Fake kings

'Vibrant moon! The life-giving current flows past all places you shine upon. Where I stand all life shall prosper. Domain of life, eternal growth!'

In the sky above me a pale, light green moon appeared and filled the area around with a green glow. A soothing tide washed over all the combatants on the side of the living, healed their wounds, and gave them new strength.

The landslide victory that the undead had been enjoying was abruptly turned into a temporary stalemate.

The undead king magi grew slightly agitated. They commenced a pincer attack that put their lives on the line to kill the human magus. If I let that happen, all my prior efforts would be wasted.

Unwilling to let that happen, I condensed lightning in my fist and joined the fray.

Life and lightning, two elements that were the bane of all undead. The life domain I had spread out was primarily focused on supporting the defending force and thus didn't really affect the undead. However, the lightning in my fist was driven by an innate understanding and was meant to harm.

The undead king magi hadn't seen me as a threat because they had assumed I was busy casting my life spell. Too bad for them, a domain was a passive thing and I could give them my fullest attention.

When my fist landed on one of the cloaked figures back's, the lightning spread furiously and tore the figure apart completely.

????

This was way too easy! A king magus shouldn't go down that easily even if they were hit by their weakness. Were they forcefully promoted?

I wanted to verify my guess bit the human king magus had already drowned the second undead magus in an ocean of fire.

"I'll leave the rest to you. I'm glad you made it in time."

Summoning this last attack the king magus had used up the remains of his power and plummeted out of the sky. I quickly moved to catch him and brought him down to the human encampment.

Without their king level leaders, the other undead seemed to lose all hope and retreated promptly. A human grand duke magus approached me as I landed.

"Greetings, lord magus! I am the deputy commander of this camp. Thank you for coming to our rescue and saving commander Ragnar. Will you assume command until commander Ragnar wakes up?"

'That won't be necessary, I leave the commanding to you. If my guess is right there will be more flares up in the sky before night falls.'

"Why do you think so? There are many encampments along the border and there can only be so many undead king magi."

'Let me ask you, have you seen any undead on the grand duke level during this attack?'

"No, why?"

'I fear that whoever sent these creatures has used some means to forcefully promote a large number of grand duke level undead to the king level.'

"Is that even possible? Wouldn't this make them invincible?"

'No. Firstly, the price for such a feat must be exorbitant. Secondly, this will bring numerous drawbacks and only works under the right circumstances. I hate to say it but if those had been true king magi, your commander wouldn't have been able to hold them back by himself.'

"Are undead magi that strong?"

'It's not the fact that they are undead. It's a difference in the grade of understanding. Death is much more complicated than fire and thus if comprehended to the same degree, death will surely triumph. But these two undead didn't match that level of power. Also, their defense was sorely lacking.'

While we were talking, I walked over to the breach in the wall. With a wave of my hand, a wall of trees grew and the breach was temporarily sealed.

'Anyway, I'll stay here until the next flare appears. Can I have the undead king magi's remains to research?'

"You want them? Take them then. What about your rewards?"

'Rewards?'

"Killing undead of the duke level and above will be specially rewarded to increase people's motivation. You killed a king magus, naturally, you should receive your corresponding reward."

'I don't really have the capacity to accept that right now, I'd like to keep my baggage light. But in a day or so, a grand duke magus named Sven will arrive. Hand my rewards to him and tell him that lord Eldar wants him to stay here and help defend this place.'

"With all due respect, a grand duke magus isn't going to make much of a difference in the face of king level threats."

'Just deliver the message, you'll see soon enough.'

With that, I walked over to where the undead remains should be.