Death: Genesis

Zeke barreled through the horde of zombies, completely obliterating quite a few of them on his way through the enormous gates. However, when he entered into the headquarters, he was confronted with a dozen large undead, each one brimming with enough mana that he didn’t need [Inspect] to tell him that they were just as high of a level as him. Still, he used the identification skill:

Reaper – Level 85

The creatures were not zombies. Instead, they resembled a variety of undead he’d encountered back in the mortal realm. And as their names suggested, they looked a lot like the stereotypical grim reaper, though with a lot more heft to their bodies. The fact that he’d not seen anything like them among his allies suggested that they were not natural. Or as natural as any of the unliving.

As he skidded to a stop, he wondered, “Can necromancers change the forms of their minions?”

“They can do whatever they want, provided they have the expertise and the proper skills,” Eveline stated. “It is one of the reasons they’re so dangerous. Naturally occurring undead are tied to specific forms and functions, and the sapient versions – as rare as they are – generally have classes much like any other race. However, true minions of a necromancer are completely pliable. They have no identities, and as such, their masters can mold them into unspeakable abominations.”

“What happens if we kill the necromancer and free these things from his control?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps their sapience would return. Maybe they would become monsters. Much about necromancers is unknown, largely because no civilized population would tolerate their existence,” she said. “That is one of the reasons your little friend was directed to kill the one back in the Radiant Isles. Even the gods fear a necromance run amok.”

Zeke shook his head. Even if that was true, it didn’t excuse Abby’s actions. All she’d had to do was relay her plan, and he would have helped her to execute it. However, she’d chosen dishonesty and guile, putting him and, more importantly, Pudge in danger. As far as he was concerned, that selfishness was enough to create an impassible rift between them.

Regardless, he had other issues on his mind.

Chiefly, that the reapers had begun their advance, gliding forward with their tattered robes brushing against the elaborately tiled floor. With their scythes held high, they closed on Zeke. He responded with his own, far more abrupt charge as he tore into the creatures with reckless abandon.

Normally, he would have been far more cautious against a group of level eighty-five opponents. That represented real power on a level that demanded his attention. Yet, he’d recently learned that the undead minions of whatever necromancer had taken control of the forces of El’kireth were far less powerful than their levels indicated. As such, he reasoned that caution was undue.

Zeke dipped low, dragging his hammer only an inch above the floor, then exploded into a momentous uppercut that took the first reaper in the chest. Voromir’s head ripped into its body, which erupted into a geyser of dead flesh and tattered black cloth. The rest of its body flew upward, splattering against the vaulted ceiling. But by then, Zeke had already moved on to the next reaper.

However, he received quite a shock when the undead minion managed a glancing blow that barely scratched the metallic flesh of his titanic form. The moment that scythe made contact with shoulder, his arm went numb, and he very nearly dropped his hammer. More distressingly, a quick pulse of [Touch of Divinity] barely elicited a tingle, and it took a few seconds of flaring the skill to bring feeling back to the limb.

Fortunately, he’d reacted quickly to the infirmity, springing backward before any of the other scythes could hit him. Still, that single point of contact was enough to tell him just how dangerous the remaining reapers could be. So, he wasted no more time before stomping on the ground, using [Hell Geyser] to bathe them in fiery wrath. Moreover, he added [Storm of Hammers] to the mix, and the two skills – whirlwind and fiery plume – worked together to create a blazing vortex of destruction.

Zeke didn’t stop there, though. He threw himself into the fray, trusting his uncommon resistances and titanic body to keep him safe from his own skills. Meanwhile, he wrought havoc amongst the creatures, sweeping his hammer out in vicious arcs that kept them at a distance while harnessing the full potential of his enormous strength.

It was like fighting in the middle of a fiery hurricane that had just torn through an armory. Copies of Voromir flew around, shattering stone and reaper bodies alike. At the same time, Zeke added his own might to the mix, destroying anything that managed to survive the wrath of his skills. In a way, it was like he’d gone back to the battle against the storm elemental, though this time, the chaotic tornado was of his make.

Strangely, that made all the difference.

“It is disturbing how much you’re enjoying this,” Eveline said.

Zeke didn’t respond, but he also couldn’t deny that he found the chaos to be almost cathartic. There was a beauty to it. A comfort level he never expected to find amongst so much havoc.

Still, the effects of Zeke’s skills, the undead creatures were still level eighty-five, and they had enough durability to make the fight take quite a while. So, thundering through the chaos, Zeke brought his battle-hardened expertise to bear, destroying one reaper after another until, at last, the threat was gone.

The wind died down, and the fires dissipated, leaving only Zeke and a handful of bodies.

“Bravo,” came a voice in the distance. Zeke followed the sound to see a woman standing on the other side of the immense lobby. She looked wholly normal – not even undead – and she wore a pristine white robe trimmed in gold. There was something familiar about that.

“Adontis,” he muttered, using [Inspect].

Catherine Dubois – Level 91

“Indeed, monster,” she said with a cold smile. She held a slender, golden staff whose head ended in a twisted cross. “Or have you achieved sapience? Rare for one who has not reached the peak, but not entirely unheard-of. I take it you are responsible for that old fool’s death?”

Zeke stepped forward, but so did the creature beside her. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but he wasn’t entirely certain why. He said, “If you’re asking if I killed Lord Adontis, then yes. That was me.”

