Chapter 520 - Playing a Role (Patreon)

Talia raced through the empty streets, her horror at what she’d just seen having overwhelmed any emotional distance she’d managed to maintain.  It didn’t matter if she had heartsblood singing through her veins.  Even if she hadn’t, the blanket that normally covered her feelings would have been completely insufficient to smother the emotions she experienced after seeing the bulk of Darukar’s population having been turned into unthinking zombies. 

But for a quirk of her own undead race – and the circumstances that had created it – she might’ve been one of them.  Personal power was irrelevant.  The fact that the Death Warden had fallen was proof of that.  Talia hadn’t personally known the woman, but she had seen her often enough to know that she was near the peak. 

And she had fallen prey to the necromancer’s power, just like all the others.

The only shield against that control was vitality.  Without their efforts at inoculation, the entire city would have fallen under the necromancer’s sway.  Even then, their force was only a fraction of the city’s population.  Millions had already been lost, and for those who’d become mindless zombies, there was no recovery on the horizon.  They were gone, having merged with that enormous monstrosity back in the graveyard. 

Even as she sprinted through the vacant city, a horrible shudder raced up her spine.  The mere memory of that gargantuan thing was enough to haunt her nightmares.  Not only was it too large to truly comprehend, but it was composed of millions of bodies that had merged together into a single mass of undead flesh.  All innocents who’d had their minds stolen. 

The thought twisted her stomach into knots.

Fortunately, she didn’t have long before she reached her destination.  Fittingly, it was one of the strongholds created by the Death Guard.  Large and composed of black stone trimmed with red runes, it was a large, imposing castle, and it was also one of the seven lynchpins holding the city’s protective enchantment in place.

Because of its effect, Zeke was prevented from feeling the full weight of his power to bear.  And without those horribly destructive abilities, he would have no chance of defeating a level one-hundred monster like the one in the cemetery.  So, her task was simple.  She’d been charged with destroying the enchantment, and to do that, she needed to obscure the runes in that building.  Others – like Pudge or Silik – were tasked with doing the same, though at different nodes. 

There was a significant problem, though. 

Before the castle stood three hulking flesh golems.  Each one was nearly a hundred feet tall, with bulbous bodies and a multitude of pudgy limbs protruding from all the wrong places.  One had an arm growing out of its bulging stomach, while another and a pair sticking out of its back.  Their flesh was white and clammy, with rolls of glistening, mucous-covered fat. 

Even for someone who’d grown accustomed to the unique appearances so common amongst the undead, the sight of each of those three creatures was disgusting.  But that was something of a theme for the past few days, and with no small effort, Talia managed to put her nausea aside and focus on the task at hand. 

It probably would have been smart to go back and find help.  There was an entire army of undead, kobolds, and beastkin only a couple of miles away.  Presumably, they were fighting their own battles, as evidenced by the sound of various skills going off in the distance.  And if Talia went back, she would doubtless become embroiled in that conflict, and while that would likely ensure victory, the nature of the situation meant that she couldn’t afford that kind of a delay.  Zeke needed help now, which was why they’d chosen to split their efforts in the first place.

No - she needed to do her part, and that meant killing the disgusting monsters herself.  After that, she would tear through the node and weaken the enchantment. 

Or she would die trying, which, given the power of those abominations, was probably the most likely result.  Still, Talia was not in the habit of letting potential death affect her choices.  She’d long since accepted her own mortality, and she had no intention of letting the fear of death curtail her actions now. 

So, without further hesitation, she embraced [Unliving Speed] and [Inevitability], enhancing her agility and dexterity via the former, while empowering her other active skills with the latter.  Then, she used [Plague Strike], [Frigid Claws], and [Calcification].  Finally, she kept [Flood of Death] on the edge of activation.

Then, she raced forward, letting her Will suffuse her entire body. 

The giant abominations barely had time to react before she slashed into the first.  Without leaping, she could only reach the creature’s heel, but that was enough to deliver a wave of rot that blackened the pale flesh with decay.  The monster let out a warbling wail that shattered the nearby castle’s stained glass windows, and Talia stumbled from the sheer aural impact.

