Shadowbane

"Did someone put those three monsters into a single body...?" Keith asked.

It definitely looks like that...

"I don't know what kind of backstory this thing had, but let's talk about it later."

Walking over, I gather the monster's soul into a small orb, but instead of eating it, I find myself admiring it. Surprisingly, whatever soul this monster had is rather beautiful. It's a mix of bright and dark blue swirling around emitting enough light to light up a small room if it wanted.

Never seen a soul like this before... It almost feels like a waste to eat it and not put it in my future home as a trophy or something. Sadly, I need the power from this soul going forward.

As I toss it into my mouth, the core pulls it down like normal, except something new happened that I had never experienced before. My core stopped pulling it in at the last second, apparently confused at the appearance of a type of soul it had never eaten till now. Ever so slowly it devoured it, scanning it for any irregularities.

I don't have time to absorb this right now, but it's going to be a huge boost after this battle is over.

"So that's what you did to Brian and Jason..." Keith said.

I sighed. "You really want to do this right now?"

"No, I don't actually. I've already come to terms with what we did and why we must pay, especially me. And I do understand why they died, I truly have no right to complain about any of us losing our lives in response to our actions. However, please understand... It's not easy when I think about the fact that they could both be here, right now, atoning along with the rest of us. If only..."

'If only I didn't exist?' Is what I was going to say but I kept my mouth shut. I know it's more than that. At this point, he's still filled with regret and a literal ancient being pushing him forward to atone. God only knows how many years it's going to take for him to fully accept everything that happened and for him to willingly move forward on his own without all the regret and fear controlling him.

The illusion around us finally dispels. Along with the fires and screams returning, I can see the Tengu far away from the village casting a massive ice storm in front of himself.

Keith walks in that direction a little and stops. "Looks like they managed to pull it away from the village. I'm going to head straight there, what about you?"

"I'm going to do something with Aresa real quick and then I'll back you guys up. Is Albel going to stay behind to defend Nisha, Aresa, and Shana?"

"No. Shana says she can take care of it so he's going to assist us after a few of her clones return." Keith said.

After finishing his sentence, Keith turns around and begins running towards the mountains where the Tengu currently is. A loud boom echoes out behind me as a large ball of energy fires past the village. It smashes directly into the Tengu's barrier, causing him to reel sideways a little from the impact. He tries looking this way for the culprit, but thanks to that attack its blizzard spell was canceled, leaving the group over there free to attack it again.

That came from the trees Cera was pointing at earlier... Does she have a sniping ability? It had enough power behind it to make the Tengu almost fall over despite its hulking form and the abominations barrier had diluted most of the impact. When its barrier is gone, it'll need to be reacting instantly to avoid those shots, because even a Lord that powerful will take massive damage from her ability.

Turning around, I run back towards the area where I first entered the village, passing a confused-looking Albel along the way. He watches as I pick up several different skeletal corpses of the villagers here and carry them over towards the cellar he's in.

"What are you doing...?" He asked immediately after I dropped down.

"Testing something out. If this works I'll be a much larger threat against the Tengu." I looked over at Aresa. "Just to confirm, you still have most of your mana right?"

{Yes. Do you want me to supply you? I know you're 'different', but every living being can only handle a certain amount of mana infusions, and that will include you.}

"Oh I know, but this is a little different. I'll be nothing more than a conduit for you to supply something else. You'll understand, just watch."

Laying one of the skeletons out in a grave pose, I put my hand on its rib cage and send a small part of my soul into it. Less than a second passes by before a small black growth appears inside the skeleton's chest. Dozens of small black 'tendons' launch out of the tiny black object, latching onto different parts of the skeleton. With each passing second the tiny black object gets bigger as all the parts it attached to begin to turn black.

"What the...?" Albel said.

{... I wondered when you were going to do this.}

"You knew I could do this? Did some of the summons remain after Xelba fell?"

{Yes. They found some intact skeleton corpses and kept them in Viseux's museum, but there were a few still active that attacked the Dwarves when they got close. They were fine, but what about us? Is this 'summon' of yours going to attack us?}

"No, they probably just went into pure hostility mode after I died. They didn't have much life left in them after I was gone so they would've shut off on their own anyway, like the intact ones you guys found. Kind of weird knowing my old summons are sitting in a museum though..."

I'm gonna have to go check that out after we return to Viseux.

