All of the 3rd year students were gathering in a special classroom since early morning. Most of them didn't know what kind of class this would be, but the Misfits, being informed early, sat down with part excitement and part nervousness. They were seated in a circle around a white, 10 square meters big room, surrounded by a white, transparent energy field. Lia made them arrive way before time so they would get the best seats, right at the energy field, almost as if they were sitting inside of it. When everyone was present, and all the lights went out, unnatural darkness descended onto them, sacring some who were unfamiliar with the weird trembles traveling through the air.
"Brr…" Raufon and Keily shivered, being more sensitive to it.
"Something happened," Keily muttered, his instincts telling him this was not normal at all.
"We have been separated from the real world." Lia explained, knowing this had to be the work of Lucian, "We are in a separated expanse, set up in No-Space!"
"You mean…" Koa whispered, trying to look into the darkness, but she barely could make out the faces of those who sat at the back.
"Yeah… we are essentially in a special kind of holding bag!" Lia nodded, even more, excited now.
It was the Headmaster's voice that put an end to all the murmurs as he appeared from nowhere inside the energy field, looking around with a solemn expression.
"This class is usually… different." He started to speak, his voice coming from their bracelets, traveling straight to their ears. "Your teachers are the ones who, like in your first year, bring in an Undead and let you study it up close. Later on, you will have that chance, too, as we are going to have mandatory classes where you will have to kill one for yourself."
That alone made many stiffen in their chairs. Killing an Undead? Pitting them against one? That sounded… highly dangerous.
"Try to craft your own artifacts by then." Lucian continued without pausing. "Failing that class means… death."
"What?!" Many exclaimed, some even stood up, looking at him horrified, thinking he was joking, but neither his tone nor his eyes looked like he was trying to scare them.
"If you are afraid to face an Undead, then resign now." He said, looking at those who stood up, one by one, memorizing their faces. "Before you consume more of our resources for nothing. We don't raise cowards here! Get the fuck out of my Institution if you are such a disgrace to us all!" He growled, almost spitting, making many fall back to their chair with weak knees.
"Did something happen?" Koa asked, gulping loudly.
"I… I don't know…" Lia answered, also surprised by his serious tone and voice.
"Now," Lucian turned around, walking in circles while addressing them, "You ought to know that in the summer, a village of two hundred souls was attacked by Undead. They were only numbering twenty, but of those twenty, they had three intelligent variants leading them."
"Something did happen…" the Misfits said almost simultaneously.
"They did not kill the villagers. They rounded them up to take them away. That did not happen… for four thousand years." He said, pausing a little and implying something really dark that further scared the students, who were listening and sweating in their seats.
"Mom didn't mention this…." Lia murmured, but now she had an inkling of suspicion why she was so hard on them while training in the summer, almost killing her multiple times in their bouts.
"They were unsuccessful in the end." Lucian continued, and hearing the relieved sigh, he formed a savage yet sad smile.
"All of the villagers are dead."
"...?!" Those who just relaxed stiffened back up again, feeling as if someone jabbed them in the stomach and their breakfast was trying to come and take a look from their throats at what was going on.
"We killed them," Lucian said coldly, watching their reactions. "More than 50 of them were already mind controlled; the rest could have been already sleeper cells. So we burned down the village, the Undead, and the villagers along with them. And when I say WE, I mean WE. The Institute! I was overseeing the operation and coordinated the freshly graduated Honorary students in their first mission."
He stopped for a moment, letting it sink in for everyone before speaking once more in a less heated voice.
"You have to grow up quick. You have to realize that our world is changing. We are heading towards a new Era. You have to be ready for everything."
With that, he snapped his finger, and with a puff of violet smoke, a standing sarcophagus appeared before them all, chained up from top to bottom. It had a human shape but was featureless, and when Lucian tapped it with the end of his tail, the chains around it started to recede into nothingness. When all of it was gone, it opened up with a hiss, letting the air rush inside as the lid separated away, falling forward, disappearing before it could reach the ground.
It didn't take long for everyone to see as the rest of the sarcophagus was also gone, revealing a man standing next to Lucian. He was completely naked and looked to be in his twenties. His long white hair reached down to his ankles, standing just as tall as Lucian, ignoring his presence, scanning the darkness with his bright, emerald-green eyes. Some girls tried not to look or cover theirs, but the nakedness did not bother the Undead at all. It was searching for something and was turning its head, watching their faces. Or at least, they felt like it was watching them.
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"The room in here," Lucian continued to speak, not taking his eyes from the Undead for a moment, "is separated. The Energy field is something that nobody under the 6th Tier can break. From the inside, you can't look out; you can't feel anything that is happening at your end. Yet look at it… he knows you are there. He feels you all. He searches, evaluates, and looks for those who are worthy."
"Worthy?" Raufon asked, watching with his hands transformed, grabbing the edge of his seat, not even realizing it.
"The fact that he does this and ignores me is a sign that he is an Abnormal one." Lucian continued, "There are multiple kinds of Undead; The, well, Undead, Abnormals, Weapons, and the Intelligent ones." The Headmaster explained firmly, "The most common ones are the ones you saw in your first year. They are the most numerous and most common ones. They are like drones, mindless husks, attacking anything that moves and has a pulse, turning them to the same wretched, cannon fodder that they are!"
"..." Lia gently put her hand on Keily's, sitting next to her, hearing as the boy's fingernails scratched his chair's armrest.
