Josephine leapt backward, drawing her blade through the air neatly bisecting two undead on the waist. Their pale elongated bodies fell to the ground as she twirled as she landed, taking yet another two heads. Bending backward a chunk of corrugated steel whipped by her, annihilating the storefront behind her. She twisted to the next threat and sprang at the Juggernaut.

The massive undead swatted at her, as she was too far inside of its reach to throw more debris at her. But the massively power undead was slow. Far too slow to catch Josephine on anything but a very bad day.

The {MYRMIDON} leaped up onto an arm, running up to the shoulder where she inserted her blade with mechanical precision, her abilities outlining the weak points of the hulking creature. Flinging herself sideways to avoid its grasping hands she spun like a corkscrew, decapitated the Juggernaut. She landed gracefully on her feat as the huge thing crashed to the ground behind her.

Huffing and puffing, and covered in gore, she searched for her next target. But she didn’t find anything. The entirety of the intersection was filled with the remains of the horde she had just dispatched. She was running low on stamina, dangerously so, but the undead never seemed to stop coming from the buildings around her. As soon as dusk turned to night they streamed out of the tall office buildings nearly non-stop, a literal flood of decaying flesh that wanted nothing more than to devour her. A screen popped up in front of her but she dismissed it immediately, she didn’t need to know she just wiped out another horde.

Quickly she checked her stats, it wouldn’t do if she had been granted another ability and didn’t know. Every tool at her disposal was indispensable for survival right now.

JOSEPHINE SANCHEZ

{RACE}

HUMAN

{CLASS}

HOLY MYRMIDON

{CLASS GRADE}

LEGENDARY

{STAGE}

1

{LEVEL}

4

{STRENGTH}

11

{AGILITY}

14

{POWER}

15

{WISDOM}

8

{LUCK}

3

{ABILITIES}

MAIM AND CLEAVE

WEAPON MASTERY

BASIC HEAL

DEVOTED ONE

She grunted, glad nothing else had changed. She had gotten {MAIM AND CLEAVE} at level four and the ability had given her an immense boost to her offensive power. Nothing else had changed, outside of her stats being much reduced from what they were. She could deal with that, however. Nothing would stop her from finding her Master and serving him once more. Even if she had to cut through an entire city of the undead to do it.

She trudged forward with grim determination, flicking gore from her blade. She wandered through the streets, but for a welcome change of pace, nothing accosted her. There were no hordes, no undead, not even a stray bat.

And that worried her.

She had moved another block in a random direction, looking for anyone or anything that was actually alive, when a ground shaking roar rattled the buildings around her. It was so loud she fell to the ground clutching her ears, worried they may burst from the pressure.

After a moment her roar ended and she looked around rapidly for threats, but it seemed that sound had only encouraged the undead to stay indoors. Nothing ventured outside at all.

Josephine thought about it, realizing that the savage audible attack had been from a living creature. She had heard plenty of undead snarls and roar at her, but nothing on that level. That took lung power. Working lung power. Not even the Juggernauts were as loud.

She rapidly moved in the direction of the noise as night drew down. It wouldn’t be long before the pitch blackness of the world broke, and what light there would be blessed the world once more with its light. Once that happened maybe she could see where she was going instead of navigating using only her {DEVOTED ONE} ability. It allowed her to see vague shapes in pitch blackness, and also highlighted clearly any enemies or undead around her. It was an incredibly useful ability, and she would have died without it early on.

Not that she had any doubts Ray would bring her back if she did.

Josephine picked up the pace and headed towards where she thought the roar had originated from. It was only a few blocks more when she got a notification screen that popped up in front of her;

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{ENTERING HEX 1338}

{STATUS}

CONTESTED

{FACTIONS}

3

She growled at the screen. If it had pores, it would have begun to sweat. Where she was at currently was irrelevant. It was where she needed to be that was important, and that was wherever Ray was. He was more than likely getting into trouble without her. She was-

Her thoughts were cut off as the whisper of wings in the air went over her head, tracking deeper into the new zone she had entered. Josephine quickly took cover next to a burned-out car. Her eyes could just barely make out the sleek silhouettes of dozens, possibly hundreds, of bats flying through the air. They were all headed in one direction… towards the near center of the Hex, she was now in.

After a few minutes, the last bats had crossed over and had vanished into the distance. Josephine stared after them intensely, her burning glare nearly parting the very night before her. Then she made the decision to follow. Wherever those creatures were going more than likely had a source of food. If there was food, there were living creatures. If there were living creatures there was more than likely someone who knew of where Ray was or had heard something about him.

She trudged down the street, determined to find her Master. One way or another, she would. Come hell, fire, or undead she would cut through anything that opposed her.

She traveled until the sun kissed the sky, and dawn drove away the darkness to light up the world once more. Josephine had woken up in a large park, a place that had taken her nearly a day to cross. She had fought odd undead leprechauns, birds, and giant lizards to get out of there. But for the first time since entering the city proper, she had a good chance to actually see what was around her. It was nothing but ruins. Tall, abandoned buildings as far as the eye could see. Block after block of apocalyptic devastation.

