally sate his curiosity, "You should be mostly caught up, so can you now share what you discovered?"

Pausing, Eldrian suddenly realized he hadn't given this another thought. The system coming to his soul in the abyss had completely thrown most thoughts into disarray. And then when he exited the time had made him rush to not be too late in going to Jen's. 

"Ah... Huhum..." Eldrian quickly racked his brain on something he could share. 

"Right... The first thing I noticed upon entering the magic abyss is that my spell was corrupted. The flow was slower and the pathways creating the spell were leaking."

"Oh, and what does that mean?" Pelaros questioned, already knowing about this fact, or rather what it results in. It was not caused by the death-mana, but rather by the aura of death of the revenant. 

It was why it was hard to kill even if you were stronger than it. Not just your physical abilities would be afflicted, your magical ones would be too. Not to mention the strain on your energy and focus.

What was truly impressive, was Eldrian, as a Tier 2, being capable of still forming his spells inside the aura. Granted, Eldrian had only entered the periphery of the aura. Hence it had likely not attacked him in full force. 

"I am not sure, but the spell will certainly be weakened. If the aura is stronger, it might completely fall apart." Eldrian replied, getting a nod from Pelaros in reply. This was indeed the case, and generally, that should have been what happened to Eldrian's, with the 3 Tier difference. (Before the revenant turned from an Unwilling to a Higher undead.)

"Anything else?" Pelaros asked after a moment of silence.

Evale was surprised to learn about this detail herself, especially since Pelaros was not denying the statement. She had found out about the mental and physical weakening during her confrontation with the Tier 5 Unwilling. But not the magical weakening, making her now understand better why she had struggled so much. 

"Yes..." Eldrian replied, causing all three to look at him in shock. He had already shared something which only those who had faced many revenants came to learn.

It was also shared among experienced fighters, and Pelaros had planned to explain this to everyone before heading into the corrupted area itself. Where they would need to understand the abilities of the Higher undead, or they might die without knowing what happened. 

The reason he had not shared it yet, was, he was hoping people would show him their potential. A small part of him was also hoping they might find inspiration, but mostly he wanted to see who among those, outside of his elite guard, were talented. 

While Evale was praised as being a genius, he cared little for such talent. It was great for becoming stronger, but not for surviving. She had yet to show that she knew how to survive when facing a stronger opponent. Her fight with the revenant had made this clear to Pelaros, even though he only received her account of the fight. 

"What else have you found?" Pelaros asked.

Eldrian looked between the two centaurettes and weighed if he should share it.  After a moment he decided he might as well. Especially since Pelaros likely already knows, or at least suspects it.