Two of Shana's clones drop down and give Albel a thumbs up. Upon seeing that he jumps out of the cellar and dashes off towards the Tengu.

"They strong?" One of the clones asks, pointing at the skeleton.

"The basic one here? Eh, they're alright. If I have enough mana to fully armor them and create a big enough weapon, then they are amazing. Good firearms also make them quite formidable. Regular ones like this will be just cannon fodder for the Tengu though, so if Aresa can supply them mana without overexerting me then I'm going to create as many as possible and have them blow up on the Tengu's barrier. They take an enormous amount of mana though, are you fine with that Aresa?"

{I won't know till I try fueling them. I want to do this though, because this gives me an opportunity to help fight that stupid bird. I've never actually been able to help kill one before... I'm kind of excited!}

"How many normal ones can you make?" Shana asked.

"Depends on many things. Technically it could go on forever but that's impossible. I need 'ether carriers' which are very heavy and slow skeletons that absorb lots of ether from the area, except they're weak as hell and need to be in range to actually keep the skeletons running. I assume you understand from that alone why it's impossible to create an army. All it takes is someone with a little bit of intelligence to attack my carriers and that's it for me."

"Hmm... I was asking because I know where the armory here is. I found it earlier, and it's full of guns." Shana said.

Oh shit... Now that makes common skeletons a hell of a lot more useful in this situation. Guns kind of suck by themselves against barriers, but if there are dozens of them firing nonstop? That's a completely different story.

I look at Aresa.

"... I'm going to make about five ether carriers just in case though. Not that I expect them to live long against the Tengu, but it can't hurt to try since there is plenty of uh..."

{Bodies around?}

"... Yeah. I've never used the corpses of people I was supposed to be helping before, so I don't know what kind of backlash is waiting for me after this. How mad do you think they'll be?"

Euphemia who was quiet until now cuts in, "Extremely angry... If I don't interfere. Instead, they might be happy that their family members were able to get revenge for themselves. I can try spinning it like that and they'll probably love you instead."

Glancing over at her, it looks like she's barely here. Her eyes look completely glazed over as if her mind is somewhere else.

"Oooh, very smart Euphemia!!" One of the clones said as they both began clapping, getting zero reaction from Euphie.

I see... That's not a bad idea. Having a royal who is loved by the populace backing you up sure is convenient.

Looking down, I see the last of the skeleton's bones turn black with a small patch of hardened armor appearing around its chest.

{To protect the core?}

"Yes. It has another one in its brain in case it loses the main one, or vice versa." Just like me.

Red eyes appear in the skeleton's eye sockets as it stands up.

"Okay princess, try fueling this skeleton through me."

{... I'm not a princess, that's Euphie.}

You sure as hell look and act like one. I can't see much difference between you two.

Aresa reaches out and grabs my hand, pouring a continual stream of mana into me for a bit before she finds the link to the skeleton, shifting the mana over to it instead.

{Ahh I see now... Like this, it's going straight through your soul to somewhere else, so it can't wear out your soul.}

Perfect... I still don't know how much mana she has, but I think I'm about to find out. Might as well build a small army like Shana suggested.

"Shana---"

Before I could finish the two clones jumped out of the hole. Soon after bodies begin dropping down into the cellar. The first wave was made up of purely skeletons thanks to what the monster did earlier, but the ones killed by the Tengu were killed in a myriad of different ways. Burned, frozen, shocked, crushed... It felt like every possible way of dying was here.

"I can't use the ones with most of their bones crushed. Fortunately, most of the bodies look intact. All the useless ones were probably hit by that meteor." I look at Aresa. "Okay, there's one problem that I need to rectify right now. Once I begin summoning a bunch of these things I'm going to be very weak. Without going into a long explanation, I lose a percentage of my strength with each active summon, so I won't be in a position to defend us."

Pulling some blood out, I quickly turn it into a long rope, handing it off to Shana as I turn my back to Aresa.

"Climb up Aresa, and then Shana can you please tie her to me? I'll harden it a little once she's in place so no need to worry about tying it off or anything like that."

Shana nods as Aresa jumps onto my back, wrapping her arms around my throat. Shana then wraps the rope around us. Once she's done, I harden it until I feel Aresa is securely glued to me.

"That too hard? Should I slacken it a little?"

Oh right her arms are preoccupied hanging onto me, she probably left her board on the ground.

{No need. I'm fine.} A cute voice sounds off inside my head.

