Chapter 164 The Tides Of War(1)

~What was that?~ Ghost thought to herself, gasping loudly as she tried to catch her breath. It had taken her everything she had just to move fast enough to evade being slaughtered.

Her unseen eyes had made it clear that those creatures did not have radiant energy, however, they did have something quite similar.

~Especially the big one,~ she thought. The feeling she had felt coming off that thing was similar to the one she felt coming off the necromancer's four guardians. Luckily it seemed that the creatures weren't nearly as trained in combat as Lucius was.

"Were they the creature's that Luci called?" she wondered to herself. She wouldn't be surprised that Lucius was able to gather a group of creatures near, or above his power level, however, she couldn't be sure in this situation.

"I wish I wasn't on this stupid mission. Luci needs all the help he can get," she whispered to herself, feeling the weight of Pagan's body on her spider legs as she continued running back to camp.

"But I'd rather feel helpless than be blamed for allowing the camp's golden boy to die," she whispered, noting how Pagan's crux was pulsating at an irregular rate.

~If we lose both Pagan and Luci, then the camp will be too set back for this whole mission to even matter,~ she thought.

*

"My lord, have you also noticed?" a Zeldrave soldier pointed out as the group reached the front of the necromancer's camp.

"No guards," one of the other Zeldrave soldiers replied.

"Not just that. The forest is... angry," the Zeldrave king whispered, looking at the trees all around him. As the guardian of his race, he had a tie to the forest. Part of the reason he had even come at all was because the 'Voice' of the forest kept calling on him to save someone.

"Choen and Roen, take your clans and surround the area. Kill anything that comes out without my permission," the Zeldrave king announced, before two squads separated from the main group, and ran around the structure.

"Yavak, Kazan, with me. Everyone with a heal grade lower than Stravak's stays behind. The creatures we're about to face are nothing like the ones we've been slaughtering before," the king said before rushing into the temple.

~Not even my greatest builders could make this,~ he thought to himself.

"My lord, enemies incoming," someone announced.

"Avack Lestrom!" the king shouted, and a trail of white poisonous liquid shot at the undead that stood in front of him. In mere seconds, the fluid burned at the creatures' flesh, quickly making them incapable of fighting. Once that was done, the king and his men trampled over them without a second thought.

In this way, most of the 'guards' in the temple were disposed of. That of course was until they got to a corridor with a massive creature blocking the path.

"Everyone stand back, it's a Heracles warrior," the king announced, prepared to fight against the armoured giant.

~Who would've guessed that even the Heracles could be infected by this disease,~ the king thought to himself before charging at the creature.

~Poison won't work on it. I'll have to destroy the parts of its body that aren't protected-~ the king was thinking, right before he noticed that the creature didn't seem to be moving, or breathing for that matter.

"What's going o-" and just then he realized what had happened. There was a large gaping hole at the top of the creature's skull. It looks like whatever had attacked it, didn't give it a merciful death, as there were several other holes in the creature's armour.

"What's the matter my lo-" one of the salamander warriors was about to ask before it noticed what had happened as well.

"Something was capable of breaking through a Heracles warrior's armour?" the warrior asked in disbelief. To creatures at this level, it was unthinkable that anything could be that strong.

"Listen, from now on raise your guard," the king ordered. This was the first time he had ever met anyone, withstanding the Chamel king, that he thought could best him in battle.

"Avack Gestrom!" the king shouted, and the darkness of the night wrapped around him encasing him in shadowy armour.

"The king's mystic mantle," one of the soldiers whispered in awe. For many, this power was but a legend, something that they may never have seen the king ever use.

"Foward," the king shouted, right before charging down the corridor, twice as fast as he had been doing before.

In this state he was like a juggernaut, ramming through whatever enemies dared to stand in his way. Though oddly enough, every creature he had passed by was either on its dying breaths or already dead. Something else was stalking around the temple, something nearly comparable to him.

~I have to move faster,~ the king thought to himself, pushing himself even more.

After running for several minutes, he finally made it to the final room. In all his years, he had never seen such a thing.

"Just what is going on here?" he whispered, tensing his muscles as he gazed upon the otherwordly figures standing in front of him.

"More pests?" a rotting figure asked in annoyance. It was the first time the Zeldrave king had ever heard an undead creature speak, in fact, it was the first time he had ever seen undead creatures that looked like this at all.

*

"Thank you for your service, Sergeant. You are being discharged."

"What's going on here... The Necromancer! Did it win?" Lucius asked in utter confusion, looking around the unfamiliar room.

"Necromancer? It seems it's gotten worse, are you sure we can just leave him like this?" another voice asked. Lucius hadn't noticed that there was more than one person in the room with him.

"We've recommended a Psychiatrist and given him the best care we could've. There's nothing more we can do," the first voice replied.

"Wait a moment. Humans?" Lucius whispered in sudden realization. What the hell were humans doing here?