With a flex of demonic mana, Zeke grew into his colossal form. Even as he transformed, he embraced his domains, one after another. First came [Burden of Sovereignty], which served to weaken his enemies while augmenting his own physical attributes. Dalamaya stumbled slightly, but her comrades fell to their knees under the weight of it. Next came [Aura of Desolation], igniting the ambient mana with corruption that further enhanced him while digging through his enemies’ defenses.

By the time his transformation completed, fire danced in the air and corruption swirled. But he wasn’t finished. He was in enemy territory, and he wasn’t so naïve as to believe no one in the city could match him. Certainly, if they had managed to endure with someone like Lord Adontis on their doorstep, they could count mighty warriors among their number. As a result, Zeke knew that his only chance of survival was to hit hard and fast and escape.

“Do you want to use the escape plan?” asked Eveline.

Zeke gave her a mental shake of his head. “No. We’re not there yet.”

Even as Zeke embraced yet another skill, Eveline asked, “Then what are you going to do?”

A portal slashed through the air, widening enough to permit ten bronze golems to step free. Each one was armed with a cudgel as well as a sheath of javelins on their backs. Zeke knew that those javelins were part of the skill’s most recent upgrade, and if they were just another method of depowering his enemies.

“Speaking of, I don’t think Little Miss Black Dress there has high Endurance. Her resistances to demonic mana are atrocious,” Eveline said.

Zeke couldn’t help but agree. Dalamaya had fallen to her knees, just like her companions. And it wouldn’t be long before she fell altogether. Her muscles seized, and she seemed completely incapable of controlling her body.

“I told you,” Zeke said aloud, his voice coming out rough and powerful. “I came in peace. I had no intention of hurting anyone. What happens next is your fault. If you survive, I hope you remember that.”

Just then, Dalamaya erupted into motion. A wicked black blade appeared in her fist just before she rammed it into Zeke’s side. It sliced through his corruption-fueled demonic body with ease, and a moment later, Zeke felt a pull on his mana. Energy flooded out of him and into Dalamaya, and with every passing second, she seemed to recover.

“I could say the same for you, demon,” she growled.

Zeke looked down on her, then shook his head. If she wanted to drain him, then that was fine. With his domains and his golems active, he had plenty to spare. The real question was whether or not the undead woman could handle what he had to offer. So, without further hesitation, he lowered his defenses and let the corrupted mana flood out of him.

Dalamaya twisted the dagger, a smirk spreading across her face. But it faded only a moment later when she was inundated by far more corrosive power than she’d expected. When that happened, she tried to yank the blade free, but Zeke clamped down on her wrist and growled, “You want it? Take it. See if you can endure.”

As she struggled to free herself, it quickly became clear that she could not.

Cracks spread up her pale arm, each fissure erupting in blood, fire, and corruption. They tore across her skin to her shoulder, then spread across her torso. Her dress caught fire. Then, her body began to fracture. After only a few more seconds, she fell apart into a smoking heap of undead flesh.

Zeke dropped the piece of her arm that he’d held in his hand, then yanked the dagger free. After looking at it for a moment, he dismissed it into his storage. Only moments later, his mana normalized and, via [Cambion’s Awakening], the wound in his side healed.

But the process hadn’t come without a cost. Even with [Aura of Desolation] active, the levels of corrupted mana in the air had seen a noticeable dip. If it had taken much longer, Zeke might’ve gotten worried. As it was, his skill was hard at work replenishing what he’d used.

Zeke sent his golems through the door, and as they spread out in the hall, he killed Dalamaya’s spares. It only took a stomp apiece before they perished.

“This whole situation escalated pretty quickly,” Eveline remarked as Zeke followed his golems through the door. Looking left, then right, he established that there were no threats. So, with his golems surrounding him, he strode down the hall. He thought he remembered the way, but if he ended up getting turned around and lost, he intended to simply tear through the walls. Eventually, he would find open air. “Where are we going? Home?”