That nearly got her killed as the monster moved with far more speed than a creature its size should’ve been capable of achieving.  It brought its foot down in a vicious stomp, and Talia recovered just in time to dive to the side.  It narrowly missed her, but the shockwave spoiled her footing, and she once again stumbled.  That gave the monster another opening. 

But this time, when it stomped, it put all of its weight on its rot-infested ankle.  Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been enough to impact the thing’s balance.  However, with so much mass, the monster’s footing was a precarious thing at the best of times.  So, the result was all but inevitable. 

The moment it raised its healthy foot, the ankle snapped.  It let out another scream as it tipped over.  Talia used that opening to avoid the thing’s suddenly off-target stomp.  She ran, pushing her speed to heights she’d rarely employed, and she was nearly a hundred yards away when the abomination fell. 

It hit one of its nearby fellows, and the pair collapsed into a heap of pasty, rotting flesh.  Seeing that pile of fatty decay, Talia steeled herself for what was coming.  Then, setting her jaw, she raced forward, leaped upon the fallen monsters, and brought her claws to bear, one slash at a time. 

After a few seconds of furious attacks, she finally unleashed [Flood of Death].  It was already a powerful skill, and it was made even more so by the enhancement of her Will.  The moment the cloud of black ethera made contact with the monster’s pale flesh, black and bubbling rot began to spread across its body. 

But Talia wasn’t content with that. 

Taking a page out of Zeke’s book, she dove into the resultant wound, continuing her efforts and evisceration as she turned the thing’s flesh into a rotting miasma of rot and death.  It would not have been so impactful against a creature with vitality coursing through its veins.  But the undead monstrosities were composed entirely of dead flesh.  More, they were not true entities, but rather, minions under someone else’s control.  So, aside from being quite durable from a physical standpoint, they lacked the protections of being living creatures.

The results were surprising, though. 

Even as the monster melted into a slurry of liquified rot, Talia kept going until, at last, an influx of kill energy announced the abomination’s death.  That’s when she turned her attention to the other monster in the pile. 

She’d moved so quickly that only a minute or so had passed, but in that time, the other flesh giant had struggled to extract itself from its companion’s embrace.  So, Talia had no difficulty carving her way through the first monster and into the second.  It fell just like the other, and after only a few minutes, there was but one monster remaining.

Talia, covered from head to toe in rotting gore, burst free from the slain creature’s chest, but she was immediately met by a descending fist that sent her back the way she’d come.  Disgusting viscera cushioned her descent, but even so, she felt bones breaking beneath the powerful third monster’s blow. 

Still, Talia had been through worse than a few dozen broken bones.  And besides, her pain receptors hadn’t worked properly since she’d become one of the undead.  So, the moment her brain caught up with the situation, she twisted and used her unbroken leg to spring to the side.  She moved like a missile, tearing through the mass of flesh and into the open. 

She tumbled free, rolling across the paved square before coming to a rest a couple dozen feet away from the mass of dead flesh that had once been the pair of flesh golems.  The third brought its fist down again, splattering even more viscera across the square.  Clearly, it had not noticed Talia yet.

Using that to her advantage, she embraced [Focused Reformation], fueling it with the remaining Heartsblood Elixir she had in her system.  She only had one more of the potions in her possession, and no alchemists to brew more.  So, even as her body mended, she knew she lamented her limited supply. 

But she’d had no choice but to use it, a fact that was hammered home by the sound of her many broken bones snapping back into place.  Her burst organs stitched themselves back together, and her thoughts cleared.  Perhaps she had been a little more injured than she’d thought. 

Now, though, she was in perfect – if disgusting – condition.  So, there was nothing standing in the way of finishing the job. 

