“Wake up!”

Reivan slapped Aldimir hard, unable to spare the time to rouse him gently. Maybe he hit him a little harder than he needed to. Maybe he didn't care. Maybe he wanted to have another go if the situation didn't call for haste.

In any case, his palm was satisfyingly sore after just one slap, which must have meant it was good enough. He then turned to Alini. “Bulwark. Please.”

She didn’t react as fast as he’d liked, but she finished her spell only slightly behind him. Because of proximity, their spells resonated with each other and formed an incredibly sturdy dome of light around them, capable of protecting against physical and magical attacks.

It was what used to be called a “Fortress Ritual” before someone invented an improved version called “Resonance Bulwark”.

And it was just in time for the first something to crash against it.

“Ee!” Alini squealed in surprise but quickly recovered. A nervous but resolute expression on her face as she focused on maintaining the bulwark. Though jumpy, it seemed she was made of sterner stuff than he expected, and he wasn't just talking about her ass.

But her resolve didn’t last long when she realized what was attacking them. And quite frankly, Reivan was a bit shaken as well.

‘Zombies…? Are you fucking shitting me…’

The lack of lighting made it hard to be sure, but that was what he thought their adversaries were.

What was formerly a human banged against the wall of magic with its decaying fists, all while continuing to run forward in a futile attempt to reach the living within the dome of light. Its rotten skin was still in the process of falling off, and its hollow eyes held a strange mix of hunger and spite, driven by insatiable instincts a living person could never understand.

And there were more of them coming. A lot more. Clawing their way up from the sea of tall grass around them, their numbers rose by the dozens for every second that passed.

Reivan gulped, watching as more zombies arrived in a loud and brutal fashion, throwing themselves against the wall in a charge that didn’t take the attacker’s safety into account. Sometimes, the impact would break them, throwing them to the ground where they clawed at the base of the dome, hoping to contribute to the horde’s assault in any way they could.

Most of the time though, they stood strong, continuing the assault with their fists, uncaring for how their already mutilated limbs broke under their own rabid attacks.

‘By Sormon’s fluffy pillow… What the hell is happening…’

Confused as to why he was suddenly facing the undead, Reivan examined the abominations with [Supreme Insight].

════ ⋆★★★⋆ ════

Name: N/A

Species: Cursed Vessel

Realm: N/A

Age: N/A

Sex: N/A

Might: 15

Elemental Affinities

[Darkness]

Favor

N/A

Threat Level

D

════ ⋆★★★⋆ ════

Reivan took a look at the other ones and found that the information very rarely changed. It was slightly relieving that they weren’t too strong, especially since there was a crap ton of them.

If they had strength and numbers, Reivan and the others were well and truly fucked. They may as well lay down and make it easier.

‘Each one’s still physically stronger than any of us though… We can’t keep taking hits like this.’

Unfortunately, despite the defensive spell being powerful and mana-efficient, it also needed to be channeled. Which meant the two sorcerers acting as the dome’s pillars basically neutered their offensive capabilities in exchange for a sturdy defense.

‘Fuck. Inaria and Kantor are still out there too…’

“Aldim! ALDIM!” Reivan shouted as more of the zombies charged against the barrier, taking a small chunk of his mana with every hit. “Wake the fuck up! And Inaria! If you can hear me, say something!”

“We’re okay!” she called out from beyond the dark, her voice even despite the strangeness of the situation. “We’re under attack by… by whatever these are. Dead people! Rotting corpses! I don’t know what they’re called!”

“Ah! More of them are coming!” Kantor shouted from the same general direction. “W-We need to link up the bulwarks! Let’s go to Clover and the others!”

“We’ll meet halfway! We can’t fight back if we’re split up!” Reivan yelled back, inwardly celebrating one of the defensive spell’s most recent improvements — it now moved with the caster.

‘There are probably all sorts of ways to exploit that, like squishing stuff against walls, but there aren’t any around here…’

It would have been nice if there were. Really, tonight was not a night for good news.

“If your spirit beasts can fight from range, have them help you! Don’t let them out of the dome or they’ll get swarmed!” Reivan took out his own orb and hastily called Sen out, who appeared next to him with an alert gaze. “Help me out, girl. Okay? Please?”

Sen looked around with what could only be a grimace, but for a cat. Or a panther. He had to remember not to call her the former out loud or there would be scratching to be had, or maybe a lot of pouting. The white panther's tail glowed, pointing its tip at one of the zombies. A moment later, a needle of light shot out and blasted the undead’s head into countless bits and pieces.

‘Nice. [Light] and [Dark] counter each other so she’ll be highly effective while on the offense…’

On the other hand, Alini had a similar idea, calling out to her own spirit beast.

