Ch 42 – Raise Greater Undead

Necro kept pulling Ace, forcing her to keep up with her pace for a handful of minutes before letting go.

*Haah* *Haah* *Haah*

Ace was visibly tired, resting her hands on her knees.

"Why did you do that? Hah! I'm fucking tired now."

"We are almost there."

"What!? Already?!"

"Ye. But this path was more dangerous so it was wise to go quickly."

Necro's gaze wandered all over the place, as if searching for something. 

"What is it?" Ace asked, finally having caught her breath. 

"Nothing really, just making sure." With these words, the ring on her hand began emitting a small glint. And sure, after a second, a large skeleton materialized on the ground in front of her.

"The wolf? Here? Why? You disposing of it?" As Ace asked this, Necro turned around, her mouth slightly raised in the corner and her eyes squinting as her eyebrows creased. Ace's heart took a strong blow as he stared at those disappointed eyes. She had completely misinterpreted the situation. Ignoring her for a second, Necro turned around towards the skeleton and took a few steps forward. She took a small dagger from under her clothes, not the fancy one her father had given, no, the plain one she carried foo self-defense, and poked her thumb with its tip. Ace stared at her blankly, but with curiosity. She had no idea what Necro was doing right now, she had never heard of anything like this. 

After a few seconds waiting for the droplet to form, Necro pressed the bloody finger on the wolf's skull and took a few steps back. 

Ace couldn't avoid batting her eyelids as a massive amount of dark mana started flowing around Necro. 

It was nowhere near the size of last time. The sheer amount of mana was enough to make her flinch.

"Unbelievable."

She muttered in sheer amazement, before the feeling of awe took her over.

'She poured mana into me... If she wanted, she could've killed me without even trying.'

The realization of how large Necro's mana pool was, in comparison to hers, was overbearing, even more so than the wetness that began flowing from inside her. 

But the magic hadn't even begun. Necro slowly raised her hands, forming a sphere of pure dark mana in between them. Before lowering them at once, dropping the mass of mana onto the bones, that instantly began rattling.

Necro closed her eyes as the massive magic circle drew itself on the ground around the bones, using nothing other than her mana. A dark sludge slowly appeared in the middle of the circle and began to form a smaller version of the large magic circle. 

Minutes passed while the multi-layered magic circles formed one after the other, creating something that, if not pitch black, would be a gorgeous pattern of mana. Dark miasma started to emanate from the magic circles, forming a thick dark fog around the skeleton. Necro opened her eyes and looked at the magic for a second, before clapping her hands together. 

"Raise Greater Undead"

Ace covered her mouth as her jaw dropped and her eyes widened, all the mass of mana imbued itself into the skeleton, making parts of it glow. Especially  the skull and front paws. In less than a second, the creature slowly raised itself from the ground. A strange membrane covered its clean bones, covering its empty interior. while it's previously glowing skull showed signs of withered flesh. It's whole body shook, like a wet dog getting rid of it's water, before lowering its front legs, retracting the foot-long reddish black claws that protruded from it. 

Necro touched its head, imbuing her mana onto a small circle that formed in the middle of its now covered skull.

"It seems I was very fortunate this time."

"Wh-What is that?" The guttural fear Ace felt from the creature was far larger than the limbic pleasure from having seen such an otherworldly magic take place. 

"This boy?" Necro asked while petting its head. "This is a Boneclaw. A higher-tier skeleton. Isn't he gorgeous? Aren't you gorgeous, Atanase?" She asked.

"I-It Is..." With her odd answer, Necro turned around to see Ace trembling in fear. 

"Atanase, she's a friend, don't scare her."

"gyuuun"

"Yes, yes, you didn't know, it's fine."

The noise that came out of the monster's gaping jaws was… surprisingly tame. A pleading noise like that of a dog or wolf.

"You can understand it?!" The menacing aura having strangely vanished, Ace was surprised beyond belief with the interaction of the two.

"Of course I can, and he can understand me."

"Wow... Also, you gave it a name?"

"Not exactly... The name was kinda already there... I just said it. Not sure if it just came naturally or if it was already there to begin with."

"Oh... I see... It's a mystery then."

"Yeah... Wanna ride him?"

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, we'll get there way quicker that way."

"Sure then..."

As soon as Necro turned her face towards it, the large monstrosity lowered its body, laying on the floor.

Necro jumped up first, helping Ace up. Surprisingly for her, the membrane of the monster was actually very similar to rawhide. Not the fully processed leather, the animal's skin which had been boiled to remove all fur. If not for its red bloodshot eyes and it's exposed teeth with rotten flesh as muscles, one could actually believe it was just a fur-less giant wolf. Its skin was cool, not hot like that of a living being, but mounting it was surprisingly comfortable.

"Hug me tight."

"Ah, okay."

As soon as Ace held her arms around Necro's waist, the monster dashed forward without so much as a word from her. 

It took them only a couple minutes to reach to the pile of corpses left by the rest.

"Hup!"

Necro jumped off of the back of the monster, followed by Ace, who ,strangely, patted the side of it as she dropped down, thanking it for the ride. Necro watched with confusion the sudden change of attitude of Ace towards it, but decided there were more pressing matters to deal with. After all... She still hadn't thought through what she was gonna do with all those corpses.