POV: Merry Paper

After three days of marching, we arrived at the fallen town, at first I could see skeletons of different animals on the ground, then the blocks around us started to turn gray like all life was sucked from them, until we arrived at the big wall.

We all stopped and a person was there to greet us, or more exactly the second prince, since he was the one who was leading the army.

"Sir, we got some reliable Information that the Zombie Lord will leave this place tomorrow, it's a good thing you just arrived."

I looked up at the sky and saw that it wasn't even noon yet, which gave us enough time to start our plans.

The Prince thanked the man before dismissing him, he had a serious face and gave orders to all his men, he clearly took this battle seriously and didn't intend to lose it.

This made me respect him a little more, since while he was still a goofball at the Castle, here he took things seriously.

Our job was to make a room underground to hide our army before we strike, so we took shovels and started digging, myself included.

A few hours later the room was done, 5 blocks tall and 50 blocks wide on each side. Now the army and the golemes could stay comfortably hidden before the strike.

-----

Early the next day we all woke up ready for war, but some preparation needed to be done first.

We didn't know when the army would leave today but it didn't matter, as most of the groundwork is already done.

Me and a few other soldiers took some Flint and steal and got out of our hiding place, we were only a few dozen blocks away from the gray wall.

But not to far away from the wall, there was something different on the ground, something that only appeared here a few days ago.

Four blacks away from the wall there was a red path that surrounded the town leaving no free space, the path was four blocks wide, which made this whole thing like a perimeter around the town.

We all sat in our positions and started the last step of the plan.

With Flint and steel, we ran and burned all over the red block, and surprisingly the fire never went away on its own.

This was the most common block in the Nether, Netherock.

This block could fuel a fire nonstop without getting itself burned, which would make a great natural wall against the army of zombies since they were more flammable than normal humans.

In 15 minutes everything was done, and I could hear the hearts of everyone around me including myself beating loudly.

This was one of the most risky operations since we didn't know if we would be interrupted by the monsters, but it was all done, we could only wait now.

A few hours later there was some movement beyond the fire, a huge Shadow appeared at the gate and looked at us through his covered eyes.

It was the Zombie Lord.

"Ah, the Void has blessed us with sacrifices to expand my army, how blessed I am. But only ten of you?"

The smart zombies were soon beside him looking with confusion at the new wall of fire.

"But I feel something different from you, I feel like you are dirtier than the others. Who are you?"

I could feel a pressure all of a sudden on me, but I've trained a lot for the past few weeks and I was better equipped than anyone here, something like this couldn't scare me that easily.

"I am the Hero chosen by the System to defeat you! You shall die by my hands today monster."

More zombies started to appear behind the huge monster, but nobody dared to pass him.

"Ah I see, you are the champion of the System, good thing you came to me so I don't have to search for you later. Your death will greatly please the Void."

He then started to take a walk towards us until he hit the first wall block with fire.

The Zombie Lord looked down for the first time with surprise, he didn't see the wall of fire only now.

He didn't stay too long there and quickly retreated his step, but the fire was already on him, and it kept climbing it until it slowly died down.

But the fact that it burned him so much meant that his blessing was pretty split up already, so I had a chance to fight him.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Interesting way to trap my army, but did you think that such a weak fire could burn up the will of the Void? NEVER!"

He yelled with a powerful voice that I could feel even in my bones.

Then he took a step forward and stumped one of the fire blocks with force.

The hit was so powerful that the fire died down instantly without getting the chance to burn him.

This was not a good sign.

He did another powerful step with the same results.

"Phase two boys, get the crossbows ready."

Before he took another step ten red arrows were shot at him and he stepped back from the knockback.

He could put out the fire, but that doesn't mean we'll sit down and watch it, we're going to do some damage on our own, and from the results, we had a pretty good chance at this.

"Those pesky arrows, I'll erase every tree from existence once we conquer this world!"

He tried to put out more fires, but every time he tried to do that, more arrows came in his way, hurting him more and more.

His regeneration couldn't keep up, and slowly the zombies started to come out of the town, but since they couldn't leave the place, they only went along the walls looking for an exit.

The smart zombies looked with hope when they saw this.

But the Zombie Lord wasn't going to lose like this.

If he couldn't put out the fires because of us, he'd deal with us first.

So he made a huge leap over the the wall of fire and jumped in front of us, it was much smaller than what I saw last time.

He didn't wait for us to respond and with quick steps, he was in front of me with his fist high in the air.