“Good riddance. He was a talented child, but he never stood a chance of ascension,” she said.

“He was higher leveled than you,” Zeke pointed out. In truth, he’d never seen the man’s level. In addition, he wasn’t certain why he’d chosen to defend the man to the strange woman before him. He shouldn’t have cared how she referred to Lord Adontis at all.

Yet he did.

He didn’t like her flippant attitude. But there was a good chance that his own disdain stemmed from the fact that she was plainly a necromancer. The creature behind her was proof of that, even if her presence within the heart of the undead Kingdom of El’kireth hadn’t served that same purpose.

“So he was. But power is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said, still wearing that infuriatingly cold smile. “Take yourself for example. By all rights, you should have struggled to defeat my little toys. Yet, here you are, almost entirely unscathed. Even their Touch of Death ability barely slowed you down. Pity. They came from such good materials.”

“Materials? Is that how you refer to the people they were?”

She rolled her eyes. “People? These rotting things? They may have had some semblance of sapience – questionable, but I’ll grant it – but we both know they weren’t people. Ambulatory corpses. Abominations. Unnatural creatures who should not be allowed to exist, save under the firm hand of someone who can properly control them,” she said.

“Like you?”

“If the shoe fits,” she acknowledged with a slight nod. “Which brings me to my greatest achievement. I give you…the former Death Warden herself.”

The creature – her minion – stepped forward and into the light, giving Zeke a better look. It was an abomination, and there was no other way to think of it. It was difficult to imagine that it had once held a fairly humanoid shape, largely because Catherine Dubois had robbed the creature of any dignity it had once possessed, attaching a multitude of grasping limbs, more dead flesh than Zeke wanted to consider, and a plethora of weapons.

It was grotesque.

And it had once been a person.

The sight made him nauseous, but he still managed to use [Inspect]:

Death Blob – Level 98

“I know what you’re thinking,” Catherine said. “Death blob is such a bad name. I agree completely, and I’m still workshopping a proper label. I’m sure you understand, though I’m also certain that you’ll agree it’s a fitting moniker.”

It was.

The former Death Warden – who he’d learned was one of the most prominent leaders in the kingdom – looked like nothing so much as a round glob of decaying flesh, from which grew dozens of limbs. Each grasping hand held a weapon, and it moved forward not by walking, but rather, by grabbing hold of the ground and rolling. Each revolution came with a wet plopping sound, and where it went, a trail of mucus followed.

“You are a monster,” Zeke said.

Catherine laughed. “Coming from a giant metal colossus, I’ll take that as a compliment! In any case, enjoy playing with my toy. I’m sure you’ll find it quite up to the task of –”

Zeke didn’t need to see anymore. Instead, he charged forward, cocked back his hammer, and swung. However, he didn’t do so with only the not-inconsiderable might of his muscles. Instead, his swing was accompanied by the power of a thousand swings, which he let loose via [Unleash Momentum]. That power hit the death blog with a herculean level of force, tearing into the mass of rotting flesh. The first few layers were ripped free, then torn to bits that splattered against the far wall only a moment later. Then, the creature itself followed, hitting that same wall with a grotesque splat. Its body deflated like a beachball with a hole in it, then fell to the ground.

For her part, Catherine only took a glancing blow from the skill, though even that was enough to send her cartwheeling back the way she’d come. She flew through the doorway, hit the floor in a tumble, then disappeared down the connected hallway.

She didn’t die, though.

Neither did the death blob.

But Zeke was prepared for that, and he leaped forward to deal with the threat, bringing his hammer down in an overhand strike that sent pus and decayed flesh misting into the air. He nearly choked at the smell, though he kept at it, hammering the creature again.

Normally, he might’ve been a little put off by the fact that he was killing what had once been a sapient creature. But helpless as the death blob was, he felt nothing except annoyance at the sheer disgust raging through his mind and causing his stomach to rebel. For all that it had once been the powerful Death Warden, nothing of that person was left. Only the monstrous creature remained.

And Zeke knew how to deal with those.

So, he followed through with what turned out to be an extermination, ripping into the undead creature without empathy or remorse. And after only a couple of minutes, it finally perished, flooding him with experience. It wasn’t enough to push him to the next level, but it was far more than he had expected.

Apparently, fighting monsters near the peak was a good way to level.

Regardless, Zeke wasn’t done with his task, so he pushed those thoughts to the side as he left the death blob behind and stomped through the doorway. Unfortunately, Catherine had already recovered, and she’d disappeared into the depths of the building.

It was not a surprising turn of events, but it certainly was annoying. Zeke wanted nothing more than a straight-up fight, and she’d robbed him of that satisfaction.

“Yeah – you’re not a battle maniac at all,” Eveline remarked in her first contribution to the battle. “But proceed with caution. There’s more to this woman than meets the eye.”

“You sound pretty sure about that,” Zeke said.

“She’s not so different from who I used to be. I recognize in her the demoness I was.”

“Fair enough,” Zeke said, thankful that Eveline had moved past all of that. He wasn’t so deluded as to think that she had completely left her manipulative nature behind, but she’d made some degree of progress. Perhaps being separated from her body had helped.

“You’re thinking about me like I’m not even here. Stop. It’s annoying.”

Zeke let out a mental sigh as he stepped forward, his hammer held at the ready as he went in search of the monstrous necromancer.