“I still need to find Talia,” Zeke said. The fact that the Dalamaya, who was a representative of the government, had reacted so poorly to Zeke’s mention of Talia’s name was alarming. More than ever before, he suspected that she was in trouble, and he was determined to rescue her.

“And how are you going to find her?”

“You saw that big, green light in the center of the city, right?”

“I did,” Eveline acknowledged.

“You felt it, too, didn’t you? It’s life,” Zeke said. “I know for a fact that Talia doesn’t have any issues with that, but I’m willing to bet these other undead probably wouldn’t be able to deal with it very well.”

“That’s a leap of logic if I’ve ever heard one.”

Zeke didn’t argue with that assessment. He wasn’t certain why he felt the way he did, which, if he was honest, wasn’t that abnormal. Often, he followed his intuition without knowing why it pointed him in a particular direction. But it felt right. And besides, he didn’t have any other hints to follow, considering that, as he’d gotten closer to Talia’s location, [Mark of Companionship] had grown increasingly vaguer. As a result, the skill only confirmed that she was, indeed, in the vicinity.

Without an indication of direction, the source of life at the center of the city seemed as good a place to start as any.

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But first, Zeke needed to escape the government building. To that end, he strode through the halls, retracing what he thought was the path they’d taken on the way inside. They passed multiple people, though most simply took shelter in the surrounding buildings. There were some would-be heroes among them, but they were incapable of standing up to even Zeke’s [Colossal Army]. So, with the explosive strength and healing that came with his corrupted colossus form being unnecessary, Zeke shifted to the unattuned version.

“You can endure the corruption much better now,” remarked Eveline.

“It’s still a work in progress,” Zeke said. It felt like his efforts inoculating himself against his Will had borne unexpected fruit that took the form of increased resistances to other damage. It wasn’t enough to increase his resistances or his endurance, but he suspected that if he kept going along his current path, the improvements would become apparent on his status.

For now, though, Zeke still needed the soothing influence of unattuned mana to wash away the damage of his attunement.

Eventually, he reached the building’s lobby. Predictably, opposition had arrayed themselves against him. Ten warriors, each one at least as strong as Dalamaya, with one even reaching level seventy-four, stood against him.

“I don’t want to fight,” Zeke said.

“Then surrender,” retorted the level seventy-four leader. He was a large zombie with ashen-grey skin and enough muscles that Zeke expected he had some non-human heritage buried in his ancestry. The others were an eclectic group, each one wearing black armor, though their similarities ended there. Tall and short, they represented a variety of races. There were two undead elves, a couple of zombified dwarves, and three unliving reptilian people. The remaining two were wights.

“Yeah – I’m not doing that. I came in peace,” Zeke said, rolling his shoulders. At last, he pulled Voromir from his storage space. “A peace which your friend back there broke.”

“That is irrelevant,” the huge zombie said. “You are in Darukar, land of the unliving. You will submit to our authority.”

“I don’t acknowledge your dominion.”

“Then we are at an impasse. When you rise, you will be a mighty addition to our forces,” he stated, unlimbering a huge axe from his back.

Zeke had never been one for witty repartee, so he didn’t respond. Instead, he flexed his Will and embraced Voromir’s ability. When intertwined, the pair created a red projection of the hammer, crackling with black lightning.

He swung.

And the projection tore through the air with inevitable force and undeniable speed.

The leader raised his axe just before the attack arrived, but it did him little good. The impact sent the man sailing backward through the air, and he only stopped when he hit the black stone wall on the other side of the lobby. The other warriors were not so lucky, and even though they were not Zeke’s primary target, they certainly felt the effects of his ire.

The two lowest leveled fighters simply burst beneath titanic impact, sending a wave of congealed gore misting into the air. The other seven only fared a little better, and the sound of wrenching metal, agonized cries, and broken bones followed the herculean strike.

By the time those sounds faded, Zeke was upon them. Voromir descended, crushing a wight’s bulbous body into pulp and cratering the patterned tile floor. Zeke used [Center of Gravity] on the furthest combatant, yanking the undead dwarf in his direction. When the flailing body arrived, Zeke met him with a baseball swing that tore through his mid-section, bisecting him. Two pieces of unliving dwarf went flying in different directions.

