Koffer struggled against our hold. We’d spared him from death but not from watching us slowly devour his friends. If it weren't for our number advantage, he would have thrown us around like dolls. It was like that for all of the men in his entourage.

Shining armor pieces were strewn about the ground like garbage. Though we couldn't bend them, we found that the straps would snap if we pulled hard enough. While people didn’t lose all their equipment when they died, they did drop a lot of it. There were three full suits of plate mail, two notched sing-swords, and over a dozen sets of leather.

I made a mental note to examine one of the elven weapons in more detail later.

A good amount of gold littered the ground. So much so that I would have to be extra cautious when I returned to town the following day, which reminded me that I would have to talk with Darryl about getting a new mask. Each one was unique, and if Lily was streaming, as I suspected, she and her followers would recognize me.

Collaborating with the enemy was toeing the line when it came to my roleplaying principles. Since Darryl was my best friend, I tended to bend them when I really needed it. Besides, I made up the rules, so the only person that could chastise me was me.

Our feast was glorious. It left me deeply satisfied. The real challenge to come was deciding where to allocate the energy.

Feeding it into concentration seemed like the best idea. Controlling so many at once was extremely hard to manage. It was one of the things I had issues with, and hoped that raising it would help in that field.

Kumo glided above our heads. It had slipped out of the soldier and hadn’t said a word since.

“Release me, monsters!” Koffer yelled.

I ignored him as I pocketed the loot from his people.

“This junk will sell well,” we said.

We had to snap the neck of the person I fully drained to get his possessions. Even the un-controlled shamblers avoided the corpse. Human jerky didn't exactly sound appetizing, so we avoided it as well.

Technically, everything dropped when someone died, but the equipment that they kept would fade away.

Sometimes I would kill a new adventurer, and they didn’t know about the item banks yet. It was comical how much stuff would spill onto the ground.

As far as I knew, tonight's patch notes didn’t say anything about an inventory rework so I didn’t have to worry about selling junk today.

Movement at the edge of the fog caught my attention. A familiar ghost floated toward us.

When Molly arrived, she asked, “Are all of these you?”

“Mostly,” we answered.

She rose above our heads and then gasped. “What is that?”

I suspected she had spotted Kumo. It was quite different from how it had looked before, so I understood her shock.

“Kumo,” we said.

She was silent as she continued her ascent. When she hit around ten meters, she slowly descended. “How many did you kill?”

“Fifty-five.”

“Who are you talking to?” Koffer yelled.

We grumbled. “You don't have to yell.”

“Who's that?” Molly asked.

I raised my hand as I wove through us. “Follow me.”

Molly wasn’t close, but she spotted the shambler that was me and followed.

I stopped as I neared Koffer and grabbed his arm as another of us let go. We then swapped places.

“Say hello to Koffer, the leader of Lily’s special guard,” we said.

Koffer struggled against our grip. “Who are you talking to—”

Molly leaned over us, peering at our prey. Her mouth hung open. “How did you…” She turned to me. “You have to let him go!”

“Why would we do that?” we said.

Koffer said, “I agree with the ghost.”

We pulled him close to the shambler that was me. “Shut up, or we’ll rip off one of your arms and make you watch us eat it!”

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His Adam's apple sunk low as he swallowed.

“You can’t just kill their leaders,” Molly said.

We paused for a moment. “Already ate the sing-swords and their captain.”

Koffer’s eyes widened. He didn’t speak, though, which made us grin.

“There needs to be some rules; otherwise, it’ll just be chaos,” Molly said.

We groaned. “But we like chaos.”

Chaos was the only reason I’d gotten as far as I had. Sewing the seeds of it was the only way we could win this ugly war.

It only dawned on me at that moment that it was dark outside. With my free hand, I checked the time. I was late, and the longer it took for me to get home, the more likely one of my moms were going to call me again.

“If you just kill—”

I activated the drain skill, and Koffer’s sword thumped as it hit the ground. His skin slowly sunk inward.

“Inethiel, stop!” Molly screamed.

When I tried to deactivate the skill, it wouldn’t cease.

Koffer let out a ragged roar.

Kumo floated over to us and slammed into Koffer’s head, sinking into the man's skull. Blood splattered everywhere. It was gruesome.

