I still find it hard to believe that I never figured out the [Necromancer’s] identity until I met him. I mean, why didn’t any of the history books I read just mention his real name? Or why didn’t Sam say anything?

I know, I know. It was probably some BS from the church about “making sure that his name is lost to time for his sins,” but it sure did make things more difficult for me.

I mean… I can’t help but wonder if things would’ve gone differently if I had gone into our confrontation knowing that the [Necromancer] was actually-

* Excerpt from my journal

-----

Since I’d already run into one group of zombies, I figured it would probably be best if I didn’t meet the next one without a large group of daves ready to take them down.

I slowed to a walking pace and began casting my summon spell whenever I had the mana. I was looking forward to having a dave and monster army instead of one made out of [Monks].

Don’t get me wrong. The Besti [Monks] were a great help. They followed orders and fought valiantly. However, the main difference between them and the daves is that I could have way more daves, and I didn’t have to care if I lost one here and there.

So, I started following the trail left behind by the undead heart. I had no experience with tracking or any skill that would help with that, but I didn’t exactly need one. Everywhere the heart traveled, the sand was paler than elsewhere. So, I had a nice clear line pointing back to where it spawned.

That brought me immediately over the dunes and to our hastily prepared fort.

“Oops,” I muttered. “Better pick all of this up.”

I snorted. Could you imagine if I left all of this just sitting here? I shook my head at myself because I was this close to doing just that. I took a few minutes to pick up all the bones and then moved.

From there, the next few days were a snooze-fest.

I broke up the monotony a little by sending Sarah a [Message] here and there. Mostly to let her know that the undead had spread to the east and that I was already engaging them. Unfortunately, I don’t know that it was worth the MP I spent on it. Hearing how much the undead were spreading did not exactly ease her mind.

I wished that I could’ve [Messaged] her a bit more, but I needed every dave I could get if the last fight indicated how this campaign was going to go.

I caught snippets of her during a fight that one time, I thought to myself. What was that spell? [Wide-Area Heal]? I wonder how many times she’s leveled over the last 14 years?

That last bit troubled me enough that I ended up stopping and accidentally halting my entire procession of daves.

14 years. It still just doesn’t feel real. I scratched at my head. It also somehow doesn’t feel like it was a long time. I frowned as I thought that. However, I also had precedent. The tutorial… I was trapped in there for 6 months, but it didn’t feel like it either. Could this be a side effect of being [Ageless]?

I looked down and opened and closed my fist. I would’ve looked in a mirror if I had one handy. Either way, I knew what I would see. Physically I hadn’t changed at all ever since Sarah [Restored] me.

A couple of daves ran into my back, and that was finally enough to shake me out of my reverie.

“Well, no use worrying about it, I guess,” I said with a sigh. I started walking again but was surprised when I heard the faint howling that always preceded a sand wolf attack.

I’m in the wilderness, so it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Sure enough, half a dozen wolves bounded into view.

“I don’t suppose we could call a truce and go take down the undead together, could we?” I called out to the approaching monsters.

System: Truce failed. The Neutral Faction is locked as an enemy of all factions

System: Truce failed. The Demon Lord Faction is locked as an enemy of all factions

The wolves never even slowed.

“Yeah, figured as much,” I groaned. “Oh well, guess you die.”

I kept the rest of my forces back, cleaned up the attack with [Air Strikes], and then we kept moving.

The first thing to break up the monotony was a sandy mountain range off in the distance. It had a large opening to an obvious cave system. To go along with it, I even got a system message.

System: Zone entered, Unnamed. Faction - Undead

Two guesses on where the dungeon is…

“Halt,” I called to my army as I took a quick step back to get out of the zone. The scorpion and the two remaining sand wolves obeyed immediately. The daves, on the other hand… did their best.

Some of them were in mid hop when I called the command, and they landed on some of their fellow slimeballs. The resulting pile of daves quickly collapsed on itself, and I had daves rolling around everywhere.

I couldn’t keep the sigh from escaping my lips.

“If you guys weren’t so terrifying to monsters, I don’t think I would ever put up with you,” I muttered.

Shaking my head of that thought, I tried to figure out my next steps.

So, if the undead have that zone, does that mean that more zombies will just spawn? I frowned. Probably best to wait outside of the zone until I’m ready then.

I looked over at my scattered daves. “Speaking of being ready,” I murmured. “How do daves do against sand wolves anyway?”

I realized that was the one foe I’d never tried my daves on. With [Air Strike] one-shotting them, I never had a need to.