The thing that appeared next to her surprised Reivan though, because it was a huge light brown bear with around thirty Might. It took one look at the surroundings and charged out of the dome, demolishing everything in its path. Literally, nothing could stop it, and anything that tried wouldn't get a chance to do it again.

Reivan watched it go on a rampage outside, too fast to be surrounded and capable of shattering a zombie with a single swipe of its claws. He then sent a glance at the normally quiet girl who caught the thing.

‘This girl’s full of surprises.’

Unfortunately, the sheer amount of the zombies couldn’t be dealt with by one overpowered bear alone. Additionally, the zombies didn’t seem to want anything to do with the bear, only attacking when it got close to them but otherwise ignoring its existence in favor of the three humans hiding behind a very sturdy bowl.

‘Do they not like it since it isn’t made of flesh and bone…?’

That seemed like the most likely explanation, so Reivan went with that. With panicked annoyance, he turned his attention to the man who was still sleeping at his feet, kicking him even harder this time around.

“Hey! ALDIM! I told you to wake up!”

“Agh! What the hell…!” Aldimir recoiled, cradling his stomach. “Is that you, Win? Why the hell did you kick me…?”

“Get the hell up, moron! And make some light so we can see! We are not in a safe place right now and we need help!!”

To his credit, Aldimir didn’t ask any more questions, seemingly understanding the gravity of the situation he found himself in. The encirclement of raging zombies all around them must have helped with that. Surely. With great haste, he waved his wand as he stood up, producing dozens of glowing orbs that flew outward, illuminating their surroundings.

‘That is a fuck ton of zombies…’

The tall grass didn’t do a good job of hiding their figures, so Reivan got a good view of their overwhelming numbers. They were all over the clearing and more of them were coming from beyond the treeline. What’s worse was more of them kept popping up from below, spawning out from the literal earth.

No matter where they came from, all of the zombies seemed to have one thing in common though — they all really wanted to tear Reivan and the others apart.

Reivan tried to think of a way to deal with the situation but the answer, surprisingly, wasn’t for him to discover. Right beside him, countless sparks erupted from Aldimir’s wand, drifting toward the tall grass and setting a small portion of it alight.

With another flourish, he fired off a different spell at the budding inferno. Reivan didn’t know what the spell was, but a few moments was all it took for the fire to spread to a larger area, proliferating far faster than what was normal. The smell that wafted into the dome was very telling, however.

‘Oh, he used the grease spell… That’s actually a really good idea.’

The tall grass helped spread the flames too, creating a raging inferno that affected a large chunk of the zombies blocking their path. Unfortunately, despite how much the zombies seemed to hate the fire, it didn’t really deal that much damage.

Grass burned quickly, and the grease was soaked up by the soil rather quickly. In the end, Aldimir’s actions only served as a short distraction that gave them a little bit more time to regroup.

“Good thinking.” Reivan nodded toward Aldimir. “That also cleared up the foliage, so we can see them more clearly.”

“I told you. I’m pretty great!”

Alini suddenly called out, her voice tinged with panic. “P-Please be careful not to burn Mr. Kip!”

As if in agreement, the bear bulldozing its way through the horde outside roared. it had gone quite far now, hoping to lure the zombies away but failing because they didn’t care about a spirit beast.

“Sorry about that... But why the hell does that big guy have such a cute name...?” Aldimir chuckled as his penetration spell drilled a hole through a zombie’s head, passing right through and hitting another one behind it — only to pass through a second time, hitting a third target. “Ugh, these guys are disgusting! Why the hell are we here with them!?”

Despite complaining, Aldimir destroyed multiple zombies with every cast, somewhat alleviating the strain on the barrier.

‘I suppose it’s not a military-grade spell for nothing.’

“Alini, we’re moving.” Reivan warned the other pillar of their mobile bastion. “Are you ready? We have to link up with the other two.”

“Got it! I’m r-ready!” She nodded, flinching when another hyena rammed against the part of the dome close to her. “Wh-which direction was it again…?”

“Just follow my lead.”

Reivan and Alini inched toward Inaria and Kantor’s position, carefully maintaining the spell. Even though it now moved with the caster, that didn’t mean they could just run around as fast as they could and expect the spell to hold.

Aldimir moved with them, acting as the resident arsonist. Sometimes, the wind’s direction wouldn’t quite favor the spreading of the flames, but he still managed good work. Not only that, but he was also steadily getting better at lining them up so every penetration spell could kill up to five zombies at once.

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“Look, Win! I’m penetrating a bunch of them at once! I’m a master of using my thick long wand to penetrate!”