She walked for several hours until the sun was at a midpoint in the sky. Josephine must have walked thirty blocks or more before she stopped for a rest. She had sat for a moment, just one short moment, before her danger sense began screaming at her.

The Asian woman flung herself to the side as a spear embedded itself into the concrete she had been sitting on. Rolling to her feet she sprang up, looking for the enemy. The only thing she saw, however, was a bear of a man holding a bat.

“Hello, love. Pretty sure I knew I recognized you,” he said with a malevolent smile.

Confused and taken off guard, Josephine never saw the rebar club that smashed into the back of her head.

***

Nell smashed through the window pane, his wings were bleeding orange blood from the strike he had just taken. Breathing heavily, he rolled to his feet and ran to the back of what appeared to be an apparel store of some kind. Lacey garments and female humans grinned at him from near lewd poses that were painted in pictographs on the walls.

The bird-like alien slammed into the back door, but it didn’t budge one bit. Breathing heavily he slid slowly to the floor. He was tired, and running was no longer working. He couldn’t evade his hunters forever. He much preferred the dead.

He and Vell had grossly miscalculated. The first blunder had been the issuing of a Core, not a Node, to the human Ray. Their second had been not interfering when the godling Kevin got involved. They may not have been able to stop him from trying his best to harm Ray, but they could have provided more resources to ensure the human's success.

Their last mistake, however, and their most lethal one, was being far too close to the planet once the Integration had taken place. It had sucked their vessel right into the whirling vortex of raw energy and matter. When they had awoken, the ship had crashed into a country on the planet that had previously been known as China. However, that country was long extinct, and the only thing that waited for them was the dense hordes of the undead.

Utilizing their technology, and piecing together what they could with their new classes, the pair had assembled several devastatingly powerful disintegration weapons. They seemed poised to survive for the moment, right up until Vell fell victim to some kind of bony creature.

The creature controlled the undead around it and wielded Miasma as if it were second nature. Once the pair had come across it, they had no idea what they were looking at or how to deal with it. All they knew was that it wanted them. Badly. So Vell shot it.

To their utter surprise, the weapons they had assembled that had annihilated thousands of undead didn’t phase the terrifying humanoid skeleton. No. All it had done was enrage it at their callous actions causing it to descend into rage and savagery. It had sent their hordes after the duo, chasing them down through the massive urban sprawls of some massive city.

The pair had done well to survive at first, right up until Vell took a wrong turn and ended up in a dead-end street with no way out. Uncharacteristically, Vell had boosted Nell over a wall, handing her chip and weapon to him. He would be able to create a restored clone from the ship with that information… if he ever made it back.

Unfortunately, he doubted he would.

Turning over so he could face the entrance, he saw the undead horde clearing the way to him. It wouldn’t be long now, then he would be free of his shell to join the flock in the afterlife.

Unfortunately, others had different plans for him.

“There you are. I’m glad you finally stopped,” chattered the fleshless skull, green eyes blazing at him from within the eye sockets. “It took me ages to find you, you know that? Ages. I may be undead and damn near eternal, but I don’t have unlimited time. Not with the reset that is. Although catching you did net me my next level. Still haven’t figured out the criteria for that, but I digress.”

“Damned abomination, you killed Vell,” snarled Nell, raising his weapon. The skeleton held up its hands placatingly.

“Woah there, let's talk this out,” it said, causing Nell to pause. “First off your friend isn’t dead. Second of all if you pull that trigger I’m going to go crazy again… and that would probably get you both killed. That thing may be good for undead who don’t use Miasma, but for whatever reason it makes me lose my mind.”

Nell shrugged and dropped the weapon. It wasn’t like it was going to help him anyway. Besides, if the bony pile of nastiness was telling the truth then Vell was still alive.

“What do you want creature?” he snapped, beak clacking at the undead monstrosity.

The boney being giggled. It giggled. “First of all, I am a specific type of abomination. I am a Lich. Second of all, I want what all Liches want. To bring undeath to reality. A fantastic goal, really. Someone should pat me on the back.”

A nearby zombie moved forward and did just that.

“Perfect. All is harmonious in the universe once more… except there are too many living things,” he cackled. “This reminds me of that human I ran into before reality imploded. Ray something or other. Fantastic guy. Love him. Would make a killer zombie.”

Nell stared at the Lich. “What do you want?” he asked again.

“Why, I need you to build me something. You and your little friend Vell seem rather adept at creating technological wonders. Something that I, sadly, lack the ability to do. Undead aren’t very good at building things you know,” the boney man said matter of fact.

Nell stared at it. “You want me… us… to build you things?” he said incredulously. “Why chase us down?”

“Again, that device drove me insane temporarily. Can’t tell you why,” it said, shrugging. “But tell you what, if you help me I will get you back on your ship and headed back home.”

Nell was the brightest feather in the coop, but he recognized what any human would recognize a Faustian Deal.

“No,” he said simply.

The Lich just cackled again and leaned forward. “Like you have a choice. You, my bird-brained friend, are going to help me. In so, so many ways.” Nell gasped in horror as the Lich removed a squirming creature from its rib cage and advanced on him. “And you won't even know it. Now, say ahhhhh!” Nell’s screams could be heard from blocks away.

If there had been anyone alive to listen to them that is.