Guess I’ll just wait for my mana to fill back up and then call it good. That gave me enough time to second-guess myself. I wondered if it was worth it saving my mana when the only thing I would probably cast was [Hell Blaze]. Are they still resistant to fire even when they turn into zombies? I guess in the worst-case scenario, I could spend it on [Heal].

Then I finally remembered the other spell that I’d picked up.

“Oh, frick,” I groaned. “Well, I guess if I’m going to test that, I should probably do it now instead of during combat.”

I looked over at the scorpion. “You’ll do, I guess.” The scorpion tilted its head, but I ignored it and began casting. “Power of light restore health to my ally-“ I had only completed the chant, and I could already tell that this was a mistake. Even just preparing the mana for the spell was making me nauseous. “[Cure]!”

The healing light flew towards the monster, and it jumped in panic. However, it quickly found out that I wasn’t using some random new spell to execute it for no reason. It didn’t have any visible effect on it, but I’m assuming some of its missing hit points were restored.

I say assuming, because I was too busy lying face down on the ground to see.

“Healing spells are the worst,” I said through a mouthful of sand. I dragged myself up and decided that spell was staying shelved for the foreseeable future.

Any other bright ideas, Titus? I asked myself. “I could always [Sneak] back into Drydal or Vir, find a tavern, and wait for all of this to blow over.”

“What?” I questioned the scorpion who was eyeing me funny. “It’s a meme!” Ignoring the fact that I was talking to a mute monster that didn’t know what a meme was, I just sighed. “I miss the internet.”

So, as I waited an hour for the rest of my MP to replenish, I amused myself with thoughts of what I would do with the internet in Placeholder.

Survival guides? Nah, I don’t need anything like that. No food, no sleep, don’t need to worry about heat or cold. That and the wildlife is either non-existent or a hundred times more murderous. Since I quickly decided that most of the information on the net would be useless, my thoughts took another direction. Instant messaging would be nice. I mean, yeah, I have [Message], but for some reason, no one can [Message] me first. Also, 1 mana per word is a bit steep of a price when you could basically send novels back and forth for free on Earth.

However, I eventually concluded what I would spend most of my time on. Really, there was no contest.

Cat videos. And memes. I mean, that’s what the internet’s for, right?

That wonderful diversion finished, I was ready to go… except for the fact that my mana bar was still only half full.

“Uggghhhhhhhhhh,” I groaned and flopped back on the ground. “Why is this world so boring in between all of the life and death fights?” I asked. I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my arm. Can’t even take a nap. Frickin’ [Biologically Needless].

I eventually decided to just take a walk.

I left the “heartbreaker army” behind (after a moment of cringing about the name) and started walking around the zone.

I’d walked for just a few minutes when I heard the familiar airy howling. I sighed and got ready for a quick fight before realizing something odd.

I wasn’t the one under attack.

I had to clamber up a sand dune and go into the zone to get a view of it, but I was glad I did. It was a fight between a group of monsters and a group of zombies. I could’ve immediately run in there to help, but the monsters were already on their last legs by the time I saw them.

Instead, I got to watch as the last of the monsters went down and was raised as a zombie. The newly turned undead was grouped with several others and sent off to the west.

Wait. Why are they headed toward Besti? I thought they were trying to expand? I must have ruminated a bit too long because the other zombies started heading my way.

Could they have given up on the east because of me? I asked as I blew one zombified sand wolf to bits with an [Air Strike] punch. Nah. I thought as I ducked another and kicked a third. They couldn’t be that coordinated. Could they? I frowned as I backhanded yet another enemy.

Sarah mentioned that if the [Necromancer] started losing in Dryadal that some of the pressure would be taken off Vir. I [Flash Stepped] to the side of an attack and killed two more mobs with a single kick. So maybe he is coordinating them. In which case… I killed another enemy as I groaned. “All of my zones are locked in combat mode. They go, fight the undead, lose, and end up on the frontlines fighting Vir and Dryadal.”

A zombie scorpion popped out of the sand in front of me. I almost summoned a dave out of reflex but then remembered I was saving mana. I treated it to a flurry of [Earth Strike] punches that left it unable to defend as I continued ruminating. So, his expansion comes down to my fault again. Though, I guess I could also blame Jake for not claiming the fire dungeon. It would’ve saved us a whole bunch of grief.

The scorpion died under my barrage, and I looted it. I shook my head as I was now free of enemies. “It’s not fair to blame him, though. He did the best he could with what he had.” I didn’t voice the fact that the same could be said of me in some ways. I’d tried my best to not take over the world but somehow managed to destroy about a quarter of it anyway.