“This is not the time, man.” Reivan snapped at him, despite appreciating the fact the situation was still at the point where they could crack jokes. “Kantor! Are you guys still okay, over there? I can’t see shit with all the zombies between us!”

“Over here!” Kantor called out, his voice tinged with anxiety as Inaria stonily walked next to him. “A-are you guys okay!?”

The two of them were close enough that their faces could be seen. Though, that wasn't very telling of their proximity given how great Reivan's eyesight was. He was probably the only one who could see them.

“We’re doing fine! Worry about yourselves!” Reivan shouted back, taking out another swathe of zombies. “How’re you doing on magic power!?”

“Not too good! There's too many over here!”

Reivan licked his lips and squinted at the two through the gaps, noting that there were significantly more monsters targeting their bulwark. The number of monsters attacking his and Alini’s bulwark was thinning though, making him realize that the zombies weren’t completely brainless.

They understood that Inaria and Kantor couldn't fight back. And hence, were better targets.

‘Welp. This just keeps getting better, eh?'

Reivan was pretty sure this whole ordeal was being observed by people from the Tower, but on the off-chance they weren’t, Inaria’s death would be a blow to him considering she was a completely loyal pawn in Arkhan. Losing her wasn’t a blow he was willing to tolerate when he could do something to avoid it. And he was past the point where he could deny his attachement to her, though not as large as the people he normally interacted with as himself.

“Aldim." he called out. "You take over for me.”

“What? Bu—”

“No buts! I’m going! Sen! Cover my back and follow!”

Reivan stopped channeling the spell and summoned a kite shield on each arm, charging out of the dome and heading over to support the other one. He passed through without resistance, ramming his shield into the zombies standing in his way.

With a war cry, he activated one of the enchantments embedded in the shield, blowing back the zombies in front of him with a powerful pulse of energy. He kept his momentum and smashed the sharpened edge of his other shield at an unsuspecting zombie that failed to react to him fast enough, slicing off a large portion of its face. Rotten bits of flesh splattered everywhere, and Reivan cursed on the inside, berating himself for not wearing some cloth over his mouth.

Despite wanting to vomit, he had achieved his purpose — standing out.

“You crazy bastard, that was awesome!” Aldimir yelled after him but hastily flourished his wand to reinforce the bulwark. “You’re gonna get yourself killed though! You’re gonna get us all killed! I don't wanna die until I have at least two kids!”

“I know what I’m doing! We’ll lead them away!”

After taking a deep breath, Reivan’s grip on his shields tightened as the horde’s attention focused on him. No doubt, he seemed like a juicy piece of meat that dropped down from heaven. Consequently, a lot of the zombies encircling Inaria and Kantor went for him instead.

‘Yeah, come to me, little freaks…’

Reivan wasn’t crazy, rather, he was only doing this because he knew that the zombies weren’t much stronger than ordinary people. Fortunately, that also meant they weren’t strong enough to completely ignore the defense that his battle robes offered.

As long as he didn’t get pinned down, he would be fine.

Reivan bashed another zombie in the head with his shield. Closing his mouth just in time to avoid another vomit-inducing accident, he then broke into a run to the treeline, leading the horde away from the others.

Sen fell into step behind him at a fast trot, shooting a few zombies while being completely untouchable because of her agility and size.

‘Yep. Great plan so far. Good thinking, me.’

All he had to do was to give them time to regroup and then rejoin them afterward. Sure, there were a lot of zombies and they were stronger. But Reivan didn’t have rotten legs, so he liked to think he could lead them by the nose for a few minutes. The boots they were issued also had a few single-use active effects to pull him out of a pinch. And then there was Sen, who was being incredibly helpful. Bless her soul, it seemed all that effort in playing with her paid off. She at least liked him enough to help him not get absolutely ripped apart by a horde of undead.

Running as fast as he could, Reivan put away both shields to make it easier on himself, swerving his way through the scattered zombies in his wake. They had clumped up near the barriers, but they were spread thin this far out, meaning he didn’t need to fight at all — he just needed to keep on leading as many zombies away.

“Made it…” Reivan muttered to himself as he stopped, leaning against a tree. He threw a glance behind him and saw that the two barriers were actually gone, making him momentarily panic at the thought that everybody got taken out while he wasn’t looking.

But upon closer inspection, the others had chosen to cancel the bulwark when all the zombies left them alone in favor of chasing after Reivan. This allowed them to move much faster, completely regrouping together.

‘That was smart of them.’

