Talia stared at the man’s body, watching as it slowly lost its shape. It had been almost an hour since she’d killed Micayne, and even as his corpse dissolved into a mass of unrecognizable goo, she still had yet receive any kill energy. And that could only mean that he was still alive.

It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d cheated death.

She glanced away, less awed now by the devastation of Zeke’s skill. The city was still in ruins – what was left of it, at least – but the aura of desolation had begun to fade. Perhaps that was due to the return of ambient mana, the lack of which made her feel like she was drowning in nothingness. Now that she could feel the embrace of mana – even if it lacked the cold undertones of death that had existed before – the world felt less like it was ending and more like it had experienced some cataclysmic disaster.

Neither situation was good, but one was clearly better than the other.

Regardless, she was too distracted by the implications of Micayne’s return to give the state of Darukar its proper due. That the vile necromancer had survived should not have been a surprise. In fact, she should have expected his involvement in the devastation of Darukar’s population from the very beginning. But given that she had seen him destroyed – and with her own two eyes – it had never even crossed her mind. How he’d gone from that to controlling large swathes of Darukar’s population was a question that she still couldn’t answer.

And yet, that was the case. That was what had happened. And she didn’t thinks he’d get any answers anytime soon.

More troubling than anything else was the fact that he was strong. Not in body – she’d ripped through him with ease – but rather, in the power of his spirit. If his level wasn’t comparable to Zeke’s, she would have been immensely surprised. However, given the events she’d just witnessed as well as the return of the man most responsible for the fall of the Radiant Isles into unthinking undeath, she knew she couldn’t really trust her own perception of the situation.

Better to just take things as they came, rather than try to make inferences that would turn out to be wrong.

With that in mind, she knew she still had a job to do. Zeke was still out there, and given that she’d yet to find him, Talia couldn’t help but think that he was in no shape to defend himself. That was where she was supposed to step up. After all, everyone else was tucked away in the Crimson Tower.

Assuming Zeke wasn’t dead, in which case, there was no telling what would have happened to the people living in that space. That space wasn’t part of their reality, and as such, it was entirely tied to Zeke. Without that tether, would it simply cease to exist, along with all of the residents Zeke had complied? Or would they remain in that space, forever cut off from the world?

Maybe the tower would simply stay where it was in the Muk’ti Plains.

The reality was that Talia had no idea how it worked. Neither did Zeke himself, which meant that no one did. So, the only way she was going to get any answers was to find him. Fortunately, that coincided with her need to reunite with her friend.

Without any further delay, she tore her eyes away from the mass of liquefied flesh that had been Micayne’s body, then returned to her search. With every step she took deeper into the crater, she found herself more horrified – at least inasmuch as she could feel such intense emotions without the benefit of heartsblood elixir running through her veins. The destruction was complete, and more so than anything she could have imagined. What was even more terrifying was the fact that one man had been the source.

Back in the Radiant Isles, there were rumors that her mother had once torched an entire forest, and to a much younger Talia, that had seemed the peak of destruction. But here and now? Seeing what she’d witnessed? She had come to realize that she was comparing two entirely different realms of obliteration.

If it had been anyone else, she might’ve been worried about one man holding so much power in his hands, but considering it was Zeke, she had no such thoughts. That he had waited so long to use such a power was a testament to his character and one of the reasons she’d latched onto him so strongly.

He wouldn’t use such power unless absolutely necessary, and even then, he’d take whatever precautions he could.

As Talia searched, she forced herself not to think about Micayne. Instead, she focused on the task at hand, covering as much ground as she could. And over the next couple of days, she learned to move a little more freely, given her injuries. They wouldn’t heal until she ingested some source of vitality, so until then, she would be forced to work with what she had. That meant running with a limp that shot pain up her leg and into her hip with every step she took.

But she could take it, and not just because her race muted most pain. Indeed, she had long since become acclimated to all sorts of agony, and its persistence wouldn’t slow her down. She wouldn’t let it.

On and on she went, gradually covering one section of her grid at a time as she closed in on the epicenter of the crater. Ironically, the closer she came to the point of impact, the easier her search became. After all, there came a point where nothing had survived. Surveying that was much easier than picking through rubble.

Like that, days passed, and Talia’s tension mounted. By the end of the fourth day, she could no longer ignore the anxiety eating away at her. She forced herself to acknowledge the chance that Zeke had not survived, that at best, she might find a body. At worst, he would have been destroyed by his own skill.

But she felt in her heart that he was still there, that she would soon find him. Maybe he would look up at her and ask what took her so long. Or perhaps he would downplay his own power. Maybe he would even embrace her, as no one else – even her undead friends – seemed willing to do.

Because even someone like her sometimes needed a hug.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Zeke had been there for her through the most traumatic events of her life, and he’d offered his support every step of the way. He’d given her the comfort of simply being her friend. And for that, she would ever be loyal.

So, she kept going, grid by grid, and as she did, she struggled to keep her search in context. The city had been quite large, and without any remaining landmarks, she had no context for how the search had progressed. Further complicating matters was the weather. A storm had rolled in on the second day, which further obscured the region. But then, on the fifth day, when she’d progressed within a mile of the point of impact, she saw a glint of metal.

Normally, she might not have even noticed, but in the barren wasteland of the crater, she could scarcely miss anything out of the ordinary. So, she raced toward the location, and when she recognized it as a hand, she could no longer contain her excitement or anxiety.

She dug through the mud, slinging the sticky substance aside with the unrelenting fervor, and after only a couple of minutes, she had managed to unearth Zeke’s enormous titanic body. Panicked, she checked for any hint of vitality, and to her absolute horror, she sensed something she hadn’t felt in years.

