Iris watched the nekos stare blankly at the flickering fire an arms length away from her. She wasn't used to being the first one to rest but she laid back with her arms behind her and stared at the ceiling waiting for the darkness to come. The uneven surface of the ceiling caused it to look like a stormy southern sea as the fire flickered rapidly causing the shadows above to dance.
Iris grew increasingly bored for the first time in a long time. She couldn't even lay her eyes on Kia's beautiful face which no minstrel in the entire world could find enough words to describe her beauty. How could she ever be bored with her saviour nearby to look upon and basking in her chilly aura? In the almost four months of being with Kia, she had never spotted a single blemish on her soft, pale body. The girl truly resembled a luxurious porcelain doll created by a master craftsman and the lack of her caused a feeling of emptiness to grow inside Iris's chest.
"Shiro, I don't think I can force myself to sle- Shiro?" The risen raised her head and realised that the white-furred nekos disappeared.
At first, the undead elf thought that the demi went inside one of the tunnels for some privacy. Even if she once had to do it, Iris almost forgot that the living had to relive themselves. Unlike the living the risen's warm body seemed to be an endless pit as everything she put inside her body seemed to never have to go out.
Iris waited patiently for Shiro to come out of the darkness before she noticed that the light coming from the flickering fire was stationary as if stuck in time. As her amethyst eyes examined her surroundings, they noticed a light appear far inside the tunnel Kia and Nakatei had gone into. The undead picked up her spear and jogged toward the torch's light not knowing what was causing the light to act that way. Picking up her speed she noticed a glimpse of Shiro's white fur under the torch. The impenetrable darkness around the torch washed over it causing Iris to lose sight of Shiro as the two were stuck in the darkness.
"Shiro!" Iris called out to her new mentor but heard her voice barely come out of her mouth as if the darkness was pushing her voice back into her open mouth.
[Mana light]
A blinding pale white light appeared in Iris's hand causing the darkness to rile in pain. As Iris open her eyes after lessening her spell to a small ball which hovered behind her shoulder, she realised that she was standing in front of a great golden gate with visages of sinister daemons and merciful beings carved into its surface. The elf felt small and insignificant as she stood in front of the great gate,
If I had to give it a name it would be The Gate of Judgement.
She turned around and noticed she had been teleported into a large dome-shaped room. Complete silence loomed over the room to the point quite itself seemed audible. Carved into the marble dome, city-wall sized statues made out of polished metal seemed to stare the lone undead standing before them. She was unable to suppress the desire to glance over the godly statues of figures she did not recognized. Each of the heroic and tyrannical statues stood tall and proud to anyone from below but stood with their heads bent down in submission toward the gate,
Seeing no other way to progress Iris turned back toward the gate which silently began to open as she took a step forward. Between the two doors, she glimpsed a sliver of a grand many-pillared hall shrouded in twilight. When her heel hit the silver floor a lonely echo filled the silent hall for two full minutes before fading into nothing. Her eyes were irresistibly drawn up toward the crown of the seemingly infinite pillars lining the hall.
Far above Iris, two golden roofs crowned the marble pillars on either side of her, letting a long strip of the naked night sky to illuminate the hall's centre. Through the opening, Iris saw a stainless moon peaking through, shining its silver light inside the hall of the divines.
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Iris felt her body getting heavier and heavier as she walked further toward the other side not knowing why she was doing it. She felt every fibre of her body push her forward where a vague shadow of the end taunted her.
As the twilight turned to the darkness around the main walkway basked by the strange moon's light, Iris noticed that in front of her was a set of circular stairs which she had not seen before. Her body suddenly froze as the invisible force pushing her down onto her knees hit her with renewed intensity. The elf managed to take a step forward and felt the invisible force gaining more power as she raised her leg to take another step forward.
Crimson blood began to leak from her mouth as she took her second step causing her body to feel the weight of a mountain resting on her shoulders. Finding herself glued to the ground, Iris grabbed her thigh and pulled it upwards separating the sole of her boot from the silver tile.