"What the?! You could speak telepathically this whole time?? Why didn't you do it till now?"

{... I don't like doing this, but I know I have to right now given the situation. Now hurry up, we don't have much time, right?}

True, which means I'll have to summon one of those. Ugh, if she can't handle this and the Lich backfires I'm going to be weakened for a very long time.

Leaning down I touch one of the corpses, forcing a part of my soul into it just like before, except this time I tell it to turn into a Lich. Immediately I feel like passing out as a massive amount of mana is drained from me. I can sense Aresa panicking as she takes over the supply for me.

{Jeez Rei! I know you said the drain would be a lot but this is too much!}

"... Only the Lich is going to be this much of a strain. The rest will be much easier."

... Ugh, my head is spinning. This was difficult to do even when I could handle it alone.

{Are you okay? It feels like you're about to fall down...}

"I'm not... I'll be fine in a few moments though."

A minute later the Lich finished forming. It floats into the air as its cloth armor slowly forms all over it.

{I was grossed out at first but the more I see your summons the more I wish I could do this.}

I doubt the others will see it the same way, but it does feel good hearing someone praise one of my summons again. I'm tempted to use the knight's souls to try and create some unique ones... I shouldn't though. It's not worth the risk and extra mana drain right now.

I tell the Lich to turn two dozen of the bodies into normal skeletons and it begins work immediately. Creating one after another, forming them much faster than I did earlier. I reach down and personally tell five other bodies to turn into ether carriers.

Oh, hang on... Telepathy is a two-way connection. She can hear my thoughts, right? That shouldn't be possible with me though...

"How are you able to connect to me? Even with Humans, you'd need them to personally accept the connection, and forcing it would cause all sorts of reactions from the victim. With that said, we're talking about my soul here, and I felt absolutely nothing."

{Don't worry, it's not telepathy. I can't mess with your soul. I'm sending vibrations through the air into your ear.}

"So this isn't your real voice? I feel cheated... Although I'll admit what you're doing sounds pretty damn impressive."

{Hehe, this is what I imagine it'd sound like! So treat it as if it is my voice.}

All the skeletons finish forming around the same time. Carriers are normally much faster, which shows just how much better the Lich is at summoning.

{Ugh... I can handle maybe thirty minutes of this Rei.}

We already went way past her regen huh? I can try making more carriers but the ether aura they are giving off is already extreme. Spreading them out does nothing, it only makes them look more dangerous. If I go past this there is a much higher chance of the Tengu attacking them.

"Interesting. They're heavy because their core takes up their entire torso, right? It had a completely different creation process from the warriors." A clone asked, pointing at a carrier.

"Yes. They weigh almost four hundred pounds right now which is hard on their legs. I've tried tinkering with them but past a certain point the mana drain to make them move faster increases by a massive amount, so I settled on what they're at right now. There's no point to their existence if they use most of the ether they produce just to move."

{I felt the load lighten quite a bit as they powered up. Although it's still a big drain on me.}

"Making armies like this isn't something I'd normally do. The only time I did this is when I knew there would be uh, a bunch of 'fuel' nearby."

"The people of Xelba?" Euphemia asked.

Looking over at her I see she's curled up in a ball next to Shana's main body. She has her face completely buried in her knees.

... She looks like a scared little kid right now. It even sounded like she was sniffling. She probably only asked me that question to keep her mind occupied.

"Yes. Every time they killed someone the two Lich's would take their souls and keep the supply lines fed. Once nobody was left I cut the connection and took all the parts of my soul back so I could go after Viktor at full strength. In those situations, the skeletons keep going until their cores run out of mana, including carriers. Without a part of my soul present, there is nothing left to draw in ether."

A clone pointed up. "Okay, all the guns are collected. Should I drop them down here?"

"Nope this is fine, and please grab some more bodies too. I have a feeling we'll be needing them."

As I jump out of the hole I can feel something pulse out of the Lich. All the skeletons float like feathers as they jump out of the hole, slowly gliding toward the ground as they reach the apex of their jump.

{SO COOL!!! IT HAS GRAVITY MAGIC?!}

"Anything it casts can only affect the skeletons and itself. When I tried making it so it could hit me with the spells too, the mana cost went sky-high. For some reason limiting it to summons made the costs very small instead."

There are guns laid out around the cellar's opening, waiting for my skeletons to pick them up. Which is exactly what they do as soon as their feet hit the ground.

