The flight across to the island that hosted the ruined city of Hetheir was much the same as the one to the god's island. Zalia was used to the strange blurred vision now, able to direct herself with enough proficiency to not lose course. She did leave Delphi behind to keep an eye on the crow god and to ensure that no latent harm had been done by the ritual.

Her and Boreal arrived at the temple before long, flying low to avoid the attention of the shades. There was a chance that they would be able to fly straight through them without harm but she didn’t quite want to risk that just yet. Though, thinking that, she had been able to go unseen by shades that were actively trying to hunt her down during the fight with the humanoid demon. Still, a risk not worth taking anyway.

The temple was sitting just as she remembered it, somewhat broken down but still in one piece, the metal symbol above the entrance attached to the roof degraded at the top.

“Think we should clear the undead out first?” Zalia asked Boreal mentally.

“Fight!” Boreal exclaimed.

Of course she wanted to fight.

Zalia knew that the sound wouldn’t enter the keep and get the attention of the Gold ranked undead king in there so she wasn’t super worried. Even if a Silver undead showed up now she might have an alright time fighting it as she had already been able to beat one when she had been Iron rank. Not that she thought skipping two ranks in power was a good idea in any normal case though. She was also definitely not going to try to go and ‘release’ the king just yet, she didn’t know if it would have powers or not. The Silver ranked undead didn’t but they did act differently to the Bronze and below ranked, maybe the Gold would act differently to the Silver.

Bringing her thoughts back to the task at hand, she looked down at the low ranked undead milling about on the street. She had cleared out a good few chunks further out in the city but hadn’t done any within the centre section just yet. Why not start now?

There were a few new rituals she wanted to try using, mainly with the Flame-root she could now utilise properly. There was a particularly nasty combination she had come up with using Flame-root, Zephyr and Manifest that was, basically, an explosion. The herbs would yield the ritual elements of fire, air and physical manifestation, the result of which would probably garner the attention of even the shades above. It was a risk but she just really wanted to test it out.

She also wanted to test the Flame-root and Bitterbalm combination that would create a cursed fire that should spread pretty quickly across the desiccated undead, especially if they were all grouped up tightly.

“Want to be the distraction or do you want me to?” Zalia asked.

“I get attention,” Boreal said.

She didn’t wait for any more questions, charging pounce as she dropped from the sky at high speed. Zalia felt an aura of… predatory intent emanate from Boreal at the same time the very air around her dropped rapidly in temperature.

Zalia began preparing many, many rituals at once as Boreal did that, not wanting to waste the free time she would get to lay waste to the undead.

Boreal impacted, the undead landing pad being crushed to dust beneath her as a swirl of icy crystals exploded out from her. Immediately, the undead around her charged mindlessly. The swirl of icy crystals moved under Boreal’s control, forming a few dozen small, spinning, spiked projectiles that shot outwards even as more formed.

Without wasting time, Zalia had begun releasing Rituals left, right and centre as she also applied Hunter’s mark to ten undead spread at different points across the street. She applied her usual array of debuffing rituals giving reductions to dodging, resiliency, movement speed and a few others by use of her basic herbs such as Dodge-vine, Bitterbalm and Snow-leaf. Once she was done with that, the fun began for real. She dropped the cursed fire ritual onto one of the marked undead, adding in Adastem to the mix of the ritual to provide it with that extra boost to its ability to spread.

Even as the dozens if not hundreds of undead charged at Boreal with varying degrees of speed, a riotous flame of red, green and blue began spreading through their ranks. Some, such as the few Tin ranked undead this close to the keep, collapsed almost immediately. The Iron ranked ones didn’t last much longer but were still quickly approaching Boreal.

The shades decided to finally pay attention at that moment, a dark cloud forming above them.

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“Get out of there,” Zalia thought towards Boreal.

She began preparing the final ritual she wanted to try, the very explosive one.

As the Bronze and remaining Iron undead gathered in a giant flaming pile, the shades swarmed down in a large cloud that blotted out the light and Boreal shot away from the entire mess at speed, Zalia activated the ritual.