In the large but empty hall, the sound of Iris coughing blood onto the spotless silver echoed deafeningly as she crashed down onto her stomach.
"Huh?" The risen noticed that the crushing force was lifted in an instant as her right hand landed on the first marble step.
Although her race couldn't be frightened, a cold nervous sweat ran down the risen's spine as she went up the staircase. She felt the round chamber with vacant thrones blur before her eyes as the undead warm-to-the-touch saw her mistress sitting still in front of her.
The elf's saviour was sitting still on a carved throne with both of her hands laying on armrests. She instantly noticed that the motionless girl's eyes were both ghostly blue which reflected a starry but moonless night sky coming from above. The confused woman saw a crown of stars appear, as gems upon a silver thread resting on the girl's black hair. Iris quickly ran up to Kia who didn't respond to the elf as her words wouldn't leave her mouth as if commanded to not disturb the silence surrounding them. Touching the cold girl hurted the teary elf as her aura felt off, bringing no comfort to the risen so used to Kia's calming aura.
Iris tried to pull Kia off the throne with all strength she could but the small malnourished frame of the girl didn't budge. After who knows how long of trying to move Kia, the elf kneeled defeated in front of the distantly cold monarch and noticed that Kia's left hand was clutching onto something. Looking closer, Iris saw a petrified flower with three petals between Kia's fingers longingly clutching onto the stone carving which had its edges smoothed out at some point by excessive rubbing.
The perfect silence was suddenly broken causing the risen to look behind herself startled. The great throne room was replaced by a beautiful meadow surrounded by large oaks. From behind the stone throne, skeletons began to match forward swiftly blocking Iris's sight with an endless sea of bones. Swiftly the bone feet of the skeletons turned the ground into mud as the sound of battle roared over her. The sight of fireballs turning huge swats of the horizon into something straight out of hell caused Iris to grip Kia tighter fearing one of the shockwaves will rip the petite mage away from her.
Iris's entire body shook as something hit the ground with tremendous force. Her violet eyes expected to see another huge explosion land in the endless sea of undead but she felt her lungs fill up with air as she gasped. Instead of a fiery cloud of destruction, a giant aberration of flesh and stone emerged from behind the throne. The giant's head left marks in the orange-grey clouds above the earth as it strolled forward, pulverising hundreds of skeletons with each step. Sickly dark blood began to rain onto the muddy ground as blood monsters resembling ghouls began to crawl between the giant's ribs.
The landscape in front of Iris changed so dramatically in front of her that her eyes refused to look away at the apocalyptic battle in which more and more horrors began to join with every second she watched.
The kneeling risen looked back at her saviour as she thought she heard the girl sobbing. Staring at the necromancer's pale face Iris saw nothing, the girl's blank expression was like an old canvas waiting for an artist to paint something on its empty white surface. Iris heard another sad sob coming from somewhere behind the throne but as she tensed her body to stand up she felt her consciousness slipping into the darkness.
*Thump*
"You're lucky that you don't have to eat or else I would had to wake you up a bell ago. Hello? Are you there Miss Undead?"
'What!" An agitated hiss came from between Iris's teeth as she struggled to understand what was happening.
"How did you become so pissed off all of a sudden? Did you sleep even?" Opening her eyes Iris saw Shiro's blood-red eyes looked at her. She was standing above the risen with the but of her spear hovering above her stomach.
"Where is Kia?" The elf saw her face reflected in nekos's large crimson eyes and saw that she indeed looked incredibly pissed off as Shiro described.
"Here we go again," The demi woman rolled her eyes before dropping Iris's spear she held in her other hand onto the elf's stomach. "At least beating you have educational benefits."
Iris grabbed her spear before it tipped over and massaged her forehead which was stiff because of her deep frown. Taking a deep breath the scared undead realised that she must had a bad dream before she stood up and prepared herself to train for her ancient necromancer, so nothing like what she saw could ever happen.