The shamblers around me backed up, leaving a pocket of space between them and Koffer.

“I can’t let go—” The world swirled, and I stumbled to my knees.

Koffer and Kumo went down with me. I tried to use my free hand to pull the other one away but it only made things worse.

My whole body shivered as more of those mysterious pops came from inside of me. I didn’t know what was happening, but the energy was amazing.

It started at the tips of my fingers. At first, I didn’t notice, but my hands repaired themselves. The small chunks of missing flesh that normally marred my arms slowly disappeared. Little changes happened across my whole body until I was spotless.

Strands of hair fell in front of my eyes as the sparse locks that drooped across my face filled out. I didn’t have a mirror, so I couldn’t see what my face looked like.

“What's happening?” Molly asked.

“I don’t—” I stopped because my lisp was gone.

Exploring with my tongue, I found that the permanent missing part of the bottom of my lip had repaired itself.

The undead didn’t have a sense of smell or taste, and I was glad to see that that hadn’t changed. It was a huge disassociation point that allowed me to still eat the Enlightened. Not to mention that the stench of the undead around me probably wasn’t pleasant.

My skill stopped, and Kumo unsheathed itself from Koffer’s head.

As I pulled my hands away from the dried corpse, they began to change. The once dark purple faded to a stark white.

Molly’s eyes were locked on me.

When I stood up, my posture was nearly perfect. I tried to lean over like I normally did, and it didn’t feel right, so I straightened. “What happened to me?”

“Did you… evolve?” Molly asked.

“I—”

“You look the same… sorta. Like, I can tell you're undead, but you're so different,” she said.

Evolutions were Hexed exclusives. The looks would change to fit the play style. You would think that we would have an advantage because of it, but it was only cosmetic.

I opened my menu and then checked my info page. Under race, where “Shambler” used to be, the word “Wight” was in its place.

“Molly, can I show you something?” I asked.

Her presence blazed before me as she lowered to my height. It was similar to how I saw the shamblers. My heart beat rapidly. I didn’t want to see things from her perspective.

Then I realized something. My control undead ability was active, and it was only me talking.

“What do you want to show me?” she asked.

I shut down my ability and then touched her shoulder. I didn’t want to repeat the charm incident from earlier.

She got close to me, and I turned my screen so she could see it.

“Wait. What?” She backed up and faced me. “Is that even possible?”

“Apparently,” I said.

Molly skipped back and forth in the air. “Do you know what caused it?”

“It happened after my drain skill finished,” I said.

She stopped mid-skip her little feet dangling. “Is that a skill that your sword gave you?”

I nodded.

“Have you ever tried making a skill like that?” she asked.

It wasn’t something on my immediate to-do list, but it was definitely on the back burner. I’d read about liches draining levels from characters in the old D&D game systems. My moms had a VR D&D group that they played with a lot. I thought it was cool for a while when growing up. However, once I discovered that I could actually play as my character and not roll imaginary dice, I was forever changed.

“No,” I said.

Draining life from their adversaries was also a popular lore for liches and wights. It was possible that it was a combination of the two skills that made the evolution happen. I wondered how many other people were trying to evolve the shamblers.

While I had my menu open, I took a second to assess my skills. One of the recently used ones happened to be magic item use. My mask would use it occasionally, but the rank of the enchantments on it were so low that it barely moved the skills progress. There was a pretty big jump in its power. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was because of Kumo’s Fang.

Molly’s gaze moved to Koffer’s dried corpse. “They’re going to want revenge.”

“They can try!” I said. Without the rasp to my voice, it didn’t sound as intimidating. At least to me. I would have to spend some time in a recording booth to see how I could make it sound better.

She shook her head. “What's up with these guys?”

All the shamblers close to us were keeling. The rest lifelessly stared at me.

“Yeah, that is weird,” I said.

I released my control undead skill on the area. When I moved, the shamblers stayed in place. When I reached out and attempted to inhabit one nothing happened.

“That’s not good,” I said.

Molly’s tiny eyebrow raised on her eyeless face. “What?”

My heart pounded in my chest and my breathing increased. “They aren’t listening to me.”

This can’t be happening!

Two months of tireless work were lost in the blink of an eye.

***