The sound of the city was constant and eerie. Signs and posters along the city walls were torn and tattered. Most of the fires in the city had burnt out and were now charcoal and smoke in the wind. A mix of zombies and skeletons shuffled through the city. They walked mindlessly through the streets. Most moved towards the city gates where their masters stood waiting. The rest were drawn to the remaining audible creatures.

Few livestock remained in the city as the undead hunted them down out of instinct above all else. The zombies wore a variety of outfits. Those who were a part of the initial forces wore simple leather armor with the larger brutes moving around in metal. The other zombies had been turned recently. You could tell by the way they moved uncomfortably along with their fresher bodies in common clothes.

Outside the gates stood three gaunt-looking men. They wore dark robes, and their faces were painted with blood and scars. The undead followed them out of the city. Their ransacking and destruction were finished for now.

The first necromancer spoke. “The turning of the city is complete. The bodies of the fallen have been turned successfully. Of the forces that we lost most of them can be returned to their original form. The rest will need to be reprocessed into monstrosities.”

“What about the damned souls?” asked the second necromancer.

“They have been collected for the next city ritual with only a ten percent loss rate.”

“We need to lower that as much as possible. We can quicken the process if it is successful,” said the third necromancer.

“I am constantly adjusting the spell variables. You can try the spell next time if you think you can do better. Remember I need some of them for my own experiments.”

“Let’s just finish up here. The new zombies will follow us later once they have been fully integrated. Are our agents ready for the ritual in the next city?” asked the second necromancer.

“Yes, they are. We just need to supply them with the soul energy we collected here. Then the city will fall just like this one. My lich king will take care of the rest here.”

Back in the city above the crowd stood a man on the roofs. He ran along the roofs and ducked into side streets as spells moved around him. His whole body was covered in a mist that obscured his life aura from the undead. With a wave of his hand, he cast another spell which caused some barrels on the side of the road to explode in fire. ‘These damned undead are everywhere. I need to hurry. I can’t be noticed by their masters.’

The nearby undead turned to investigate the barrels. They were leaking fluid or had outright exploded onto the nearby walls and street. The quicker ones sprinted over to the scene and sniffing out what they could find. Ethan moved quickly to the other side of the street towards the large building on the other side. The windows of the building had been smashed and boarded back up. Casting one final spell Ethan’s body turned into a grey mist substance as he stepped right through the door.

On the other side, he stayed in his mist form for a bit longer to avoid the tables and chairs that had blocked the door. The building was a simple library with tall stacks of books and other items lining the wall. His footsteps echoed in the lonely rooms. Walking towards the back he began searching.

At the back of the building, he passed some office areas, but finally stepped into one of them when he saw a similar room this one with boxes stacked inside. The room was dark. The mage light in the room had burnt out days ago. Ethan took out a small crystal and poured some of his mana into it before setting it on the table. The mage light lit up the room illuminating the boxes and knickknacks in the room.

Ethan took out a knife and began prying open the boxes that were nailed together. In the first box was a variety of books. Some were copies of each other, but most were unique. Ethan flipped through a few. ‘These might be nice to read if I had more time, but I have more important things to collect here.’

The sounds of the undead came through the window of the room from the streets. Ethan moved onto the next box a little bit faster this time and set aside the first. In the second box, there were a few metal magic items. He pocketed one of them before moving onto the third box. The third box held more books which Ethan skipped over completely.

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It was finally when he opened the fourth box that his eyes lit up. Inside the box were scrolls that were rolled up neatly. He began inspecting them and picked out three that were of interest to him. The first was labeled Understanding Death Magic and Counteracting its Effects, the second was Untangling the Mysteries of Mind Magic, and finally, there was Defensive Wards, Formations, and Runes.

Ethan opened up his bag and each of the scrolls shrunk in size to fit inside the bag. He began searching through the next box but stopped when the doors of the library were thrown open. A larger monstrous zombie creature stomped through the doors. The chairs and tables shattered into pieces. The monstrous zombie stood at almost 15 feet tall. Its arms were as large around as Ethan’s body. The smell of rot coated the undead.

