Chapter 514 - Complicated (Patreon)

Zeke plunged his hand through the undead monstrosity’s skull, wrapped his fingers around the squishiest parts of its brain, and yanked it free.  It came without issue, though there were some discolored and wriggling bits that he could only call worms that came with the handful of grey matter.  He tossed it aside in disgust, then kicked the hulking creature free.  It fell, limp and lifeless, to join all the others he’d slain. 

Over the past two hours, he’d slaughtered his way through the massive castle, seeing one misshapen horror after another.  The creator of the macabre army – who Zeke could only assume was Catherine – seemed limitless in her imagination, each of her designs more horrifying than the last.  They were made even more so by the visible hints of who they had once been.  A badge of authority here.  A fantastic sword there.  A pair of hauntingly normal eyes, buried amidst the putrescent mounds of flesh. 

It was disgusting, and in a way Zeke had rarely encountered. 

But he’d yet to catch sight of the necromancer herself.  Not since that first meeting.  Since then, it had felt as if she was leading him on a merry chase through the castle, during which she gleefully displayed her disgusting creations.

“I should just destroy the whole place,” he said, shaking his hand to rid it of the more stubborn bits of brain.  One of the worms had wrapped itself around his finger, and it was trying to burrow its way through his metallic skin.  It was unsuccessful, though the sight sent a shiver up his spine.  He pinched the thing between his thumb and forefinger, sending a burst of pus to mist into the air.  “It wouldn’t even be that hard.  Just one [Wrath of Annihilation].  I might have to use a little extra Will, but…”

“You’d kill thousands.”

“They’re already gone.”

“Not all of them.  We have to believe that,” Eveline said.

Not for the first time, Zeke wished he’d retreated to warn his undead allies of the dangers arrayed against them.  Yet, by this point, if he left, he would lose all the ground he’d already covered.  Because he had no doubts that, given even a little room, Catherine would create even more monstrosities.  It was what she did, after all.

So, after looking around to ensure that he’d not left any undead live, he strode from the chamber and into the next hallway.  The problem with the castle was that it was practically a maze, with hundreds of branching hallways and thousand of rooms.  Some were small – little more than broom closets – but others were the size of arenas.  And most of the place was packed full of those undead monstrosities. 

It was disgusting and horrifying, in equal measure.

However, Zeke couldn’t afford to simply quit.  He’d taken on the job, and he intended to see it through to the bitter end.  Catherine would die by his hand, even if he had to spend months traversing the confusing knot of hallways that was the headquarters of the Deathguard. 

“Months is a bit of an exaggeration, but I like the enthusiasm,” Eveline stated.  Then, she gave the impression of pumping her fist in excitement as she said, “Go team Ezekiel.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You know what.  Just…don’t.  It’s weird, and it doesn’t fit,” Zeke said.

She gave a mental roll of her eyes.  “Fine.  I’ll just hide my entire personality,” was her response. 

Zeke wanted to point out that he was explicitly asking her not to do that, concealing her true demeanor behind feigned enthusiasm she thought would get through to him.  However, he refrained from doing so, and instead, focused on the task at hand.  He continued to stomp through the halls, dispatching any undead who stood against him.  Like that, hours passed, and his frustration mounted.  If he could have been certain that it wouldn’t bring the building down on his head, he would’ve simply smashed his way through the walls.  However, because he wasn’t sure what differentiated between normal walls and load-bearing edifices, he kept his destructive tendencies in check. 

Or rather, he channeled them into killing zombies and other undead monstrosities.  Each one was more horrifying than the last, and as the hours wore on, Zeke became desensitized to the disgusting sights.  Even in the best of times, undead were not the most appealing to the living eye.  Yet, knowing that each creature he encountered had once been sapient and that they’d had their identities smothered beneath the necromancer’s control, made it all the worse. 

“Can the living be controlled on such a scale?  Can they be altered like this?” he asked after ripping the multitude of limbs from a zombie that looked like it’d been fused with a spider.  There had been hundreds of others all around, though the smaller ones only had the heads attached to arachnid bodies.

“Anything is possible with enough power and the right skills,” Eveline said.  “But I have never seen anything like this.  Undead are uniquely vulnerable to a necromancer’s skills.  Even mind mages like I used to be are limited in scope.  I was a peak power before I was imprisoned, and one of the most proficient in Hell when it came to my field.  Yet, I could only control two or three people at a time, and even then, I couldn’t do what this necromancer has done to these undead wretches.”

“What do you mean?” Zeke asked, continuing forward.

“Unquestioned obedience was not within my purview.  I could enslave someone for a short time, but the living mind has natural defenses against such an intrusion,” she stated.  “It adapts quickly, and it will quickly break free from even the most accomplished mind mage’s control.”

“But undead are different?”

“Clearly.  Some suspect that it’s because of the lack of vitality, but others claim that other factors contribute to their lacking resistance,” Eveline explained.  “I don’t know the answer because, for the most part, there was always a lack of test subjects.  We do not tolerate necromancers or undead for good reason.”

Zeke shook his head.  The existence of El’kireth was akin to a time bomb waiting to go off.  To its enemies, it represented a serious danger to everyone in the Eternal Realm.  And now, that danger was on the verge of being let loose. 

“The zombies under control of a necromancer aren’t limited to death-attuned areas, are they?”

“No,” Eveline said.  “They will sweep across this world like a plague.”

“Do you know why?” he asked, ignoring her prediction.