"The Weapons are abominations. They are a type of Undead that is uncontrollable even by Intelligent variants. They are simply monsters and instruments of war. The Intelligent Undead are as dangerous as any mage. You are not ready to face one. Not yet. That leaves us with the Abnormals. They are halfway there between the regular ones and the intelligent variants. They are smarter and capable of animal-like thinking without their instincts of fear. They evaluate and point out those that are… dangerous or valuable." He added, watching the Undead's head stop in its constant movement, fixating on one spot. At Lia. It couldn't see her, but both Lia and Lucian knew that thing was surely looking at her. Soon everyone followed its unblinking gaze and realized who it was watching.
"..." This time, Lia was not panicking. She was still trembling in her seat but returned the gaze, looking into the emerald eyes of the Undead, resisting it.
"It found its prime target." Lucian said with a hollow smile, "When they do this, the others stop going after random beings and focus on the chosen one. No matter how many are there, they all follow this one's gaze until they kill, capture or turn the one it marked. Never forget!" He raised his voice, jolting the spectators, "Undead never work alone! They move in groups! When you see one, there are going to be a dozen somewhere around it! To disturb them, find the Abnormal one and kill it first! Without its focusing gaze and its coordination, the rest is easy pickings! Luckily, Intelligent ones are rarer… and they can't be everywhere at once."
"It is still only watching you…" Koa whispered, truly unnerved at how the Undead focused solely on Lia. She was sure if the energy field was not there, it would pounce at her already.
"You may wonder why this specimen is this focused and why it is ignoring me!" Lucian chuckled, "He already deduced that he can't turn me because he can't defeat me. Because of that, he completely ignores my presence and looks for those who he could turn into Undead. Why? We don't know. But we don't need to know! Because this abomination isn't something that belongs to our world!"
With that, his hand moved, and he decapitated the Undead with a swish. Its head spun in the air before falling to the ground with a thud, rolling a little. To everyone's horror, no blood splurted from the neck, and the body remained standing. A little longer, it moved, leaning forward and grabbing the head by its long hair, lifting it up, and now it was holding it as a lantern before him, pointing it at Lia so it could continue watching.
"What, you thought it was this easy to kill one of them?" The Headmaster roared with a peal of evil laughter, watching the students' faces. "Did you ever pick up a book about them?" With that, he sliced again, opening the chest of the Undead. While doing so, it did not even flinch; it just kept holding its head straight, its hands fixed like an unmoving statue.
When its torso was cut open, and Lucian pulled the skin apart, it revealed its ribcage and the organs behind it, but no blood came pouring out. It was already gone, and the organs looked shriveled up like raisins.
"They can not die. You can't kill something that is not alive." Lucian said grimly and cut off one leg of the Undead, letting it fall to the side. Yet only a minute later, it was standing on its remaining leg, holding the head towards Lia, balancing perfectly. Lucian continued to cut at it, dicing it up like a chef and then scattering its body parts everywhere, leaving only a torso in the middle. "Watch." He said in an ordering tone.
At first, nothing happened. Then the head finally rolled to its side, blinking for the first time, turning its gaze from Lia to its own body. A moment later, the hands started to move, same as the legs, heading back toward the torso. What happened next made many of them tremble; some even gagged and vomited while a few others soiled themselves. Black, unnatural miasma appeared from the body of the Undead. Even being separated by an energy field, the sensation it carried with it seeped out, washing over the students. It was nothing like they had ever seen or felt before.
"This is…." Aurora wrote, and she was also trembling, "Solren spoke about it… this is Death… The Mana of Death… the magic the Intelligent variants use!"
"No living being is capable of casting something like this…" Koadriana added with a low whisper, trying to lick her parched lips.
"Necromancers can…" Lia corrected her with a grave tone, "The ones who are brainwashed and serve the Undead, betraying the living…."
The blackish-green miasma was like a new entity, forming multiple tentacles, dragging the body back together, slowly rebuilding and mending the deadly wounds. It was evident if left to do its thing, it would come back together in ten minutes or so.
"This is why every group MUST have fire mages. They can only be dealt with by fire! Nothing must remain but ashes!" Lucian said, snapping his fingers, and soon, Lia disappeared from her chair, appearing right next to the Headmaster, to everyone's surprise.
She was swaying, holding her mouth, looking at the Undead. Lucian expected her to complain or fall over, especially because the aura of the abomination before them was ten times as strong in here than on the outside. Yet Lia just clenched her fists, circulating her mana, expelling the unease from her mind and body. She didn't ask a question, just raised her hand and let loose an intense, crimson-burning fire engulfing the Undead in its entirety.
Just when she raised her hand, the Undead stopped rebuilding itself for a brief moment, one of its dangling, barely reattached hand grabbing towards her, only to be melted away like some kind of clay figure. She did not blink, did not stop, using all of her powers to turn the Undead into nothing but a pile of grey ash. When she stopped, there was nothing there anymore. No miasma, no Undead, nothing.
"Good," Lucian said, clapping her shoulder, transmitting some mana over, easing the strain on her body and mind as she watched the ashes without blinking. "Next time, you will face one in the arena under my supervision. You will fight it. You will kill it. You. Will. Destroy it." He said word by word. "Now go. Class dismissed." And with that, he was gone in a puff of violet smoke.
The light returned to the classroom, the energy field disappeared, and everything returned to normal. The only thing that remained was a deep silence, the ash in the middle of the room, and the students frozen in their seats.