The wolf tribe was covered in perpetual darkness. The dark fog was obstructing even the smallest specks of light to pierce through.
A world of blackness was created.
The wolves could only rely on their honed senses of smell and hearing but alas the fog was interfering with their soul, mind and senses.
I of course was unobstructed by the black fog. I slowly descended to the ground and retracted my spread wings.
A feeling of indescribable hunger spread through my skeletal body. The original instinct of surviving and feasting on souls was still prevalent and I could only try to contain it with my ego.
Sharp knifes and arrows flew past me, lodging themselves into the horde of undeads behind me, these weapons though were only thrown around randomly and didn't pose much of a threat to me.
I observed the wolves and their actions. If they preserved their original strengths as well as their – to the wolf tribe – unique skills they could take my life the instant they overcame the soul-shacking mist.
I was disappointed though. Some of the wolf people started to go completely berserk and claimed the lifes of their comrades in an onslaught of random attacks.
Weak, they were terrifyingly weak. I could still remember the proud wolf tribes, agile and strong coupled with body enhancing magic and the unique aura 'Angst Blut'. They were the embodiement of terror and fear, once going werewolf mode only elderwyverns or high-humanoids could fight them.
The disappointment once again confirmed the passing of time. Their ancestors were long dead and they only remained with a near millionth of their original abilities.
It was sad somehow.
I thought it would be plain boring if I engaged the fight myself. So it was my horde's turn.
A quick batch of mist covered the wolves once again to give me enough time to command my troops.
The defense based undead warriors were placed at the front, their natural formed bone shields raised to the front.
Behind them was a buffer of skeletons and ghouls. Some banshees were scatered in between the skeletons as well.
The last row was made up of acid spitting abominations and one lone wraith. The wraith was the most powerful of my troop. 'Born' with sharp claws, high agility and a series of curse inflicting attacks they were extremely powerful. Their ability 'shadow swap' was great in assassination missions. Like the name implied they changed places with their enemie's shadow and could launch devasting surprise attacks.
When the veil of darkness openned up and the wolves regained their senses a good quarter of them was already dead or in bad shape, mutilated by their own brothers and sisters.
I could only laugh at the scene. The once mighty wolves decayed to pitiful creatures. This created a thought: 'How did the rest of the once high and mighty beings fare?'. I was really curious what happened with the titans or sages or other mighty creatures.
I stuffed the thought into the back of my mind, for now I couldn't bother with such trivial things. I refocused on the forthcoming fight.
With a simple flick of my hand the undeads' red eyes started to shine once again and like puppets they moved forward.
The undeads were moving in unision and each step echoed hundreds of times through the barren steppe. The uneven ground was flattened by hundreds of stomping feet. A huge cloud of dust followed the undeads, a witness to the imminent slaughter.
Thunderous roars resounded through the ranks of the undeads, complementing the trembles of the earth and inciting fear into the hearts of the wolf tribe.
The first volley of acid hit the unprepared wolves, melting through their thin leather garments and burning through their fur and skin all the way to the muscles. A few of their weapons were caught upon in the acid rain and quickly lost their durability.
With mighty shield bashs of the undead warriors the real battle was iniciated.
The sounds of shields breaking jaws and other bones and the loud wails of the wolves created a pleasent cacophony of pain.
Undead warriors were focused mostly on defense and thus the damaged weapons of the wolves were completely useless, they simply broke or were in rare cases even deflected by some of the undead warriors.
'I should give them a soul or two...'. I thought to myself. It would be advantageous to raise them from step 0 up. They would obey me as their benefactors and I could quickly develop a elite corps.
Like the other thoughts this one was quickly put into a corner of my mind for later inspection and I resumed to watch over the fight.
Seeing how their weapons were rendered useless against the undeads the wolves used their natural arms. Claws and fangs!
The wolves crouched down on all four and shot forth like the arrows they shot just a few moments ago. They clashed with a shield wall but did not buckle away. Using their keen predatory senses they quickly found gaps in the warriors ranks and hacked and slashed, and bit and scratched until they reaced the bones of the warriors.
The wall collapsed as the 80 or so warriors had to defend against over a hundred wolves.
To ease the burden on th warriors I dispatched the ghouls. With their rotten claws two of them could fight a single wolf-man easily.
The wolves reacted to late as the undead warriors gave way for the ghouls to launch a counter attack. Some were caught between shields and could only shriek in terror as their bodies were torn limb from limb.
With their weapons dropped they were in a complicated situation. If they fight with their hands they would get caught up in the melees but if they hurried now back to their weapons they had to sacrifice a large chunk of their own warriors.
Suddenly a loud howl reverberated through the bad lands. A cloaked wolf exited one of the tents, with two burly red furred wolves at his side.
The brown cloak was covered in blue runes, seemingly moving over the fabric on their own. A large staff was in the hand of the cloaked wolf-man, it had a large crystalline eye at the top. The eye of a Stalag wyvern! An iron-crystaline dragon with high defense and offense but really really slow movement speed! (A tank in other words.) :D
'How did they get that?'. A Stalag wyvern was at least 'low tier Master' level. Something that not even I myself can reach in my current state.
Oh right. Monsters can generally be split into 3 realms.
Earth realm. Sky realm. Heaven realm. Those 3 realms are split further into 10 ranks.
Beginner. Apprentice. Average. Intermediate. Advanced. Elite. Master. Grand master. Lord. King.
And as if it wasn't complex enough the ranks can be split into low tier (bottom half) or high tier (upper half). This counts for mages as well as warriors.
