If Sonya was an undead zombie lord or some kind, she might have put herself at the center of her formation.

Right smack dab in the middle, where any unsuspecting hero would have to fight through.

It was about the roads, central planning and the buildup. A death knight had to work with what was possible and available. All roads didn’t lead to their enemy.

What she had expected was that any intelligent undead would take up residence in a recently renovated gaudy gothic cathedral or a Lord’s summer home. But perhaps they need to think about it like they were trying to not die.

If she was one of them? She wouldn’t even be here. Unless her power required her to be in the center or near the center of her horde, there was no point. Sonya wanted to feel safe.

She had also gone back and forth with Valerie over her different theories of how intelligent undead became intelligent and if there was a radius outside of which they became dumb again.

She checked again. There was something going on in Bob’s route of movement. He was trying to tell them something.

Bob, in her estimation, might be a dumbass, but even a dumbass could be right twice a day.

Sonya had watched Valerie triangulate the position of the death knights daily with Bob’s help. They could figure out how far they were based on two angles and the space in between. It wasn’t even that hard to do the math. They just had to make sure that the two points and angles were far enough that it was significant.

Now all she needed to do was to draw a straight line from where Bob was to where the enemy was. Bob normally rushed in. So if she traced the line of assault and movement, she could get a pretty good idea of where the death knight was.

Sonya had stolen one of Bob’s kills before. It was something that her goddess had asked her to do. She relished in the opportunity to take another kill away from Bob.

Sure, he would get upset, but they shared the same goals.

It was the only way for them to actually compete as basically everything else was off the table. They could both rack up lots of kills, but it didn’t really matter much when the undead were just brainless. It would have been great if they had an ability to tell how many zombies they killed, but that wasn’t the thing either of them had.

She would do terrible things for a HUD that showed her a kill count. But if she breathed the word of that aloud to Cara, then she would get it and it would be something useless that would take the place of what she really needed.

She didn’t doubt that the horde of zombies would cover up and plug any holes that he actually made. Unless they could definitely kill the death knight, they were going to have to rescue them in time. Bob continued his trek down in one direction, firing fireballs.

Sonya aimed and fired ahead where he would go. She quickly glanced and saw that the crater that she had made was now refilling with zombies that were charging towards Bob.

Because of course they were.

She shot ahead of him, trying to explode as many zombies as he could. It looked like he was going deeper downtown into the capital, so that would not do. She prepared to mess up things on his behalf.

Idly, she wondered how many of those buildings were already up to code? And then she wondered if there actually was any dwarven code enforcement, as several tenement style buildings crashed into the ground once she removed their structural integrity.

“Might not be the best time to think about code violations,” she muttered.

The plan was simple. Kill off as many zombies as she could using the urban terrain in a line ahead of Bob. She’d hoped that he had packed a mask. Sonya was more concerned about Stella, who had foolishly decided that she wanted to be Bob’s rear guard. Because, of course, when there was one dumbass, there was always a second one that loved him.

There had to have been hundreds of dwarves that had lived in those areas that were now part of the horde.

All she was doing was crushing them, their old homes and turning them into a meat paste. But she felt strong, as if Cara was now looking out down upon her and tipping her finger on the scales. The last time her goddess had done that, she had created a crack through Gloucester that became a canal.

Now? It was like she was doing that same thing again and again on a smaller scale.

She was a one-woman demolition crew about to renovate a block or two for fun.

“Do you think it’s likely that the death knight was someone inside of the palace? Or perhaps it was somebody who lived this district here?” she yelled to Valerie, who had taken up a spot next to her. She had done some shuffling to get on board the ship next to her, a big departure from the days when the younger dwarf had avoided her wholesale.

“Bob is going straight for the big guy, huh?” She said. “It would make sense to them to just improve their own home instead of taking up residence in the palace. I mean, I guess if you wanted to, staying in the palace isn’t so bad or a deal.”

Sophie wanted to say that no one had asked her to destroy the Palace… yet. That answers were one thing. With all the soldiers around. But this? It looked decadent, just in how they could see it lit up from a distance.

Bob kept running. Of course, he changed directions on her.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Clever boy. Sorry about this, Valerie, but it looks like it’s time to change course,” she said. Valerie nodded to the coxswain, who adjusted the course.

---

Bob, Mork’s lighting rod, ran. It wasn’t enough to get close to the death knight. He had to get his satisfaction.

There was another problem.

Someone was paying attention. He was pretty sure that it was Sonya. She thought she was being taken directly to his death knight. Her actions had proved that it was very clear that he was telegraphing which way he was going. No one else would give him such close air support focused on earth magic.

Bob thought about it.

The area where he was heading to was being bombarded before you get to it. This meant that someone had dealt with all the zombies there. It was like she was aiming her shots just to piss him off. She, probably Sonya, would concentrate a blistering barrage of fire right where he was pretending to go, even as he tried to pick up his pace.

He didn’t want to miss it. But what he could do was to take a few steps out of the sinking earth to check out what was going on and to look into the face of his enemies.

Moving a little to the right could give him a better sense of restriction and how far his quarry was.

They were getting close. Stella was back behind him, keeping it clear.

