With a camp of corpses behind me, and the servant I previously raised on standby to hinder anyone's attempts at fleeing. His face was as would be expected of a bandit, dishelved and dirty, with what I assume is naturally black hair. Add on to the fact he'll be slowly decaying as time goes, his appearance is gonna get worse. Despite an undead's ability to repair itself with death energy, it can't stop the constant damage inflicted by the forces of decomposition. Atleast, that is the case for a zombie.

Since I evolved to whatever I am now, I haven't had any issue with decomposing. I know it has something to do with the evolution, but I don't know what part. For all I know, it's not directly related to it, and is a by product by something it improved. Something like the death in me driving out anything that'd actually decompose my body? I haven't felt any flies or anything trying to do their life cycles off of me.

Without any information, I dismiss these thoughts. Turning back to my subordinate, as expected, from his revival as an undead with his soul intact, he can speak.

His voice is gravelly and deep, to the point I wonder how much testosterone you'd need to get that low, and how much it'll change if at all with being undead.

After a quick interrogation of him, to which he had no choice but to answer truthfully to, I learned some things.

First, that there aren't as many bandits as Cera had mentioned, due to losses to desertion. It seems that not everyone wanted to stick around with the incoming undead horde. This merely makes my job easier though, and I can only hope that those deserter bandits fail to outrun their dooms. Need none of their ilk in an already hard time for those refuges.

Secondly, the necromancer has taken an entire portion of the cave system in which they use as their base for himself. The cave system in question apparently used to be their leader's. I wonder how much these bandits are to receive by whatever deal they struck with the undead for their leader to give his own home to a mere representative. I doubt their boss's pride otherwise would allow such a thing.

Third and foremost, is that of the size of the caves themselves. According to Ray, my undead, they extend quite a ways into the mountain. Thankfully they are quite straightforward, the result of human hands rather than natural creation. Apparently was an old mine that was abandoned due to a string of failures to unearth anything and it's remoteness. This made it a perfect base for these bandits, a ready built home removed from civilization, despite the huge demerit it also comes with.

Only one exit.

They had tried to dig out a second one else where but it was a failure for them, who possessed no one with mining experience. That's not to say there isn't one in secret, but I can safely assume if there is one, the majority of the bandits won't know about it and be an easy slaughter. In case of their being an escape route, I'll leave Ray on the surface to keep watch. He took to his duty with a fervor you'd not believe to come from a bandit, but it's probably due to my drop in our conversation that I can repeat that pain he felt upon his resuscitation.

With as much preparation as I can do at the moment, I glance from Ray to look into the cave, the sentries that had been posted here lying in a pool of their own blood after being killed in a ploy that included Ray. Simple plan of just walking up to them, using their familiarity with Ray to lull their sense of danger, until it was too late when they saw my axe dripping blood. With that, everyone outside of the caves is dead.

Nothing more to do on the surface, I descend into the cave, cautiously so as to not be surprised on running face first into someone, but calmly so as to not sound out of place and raise anyone's suspicion before I can kill them.

This works surprisingly well, my visage hidden in the flickering darkness as anyone walking doesn't see me as a threat until it's too late and my axe has decapitated them. No need to aim for a lung to keep them from screaming if you need only a single quick strike to seperate their head from their body.

I luckily never ran into one person at a time either, the time to change sentries a long while away due to waiting for this descent until they sent the usual two up. We had used our previous ploy, though in reverse this time. Instead of approaching we were approached, standing to the sides of the entrance, torches in hand, to lull their sense of danger into a state of ignorance. To them we were nothing more than the sentries at the door, brothers in arms. The blood that had pooled on the ground from the original sentries scuffed over with dirt, the owners of said blood moved to the sides, waiting to be joined by these two newcomers.

As by me being here in the caves as I am, the plan worked as well as the first time. Thanks to the only group of two being the sentries sent up, as the rest were insomniacs and those needing to relieve themselves, I had little difficulty in cutting a blood path. My only trouble came to when I came upon a wall at the end of the straight path, with two shafts to my left and right. According to Ray, the left is the barracks in which the rest of the bandits are, and the right leads to the necromancer and various supply rooms.

