"Die already! Die! Die! Die! Die!"
The Revenant Witch that was the ruler of Houten's former capital's sewers began raving when Marcus and his party shoed no signs of weaking.
She had flooded the room with poison and necrotic energy that should have been impossible for most living creatures to withstand.
Fortunately, the items that Marcus had made and given to his party members purified both the poison and necrotic energy.
"Gah! Why did you intruders have to show up now!" The Revenant Witch screamed. "I was so close to finally destroying that moronic bastard. I won't let him get away with what he did to me. I'll use your bodies to make new servants and crush him."
Clearly the Revenant Witch was unhinged and her grip on reality had long slipped. Still, Marcus could tell that what she had just said was meaningful. It at least confirmed that not all of the undead in the city were following a single ruler.
'I was wondering why this place was so well protected. It made little since to invest that many resources when none of the forces intent on reclaiming the city have ever gotten close to this point. But it makes sense now.'
The fortifications around this compound and the swarms of undead patrolling the sewers likely were not there to deal with the forces from Houten, but to fight against whoever this Revenant Witch's enemy within the sealed city was.
"I see, the ordeals you have endured must have been truly terrible. But there is no need to kill us. I have come to offer an alliance. We can take down your enemy together." Marcus said, a cordial smile on his face.
He did not actually plan on working with such an unstable monster that was likely to stab them in the back at any moment even if they did come to some sort of an agreement. What he was hoping for was to glean some more information about the entity she was hostile towards.
"No. No, no, no, no! You must be his agents. You've come here to destroy me. But I won't let you."
Having lost all interest in continuing to converse, the Revenant Witch ordered the undead monster she had hidden to attack.
'Vorpal Fang.'
Adding one of his most powerful attack skills to his swing, Marcus cleaved through the Revenant Witch's neck with ease and separated her head from the rest of her body.
The immense light elemental energy and the spiritual energy he had imbued his attack with began to purify her corpse and soul.
For just a moment the visage of the woman she had been before turning into an undead monster smiled at Marcus peacefully. He had seen this same phenomenon happen before and understood that this was her way of thanking him for saving her from the nightmare her existence had become.
"After all the difficulties we had clearing out the sewers that was a little dissatisfying." Mrazivý said.
"Well, it was just a matter of different situations. We did not need to hold back as much here, and our enemy was just too much weaker than us to pose much of a challenge."
Turning around Marcus saw that the party members he had left in charge of fighting the Revenant Witch's minions had already finished up. The eleven of them had just seamlessly defeated a threat that could bring a nation to ruin.
Nevertheless, their work was not done yet. There were many wretched materials in this place that needed to be disposed of. There was no telling what someone with malicious intent could accomplish with the resources here. There were spell books on advanced necromancy and research notes that could assist even a novice mage in creating their own undead horde.
"Marcus, you are going to want to see this." Alaric said, wearing a grim expression.
He had been rummaging through an old, dust-covered cabinet and pulled out several ancient documents.
Marcus wondered what could have been so awful in comparison to the other stuff here that Alaric had called out for him specifically.
When he took the scrolls that Alaric had found, he understood exactly why the young half elf had asked for him.
Written in great detail on these documents was the method to forge a powerful undead weapon.