Either the smile on my face or the Athame in my hand must have clued the centaur in to the fact that things were about to get interesting. He tried to break the bindings I had conjured around him, not that he had a chance to do so, the frozen chains I had bound him in were tight and solid.

I carefully planted the staff in front of him, using a bit of Ice-Magic to anchor it in the soil beneath, making sure that Lenore could easily watch what I was doing and would be able to do her part in our plans. It took me a few moments to carefully remove the leather armour protecting the Centaur’s abdomen and once that was done, I had free access to his flesh, especially the strange linking-organ that connected the two different circular systems of the centaurs. And that was where I was planning to start my work.

The Centaur let out a strange, snorted gurgle as my Athame pierced the flesh of his abdomen, sliding into the strange organ, my blood magic channelled through the blade to prevent the blood from spurting out. I had better things in mind with it, so I had to prevent it from simply flowing away.

With each beat of the centaur’s two hearts, the influence of my blood magic was spreading through both circular systems, slowly draining Astral Power from me, the investment hopefully paying off in the long-run. It was curious, once I had stabbed the centaur, he seemed to almost calm when nothing bad happened in the next minute. Maybe he didn’t quite realise what was happening or he understood that trying to struggle was pointless, making him bide his time, saving his strength for a possible later attempt to flee.

Not that it mattered, he never had a chance to use his saved strength. Some ten minutes after I had started with him, I felt that my magic had saturated his body, infiltrating into the smallest capillaries and allowing me to feel all the blood within him, brimming with life. Reaching out with my blood magic, I started to actively separate the blood, as if I was using Blood Magic to draw out the power contained within for my use. That caused the Centaur to give a shuddering jerk, trying to escape the sudden pain that was wrecking his body but again, the chains held and moments later, his jerking stopped, his body only held up by the binding on it.

Now, the next part of the experiment began, while I used the Power gained from his body, Lenore was slowly infusing the body with her particular magic, turning it into an undead under her command. I felt her power intrude into the body but, luckily, it didn’t interfere with my plans.

I used what I had seen in Tegi, the ideas, the concepts and even some of their magical formations, to recreate part of what they had done, using the Power siphoned off from his blood to bind the Miasma created by the use of my Blood Magic, keeping it contained inside his body. What I was using was a rather complicated spell using both Blood- and Darkness-magic and I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to hold it. I felt myself start to sweat from the effort, the Miasma was trying to act as it normally would, spread out like spilled liquid and I was keeping it bound, creating slowly mounting pressure as more and more of the energy was used up, creating more and more Miasma.

“I’m ready.” Lenore told me, the centaur now standing again but there was a slightly eerie feeling about him. Looking at him more closely, nothing but that slight feeling and the small stab-wound in his stomach gave away what he was, an undead puppet filled to the brim with Power.

I stepped back, withdrawing the Athame and replacing the Armour above the wound and felt the connection to the Blood inside waver but it was still easily strong enough to hold.

“Let him go.” I told Lenore, dissolving the bindings around her puppet with a thought. For the first few steps, the centaur-puppet was stumbling but then it found a useful gait and was racing towards the centaur-camp, with Lenore and me moving to the edge of the mist, allowing us to see what was going on. On my signal, the wolves started to make a ruckus again, howling and snarling, as if they were viciously fighting.

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The guards looked at the apparently fleeing centaur and once it was obvious that there was no pursuit, they started to move forward, as if trying to project a protective envelope forward, keeping the other centaur safe.

Once the Centaur was almost amongst them, I added the next piece of showmanship, a beam of Dark Radiance, lancing out from the mists to strike the fleeing centaur in the back. The beam itself was just that, a harmless beam of Dark Radiance, without any additional properties. But the moment it hit, I finally let loose the blood magic I had held the whole time, allowing it to unravel. It only took a split-second for the pressure created by the miasma inside the undead centaur to shatter the unravelling magic, causing it to break free.

Violently.

From the distance, it looked as if the Centaur had exploded in a shower of blood, gore and viscera, splattering into the muddy snow beneath and showering the approaching centaurs. At the same time, I felt a shuddering in reality, far weaker than what I had felt in Tegi but I had been looking for it, allowing me to easily sense it and I noticed a small ripple in the distance and a Nethersprite sprung into being, instantly attacking the nearest living beings, the centaurs.

“It seems like my idea works just fine.” I said to Lenore as we watched the Centaurs instantly attack the unnatural being, quickly dispatching it but not without one of them getting a vicious wound on his arm. And I knew it was only the first Nethersprite, there would be more.

Together, Lenore and I turned back into the mist, repeating the casting-process with the second captured centaur. As we walked to the edge of the mist again, I asked Lenore how long it would take the guards to start shooting their own, fleeing people, not understanding what was going on.

She chortled in amusement for a moment, considering what the guards had just seen, before answering.

“I don’t think they will, unless they realise that the dark beam is just for show. Maybe don’t use it on the last centaur, simply letting it explode when it reaches their lines. That should make them extremely skittish.” she suggested and I considered her idea. I had used the beam to hide the fact that the centaurs were already dead, to prevent them from trying to stop things. But at the same time, it would make them wonder why their enemies didn’t simply use that dark beam against them, giving them a hint that it was merely show.

After a few moments, I started to nod in agreement, looking out of the mist towards the centaur-camp. Even from a distance, it was obvious they were spooked and I could see that a few more Nethersprites had appeared and been dispatched, making it obvious why the Centaurs were spooked. I nodded to Lenore and she let the next undead centaur escape, fleeing towards their camp.

That was when something unexpected happened, as the centaur raced towards the camp, a new Nethersprite slipped into reality, instantly feeling the Miasma contained in the ‘fleeing’ Centaur and starting to give chase. I couldn’t have produced a better distraction than that, the undead Centaur tried to evade the Nethersprite, veering off a little but still trying to reach the camp and the guards were reacting to help, trying to save the fleeing Centaur. The Nethersprite was hit with a multitude of arrows, its form shredded and right as it gave of its dying screech, I sent out the Dark Radiance, causing the undead centaur to explode in a shower of gore, hopefully linking the Nethersprites and the Dark Radiance in the mind of the Centaurs.

Again, Lenore and I walked back towards the last captives and as we walked, I looked at notifications, smiling when I realised that I had gained a few skill-levels in Blood Magic and Darkness-Magic, in addition to a new level on my Defiler-Title increasing the amount of power but also the amount of Miasma created by my Blood Magic.

I told Lenore about it, causing her to shrug, it was something that made Blood Magic more volatile and what I was doing was definitely worth the title.

Two more times, we repeated the process of turning a centaur into an undead bomb, sending our trojan centaurs towards their camp and increasing the amount of Miasma around it. When we sent the last centaur, I didn’t use the blast, simply letting it explode once it was amongst them, hopefully causing more confusion. Because that was what the idea was all about, fear, confusion and keeping them busy with Nethersprites.

And with it done, we would have to let up a little or it might create a massive response.