“Time to clean up the mess you made, Titus,” I said as I walked back to my waiting army. Three-quarters MP was good enough. I was going in.

------

“Keep your eyes peeled,” I ordered the daves, and the 3 other remaining monsters, as we made our way through the sandy cavern.

However, that particular order was not exactly a good one. The train of daves came to a crashing halt.

“Right,” I muttered. “I don’t even know if you guys can actually see.” With a sigh, I gave the next order a bit more thought before deciding to keep it simple. “Follow me and attack any undead that you come across.”

We didn’t have to wait long for the second part of that order to be relevant. A rocky, pokey undead fell from the ceiling and impaled one of my daves. That neither killed the dave nor was it wise. My dave immediately attacked back, and the undead disappeared, even as all of the nearby daves dogpiled to try to help.

I decided to just ignore their antics.

“Undead stalagtites. Or weren’t they stalagfights or something?” I frowned at that. Not because of the name or the enemy, but because of how the body disappeared immediately.

“So looks like in a dungeon it corrupts the dungeon enemies too. Good to know,” I muttered as I continued making my way through.

The next several fights were nothing to write home about. I saw undead stalactites, spiders, and even an undead mimic. The first two required close contact to kill my daves, so they were slaughtered immediately. The last one slurped one of my daves up and was immediately dogpiled into oblivion.

“Good work,” I said to my army as we cleared out another room. That was when I finally saw a boss health bar pop up.

“Corrupted Obelisk, eh?” I asked myself. “So, the entire obelisk becomes a boss? No wonder they can’t be reclaimed.”

That HP bar also gave me the side-benefit of knowing that I was getting near the boss room.

I found it soon enough.

“Tiny tunnel leading to a wide-open space? Check. Rest area right beforehand? Check. The only thing missing is a save point or a bunch of potions,” I chuckled to myself. Though, as I thought about it a bit more, I did realize that most dungeons I’d been in, or created, had averted that last trope.

“Wait, do undead dungeons still have the boss?” I muttered. I thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “Well, best to just assume they do. Daves, go into that room.”

They hopped in haphazardly in a process that took far too long, but they all made it.

I looked over at my 2 sand wolves and my scorpion.

“I guess that means it’s safe then?” I asked.

The scorpion nodded. “Yeah, totally,” it replied with a surfer accent.

“What the frick?” I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. The scorpion that had never even moved just looked back at me.

Fantastic. I’m officially starting to lose it. I sighed. Again. Maybe I can afford a detour by Drydal to pick up [Restore]? I remembered how urgent Sarah’s reply [Message] had been and sighed. “Nothing for it. Just have to keep pushing forward and hope for the best.”

I looked at the monsters that were likely to just end up as fodder for whatever boss I came across.

“You three stay here,” I ordered. Then I paused for a moment. Actually, aren’t they more of a liability at this point? If they die I just have more zombies to fight… “On second thought, go back and guard the oasis or something.”

I felt their acknowledgment and then realized something important.

“Don’t fight the [Monks], though. Just any undead. Understood?”

They were not too happy about the order, but they complied. They went back the way we’d come.

As they did, I stepped inside the arena.

System: You have entered a dungeon boss room! You will be unable to leave by any means until the dungeon boss is defeated.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yup, here we go,” I said as another boss health bar appeared and slowly began filling. This one said, “Undead Giant Sandipede.”

However, I didn’t exactly need to know that as I got to watch the pale, many-legged, sand monster rise up from the ground and give an awful screech.

I sprinted towards it, and it charged me.

Now, at this point, my instincts would usually be telling me to dodge out of the way. A huge boss monster was barreling toward me at full speed, and the usual understanding in physics is that one half mass times velocity squared equals right of way[1].

However, I was becoming increasingly aware of what my body was capable of. In addition, I had a horde of daves behind me that would become roadkill and, therefore, a huge waste of mana.

We collided, and I caught its oversized pincers with my hands. I grunted in exertion as I was shoved back several feet, but I succeeded. I stopped the boss in its tracks.

“Attack!” I shouted to my daves. They hopped towards the boss menacingly as my captive struggled to break free from my grip.

It didn’t succeed, and it was soon covered in a horde of slimy monsters. The battle was over in seconds after that.

“Phew,” I said as the boss dissolved into nothingness. “That went a lot better than I hoped it would.”

Then, just as if this was a normal dungeon, the obelisk appeared. However, it was covered in pale flesh and pulsing at irregular intervals.