Alini’s bear just did its own thing in the background, completely unstoppable. Loved that guy. There was also what looked like an adult fire-breathing lion with them too, which must have belonged to Inaria or Kantor. With their support, fighting off the unending horde of undead seemed a little more feasible.

‘Good lord, they really are spawning out of the ground…!’

Reivan frowned. With a clearer view of the entire clearing, he was able to see the process of how each of the undead literally burst out of the soil itself. More of them were coming out and Reivan saw no signs of it stopping.

Needless to say, staying in the clearing wasn't an idea that would win him any Nobel Prizes.

“HEY!” he called out to the others while pointing at a different part of the tree line. “Let’s meet up over there! I’ll try to keep them off you guys! Get far away from the clearing!”

Aldimir made a circle above his head with his hands and the four of them bolted. Now that they weren’t hiding behind a barrier, a portion of the zombies began chasing after them instead of Reivan.

Most of them still had their eye holes set on him though. Which had its pros and cons but he'd roll with it.

Reivan deftly climbed the nearest tree, with Sen following behind, managing to climb the tree twice as fast as him. Safely perched on a particularly thick and sturdy tree branch, Reivan tried to catch his breath and observed how the zombies acted.

‘Oh, they’re just kind of… looking at me. Menacingly, if I may add.’

Happy with this result, Reivan settled on his plan of action, deciding to take a few moments to recover his magic power. He didn’t even bother to fire penetration spells into the mob of undead since taking out a few of them wouldn’t make a dent against a force this large.

It was better for him to save every drop of magic power he had on utility spells that would help him avoid combat. Especially since he had already proven that he could outrun them.

That wasn’t the case with Sen, though. She kept blasting the zombies’ heads off with needles of light fired from the end of her tail. Apparently, the needles were something she could fire without much worry because it cost her nothing — the only limitation being that she couldn’t fire them rapidly.

“Make sure to aim for the ones far away from this tree, okay girl?” Reivan held her in his lap and rubbed her head. “If you keep killing the ones nearby, they’ll form a hill. And that won’t be good for both of us. Mainly me.”

Sen gave a short cry that may have been a yawn, agreeing to follow his instructions.

Minutes passed and there was a doomstack of zombies waiting for him below, and something told him that they wanted more from him than his brains. It was an overwhelming number that no zombie movie could match — not that he'd seen that many. He never really liked zombie content, with the only exception being the Zombieland franchise and that one anime with the zombie idols.

Sadly, the zombies didn't like him very much either even though they probably loved his contents. Every few seconds, they managed to pile on top of each other enough to reach him. Unfortunately for them, it was easy for him to topple every tower of bodies they painstakingly built up.

“Again, fellas? You never learn…” Reivan took out his shield again and held its edge with both hands instead of wearing it on his arm. He then used it to shove the zombie at the top of the pile, pushing it off and toppling a portion of the tower.

Zombies weren’t the best climbers, it seemed, so it would take a while before another zombie got high enough to reach him.

‘I think I’ve given them enough time…’

Reivan scratched his head and looked around as the night breeze caressed his face, trying to find the easiest way out of the mess he intentionally made. Unfortunately, there was an equal amount of zombies in every direction, even the direction he wanted to head to.

The only good news was that the clearing they initially woke up on had stopped spawning undead. Which meant the ones here with him were all the zombies they would have to deal with.

‘If only I had any spell balls… I could take out a whole bunch of them at once.’

They had been given a few to use on special occasions, but the ones Reivan had in his buckle were mysteriously missing. He assumed the others were in the same situation.

It was a shame because he’d actually climbed the tree under the assumption that he could use spellballs to clear out a large swathe of the zombies. Their absence was quite an unwanted surprise.

‘Hm… Guess I’ll try a few things.’

Reivan looked down and cast a Resonance Bulwark spell, creating a spherical barrier that extended outward with him as the origin. It only looked like a dome at most times because it phased through the ground.

Now though, since he was on a tree branch, the bulwark protected him from literally every direction, making him look like a hamster in a ball.

‘Damn, I guess one person casting it isn’t big enough.’

Reivan looked down and found that the barrier didn’t quite reach the zombies below. It did affect the zombies slowly piling on top of each other at the base of the tree, forcefully pushing them down.

‘I hope this works like I think…’

With a short internal prayer to the Sun God, Reivan jumped off the tree.

What followed was, to say the least, surprising.

He had expected to squish the zombies underneath him, crushed between the bulwark and the ground. Instead of the great squish he oh so wanted, the bubble simply pushed them to the side.

There was a fair bit of force behind it since the zombies that were “pushed” were sent flying, crashing into nearby trees, so it wasn’t all bad. But Reivan was quite disappointed with the result.

