The zombies were old. Very, very old. Most of them were barely more than skeletons, with dried bits of flesh clinging to their bones, and they all wore elaborate armor, clothing, and jewelry. For a while, as Zeke plowed through them, he found himself wondering where they’d all come from. Back in Darukar, the hordes of zombies were explicable by the fact that Micayne had converted much of the city. However, the castle of the Vile Reech was long-abandoned.
But then Zeke saw the catacombs.
At first, it was difficult to identify them. After all, he wasn’t in any position to stop and investigate, and it wasn’t until Eveline identified them for what they were that he recognized their nature. It seemed obvious in retrospect. The castle had once played host to a decent-sized population. It was old, too, suggesting a long history. Doubtless, they’d buried their dead in the crypts below the castle.
With that discovery, the hordes of undead made a lot more sense. In a way, their advanced state of decay made fighting them easier. They were lighter than most zombies, and as such, easier to push through. In addition, he didn’t have to worry about filling the air with wet chunks of rotting flesh, which wasn’t something that normally slowed him down, but he’d experienced it often enough to appreciate the lack.
Still, there was no denying that they were stronger than their fresher counterparts.
“Age matters in necromancy,” Eveline stated. “The older the corpse – so long as it’s intact – the more powerful the magic needed to animate it. So long as the necromancer is strong enough to get them upright, that magic translates to increased power.”
“Good to know,” Zeke said, trying to ignore the knowledge that Pudge was being tortured. He could feel it needling it into the back of his mind. Why Micayne would do such a thing, Zeke had no idea, but his ignorance just made it all much more difficult to endure.
He used that frustration as fuel as he pushed his way through the mass of ancient undead. Most fell before him without putting up much of a fight, but some were powerful enough that he was forced to take them seriously. It only took a couple of swings from Voromir to dispatch even those stronger creatures – they were still zombies, after all – but every second of delay wore on Zeke’s mind.
Pudge needed him, and now.
He left a trail of bodies behind him as he descended ever deeper. The only solace available to him was the fact that the catacombs were fairly straightforward. There weren’t many twists or turns. Instead, it was a long, descending hall with various rooms branching off. Once he discovered that those rooms didn’t lead to other paths, Zeke began to ignore them on his long trek to his destination.
At the same time, he felt the battle raging above. He’d left a lot of zombies alive up there, and he knew it would take his army some time before they managed to slaughter them all. If the stakes weren’t so dire, he might have looked at the fight as a good thing. The zombies, for all their disgusting nature, could prove to be a decent whetstone for his soldiers’ development. Each individual creature wouldn’t give much kill energy, but being as how there were tens of thousands out there, the collective gains would be significant.
But none of that mattered if he couldn’t get to Pudge in time.
“We don’t even know if he’s killing him,” Eveline said. “The necromancer could be torturing him in an attempt to lure you into a trap.”
“I know,” Zeke growled, crushing a group of zombies with a horizontal swing. “Doesn’t change anything.”
“You know you’re not supposed to spring traps,” she said. “That’s kind of –”
“It doesn’t matter, Eveline. I have to save him. There’s only one way down. This isn’t a situation where I can plan for every contingency. I can’t wait around for the perfect circumstances. I have to go now, for better or worse. And if it’s a trap, I’ll have to just power through.”
And that was his intent right up until he encountered something he didn’t expect.
He jerked to a stop in the center of a round chamber as seven figures stepped free of the shadows. They were all human-sized, and a brief glance told Zeke that they looked little different from the other zombies. Perhaps their attire was a bit richer, and they wore a lot more jewelry – including crowns on each head – but it was difficult to tell, given the advanced state of decay with which they were afflicted.
They were all holding two-handed swords that were so bejeweled that Zeke suspected they were ornamental.
“He comes,” one said.
“He will join us,” another intoned.
“Power to restore the Reach,” they all chanted in unison.
Zeke struggled against invisible bonds, but his efforts were for naught. He couldn’t move even a single inch, regardless of how powerfully he pushed against his invisible shackles. What’s more, when he tried to activate [Shifting Sands], nothing happened. It was as if his mana was frozen within him, completely unresponsive.
“What is going on, Eveline?” he growled in his own mind.
“I…don’t…know…”
Her voice was weak. Barely even there. That, more than his inability to move, raised red flags in Zeke’s mind. He didn’t panic – not exactly – but he was certainly alarmed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the figures shove their swords into the ground. They entered with a grating sound that echoed across the chamber.
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Only then did Zeke recognize that the zombies were gone.
How hadn’t he noticed that sooner? When had they stopped? His thoughts were fuzzy and difficult to grasp. As he did anytime he was threatened by something he didn’t understand, Zeke embraced his Will.
It flowed through him, the pain of destruction racing through his body and leaving damage in its wake. However, when it came time for it to accumulate, it just flowed out of him.
“What the…”
“It’s…a…skill…”
Zeke leveraged his massive Strength, and for the briefest of moments, he thought he was going to escape. His arms moved barely more than an inch before an even stronger force latched onto him. He trembled with the effort as he felt both mana and Will being drained out of him.