I ultimately decide to go left, despite reservations with leaving the necromancer alone, I could not afford to allow the bandits to learn of my presence. I have to risk the necromancer detecting the death that's beginning to congregate in the air.

Like that, I repeat what I had done outside, finding sleeping figures lying in poorly dug alcolves in the walls. Axe sheathed, my hands once more felt the futile struggles before their lives winked out of existence. To say I did not find the feeling intoxicating would be a lie, as for it being because they were deserving of death or the fact I'm Undead, I could not say.

After a while of this, with bodies behind me now in for the long sleep, I come across a room. What I find in there reaffirms my conviction to slaughter each and everyone of these bandits, including Ray if it weren't for his usefullness. Inside lay the corpses of several women, each naked, covered in wounds, and lying in dried blood. If I were to guess, using what Cera told me of these worthless fucks, is that they enjoy torturing the helpless. To the point they would die from their wounds. It is my guess that they'd still be alive if it weren't for the fact that the closest town was ransacked by undead, cutting off any supply of medicine to keep their sick hobbies going. Surrounding this pile of victims, are yet more corpses, albeit more decayed than the women. From their appearance, they appear to be the dead from the city and the battle with the subjugation force. I notice an absence of the mage corpses, so I can only assume they became a part of the horde.

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With a lingering gaze set upon the scene, primarily the centerpiece, I bring my axe out, determined to give the rest of these bastards a far more violent end than what I had been doing. There should still be around 20 bandits, but numbers be damned, the necromancer be damned, I will kill them all. I am only saddened that I can not make them suffer beyond leaving them to die from the wounds I shall inflict, as I must still hurry back to kill the necromancer before he can escape. I can only trust my speed to let me catch him.

And so, upon the first sleeping figure I come upon, my axe whistles down to enter his stomach and display his entrails. It is without question that he woke up from this. If this still wasn't obvious, his screams of pain were.

Coupled with the natural echoing effects of the mine, the noise was overkill to wake up his companions. Due to my sight having a red film over it, the act of violence and the tragedy I saw before worked to send me into a frenzy, I didn't noticed the fluttering pieces of dust descending from the ceiling.

I continued along, quickly, sending my axe into each person I came upon, their state gradually becoming that of standing up. The first person who could claim to have been able to put up a fight was the 8th guy I came across. Wielding a short sword, fear evident in his eyes, and it stayed even after my axe had removed the arm he had held his sword in, joined by shock.

By the time I reached the 11th guy, I stopped finding more people. I assume they've retreated further into the mine, to group up and defend against my onslaught. I wonder, do they know that I am only one man? Scratch that, one monster. 

I smile with glee, my teeth sharp and deadly. Something I noticed when I ate rabbit with Cera, my teeth. It seems my evident transformation wasn't entirely to what I originally was, my teeth now more carnivorous than the omnivorous set a human has. Nails as well were slightly more elongated and sharp, but I never took notice of them since I can't don't feel discomfort.

In less than 30 seconds I reach the end of the tunnel, and enter into a room covered in rugs and wealth, a far cry from the simple blankets used by the bandits I had come across so far. Inside amognst the array of valuable items, were the remaining 9 bandits, one of which obviously was the leader of the bandits. I could tell, beyond him being the biggest and ugliest, by a sense of danger he oozed, even to someone like me who can cleave a man in half. Yet I felt no fear, even with my emotions returned, I could not at all feel any danger to my life from this man. This was both my own confidence, and the lack from the man in front of me. His eyes showed their cowardice, shifting between me and his own men, calculating what I can only assume to be a plan that would save his own hide.

This show of weakness only drives me further into a frenzy, and I descend on them with a fury hardly seen outside of a angered bear. The first man I came upon, shocked at my speed, could not bring his sword up in time to defend, and died from a blow that held enough force in it to splatter blood on a man over a meter away.

Continuing on to the next, this time they were able to move their blade in a block, but it was entirely for naught, my blow continued into him as though it weren't even there, forcing his own blade into him as my axe split him down the middle from his shoulder to his waist, his sword jammed in there alongside. 