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It was simply impossible for those weak wolves to get their hands on such a rare magical item.
The hooded wolf started to growl to his tribesman. Luckily I could easily understand these beings. I was after all pretty close to their predecessors in the past, their language was nothing new to me.
“These devils try to invade our holy lands. But do not fret my brothers and sisters! I have the mighty philosophers' stone in my possession, a gift by the gods to purge the demons and reacquire the lands lost to the Nude Skins!“.
I was confused. Philosophers' stone? No way. The philosophers' stone was the concentrated blood of Overgods. Not all that rare when oneself is even more powerful, but impossible to aqcuire, much less contain, by a mere mortal.
'But I do wonder. 'Nude skins' ?'. The name was intriguing. 'Humans maybe?'. I needed more information so I stopped my train of thoughts and concentrated on the grunting 'shaman'.
“I bestow upon you the might of the Gods!!!“. The shaman shouted and in the next moment a steal blue light enveloped the wolf people. Their fur turned into a metallic color and their fangs grew a few inches. Their hazelnut eyes changed into a dark grey and radiated a cold light.
“AWOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!“. The wolves howled in unision and immediately started their assault. The two muscular red fured warriors beside the shaman were now shining in a burning crimson and some their claws were literally burning.
With the whole tribe buffed up and the two elite warriors engaging in battle as well most of the undead warriors and ghouls were quickly disposed of.
I motioned for another salve of acid but the effects this time were negligible. The blue hue around the wolf warriors negated the effects of the acid and their defenses increased manyfold as well as their damage output. I could only watch as a wolf one hitted my undead warriors.
I was slightly surprised by the prowess of the two red wolves. With each swipe they summoned a wave of fire and willed it to burn the undeads to ashes. Some kind of martial art was in play, something that should be impossible in the past.
Observing the battle with even sharper eyes I could perceive the slim iron colored threads floating above the wolf warriors, as well as two crimson threads on the red wolves.
I followed the threads to their origin and like I predicted they were sprouting out of the staff of the 'shaman' wolf.
The wraith by my side seemingly understood the threads origin as well. It looked at me expectantly with its two red orbs. I was relieved. The wraith was indeed smart. I simply nodded and in the same moment the wraith disappeared like a gust of wind.
A black shadow darted through the clashing masses of undead and wolves, bolting from one shadow to another it abruptly appeared before in front of the shaman.
The shaman's eyes widened in shock. The wraith was so close he could smell its foul breath. Slighly taping the staff on the ground the earth started to tremble and large crystals pierced out of the ground.
The wraith nimbly avoided the crystal shards and used its enlongated claws for a hit and run tactic. Suddenly one of the shards exploded and another one branched into many slimmer crystalline thorns. The sudden change of aim was fatal for the wraith.
First it was only one shard that pierced the wraith, resulting in a bit of green blood sliding along the crystal pillar, but with its movement impaired another shard and then another pierced the wraith until it looked like a porcupine.
I was somewhat let down. I expected the wraith to be stronger than this.
The shaman wolf grinned under his hood as a few drops of sweat slid along his face. He had to use all his mana to will the crystalls to change their course.
With the shaman beating the wraith there was no way I could win anymore. I hurriedly tried to call my troops back, but they couldn't hear me through the noises of mindless slaughter.
I turned my back towards the battlefield and wanted to leave when I noticed a fluctuation in the surrounding mana. Its source was the impaled wraith.
The darkness surrounding the wraith grew thicker and suddenly it fusioned with the wraith's body. He was one with the darkness.
The wraith slipped through the crystalls and a large black-purple scyte formed in its hands. The scyte swung down. It tore the wind apart and caused high pitched howls, comparable to the wailing of souls.
The scyte left a black line in the air and tore with ease through the shaman, stopping halfway as it hit the powerful staff.
With eyes filled with confusion and agony the shaman looked at the wraith before him. No ordinary wraith was capable of emerging into the shadows with such a proficiency, at least not at this level.
The wraith closed in on the shaman, bringing his face only an inch apart from his. A large toothy grin was revealed, cracked bleeding lips, two dark red reptil eyes and an overall pale complexion.
The wraith clicked his tongue and spoke. “DuMb mOoOrtAl... my mASssTer OrdeREd me to KiLl YOU. How daREEee yoUUU try to resISSsssT!“. The shaman was shocked beyond belief. Only the higher undeads could speak! The wraith should then be on the same level as an undead dragon! Simply unreasonable.
The shaman wanted to utter a question but suddenly his expression turned from surprise to agony once again. The wraith's gaping wide maw and slithering tongue was entrancing the shaman. The wraith was attacking his soul.
SNAP!
Only blood spurted when the shaman lifelessly fell to the ground, faceless. Half of his head was bitten off in one go by the wraith. The magic dimmed down until the iron aura surrounding the wolves died out.
I was pleasantly surprised. The wraith was pretty strong and probably had some special innate abilities I knew nothing off.
A glowing orb seped out of the shaman's mouth and was quickly grabbed out of the air by the wraith. The wraith dissapeared again and landed right infront of me.
“Massster! Yourrrr hummmble servaaant brought a gifffft!“. The wraith showed me the crystalized soul of the shaman. I really started to like that wraith fellow.
Without any support magic the wolves had to fall back once again. Only the red warriors were a threat.
I decided this was the moment to step in. They seemed pretty strong even without a buff. And I really didn't want to endanger my rare wraith subordinate for two martial artists.
“Time to heat things up!“. I shouted in lupine tongue.