Suddenly, he remembered the chains that had turned Eveline into something akin to a battery. However, instead of the power flowing into another realm, it went to the undead figures surrounding him.
And they were growing less dead by the second.
Already, flaps of dry, grey skin had begun to fall from their exposed faces, but the effect wasn’t limited to that. Their bodies filled out as muscles returned to a vital state. They were returning to life, and Zeke’s power was the battery meant to enable it.
Perhaps it wasn’t the same thing, but it was close enough that Zeke knew he was in trouble.
He flexed with every point of Strength he could muster, and the room shook under his might. One of the figures said, “So powerful. So strong. Delicious.”
“Fortune shines upon us. Our disciple has served us well.”
Zeke didn’t listen. Instead, he sank deep within himself, reaching for a well of strength he’d never before tapped into. For the longest time, Zeke had felt like he was skating from one victory to another. He’d rarely been challenged, and when he was, the situation could best be described as mildly taxing, rather than a true life-or-death situation.
There were moments – like his first encounter with a necromantic vessel and the wind elemental he’d fought in one of the dungeons – but mostly, he’d felt like he was playing a game against inferior opponents.
As a result, he’d grown complacent. Sure, he worked. He fought. And he built his knowledge of runecrafting. However, he didn’t put as much into it as he might have if he’d thought his life really depended on it.
But now, it did.
And though it took some digging, Zeke knew precisely how to respond to that. The same spirit that had driven him to survive for untold years alone in a troll-infested system of tunnels came roaring back into him. He wasn’t all-powerful, but there was something to be said for unbreakable resolve. He refused to be denied. He would not let these creatures use him as fuel for their own rise.
Before he really knew what was happening, he was screaming. And with his powerful lungs – as well as his nature in his titanic form – those shouts shook the very foundations of the castle. He paid it no mind, though. He was too focused inward.
That was the answer. He was certain of it. For all the fancy terms – Will and battle intent, divine energy, and mana – it all had the same source. A commonality that, in retrospect, should have been obvious. He pushed, harder and harder, until, at last, something happened.
Congratulations! You have discovered that all power comes from a common source. Recombine them to create Divine energy.
Zeke didn’t hesitate to weave them together. In the past, he’d done something similar with his Worldbreaker and Runebreaker techniques, but this was something new. It took every ounce of his runecrafting ability to create even the most basic of foundations, over which he layered the different types of energy.
They did not want to cooperate, but through sheer stubbornness, he forced everything into place. And when it did, he received another notification:
Beware. You have created a new passive trait that will fundamentally alter you, your skills, and your future. Proceed with caution.
Zeke didn’t have a choice. He could feel his energy being drained by the second, and if he didn’t do something soon, he would die.
And he was strangely fine with that. He’d long since come to terms with what his warlike nature meant for his mortality. But alongside his own demise would come the death of Pudge. Of all the people in the tower who depended on him.
Still, he took a few moments to ensure that everything was in place. He wasn’t stupid, after all. Impulsive, perhaps. Reckless, certainly. But not stupid. He spent the next few minutes – that he didn’t really think he had – making minor adjustments to the foundations he’d built.
Then, at last, he empowered it.
Beware. You have taken the first real step toward divinity. You will no longer use Will, Mana, or Battle Intent to fuel your abilities. Instead, you will use a divine energy, the beginning of all things. Some effects may vary.
Zeke didn’t take the time to question the wording, but if he had, he might have wondered why the Framework, which had always been so congratulatory with every step forward he took, was suddenly warning him. In any case, the change was immediately noticeable when he went through the motions of embracing his Will.
He’d spent untold hours inoculating himself against the caustic effects of his Will. That was the only thing that kept him from being ripped apart by his own power.
It raged through him, tearing through his metallic flesh like it was no more durable than paper. Then, it exploded out of him. He screamed – maybe he’d never stopped – but somehow, he still heard the sound of one of the figures fall to the floor. Then, another.
“How?!”
Zeke didn’t listen. Instead, he finally ripped free of his ephemeral bindings and fell to his knees. A second later, something hit him in the back, but he paid it no heed. Instead, he channeled [Hand of Divinity], and once again, the power very nearly melted him where he knelt. However, because of the skill’s nature, he recovered even more quickly than he was destroyed.
It only took a pulse and he was back to perfect health.
He opened his eyes and looked up.
When he locked his gaze on one of the figures, he saw that it had become an elven woman. She screamed.
Zeke stood.
His very presence sent ripples through the air, and when he stepped forward, the very fabric of reality flexed.
The elven woman exploded at the lightest touch, sending a mist of blood and bone to splatter against the wall. There was more screaming, and Zeke was pelted with a bunch of attacks that did nothing to harm him. He turned and, with only a single step that took less than an instant, he destroyed another elf.
Then another.
Over and over, he slew them. It didn’t take any real effort. Just a touch, and they exploded.
But Zeke wasn’t unaffected. He could feel his body screaming at him to bring it under control. Only a second after he acknowledged that, he collapsed to his knees. The earth shuddered under the impact of his presence.
“Beware,” he breathed. His voice was barely a whisper, but it echoed as if spoken by a god. It was an appropriate warning, because for all his newfound power, Zeke didn’t think he was going to last much longer.