She had purposefully waited a few seconds longer than needed to charge it up a little extra.

Flaming bones were sent flying as a large explosion rocked the streets, the shades not faring much better as their dark cloud was dissipated and they were shot off into the distance. The explosion only gathered the attention of more shades but both her and Boreal still had the ritual that would block their sight in effect from the flight. They had only swarmed due to the large flaming horde.

Still, she quickly moved away from the commotion, finding Boreal sitting on top of a roof nearby, cleaning her paw as she watched the mayhem.

“Like that?” Zalia asked in a whisper.

“Very loud,” Boreal complained.

“Phh, and cool,” Zalia retorted.

Boreal hesitated a moment,

“Yes, good for hunting,” Boreal admitted.

“Not the usual type of hunting, there wouldn’t be anything left to eat,” Zalia pointed out.

Boreal looked entirely offended at the mere suggestion.

“I won’t do that,” Zalia said comfortingly, rolling her eyes. Damn food obsessed cat.

The undead had been entirely annihilated by the explosion but the sound it had made only caused more to swarm. They charged through the alleys and streets towards where the shades were now confusedly milling about.

Seeing a chance to clear a few more out, Zalia began letting off some more rituals.

⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻

Zalia looked at the battlefield of still burning corpses. The cursed fire had gotten, well, a little bit wild. She hadn’t really expected it to go as crazy as it had but the ritual was the culmination of three Bronze ranked herbs working together against an enemy that was essentially a group of undead, some of whom were as weak or weaker than normal people. Normal people who also happened to be susceptible to burning because their bodies were covered in kindling dry fur and had a zero percent water content.

“That was frighteningly effective,” she said, looking at Boreal.

Boreal, for her part, looked pretty bummed out. She had really wanted to fight some more but it kind of became unnecessary after Zalia had started a wildfire. Even Zalia hadn’t bothered to use her bow as the ritual magic played its part. It had occurred to her that she could probably set half the city alight by dragging the undead population on a long fiery chase.

Another day maybe, she had a temple to search.

She entered the temple first, Boreal close behind. They had to push a large piece of stone out of the way and step over another, though Zalia could have walked through both. Inside was a small room with a tiny wooden altar that looked more decorative than anything else. Zalia pushed through one of the two doors that led further into the building. Inside was the temple proper. It would have been modest if it hadn’t had a chunk of stone from an arch above crushed through a set of benches to the left side of the room. The benches themselves were all but dust, mostly rotted away. Zalia did note that the small altar in the entrance had been quite well intact.

Further into the room she was in however, there was another altar very similar to the one she had in her cave back at home. She stepped up to the altar and did the only thing that was natural. She healed it with her aura and watched roots grow from its base, very similarly to how they had with the one previously. Then, she used Druid Grove to store the whole thing in her vault. She wanted to properly set the altar in the room that the god was in, since the temple it inhabited didn’t have one, the big bulb in place of where it might have once been. Or maybe the bulb had grown out of the altar, who knew.

The altar did have some text on it that was readable but she hadn’t been able to decipher it. That would be a job for Delphi when she got back. Checking around the rest of the room she found what may have once been banners, some remains of books or scrolls that were long since turned to dust and a small pendant that had actually managed to survive the long time it had sat on the ground. It had been right behind the altar, making her think it might have belonged to a priest or worshipper of some sort.

It was definitely based on the symbol that was dedicated to the god in the other temple's basement but had a stylised twist to it. It must have been made by a particularly skilled craftsman or imbued with some magic to have lasted the stresses of time. It was the Y shape of the crows foot but the treetop like design of the top was far more pronounced, having swirling decorations running down the length of the branches. The very top had two branches that made a small loop through which there must have once been a chord to wear the small wooden item.

There was nothing else of interest in the temple which was a little disappointing but there was still a chance that something good came of the altar she now had in her vault. On her way out, she also picked up the smaller decorative altar from the entrance chamber. She wanted to put it as a permanent feature in her vault just so the god would always have a connection to the nature that was her grove.

With the temple searched, she and Boreal took off to fly back to the island that held the other temple.