I quickly took out my shield and blocked it. The force was immense and I had to take a step back.

But this wasn't an impossible fight, I could feel that I had a chance.

I took out my swords and started to slash him back.

A large wound appeared on his arms and, not to late after it started to catch on fire.

This fire was harder to put out for some reason, but I wasn't going to complain about it.

He was angry, his army was trapped and he kept getting injured.

He isn't retreating, instead, he keeps punching me with more and more speed. It was so fast that the only thing I could do was to block it.

If I was alone, this would've been a bad situation, but I wasn't, and the army was with me.

The other soldiers shot their red arrows, and the rest of the army started to dig out from the hidden room.

It would take them a few seconds since a lot of blocks needed to be removed so the iron golems could get out.

Arrows pierced his skin, and he quickly turned from me towards the other soldiers, they switched to shields but once the punch made contact with them, the soldier was simply thrown away.

The punch was too strong, and a simple shield couldn't just stop them.

I could only guess the reason I wasn't thrown was because of my overpowered armor.

He didn't stop at one soldier, he just went through the others like they were nothing.

While he did hit them, it didn't kill them, since those were veteran soldiers, they knew how to take a fall, so after some healing potions they were getting back to battle with no fear in their eyes.

I didn't stay in one place and watched, instead I quickly made a tower and then jumped to slash the head of the monster.

Unfortunately, he moved too fast so my sword landed on his shoulders. But that's as enough to critically hit him.

The fire started to spread towards his face, and for the first time, I saw fear on the zombie's face.

He jumped backward trying to put the flame out, but that would take a few seconds, and we were loading out crossbows.

The Zombie Lord looked at us, then towards the rest of the army that was coming, and then he completely healed like nothing happened to him.

We were all surprised by what just happened, but then a voice yelled beyond the firewall.

"Be careful, he doesn't control it anymore, he's much stronger now!"

I looked towards the voice and saw that it belonged to one of the smart zombies, but the other normal zombies didn't burn, which meant that he only took it off the armored zombies.

He wasn't back to his full strength, we still had a chance to win this.

We switched our crossbows with shields ready for his next attack, and as we expected he attacked, but not us.

He jumped higher the before which showed his increased strength, but he didn't land at us, or at the coming army, instead, he landed on the wall of fire.

And to our horror, his landing managed to extinguish a great part of the fire, now three zombies could easily walk side by side without getting burned.

This was starting to get out of control.

"Hero, this doesn't look good, should we retreat?"

One of the soldiers walked towards me, I could hear concern in his voice, but there wasn't any fear, which was a good thing.

"There's no need, prepare for battle!"

Trader most likely expected this to happen, since he made a backup plan for this.

I took a firework out of my inventory and let it loose towards the sky.

With a loud boom, a red ball in the sky caught everyone's attention.

The zombies started to get closer, the army slowly coming to aid their Lord in battle.

Even the smart zombies joined them, which meant that the Zombie Lord spread his control once again.

But not too late after, something different happened right beside the firewall, from the cobblestone-looking block beside the netherock lava sources appeared.

Those were dispensers with only one single lava bucket in them, and it was all evenly spread on the interior and the exterior of the red line.

That was the backup plan.

A few villagers that knew how to use Redstone, made a system underground to connect all of those dispensers and be used at one switch of a lever.

The reason it wasn't used from the beginning was in fear of making the Zombie Lord lose hope and taking his blessing back to kill us all.

With only a firewall, he still thought he had a chance at letting his army out, but he couldn't do it if was a path made with lava.

The whole town was surrounded by lava, some zombies managed to pass the kill zone but most of them were already burning and yelling in pain.

Some of them only caught fire and ran back to the town hoping to get to the shadows, and on their way, their further started to spread fire between the others.

They were all packed up, so it quickly spread like dry wood.

Everyone looked with shock at what happened, the armored zombies were safe since they were the first to get out, and now they looked with horror at the trap.

Even the Zombie Lord was taken by surprise at the sudden turn of events. His army was dying and he couldn't do anything about it.

But that was the problem, his army was dying only making him stronger, and now it was only him and the smart zombies against us.

Luckily the heavy hitters finally arrived.

The iron golems were already moving to attack the Zombie Lord and his minions.

The Zombie Lord then looked directly at me, the pressure started to increase like never before, but I stood my ground.

And for the first time, I heard the Zombie Lord truly angry.

"I'm going to kill you!"

And he jumped towards me with full force.

Time for round 2.