The first location on her list that she wanted to explore was the barracks. It was closest relative to the direction she was coming from and one of the more likely to have had something magical enough to survive its time down here. Most everything that wasn’t stone or steel had degraded to the point of misrecognition, even then most metal had rusted. Most of the pieces in the keeps armoury were intact but really not of use to her.
After the barracks she wanted to go to the research facility next. It sounded like the kind of place that some powerful magical artefacts would have been kept.
First though, the barracks. She flew with Boreal lightly over rooftops in the direction of the compound that had been marked on the map. She spotted it from above as a walled area with multiple buildings within. It looked like it had suffered quite some damage at the hands of whatever had assaulted the city to bring it to this state. They landed some thirty metres away on a rooftop to observe the compound through sections of wall that had been brought down.
As expected, many undead roamed around yet these looked like they had seen battle. Most of the undead she had cleared so far were normal citizens or guards that had been hidden away in the keep when the city was taken but many of these had injuries such as missing limbs, broken bones and other similar wounds.
“Think there will be any Silver ranked Bathar down there?” Zalia asked Boreal.
Boreal meowed in affirmation.
The chances were high, this being the central barracks for the city's armies. The king himself was possibly Gold rank and it was likely that some others in the city were as well. She highly doubted there were any of a higher rank than that here, finding it hard to believe that something of that rank would be turned or even defeated. The gap in power between each rank became bigger and bigger as they went up, the difference between Silver and Gold being quite large. She remembered the absolute destruction the fight between Larel and the Gold rank elemental had wrought and couldn’t imagine what a fight between two Emerald or even Diamond rank creatures would be like.
Shaking herself free from idle thoughts, she focused back on the compound before her. The easiest way of going about this would be to simply fly to the centre and make some noise, attracting all the undead and picking them off from the sky. However, she would gain levels quicker if she was in the rough of things. She decided on a good balance between the two, aiming to stay in the air until she could confirm no Gold rank undead were there and then landing to fight. She could always fly back up if it became too much without some preset traps. She had the new knowledge of her healing’s ability to degrade the undead now though so it shouldn’t be a problem whatsoever.
First, she needed to test a theory.
She had concocted a little ritual on the way here, a way of hiding herself from the shades. It was based on a few assumptions like the shades seeing in a non-physical manner but it was worth a test. So far the shades hadn’t intervened in her fights with the undead but if she stayed up in the sky it might prove to be a problem.
She mixed Manifest major and Bitterbalm minor to create the element of Spiritual manifestation, then used that as the minor with Dodge-vine major to create her final ritual. The final ritual settled over her and she moved around testing it, finding it had no effect on her movement.
The purpose of the ritual was a slightly altered version of one of the first rituals she had performed with Dodge-vine. That ritual had used the Dodge-vine to protect her from sight, this one did the same but as protection from spiritual senses. That was where her assumption about how the shades saw or heard came in but it was worth a try. She performed the same ritual on Boreal as well.
All set, Zalia informed Boreal of her plans and flew over to just above the centre of the compound. Deciding that testing her ritual immediately would be the best move as attracting the shades' attention mid fight was a bad idea, Zalia screamed. It wasn’t particularly loud but it definitely got the undeads’ attention. They began swarming to the open centre of the compound, many leaving buildings. Thankfully, the shades above made no reaction whatsoever. Zalia quickly sent a prayer of thanks to the crow god watched over by Delphi. It couldn’t hurt.
She began letting off arrows at a quick pace, each one punching through a head and dropping the targeted Bathar. She also began applying Hunter’s mark in batches, applying various harmful rituals to each set of three before repeating the process even as her arrows flew. She also started pushing her healing through all the undead and they began dissolving under its power. Boreal hovered nearby, waiting for her signal to be allowed down.
Eventually the stream of undead from the nearby buildings and streets slowed down and without a single Silver rank in sight, Zalia signalled the okay to Boreal.
Boreal dove down in a flash as her pounce ability charged, hitting a Bronze rank undead in the head. The force of the strike threw her target to the ground, its skull exploding across the courtyard from the impact. Zalia turned away from Boreal, trusting her to stay safe and dropped to the ground herself. She entered in a far less dramatic manner, landing in a soft crouch with a precise and efficient diagonal swing that parted a poor Tin rank undead in two.
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She burst into motion, making good use of her Healing presence to focus down a few enemies to keep them afar while dispatching others with her blade. Rituals popped up in various places, walls being summoned to funnel or block yet more undead. Now a new effect she had discovered and one that reminded her of a dear friend, she summoned patches of lava across the field that unwary undead stepped through, their legs melting.