"Shana is one hell of a useful ally to have."

{She's very capable. Whenever I need anything covert done, I ask her. She's um, a little jealous of you in that regard.}

"The invisibility? Yeah... Most people are, but I imagine it's much worse for someone whose abilities are based around sneaking."

The skeletons sprint past me, moving twice as fast as I normally can while enhanced(thanks to the Lich buffing them).

{Is it okay for them to be so far away? What's the range on your summons?}

"Around halfway to where the Tengu is so we'll be fine since I'll be back in range soon. So long as there is a single skeleton in between me and another one, I can keep the supply going at any distance. That's also why I'm leaving the carriers here inside whatever cellar is closest to the battle. Hopefully, there isn't anyone hiding in there. No time to explain to them that the creepy skeletons are their allies."

Enhancing myself with what little strength I have left, I begin running towards the Tengu.

{So slow!! You weren't kidding about losing your strength. Want a boost?}

"No. Don't waste anything on speed unless we need to be mobile."

As we get closer I can see Alicia blasting the Tengu's barrier. A constant stream of electricity is streaming from her fingers onto the barrier, creating more and more sparks as the barrier becomes increasingly charged. The Tengu must have already realized how dangerous this is because he has several spheres floating above his head that are firing off random spells at her constantly, but Alicia keeps sliding sideways through the snow as if she were skating, avoiding the attacks.

Even I can see the panic on the Tengu's face as he glares at Alicia. That spell truly is devastating to barriers. The more she channels it onto his barrier, the more the spell reacts off itself, doing more and more damage. I've seen barrier-killing spells like this before. In a few minutes, the chain reaction will continue all on its own even if he manages to kill Alicia. And the others are not giving him any breathing room, so he's unable to focus on her. Plus, to make things even worse for him, Shana has several clones throwing electrified knives at his barrier.

I thought she had her clones carrying around real knives, but I just saw one of them create the knives right before she threw them. So her clones can use any other abilities she has? Damn, no wonder why Aresa has so much faith in her. I even see her creating knives for Keith to throw.

In a tree near me Albel is doing the strangest but most impressive display of fast casting I've seen in a while. He's punching forward with palm strikes at a ridiculous speed while shooting out fireballs with each strike. Alicia's attack will do the most damage in the end, but right now there's no one even coming close to the damage Albel is dishing out.

In front of me, the skeletons begin to fan out now that they're in range. A chorus of gunfire erupts after they take up positions far away from the Tengu. His barrier begins shining in random spots as the bullets land, which causes him to glance at the skeletons for a moment and nothing more. They're dangerous, but not to the level Alicia or Albel is. However, it seems like the Tengu has already had the pleasure of dealing with Ishar, as his main spells are entirely focused towards him.

{He must have already stopped the Tengu from flying towards Alicia. He realized has no choice but to kill him first.} Aresa 'said'.

Excluding my initial fight with Ishar, this is my first time seeing him in action, and I'll admit I'm rather impressed. The first spell I saw was a massive bolt of lightning, but Ishar merely held his artifact spear in front of his face which seemed to make the bolt hit it directly. After that the bolt immediately forked off behind him into the ground. The second spell was about a hundred different mini-fireballs blasting at him at extreme speeds. Ishar tried sprinting away but they chased after him, so he enhanced himself further and stayed just out of range while he cut them down one by one. As the explosions occurred he was already far enough away to not take any damage.

The Tengu, apparently fed up with trying to take everyone here out one by one, raised his staff high into the air as a large fiery disc expanded outwards from it. It began spinning to the right, and it took no more than a second for everyone underneath it to realize how much danger they were in. I could see the snow melt almost instantly as the entire area became covered in a heat haze. Everyone enhanced themselves and tried fleeing the area, but a ring of electricity blinked into existence right at the edge of the flaming disc's range. Alicia tried barreling right through it and was blasted backward, sliding along the super-heated rocky soil. Her barrier literally exploded from the heat as her skin began to sear. In a panic, I saw her grab the copper dagger hanging off her waist. Most of her hair burst into flames as she warped away.