By that point, the leader had recovered, and, with a two-handed, overhand heave, he launched his axe in Zeke’s direction. Zeke knocked it aside before using [Shifting Sands]. Time slowed, and he sank into the ground before rocketing forward. He erupted from the ground in a shower of earth and fire that engulfed three other fallen fighters.

They screamed, but for only a moment before Zeke cut their cries short.

That left only two – other than the leader – alive. And they were both stunned, making them easy targets. However, just before Zeke charged in their direction, he sensed something coming at him from behind. He threw himself prone just in time to avoid the leader’s flying axe. The weapon returned to the huge zombie’s hands a second later.

Tiring of the charade, Zeke did two things at once.

First, he directed his golems to attack the remaining underlings. One-on-one, they were no match for the fighters. However, when it was ten-on-two, and with those two already injured, Zeke liked their chances.

Second, he used [Hell Geyser], aiming it at the leader. Corrupted fire and rock erupted from the tiles, and ten bronze golems fell upon the two dazed unliving fighters, their cudgels descending with enough force to shatter bones. The two combatants attempted a defense, one of them even going so far as to summon some sort of mana-powered shield. But it was too little and far too late.

As for the leader, Zeke threw himself in the zombie’s direction, raising his hammer high as he charged. To his credit, the enemy burst forth from the geyser only a second later. A moment after that, tiny hands tore through the tiles and tried to impede Zeke’s passage. It did not work.

At first.

But they kept coming. More, each failure made the hands grow, and after only an instant, they’d gone from the size of a child’s hands to something more appropriate to a giant.

By that point, though, Zeke reached his foe, and they clashed with titanic force that shook the walls. But Zeke was clearly stronger, and he sent the zombified man staggering backward. He tried to use some sort of skill, but Zeke stomped on the ground, once again using [Hell Geyser].

The skill exploded into fruition, bathing them both in fiery hell. Zeke endured it with only a little discomfort, but the already-injured zombie leader was not so lucky. Even as Zeke aimed another attack at his foe, he saw the creature’s skin sloughing off and his flesh melting.

Voromir took full advantage of the enormous zombie’s weakened state, ripping through his hastily raised hand and continuing on to crush his shoulder. Zeke snapped outa front kick that sent the zombie stumbling backward. Then, Zeke leaped high into the air, decreasing his weight to add height to the jump. When he reached the apex of the leap, he increased his weight as much as he could.

He fell with the force of a meteor, adding his own massive strength to the descending weight of his hammer. The already-weakened zombie had no chance to endure such a strike.

Or so Zeke thought.

He activated some sort of skill, sprouting bones all over. They encased him, blocking much of the force Zeke had brought to bear. However, just because one attack didn’t do the trick didn’t mean a second would fail. Still, the bones held fast. In fact, it wasn’t until the fourth brutal, overhand swing did they start to crack. It took another four before the skill failed, exploding with enough force to send Zeke staggering backward in a storm of bone shards.

But when the dust settled, it was clear that the zombie was barely holding on.

“Why have you come?” he croaked.

“I came to help my friend.”

Then, Zeke’s hammer descended for a final time, ending the zombie’s life.

He looked up, taking in the destruction he’d wrought. He hadn’t only killed the ten combatants. Multiple other innocents who’d been in the lobby had been caught in the crossfire. More, the building itself seemed on the verge of falling. Zeke glanced toward his golems, who’d already finished the final two undead warriors off. One of the golems had been damaged enough to return to the tower, but the other seemed mostly fine.

That was a good thing, too, because Zeke knew that he was in for a running battle. Certainly, the undead had sent some of their best to stop him. Yet, he wasn’t so naïve as to believe that they would give up there. So, after the golems joined him, he sent them forward before following them through the door. Once outside, Zeke set off toward the center of the city, hoping that he wouldn’t meet too much resistance before he finally found Talia.

But if he did, he would be ready to do what was necessary. If push came to shove, he still had [Wrath of Annihilation] in his back pocket, and he wasn’t afraid to use it.