Chapter 49: A General's Power (P2)

Panting terribly as I seek refuge behind the lines of my undead and his cultists. The battle is not swaying in my favour any time soon, his cultists have begun to push back mercilessly on my undead and distracted as I am running away from their General, I can't help trying to push the tide back in my favour with a few well-timed explosions.

However, as I run, I make sure every corpse I pass is risen. The hairs on my neck stand and my ears twitch at the approaching whistling sound, on instinct I throw myself on the floor saving my head from being chopped off at the last second.

The General's thrown axe embeds itself in the wall he created and as a testament to the wall, it doesn't let the axe travel too far into it.

I don't bother myself with the wall however. Instead, I prepare a glob of mana in my hands and desperately cast into the wind, "Summon Spirit."

"Ready to leave yet?" I cannot begin to describe how pleased I am to hear Anselm's voice.

"Yes, please."

He floats down to me but that's when I hear it, the stomping, the charging and I see it, the Bullish General headed towards us, paying no mind to cultist or Zombie he squashes on the way.

"No, you don't!" His hands dig into the earth as he moves bringing sand, stone and everything buried underneath to the surface in an avalanche of dirt directed right at us.

"Anselm!"

Anselm hurriedly takes off, my hands in his, bound together by mana so we don't slip. I blink and turn my attention back to the General and his sand; everyone else is buried underneath it but that wasn't its only purpose it seems.

The giant of a man had somehow moulded the different metals in the earth into a singular giant staff. A staff he promptly launches at me.

At the same beat Anselm pulls me up and above him, just before being speared through the chest.

The impact sends us both flying until we're crucified on the wall, this time, this weapon breaks through.

"You shall die!"

Right. My arm, the one attached to Anselm has been dislocated at the shoulder, I'd recognize the feeling anywhere, and it's about to get worse with the adrenaline fading off.

"Anselm! I know it hurts like shit but you're already dead and I'm about to be. Turn intangible!"

I scream it but even if I'm saved from the pain of hanging by a dislocated shoulder I am still going to drop onto a transformed terrain and be met by a beast whose only goal is my Death.

Ah I should have listened to Anselm when I had the chance.

Miraculously, Anselm hears me and lets himself go off the giant staff which managed to spear through him and the wall behind him. Fallen on the ground I groan; adrenaline is all gone and I can feel the pain vividly now.

The General marches forth, his entire body letting off steam into the air and his single steps still thundering throughout the unearthed field. His final step as he stands before me, loudest of all.

For the second time in a week, I lie in the face of death, filled to the brim with hopelessness as I know none of my spells will work to save me, none of my efforts will bear fruit, not in the face of this monster anyway.

"Good," he snorts, "You are still, you are hopeless, and you are powerless. You see at last that Phien is insurmountable and your effects in our plans are but a nuisance."

He says all this but I have only one thing on my mind, "How do you know my name?"

The question visibly surprises the giant General. I clarify the question, "How do you know I was once named Pluzur?"

The General straightens up and snorts once more, "Did you think yourself enshrouded from the gaze of Phien?"

He shakes his head and continues, "You may have slain my foolish colleagues and forced me to take this form to combat you, but now you lay at my feet, the last obstacle to our Lords mass conversion."

He chuckles, its deep and guttural, "You have forsaken the mercy of Phien for the rancid maw of that Wolf, yet now, where is he? Still, your past and your future lie with Phien, what will be your last words, Unbeliever?"

I laugh and it hurts. I'm not sure when but my chest has been damaged and it's hard to breathe. He is less fanatic than the others, intelligent too despite his Bull-like form.

I'm almost grateful he is because now I have some understanding of what the Cult truly is, if only he wasn't about to kill me.

"Well, if I am to be given the privilege of a last word, I will recite the many books I have memorized over the years and afterwards give my critique and personal opinion on them."

"No!" He growls, stepping closer and stomping his feet in anger, "You shall make it short and I will be merciful, else I shall pick you up and pull you apart."

I raise my hands, surrendering, "Very well. Then my last words will be short."

"What are they?"

"Circle of Death."

For a second we both look confused as my words lack the intended effect, he shakes his head and pulls back his arm to deal me my death but as he does a pressure, like a hand lightly squeezing my head comes over me and he falls.

The General screams with anguish as he falls to his knees, Lotar's spell taking effect at last and just in the nick of time.

There's a silver light around us, around me as its epicentre, slowly it takes on a green hue and envelopes the crippled General in a green flame leaving nothing behind but wind.

Victorious I stand and exhale, relieved to still be breathing.

"By the skin of my teeth."

Behind me Anselm groans, "Fuck."

***

With Anselm's flight I make it over the wall without having to become a miner or dig for corpses that were still in relatively one piece to ignite.

We fly all the way to Carbina, over the corn fields, the stables and ranches all without stopping for a break.

It's decided. I'm getting the hell out of Carbina.

With the realization that these Cultist Generals would only become stronger with each fight and render whatever new spell I've thrown at them useless.

Running away and not looking back is the obvious thing to do.

I fought with the first General, the one crazy with magic and introduced him to my undead first. My numbers overwhelmed him and with Leriva at my side to corroborate, I killed him.

The next fight I faced the speed focused General, I don't know why I didn't see it before but he emphasis on speed was to clean out my undead in record speed, which she did.

However, I come to that fight with a new spell prepared, Corpse Ignition. The effect of the entire battlefield exploding around you and showering you with shrapnel made of the bones, teeth and organs of the foe you slain was what bought me victory.

However, the third General, the Bull, such thing would not faze him. He combatted Corpse Ignition and my entire undead by simply burying them under the earth.

His giant, thick form rendered normal attack useless, I wouldn't even dare try it and he, like the last General, found that being reliant on the normal Cultist was a weakness I could exploit and abandoned them.

If it wasn't for Circle of Death then I surely wouldn't be alive. But now, they've seen all my tricks and I haven't learned any new ones, my proficiency still lacks and with how the Bull General managed to come that close to killing me, I surely won't be taking any more risks with my life.

Leriva will simply have to find a way to clear out the last two camps. It won't be an easy task that's for sure, the Cultists, at least the Generals are intelligent and organized, and to the words of the Bull General, they take their forms based on their opponents, based on the resistance given.

Also, according to the Bull General's words, they know about Lotar and they're going to convert the entire village into more Cultists.

How? I don't know that yet. But I don't have to worry about that. Now I have to get out of this place before it kills me.

By the time I'm back there's little to no one moving about in the village and Mathilda is most certainly asleep. My body hurts like hell and the bed tempts me. I need my arm properly reset and food, a lot of food.

"I'm in support of leaving, but let's get some rest first and tell Mathilda of our decision in the morning. We can head to Aste and ask for the Following to send someone here. It's the least we can do."

I groan and let myself fall onto the bed, "We can do a lot less, Anselm, but you're right, we should sleep on this bed one last time."

"That's not what I…ah forget it."

I chuckle at this annoyance but soon find myself under a deep slumber. After a moment I feel it's awfully windy and open my eyes to close the windows.

Peering them open I find myself standing on a rock, a familiar rock. There's a tree up ahead with flowers growing at its base

"It's been a while, Asher." A voice says behind me. I already know who it is before I turn to meet his eyes.

"Lotar." I bite my lips, "Well, this can't be any good."