Shana's two clones and Keith tried jumping over the electric field, but when they were vaulting over the field, three lightning bolts shot up and fried them in midair. The clones fell into the field and were both killed instantly while Keith turned into a blue ball and shot past me towards Nisha. Seeing this, Ishar swapped from a jumping stance into an offensive one. He dashed forward while holding his spear in front of him just like he did earlier against the Tengu, and it appeared to mostly work. The electricity seemed to be doing everything it could to avoid his spear, but the power must have been too much for his anti-magic spear because the rest of his body was periodically blasted by little bolts of electricity over and over as he made his way through the field. Upon exiting the field he promptly fell to his knees. A small green glow emitted from him the second his knees hit the ground.

Healing in that situation? Quite brazen of him, but I assume he has no choice. His muscles are probably spasming out of control right now. Hell, it's a miracle he made it through that field at all... More than that though, I'm concerned with what is coming next. I'm not sure if Shana can make more clones, but if she can't that means it's just me, him, Aresa, and Cera left? I don't like those odds very much...

Having accomplished his goal, the Tengu quit channeling the disc and electric field, instead choosing to fly towards Ishar with his staff pulled back to his right. Ishar turned around and used his shout ability, freezing the Tengu in midair as it swung at him. It appeared like it was going to be a complete miss thanks to Ishar's quick reaction speed. It gave him time to leap back several times out of range of the staff, but as the stun wore off and his attack restarted where it left off, the Tengu's staff extended outwards another fifty feet and smashed into Ishar, sending him flying into the mountain.

I didn't see any blood but if he did survive he won't be in any position to help for a while... Well shit, I was supposed to be the support not the fucking main force. Even now my skeletons are still shelling the Tengu nonstop, having only stopped once so far to replenish their extra ammo they dropped near me, but they're still nowhere strong enough to beat this thing.

"Uh, are we fucked?" Albel said loudly from the tree.

Almost on queue, the Tengu turned toward us and just stood there staring at us, waiting for us to make the first move(although my skeletons were still shooting him, making his proclamation kind of comedic).

Another loud bang rang out behind me, making the Tengu hit the ground on all fours, except... No ball of energy appeared like it did before.

Albel looked back at the village. Almost immediately I could see a panicked look appear on his face.

"S-Shit! Keith and Cera are being attacked, and I think I see Seifer there too?"

Glancing back, I see that Albel is sadly correct. Near a behemoth-sized wagon, Keith and Seifer are fighting off... Villagers? This is obviously the broodling's doing. I knew it'd use these battles as an opportunity to try and kill us, but something feels weird here... Only a dozen or so villagers and guards are trying to climb the tree to attack Cera, while most of them are going after the wagon...?

Aresa went into a panic after she saw the scene behind us.

{Oh no!! Rei, the shaman is inside that wagon! Alicia hid him underneath the carriage in the storage compartment. The broodling is trying to kill him!}

Clever girl... When I saw everyone here in the village I wondered how they were planning to protect the shaman who I assumed was back in the manor. That also explains why Seifer stayed behind. However, I don't think the broodling is trying to kill the shaman. There's no way this attack is going to work, not even a one percent chance of it succeeding. It was merely doing this to force someone to protect the damned shaman, which may in fact lead to its death once the rest of us are killed by the Tengu.

The Tengu tried standing back up and was immediately swept off his feet by a gust of wind. Looking in the direction the spell originated from, I see Tyra standing there with a large contingent of knights behind her. Unlike her, they all looked shocked, but their commander shouted something and they immediately began channeling a group attack like they hit us with earlier.

I'm sure it wasn't on purpose, but Tyra being pursued by those knights turned out to be one hell of a lucky break for us. It looks like the knight chasing her was the one who locked her up earlier. So this is the king's royal guard, right? They should be quite useful then.

Far from looking displeased, I'd say the Tengu was looking mighty happy at the sight of our new arrivals. However, he instead looked rather unhappy at the sight of our next guests. From the mountainside, a horde of goblins appeared, along with a half dozen large goblins.

{What are those...?}

"Goblins. They came here to kill something else, but I can see them buffing the large goblins from here, so it looks like they're going to attack the Tengu."

They could have left the second they saw this new abomination in front of them and not the monster from before, and yet... They didn't. I saw the veteran point at me and I can see that 'Teifa' I talked to as well. Looks like they decided to help me, although I'm not quite sure why? It was already strange enough how kindly they treated me after I dragged a group of hostile knights to their location, which led to several of their own brethren dying. And now on top of that, they're helping me again? If we survive this battle I'll need to find a way to repay the favor. They deserve that much.