As things got a little overwhelming, Zalia activated Nature’s wrath and the entire field came to a sudden stop. Every single undead in the yard was caught up by thin rock shard spikes slamming from the ground through torsos, arms and legs. The stone slowly turned hot red, melting to leave patches of burning lava within their bodies.
Two elementals were summoned from the ability as well, one being a large canine shaped lava elemental that began immediately tearing into the nearest enemy. The next was a stone elemental with two huge shields on its arms, able to slam them together to form one giant wall in front of it. Zalia used the space generated by the rooting ability and the two elementals to back up and begin quickly taking down some of the lower ranked enemies with arrows that flickered through the air changing directions to pierce two, sometimes three, heads.
There was another change in pace as she had to switch focus to a Silver ranked undead that exploded through the wall of a building behind her. She immediately activated Fight or Flight, time slowing as the full power of her healing ability was focused on the new danger. Boreal appeared out of nowhere, incredibly fast despite the slowed time of Zalia’s perception. Propelled on wings of air, Boreal slammed into the Silver undead hard enough to throw it back into the building it had just left, bouncing back safe due to her abilities' damage mitigation.
Zalia took advantage of the distraction and applied Hunter’s mark as well as a myriad of harmful rituals to the Silver Bathar. Sword in hand, she engaged it as it left the rubble once more, this time much slower due to the combined weight of her debuffing effects.
She deflected one fist down the length of her blade, stepping her right foot back to turn the deflection into a quick diagonal slice into its right shoulder. She had to twist her body to lessen the impact of the other fist as it crashed into her left shoulder, using the motion to jump back a few steps for space. It quickly closed the distance and she took a full step back to slash at the coming fist, cutting halfway through the arm.
Boreal jumped from the shadows, freezing one of the undead's legs to the floor and Zalia bull rushed, shoulder bashing the Bathar into a stumble. It broke the ice but didn’t catch its balance as it tripped to the floor and Zalia took quick advantage, getting another slice this time severing the already cut arm.
She had to step away as some undead finally broke apart the defender elemental behind her. While Boreal was busy trying to tear the undead's last arm out of its shoulder, Zalia fought back against the swiftly dwindling horde. Still focusing her Healing presence onto the Silver undead, Zalia was beginning to feel some of the corruption auras effects and her right shoulder began to ache. She quickly flew up, mentally telling Boreal to as well as the tide of undead in addition to the Silver one became too much. Boreal disengaged and flew up beside her and she focused the healing back onto the two of them.
She could have activated Protection of the Wilds onto all the undead to very likely end them but wanted to save the second of her long cooldown abilities for a rainy day. Pulling her bow back out, she swiftly released two, then three arrows into the Silver undead and it finally stopped struggling.
With the tables turned back in their favour once more, Zalia dove down to get back into the fight.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
Zalia stood looking through her notifications about five minutes later, the battle finally finished. No more Silver had appeared so it had been a quick clean up of the remaining lower ranked undead.
Congratulations! Kill shot has reached Iron 16.
Congratulations! Hunter’s mark has reached Iron 17.
Congratulations! Fight or Flight has gained two levels reaching Iron 16.
Congratulations! Hunter’s sight has reached Iron 12.
Congratulations! Hunter class has reached Iron 12.
Congratulations! Nature’s wrath has gained two levels reaching Iron 16.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Sword has gained two levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Sword has reached Bronze 1.
This ability will gain no further levels until all classes have reached Bronze.
Sword - Weapon proficiency
Tin - you can wield a sword faster and hit harder with it based on the rank and level of this skill.
Iron - the durability of a sword wielded by you is increased based on the rank and level of this skill.
Bronze - When you successfully parry, you gain a burst of speed for a short time. Additionally, you can gain slight insights into the movements of your enemies when engaged.
As usual, only her abilities used mainly in the fight had gained many levels. Her Herbalist ones were really falling behind but she was working on a herb garden just for that reason.
The Bronze rank effect of her sword proficiency looked like it would most definitely lead to a different style of fighting, though it was sort of in the direction of how she fought anyways. A more defensive style that used her damage over time and various Herbal magic effects to wear the enemy down or trip them up before she struck.
Lightly stretching her arms, she looked around the courtyard full of re-dead Bathar and moved towards the closest building.
“Let’s find some goodies!” Zalia said to Boreal.
“Mreow!” Boreal replied.