She was doing fine the last time he checked. Not wanting to leave her hanging, he nervously checked. If he was doing the first half, she was doing several things to make the second half a reality.

The sounds of another building turning through a crater poke to the back of his mind. Of course, the fellow God binds if I was to infiltrate and he would have to find it.

Of another half-ass he was, the apartment kept going. And it was going towards one little shack at the end of the line.

“Shit,” he said, as the volley’s increased in size.. She wasn’t going to make it easy. He ran his heart out suddenly off during his steps to aim better for the death knight. There’s another option, he could just appoint himself a different direction... and...

He adjusted his course. Bob would get his reward.

His icons went haywire. He had seen it before. The last time that this has happened, they were in the presence of a death knight. Bob wanted to scream.

“We’re so close,” he whispered.

He was so close that he could feel it there. They had speculated a long time about what powers this woman might have. It could have a myriad of hours. Or one small card.

The crowd stayed the same, but he could see it. It was just like a regular dwarf, just grayer. In fact, there was nothing to differentiate the death knight at all. Aside from him being able to see it with no problems, it was just hiding out in the interior of a crowd.

To everyone else, it was just a normal one. But to him? It lit up.

He could see his little beacon. It taunted him. It was his little icon. It could really hurt him. But he knew he had a story on the icon for so long that it’s her beautiful. Wouldn’t be such a large change. Sonya took that point in time to launch a volley right in his path.

They pulled back.

“Bob, stay back. It’s not worth it,” Stella said.

“I got this,” he said.

“Bob.”

Fire rained down on the crowd in front of him.

His icon disappeared. Sonya, or somebody, had taken a liberty of taking it out. He could see hooting and hollering and then he realized that the zombies that were chasing with a purpose for now wandering around.

He was sitting with a meet and greet for all the newly dumb zombies.

Bob’s back tensed as he broke out into a cold sweat.

It was time for him to branch out. They were going to steal his kills in front of him, then he was going to have some more to Anthony. And he would talk to Cedric. And he would bring both of them to figure out what to do. Because that was his dwarf to kill. So he might not have been there for the right reasons, but that didn’t matter anymore.

“Come on, I think we’re done.”

All that mattered to him now was Stella.

---

They could see it easily. The horde which had been moving with a purpose now had lost that impetus. It had gone from one Mass with one mind to a multifaceted group that just wanted to do all the damage.

Sonya had gotten the pop-up alert the saying One of the death knights. She was so happy for a second, but then realized that she could celebrate soon.

First, he would tell Valerie who was waiting for the good news, and then she would secure an egress route for Bob. It was what women did, right? Her biggest duty was pulling men out of the fire. That and keeping them moving and the whole raising walls thing.

The war hadn’t gone off too long, and she was ready for it to be over. She knew she was going to get bitched out all day for the next week. But she didn’t care. He wanted to go to Rogue, which meant that he could deal with the consequences.

A golden light appeared in front of her as a car dropped into her hand. She talked to the delay before Valerie could make a fuss. They were taking a tax opportunity along with the largest groups. The airship that had initially taken. Bob was now circling around, trying to grab him. He could sense something clearly. She could see that they were frantically trying to get him to use one of his card skills to get back up.

She was content to black out with her rack out. At that moment, there was nothing more appealing than sunbathing and getting away from the matting crowd. She was done. She could tell that most of the dwarves on board were relieved. The campaign for the capital had been going for so long.

She had lost track of what day it was days.

She was going to talk to Anthony. She needed a break.

It didn’t matter what he said.

It was time. In fact, she was ready to get back now. There have been several times when she considered just leaving the battlefield and although they needed her there for a while longer, she was itching to leave. All of her of being wanted to be back at the promontory right now, celebrating her victory. But she was still here, putting in work like a girl boss.

She checked in on Valerie. The young dwarf was shocked as she pointed out what was going on down on the ground.

They took some time to make a path for Bob, someone who was actually enjoying spending mana to just fuck zombies up around him. Every way she looked, they were more zombies, and all she has to do was just aim her little magical tool that Andrew had made and that was it.

Now all they need to do was to secure more ground and then this whole battle would be a win. The battle was over.

Why did she feel so empty?

They had gotten the thing that they were trying to do for so long. She had gotten the thing that she had wanted for so long. But why did she feel like this? Was it because it was over? No, there were at least two more death knights out there.

This wasn’t over, but she was still weary. She slumped over the railing.

There was at least one that could create undead dragons and other monstrosities. That was the one that Sonya was afraid was going to show up. But that one wasn’t that close. It was still on trying to survive even if it was sending its minions this far. The legion had to make it there, but that didn’t mean that they could get there soon.

There was a still the death knight from the Elven Kingdom that they had heard nothing about. They were going to be to figure out how to deal with that.

Now she had to think about the next steps. They were going to need to make some more fortifications. They were going to contain all these zombies. So far, she had only made half of the walls around the city. The rest had already been there and we’re a terrible way to keep your zombies safe.

Maybe they would have been better if they hadn’t been so volatile when they were together, but that was not for her to judge. All she came up with was the result. Bob delivered this time. It was just that it wasn’t enough.

But now? They would both be enough. Once Bob got over her betrayal, of course.