The abyss.

She hadn’t experienced it since her transformation into one of the undead, but she’d spent what felt like an eternity floating between this life and the next, tormented by a tether that held her there. She had been incapable of moving on. Unable to go back. People weren’t supposed to experience the abyss for more than a moment, but she’d been forced to hang there for what seemed like multiple lifetimes.

No - she would never forget that.

And now, she felt something similar on Zeke.

More, there was deathly mana – reminiscent of what had once been so prevalent in Darukar – hanging off of him like a cloak. Yet, he was a live. Unconscious. Unresponsive. But alive, nonetheless.

The state of his body had changed, though. Before, he’d taken the form of a metallic man whose features weren’t dissimilar from the ones of his natural appearance. That silvery skin was normally marred by a web of cracks, glowing yellow, green, and black, that spread across his upper body.

But now the cracks spread across his entire form, even covering his face, making him look like a puzzle that had been inexpertly assembled. The light coming from those cracks was muted, and in daylight, it wouldn’t have been visible at all. Yet, in the darkness of night, Talia could see that another color had been added to the mix.

Violet.

She had no idea what it meant, but she suspected that the scent of death wafting off of him had something to do with that new color. He was not undead, though. She could feel that much.

Knowing that she didn’t have the requisite expertise to make a determination on the subject, Talia pushed those thoughts aside and focused on how she was going to help her friend. She was no healer, and she couldn’t wake him up. So, it soon became clear what she was intended to do.

If Zeke was still alive, she needed to get him back to the tower. There, he could recover in those miraculous pools, and once he did, they could turn their attention to finding and, once and for all, killing Micayne.

The only issue was that, as far as Talia knew, the tower’s entrance was all the way in the Muk’ti Plains. That meant she would have to cross hundreds of miles, all while carrying a multi-ton man. Or given her lacking strength, dragging was likely a better description of her future endeavors.

Before she embarked on that task, she chose to retreat to a more friendly environment, then wait to see if Zeke recovered on his own. If he did – even for a moment – he would be able to summon a gate and save Talia quite a lot of trouble. So, with no small degree of difficulty, she grabbed him by one massive hand and started dragging him away. The path was eased – and to a degree, complicated – by the still-muddy ground. The first, because Zeke’s body was that much easier to slide across the slick surface than it otherwise would have been. However, the complications came from the fact similar lack of traction she was able to attain. So, what followed wasn’t dignified. Nor was it easy. And by the time she managed to reach the outskirts of the city, she was covered in mud and as exhausted as she had ever been.

After a few hours rest, Talia resumed her journey, continuing to drag Zeke out of the city and into the wilderness. Along the way, she encountered quite a few beasts, but they were all much weaker than they’d once been. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why, either. The lack of death-attuned mana hadn’t just affected the city, but also its surroundings. And given that most of the wildlife depended on that flavor of mana to survive, they were confused, weakened, and almost assuredly dying.

The same was true of the flora. By destroying the city – and the Pillar of Life dungeon – Zeke had killed everything in the Kingdom of El’kireth. What would happen to the people outside the city? Would they die as well? Were there any left, or had Micayne and his followers already converted the entire kingdom? There were so many questions, and few readily available answers.

Until she encountered the first village.

Talia hadn’t spent much time outside of the city, save for the period just after her ascension. Yet, she’d seen enough to know that, aside from being undead and having all the characteristics that went with that, the people in those villages were, plainly put, just people. They were living their lives the best way they knew how, without consideration for ascending to the next plane of existence or gaining power.

For her part, Talia couldn’t understand the appeal of simply existing. She needed a goal, and one she stood a chance of achieving. Yet, she knew she wasn’t like most people, and she accepted that their way of life was just as valid as her own.

Regardless, Talia was aghast when she came upon a small village and saw all of the bodies. Each of the residents were dead, their bodies having given out when they were deprived of their source of life. Or death, as it were. Even now, Talia could scarcely sense any death-attuned mana in the air. Eventually, the entire land would give way to life, and one day, it would be undiscernible from any other part of the Eternal Plane.

And that saddened her.

Even with her muted emotions, Talia felt tears falling down her cheeks. An entire kingdom, gone. A whole population, dead. And all because of one man’s terrible skill. But more than that, she knew just how unique the Kingdom of El’kireth was. Or had been. It was the result of a confluence of events and factors that would be almost impossible to replicate elsewhere.

And now it was no more.

But the village provided a safe haven where she could make her task easier. The first step was to clean herself and Zeke up, and she went to the nearby stream – which was probably the reason for the village’s existence in the first place – where she arduously scrubbed the mud and muck from her own body. Then, she did the same for Zeke’s metallic form.

That pushed her to her limits – she still hadn’t entirely recovered, after all – so she retreated to one of the village’s houses, where she finally let herself rest. When she awoke the next morning, she had a better plan for how to proceed.

It seemed clear that Zeke wouldn’t soon awaken, so her path was obvious. Traversing El’kireth wouldn’t be difficult, but getting through Adontis would be quite a hardship. Hopefully, once she reached that kingdom, she could enlist the help of some of Zeke’s people. He hadn’t truly subjugated the place, but there were enough of his followers that she had some hope of finding aid.

Before that, though, she needed to ease her own path. After all, dragging Zeke across the wilderness was not a sustainable plan. So, she embarked upon the task of making a litter. However, it wasn’t long until she stumbled upon a wagon that would serve her purposes quite well.

After levering Zeke onboard, she took her place at the tongue, then bent her back to the task of pulling her friend to safety.