83 Chapter 83

"I can too?" Rin asked hesitantly.

"Of course, just close your eyes and think of that full feeling you felt in master's realm. Masters power will do the rest." Erit assured her with the caring smile as if she was Rin's elder sister.

While the battle raged on, Rin did as she was told, and sure enough, the tenebrous darkness began emanating from her body. It quickly formed into the shape of an orb, hovering over her body before darting over to the corpse of one of the Rozk'ra scouts nearby. Aerwyn watched as the black soul plunged itself into the corpse's chest, and the process he witnessed earlier repeated itself.

The fur that the Rozk'ra wore was sliced in two, displaying the orcs bare chest and allowing Aerwyn to see another difference between the black soul's resurrection and his own. The deep gash on its chest appeared to fester and rot, rapidly turning black as if witnessing the corpse decay at a sped-up rate. Oddly enough, the blackened flesh didn't seem to spread beyond where the tenebrous soul had entered its chest.

As it rose to its feet, Aerwyn once again felt a strange sense of familiarity to the creature that he couldn't describe. It felt like he had an extra arm, and that arm was the three creatures shambling about on the battlefield as the fighting waned. He decided to attempt calling out to it in his mind, ordering it come to him, but before he had a chance, all three creatures turned to face him.

The two created by Erit sprinted at full speed towards them while the one created by Rin still appeared to be struggling with moving faster than a walking pace. Soon enough, all three stood before Aerwyn, outside of the blackened flesh where the black soul had entered, they looked no different than when they were corpses. As he leaned forward to take a closer look, Rin jumped from his lap onto the creature she created.

"Is it mine? Can I name him? Can I?" Rin asked frantically as she stood on the creature's head.

"Sure.. but I don't think naming it will do anything though." Aerwyn replied as he scratched his head.

He was pretty sure that whatever this new power was, it didn't provide the creatures with a soul like when he resurrected them. Rin leaned her head forward, looking at the creatures face upside down and spoke.

"I'll name you... orky."

"Ugh, dumb Rin, that's like naming a brexil cat 'brexil cat-y'." Ren scoffed.

"Leave me alone, Ren. It's my...-Hey master, what is this?"

"I have no idea... Is it not an undead?"

Rin shook her head atop her new pet. "Um, it's dead, but it doesn't have an undead aura like me."

"Just call it an undead, for now, I'm sure Nyris will come up with a name for them later." Aerwyn said as he turned his attention to the battle which had ended moments ago.

It was a reasonably quick fight which didn't surprise him. Thanks to the surprise attack from Gromok, the fallen Lok'ra had killed their number of enemies before Aerwyn even arrived. The remaining dozen or so were then entirely enveloped by undead and fallen soon after, which gave them no time to react to the situation.

"Master, why won't orky answer me?" Rin asked with a voice full of childish dissatisfaction.

"Pfft, I don't think it can." Aerwyn chuckled before questioning where that conviction had come from. It wasn't like he knew for sure that it couldn't speak, but for some reason, he felt as if that was the case. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made to him, and as he was questioning himself, Gromok appeared in front of him.

"The battle is won."

"Good, loot the corpses, mana cores too. Let's head out. How many..." Aerwyn was about to ask how many of his troops died yet let his voice trail off.

As soon as he thought up the question, it was like he knew the answer. That in itself wasn't what surprised him, he could always tell when one of his undead had died, but now it felt like he had more information. It was as if he was in the darkness and could feel each and every connection to all of his undead except his consciousness was in the real world.

The odd sensation gave him an idea. Usually, to project his voice into the mind of one of his undead, he needed to enter the darkness, mentally grab ahold of their soul string, and only then could he communicate, but now it felt different. He imagined connecting to Nyris and spoke in his mind.

'Nyris, can you hear me?'

'Aerwyn? Is that you?' Nyris' voice resounded back in Aerwyn's mind.

'HA! It works!' Aerwyn roared happily.

'What? What works?'

'Nothing, nevermind! I'll tell you when we get back to Ardin!'

A gleaming smile crept its way onto Aerwyn's face as he felt the urge to laugh out loud. He placed his staff onto the zin beetles back and looked towards his hands. He summoned his soul flames, and for the first time since he woke up, he felt as though he was in complete control of them.

Aerwyn put his hands together, forming the flames into a ball before releasing it towards the sky. The ball of soul flames shot out a couple dozen meters before exploding out in a fiery explosion exactly where Aerwyn willed it to.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" He could no longer hold back his laughter as he formed a ball of flames in each hand, sending both shooting off into the sky.

"Master, what's wrong?!?" Rin cried out, her eyes scanning the horizon for enemies as she went on alert.

He completely ignored Rin's worry, turning his attention to a nearby tree. He opened his hand, sending a stream of soul flames flying towards it, lighting the tree ablaze in but a moment before closing his hand, causing the fire consuming the tree to dissipate immediately.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Aerwyn's glee couldn't be sated, and he continued to laugh maniacally as his attention was turned to the stack of Lok'ra and brolla corpses in the distance.

"..." Ren cautiously backed away, fearing that Aerwyn had really lost his mind this time.

The purple flames emanating from his hands was replaced by tenebrous darkness that came pouring out. If Erit summoning the darkness was like a flood, then Aerwyn right now was summoning a great deluge of darkness. Forty-three orbs formed one after the other and shot out towards the corpses before drilling their way into their bodies.

The corpses convulsed before rising, but Aerwyn didn't stop after that, he couldn't. Since he awoke he's felt incredibly weak and frail, even his so-called godly powers barely gave him an advantage over any other mortal of Alduun. He formed the darkness into something akin to his flame lance and shot it out into a tree as he continued to bask in his momentary bliss.

"Master, the explosions will alert the orcs to our position..." Erit took an uncharacteristically quiet tone as she warned Aerwyn of the danger he was creating.

It surprised him and woke him from his little blissful rampage despite the current level of bravado he was exuding. Part of him hoped the orcs would show up so he could test his newfound power, but his mind was still reasonable enough to see the folly in that idea.

"Ahem, you're right." Aerwyn said as he collected himself.

"What happened, master? Are you ok?" Rin asked as she jumped back into his lap.

"Hmm..." Aerwyn looked to Erit for a moment before continuing.

"Up until now, my power appeared to be limited by something, so when I realized it wasn't limited any longer, I got a little excited."

"A little?" Ren asked sarcastically as she pointed to the blackened tree that was burnt by soul flames.

"Don't think I didn't see you ready to flee before, Ren."

"...Kwee?"

"Pfft, that's what I thought. Alright, let's get back to Ardin now."

As they walked to the ships, Aerwyn looked to the new undead that he made with the black souls. Some were missing arms, others were missing legs, and a few were even missing heads oddly enough, yet they all appeared to be under his control. No doubt, Nyris or Tylin could answer some of the more glaring questions, like how they could exist without a head, but that would have to wait until they return to Ardin.

Nyris would be busy commanding his undead to operate a different ship than the one Aerwyn would be on, and Tylin was back at Ardin. The thought of Tyling caused Aerwyn to quickly turn around just to make sure the sneaky necromancer wasn't behind him before climbing aboard his ship. They would be able to man nine ships this time since they didn't have the elves to help but Aerwyn was content with that number.