‘Shit.’ Ethan cast his aura spell once more, but it was too late. The undead had already noticed him and charged toward where they had noticed his life aura last. A group of skeletons and zombies followed the charging zombie. They ignored the bookshelves and items left on the floor as they moved to catch him.

He prepared a second spell which caused a large net to cover the walls and bookshelves which slowed the horde. It also gave him enough time to grab a few books from the first box into his free hand before turning into mist once more. He fled through the nearby window and reappeared in the back alley between two buildings.

With a movement spell, he bounced between the two walls and climbed up onto the roofs. Ethan scouted out the area around him before picking a direction and running. The noise from the spells in the library caused many of the surrounding undead to head in his direction. His life aura spell could slow them down in detecting him, but his disruption wouldn’t last long against the smarter and stronger ones.

True deception spells were incredibly difficult to learn and even harder to master and use under stressful situations like this. Ethan moved away from the city center and further from the broken entrance used by the necromancers. If they got word he was still in the city he would not be able to escape.

‘Those demons turned the entire city into its pawns with a single ritual and I could do nothing to stop it. The council needs to find a way to stop this. I don’t care what secrets I need to give up as long as they are eradicated.’

Ethan dropped down into the street. This time he cast a light spell. It illuminated the nearby undead and they burned from the inside out. Standing over the sewer he turned into the mist for a third time and floated down to the lower floor. He slid his bag to his back and began running towards his exit point. With a simple scanning spell, he searched for enemies.

The undead were not in the sewers yet, but he could sense them up above moving towards him. Smash! The sound echoed through the sewer behind him. The water flowing to the side of him rippled out and continued to do so as Ethan saw the giant zombie behind him.

The zombie was made of multiple dead bodies. It had three heads each looking in different directions as it ran as well as four arms of different sizes. Other undead skittered around the sides of the zombie some were stopped completely unable to move past its large form in the cramped area.

Ethan turned to face them. Two spells formed. One in each of his hands. Ghostly hands formed around his own which looked like the mist from earlier, but much more solid and dense. Following his own hands, the ghost hands attacked the skeletons. As the ghost hands hit the skeletons and zombies the creatures howled, and the hands glowed with power.

The death aura within the injured monsters fled them and entered the hands. This caused the power and size of the spell to grow. Ethan weaved through the smaller undead. They were all pushed away by him and quickly dealt with before he met the giant zombie head-on. The zombie swung and caught the ghost hands now nearly as large as the largest of its own.

It gripped the ghost hands tightly and squeezed. The magic holding the ghost hands together cracked. Ethan’s own hands turned blue, and he cried out in pain. Ethan couldn’t hold the spell and his concentration for any longer and it fell apart.

Ethan reached into his bag and took out the magic item from the library. ‘This item better be worth it’ thought Ethan as he poured mana and his spell into the device. The cylinder on the end spun faster and faster and hummed. Ethan backed up and pointed the device at the giant zombie before it activated.

A bright light flashed from the end before the device crumbled in his hands. The spell shot out and hit the zombie. It illuminated the dark sewers and exploded with ten times the force of the original light spell from before. The sewer walls shook momentarily, and the zombies and skeletons cried out and quickly began to crumble and dissolve in the holy light that burned them alive.

Ethan took another step back and fell back onto the stone floor. The undead horde was gone. Their remains lay scattered throughout the sewer most of which sat burnt and in pieces. Marks of heat and cuts in the stone from the undead littered the walls and ceiling. Ethan cast out one more scanning spell for any nearby undead before packing up his things. With the help of a spell, he absorbed as much of the death aura as he could before stumbling away down the sewer. He followed the paths of the sewer as quickly as he could while using the death aura to heal himself. He continued on the path until he made it out of the city.