Wrenching my axe free, I was able to kill the other 7 with as much ease, yet with an eye always on the bandit chief, never letting him have an opening to attack or escape. By the time my axe ended the last man, the fear had spread from his eyes and onto his face, sweat covering him clear as day due to the lights lit across the room.

For what was a pillar of authority to these now dead bandits, he was now little more than a desperate and afraid child in the face of his impeding doom. My face an inversed mirror of his own, filled with jubilation at the coming triumph and subsequent slaying.

Yet that aura of danger was not a lie earlier, and despite his mental state he was able to put up a fight.

With every fiber of his being he could block my strikes, with every fiber of his experience, he could match my speed, and so we fought.

Axe struck sword, metal met flesh, and it was not before long we each were each covered in wounds. But it was not long more until he fell over, exhausted and weak. I myself felt nothing but the pleasure of battle and inflicting pain. The latter of which I stepped forward to the now prone man to inflict more of.

My axe came down to chop off a foot, my power unhindered by my wounds as I can not feel them, nor are they life threatening as I won't die beyond being depleted of death energy. It could be assumed I am immortal than, since my soul constantly produces death, but I don't believe that for a second. My body may now be immortal but my soul was not, and I am under no illusions that there can't be any magic regarding the soul.

With the first strike, screams came from the large man befitting one of his stature, and they only continued to rise in volume as I gave in to my baser impulses, to the point I began to feast upon his still living person. By that point I had already removed each of his appendages, now eating my way down one of his arms. To his credit once again, he was still alive, whilst the pain prevented him from going unconscious. Soon, with his last breath and scream, he died. From the pain, blood loss, or simply fear, I do not know.

I sit back, hands holding me up as I take a mental breather to calm myself from my berserk state, as I must still fight the necromancer which will be a far more trickier fight than this one. Even if he shouldn't be able to harm me, it's never good to underestimate a mage.

Before I can stand up, however, I can feel the ground rumble, and I finally remember I'm in a mine. A mine that had several men screaming at the top of their lungs. Before I can even berate myself for forgetting this, a rock falls at the end of the room near the exit, to which I respond by running as fast as I can towards.

Strongly gripping my axe, I bolt through the shaft, past the numerous corpses as the ground rumbles once more, throwing me off balance. I fall next to the room full of corpses, my face turning grim as I see rocks start to fall and pile over the bodies. I pick myself up again and sprint, inwardly glad they will recieve a burial, even if it's unintentional.

My speed is beyond natural, but even with that I can feel the threat of death looming over me. Even if I were to be immortal, I know that my soul would be destroyed by the subsequent incarceration underneat the earth. I somehow managed to run faster at that thought.

Something I noticed too is that my soul's production of death had resumed to it's original amount. Whether this is from the amount of people I've killed tonight, or if the necromancer has made it to the outside and killed Ray, I'm not sure. Most likely the latter.

Before long I see the exit, the cave in only a inch behind me as I'm using everything I have to reach it. Just as I'm to reach it, however, I trip over a body. Glancing back in the mere moment I have to look to see who it is, Ray's lifeless face looks back at me. He is then promptly swallowed by the earth, followed by my foot, a rock instantly crushing it into a splattered mess. Luckily that was all that I lost, as I had made it to the outside of the mine just barely.

Picking myself up, unable to stand properly because of my missing appendage, I use my axe as a cane to lean on. I see no signs of the necromancer, though it takes me some time to calm down after this ordeal.

When I do, however, I realize what should be a quiet night having killed all the bandits is filled with familiar moans. Shapes in the darkness move about, and due to my undead nature their figures become clear long before a living being could achieve. The necromancer has risen the bandits I had slain, and it seems they're heading towards me.

What sent my mind into a panic wasn't this, though. It was a feeling of apphrension, that something was wrong. Reaching out with my sixth sense for death, I felt it. A path, akin to a scent except far more distinguishable, was shown before me moving away from the camp.

It's direction was towards Cera's cabin.