She gave a mental shake of her head.  “No.  Again, some speculate that they don’t actually shed those limitations.  Instead, they simply aren’t allowed to respond to them.  Sapient undead will lose their minds if exposed to too much vitality.  Many will become comatose.  Or they will start to degrade.  Whatever the case, none of that is an issue if they’re not in control of their own actions.”

“I see.”

“You really don’t.  When I took control of someone, I had to deal with quite a lot of backlash,” she said.  “It was difficult to maintain, and when it broke, there was a good chance that those people would immediately try to kill me.  I had ways of dealing with that, but none of it was pretty.

“Necromancers don’t have that issue.  They don’t just control someone.  They erase them.  They turn their minds to mush.  There is no chance of escape.  They rob those undead of any sapience.  The practice is abominable.”

It was interesting to see what Eveline really thought about it all.  The fact that she considered what necromancers did to be abominable – considering her former nature – raised all sorts of flags.  But Zeke could easily follow her line of thinking.  There was a marked difference between temporary mind control and completely obliterating someone’s identity, turning them into an unthinking monster in the process. 

“What about all the…changes she’s done to these undead?  Is that normal?” he asked.

“None of this is normal.  It is so far beyond normal that I question how it was allowed to get this far.  A necromancer of that level should have been slaughtered the moment she revealed herself,” Eveline said.  “That she wasn’t represents a clear failure on the part of every powerful person in this world.”

“Tell me how you really feel…”

“This is not time to be flippant, Ezekiel.  She is a serious –”

Just then, something detached from the ceiling and flopped onto Ezekiel’s head, covering him like a fleshy blanket.  Then, it started to constrict, wrapping him in thick, rubbery skin.  He struggled, tearing through the stuff as well as he could, but it regrew faster than he could destroy it. 

Panic suffused Zeke’s mind until Eveline’s presence overwhelmed his budding fear, pushing it to the side as she said, “Be calm.  It is a skill, and a powerful one. I’m keeping it at bay so you can react appropriately.”

Zeke did just that, activating [Shifting Sands] and sinking through the floor.  However, he only got a few feet before his progress came to a halt.  The ground – and the rest of the castle, it seemed – bore the signs of enchantment, the purpose of which was to block skills precisely like the one he’d just tried to use. 

Seeing that, he pushed himself back to the surface, then used [Hell Geyser], letting it erupt beneath his feet.  The blanket of skin let out a screech as it – and Zeke – were bathed in fiery destruction.  It only squeezed harder, though.  And what was even more disturbing, Zeke could feel the life being sucked out of him with every passing moment. 

He needed to do something. 

He couldn’t break free.  Nor could he escape. 

So, he decided to go in the other direction.  He’d already learned that undead were vulnerable to vitality.  Talia’s vampiric friend had been put into a coma by that very energy.  So, what would happen to the fleshy creature trying to squeeze him to death?  He aimed to find out.

With that endeavor in mind, Zeke embraced [Hand of Divinity], flaring it with every ounce of willpower he could muster.  The flow of vitality turned into a raging river that rushed into the unliving monster.  At first, it only squeezed even harder, but soon, it let out a pained screech of surprise.  That turned into a quiver of agony before it tried to dislodge itself.

Zeke wouldn’t allow that. 

Instead, he latched onto it with both hands, pushing his skill to new heights.  He screamed, though the sound was muffled by what felt like a fleshy, moist blanket of rotting tissue. 

Yet, it worked.

For long minutes, he pushed enough vital energy to regenerate his entire body into the creature.  And it responded by going wild, ripping itself free and flopping around.  All the while, Zeke maintained his grip.  Grey flesh turned pink, then it grew huge tumors that burst with foul smelling pus. 

It contorted, constricting into itself as it slowly succumbed to the influx of vital energy.  Then, finally, Zeke felt it die, gifting him with the reward.  It barely moved the needle in terms of his level, but he wasn’t terribly worried about that.  Instead, he only cared about removing the threat, and in that endeavor, he’d succeeded.

“That thing was…unpleasant,” he muttered to himself.

“Indeed,” Eveline said.  “It was so…moist and fleshy.  What do you suppose it was before Catherine got ahold of it?”

“I have no idea, and I’m not eager to find out, either.”

“That’s probably for the best,” she agreed. 

Then, Zeke kicked the mound of misshapen flesh to the side and continued down the hall.  As he did, three more flesh-blankets attacked him, and he responded with the same tactics.  Even so, he couldn’t banish the panic he felt when they wrapped themselves around him. 

Regardless, he kept going, and eventually, Catherine’s monsters shifted in form.  More zombies with too many limbs, a couple of creatures that resembled the transformed Death Warden, and small, cockroach-like monsters that skittered along the walls and inflicted a powerful necrotic venom with every bite were just the beginnings of the horrifying cascade of undead monstrosities. 

But eventually, Zeke reached the end of the line. 

It looked like a throne room, dominated by a large, ornate chair of bone that stood atop a dais.  Upon that throne sat a bored-looking Catherine. 

But Zeke was more concerned with the fact that the vast majority of the huge throne room was packed full of zombies of all sorts.  And lining the walls were huge, hulking abominations that looked as if they’d been sewn together from hundreds of disparate parts. 

“Oh, good.  You’ve managed to join us,” Catherine said laconically.  She sat with one leg over the arm of the throne, while she propped herself on the other arm.  She waved her hand, adding, “I’m sure you don’t mind that I’ve prepared a bit of a welcoming committee.”

Then, without any other conversation, the zombies surged in Zeke’s direction.  He stepped forward to meet them, ready to turn their dead flesh into disgusting pulp.