‘What a crappy barrier. Can't even crush shit with it.’

The zombies around him immediately started banging against his barrier. He really wished they wouldn't do that, because it was draining a fair bit of his magic power. With haste, he climbed back up the tree and decided to try something else.

‘Alrighty then. Forest fire it is.’

Reivan repeatedly cast grease spells on the zombies, coating as many of them with the disgusting liquid that was also extremely flammable. The spell was cheap on magic power too, so he could cast it quite a few times.

Once he was satisfied with how absolutely putrid it was around him, he used a spark spell and watched as the horde was set aflame.

‘Look at it, Sen. Isn’t it beautiful?’

Sen, of course, did not see the beauty that he saw and was terribly confused. Actually, he didn’t think the fire was beautiful either — he just wanted to say it, even if it was only mentally.

“I guess they can’t feel pain,” Reivan commented dryly as he waited for the flames to do their work.

The undead’s actions didn’t change despite their ignited state, continuing to mindlessly reach out for him, uncaring of what was in their way. Because of that, they ended up spreading the flaming grease to others.

‘Spells being military-grade doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better, huh? Sometimes, you just need the right basic spells to do the job that military-grade can’t do.’

Conjured elements weren’t real, and hence, didn’t act like the elements they mimicked. This was one of the first things aspiring sorcerers learned. It was why a sorcerer couldn’t drink the water they conjured with a spell. And they also couldn’t start building a house with the stone they magicked up.

Because they weren’t real and would disappear after a while.

The spark spell was a bit weird, in that sense. Because it was a spell to create a natural flame using a magical spark. Conjured flames didn’t spread and burned hotter than normal fire. But it didn’t grow no matter how much fuel you fed it. So in Reivan’s case, natural fire was much more useful than magical ones.

Even if he used a spell to conjure a lance of flames, he could probably disintegrate a dozen zombies from the explosion. But a few dozen grease spells, time, and a single spark spell kill so much more.

‘Well, humans wouldn’t just stand there and let me grease them up, so maybe this isn’t all that useful.’

Human bodies took a surprisingly long time to fully burn, and so did zombies, apparently. Reivan had to wait a while before the undead finally started to collapse one by one.

Uncaring of their fallen comrades, the zombies waiting on the outskirts stepped over the charred remains of their brethren, gathering at the base of the tree he was on again.

“You guys are so dumb…” Reivan chuckled as he planned to repeat the process. He would wait until the zombies really piled up beneath him. It would give him time to restore more of his magic power too.

‘Too eas—’

His thoughts were suddenly jolted to a stop when he felt a rumble through the area. Reivan looked back at the silent clearing in horror to see that it wasn’t as silent as he wanted.

He watched in horror as massive hulking arms burst out of the dirt, followed shortly by the equally hulking torso of what Reivan could only describe as some kind of undead ogre — not that he’d ever seen an ogre in this life.

‘What the hell is that… No seriously, what the hell is the Tower up to!?’

Hoping that they weren’t as strong as they looked, Reivan checked them out with [Supreme Insight].

════ ⋆★★★⋆ ════

Name: N/A

Species: Cursed Vessel (Giant Variant)

Realm: N/A

Age: N/A

Sex: N/A

Might: 100

Elemental Affinities

[Darkness]

Favor

N/A

Threat Level

S

════ ⋆★★★⋆ ════

‘Well, that’s not too bad… For my real self, that is. It's very bad for Clover Salwyn though.’

Of the five giants, none of them had managed to fully climb out of the dirt but they were already twice as tall as him. He could only imagine how big they really were.

‘What the fuck do they expect us to do against those…? Or are we not meant to fight them at all?’

Taking the chance to do some damage while they weren’t free of their earthen restraints yet, Reivan aimed a penetration spell at one of the giants’ heads, successfully piercing a hole through its head.

Its movements immediately stopped, but Reivan didn’t let his guard down. They were far away, but because of their size, he could see the dark smoke coming from the wound he inflicted.

A few moments later, the giant resumed its attempts to free itself.

‘Yep. We’re definitely not supposed to fight those.’

Reivan made a split-second decision to flee, jumping down from the tree and urging Sen to follow. He was instantly beset with zombies, but fortunately, they hadn’t finished clumping up yet, so he ran past them, utilizing what gaps in the horde he could find. Of course, he couldn’t do that all the time, so an occasional penetration spell to cut a path open was needed. Happiness overtook him when he finally made it out of the encirclement, a forest free of zombies in front of him.

But a distant roar reminded him that the slow and stupid zombies were the least of his problems. And it was with that reminder that he legged it as fast as he could.