While the remaining giant was occupied – still pounding its fists against the increasingly liquified bodies of the other two – Talia sprang into motion.  When she came into range, she leaped, and when she slammed into the creature’s calf, she rammed her claws into its disgustingly malleable flesh.  But she didn’t focus on inflicting damage.  Instead, she climbed that wall of pale, mucous-covered meat until she found herself clinging to its back. 

Only then did Talia begin her real assault. 

Every slash of her claws spread black decay, and accompanied by the monster’s howls of pain, she dug her way into its torso.  Once she was completely encased in the creature’s rapidly rotting flesh, she unleashed [Flood of Death] to the fullest extent of the skill’s power.  In addition, she coated it in her Will, amplifying the damage with the power of her Path of Decay. 

The results were predictable. 

Though it took quite some time – longer even than the other two put together – the monster eventually fell before her efforts, flooding her with kill energy that pushed her to the next level.  However, Talia was well aware of the cost of the battle.  Even as the creature toppled, rotting and dead, she could feel the seconds ticking by. 

The task had never been to kill the guards.  Instead, she was supposed to disrupt the city’s protective enchantment.  And after taking so long to kill the creatures, she may well have doomed Zeke – and by extension, the rest of the world.

Still, she climbed free of the fallen giant, then raced toward the castle.  However, she was brought up short by the sight of a lone figure – no larger than a normal person – looming at the top of the steps leading into the castle.  Talia slid to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. 

The woman was a living being, as evidenced by her rosy complexion and lustrous blonde hair.  However, an aura of death hung from her shoulders, establishing – in Talia’s mind, at least – that she was a necromancer.  The woman began to speak, but Talia had no interest in conversation.  So, she raced up the steps, intent on ending the threat.

Of course, the necromancer reacted, casting her hands out as she threw a skill at the ascending Talia.  It washed over her, doing nothing. 

“W-what –”

That was all the necromancer managed to say before Talia rammed her claws into her torso.  It erupted with blood and viscera, the shockwave of Talia’s attack exploding every organ in the woman’s body.  She was dead in an instant, giving only a trickle of kill energy.  That confirmed that she was very low-leveled, which made sense.  The giants had been strong, fearsome creatures, but they had been no higher level than Talia herself.  Otherwise, she’d have been entirely incapable of winning the fight.

More distressing was the presence of the necromancer herself.  That made at least three.  The first one Zeke had killed, then the lich in the cemetery, and now, the blonde Talia had just slain.  One was bad enough.  Two was worse.  But three?  That probably meant there were many more in Darukar. 

How, though?  Necromancers were supposed to be rare.  Even the worst of the worst would kill them on sight.   Was there an entire coven of necromancers, then?  And if so, how had they managed to gain so much power?  How had they avoided notice?  How had they survived?

Those were all important questions to be answered, but for now, Talia had a job to do.  So, without further hesitation, she pushed those thoughts aside and rushed into the castle.  Fortunately, most of the Deathguard’s strongholds followed a well-established layout, so she had no trouble finding her target at the center of the castle. 

Every other time Talia had seen the design on the floor, she’d considered it mere decoration. Now that she was looking for it, though, she could feel the subtle current of mana racing through the elaborate, red whorls.  The design itself was complex and beautiful, which made what she had to do quite a shame.

That wouldn’t stop her, though. 

Not with her friends’ lives depending on her to come through.  So, without anymore ado, she attacked the red pattern.  At first, it stubbornly resisted – and to a significant degree – but eventually, it gave way to her repeated attempts at destruction.  Finally, she broke one of the lines, which resulted in a small, localized explosion of mana.

But that wasn’t enough to disable the node. 

So, she kept going, ripping it to shreds of rock and gemstone until, at last, the thing went dark.  So too did all the other red trim that decorated the black stone.  When she rushed outside, she saw that the same was the case with every other structure in the area, leaving the entire district completely dark.

It filled her with a sense of dread as well as sadness, but she pushed those emotions to the side in favor of one simple thought.  She had done her job.  Now, it was up to the others to finish their own tasks.  With that in mind, she ran through the city, hoping to lend her own power to their struggle.