I retched. “That’s frickin’ gross.” I shuddered. “Daves, uhh. Kill it.” The slimeballs were happy to oblige, and they took it down in no time.

System: Zone obelisk destroyed! Calculating territory…

System: Zone entered, Wilderness

“One down, who knows how many more to go,” I said. “Alright, daves, let’s get out of here.”

----

The two years after that went pretty much the same. It’s still strange to me how I could be at war for that long and not have that many stories worth telling.

Either way, I went from zombified obelisk to zombified obelisk, destroying them and removing the zone. For the first few months, nothing really stood in my way. Even the zombified versions of bosses were barely a roadblock. I simply swarmed over zone after zone with an evergrowing tide of daves before moving on to the next one.

The depressing part was when I got to the first corrupted town obelisk. That’s where I met my first real zombie.

Not a zombie wolf. Not a zombie dave. Not even a zombie sandipede. A shambling humanoid corpse that may very well have once been a proud member of the Besti kingdom.

It was entirely possible that the undead obelisks could simply spawn in zombies since they were just another mob. However, I couldn’t shake the worry that I was both responsible for their first death, and now I would have their blood on my hands a second time.

I… did my best to let the daves kill those instead of doing it personally.

My grip on my sanity slowly deteriorated during my crusade against the [Necromancer]. Whether that was from the humanoid appearance of some of the monsters I was fighting, the fact that I’d gone months with no one but daves for company, or the garish landscapes I crossed where everything was clad in the pale markings of the undead, it didn’t matter. It was honestly a miracle that I held onto it at all.

I think I have Sarah to thank for that. My desire to keep her safe gave me a goal and kept me motivated, the knowledge that I just had to hang on and she could [Restore] me gave me hope even if I went mad, and the all-too-brief chats we had over [Message] offered me my only outlet for human interaction.

Unfortunately, the [Necromancer] didn’t take kindly to me wiping out his entire eastern front. That was when I got to experience the true terror of the Besti deathlands.

It started with a lull of all things. An entire month where nothing at all attacked me. My first thought was that I was finally running the [Necromancer] out of forces. I bolstered my supply of daves and thought I’d be ready for whatever would come at me.

How incredibly naïve I was.

Wave after wave of undead assaulted me. They seemed even more intelligent than when a heart was leading them, and they kept me busy as they slowly whittled down my daves with coordinated attacks from multiple zombies.

For once, my monsters were outmatched, and soon it was me alone against the horde.

If I’d been lower than level 25, I would’ve gone into madness form and likely died there. As it was, with 1125 total stamina (and therefore 1.25 stamina regenerated per second of rest), I had to only buy myself seconds of respite to keep fighting indefinitely.

And the main way that I managed to get those breaks?

Running away at top speed.

Hey, I don’t care who you are. Unless you’re packing some serious AOE, taking on an entire army by yourself is suicide. At least… taking on an entire army all at once.

Without needing to worry about the daves keeping up with me, it essentially turned into guerilla warfare. I would engage them, kill a few zombies, and then retreat before they could surround me.

However, despite being slower than me, they kept pressing after me. I learned the hard way why the [Necromancer] had waited for winter when I retreated down a path I thought was clear just to have a group of zombies burst out of the snow to surround me.

I survived that ambush, but not without burning through a decent chunk of SP and also losing a bit of health. Unfortunately, it also gave the other undead time to get into position.

And when I say the other undead, I mean the true threats. Not zombies, zombie wolves, or zombie bears like I had primarily encountered in Besti up to that point.

The larger undead that I engaged were patchwork abominations of flesh or bone. I [Identified] them out of morbid curiosity and found out they were called flesh horrors, or bone horrors, depending on their type. They were even slower than the other zombies I faced, but they ranged from level 15 to 20 and were strong enough to wrestle me to a standstill if they got ahold of me.

I made sure not to repeat the mistake of getting caught more than once.

Wherever possible, I basically just left the horrors for last and killed the other small fry. When it was finally time to kill them, it usually devolved into me dancing around them and throwing quick jabs like a boxer while dodging their heavy swings.

However, not all of the undead were quite so… tangible. Ghosts, or their higher-level variant, wraiths, were the next challenge I faced. They could fly, phase through objects, and couldn’t be killed with normal physical attacks. That last part was no big deal to me as I had both [Mage Bolt], to kill them from afar, and [Elemental Strike], to kill them if they got close. They also wouldn’t have been a problem if they were left to their normal unintelligent devices. Unfortunately for me, either the [Necromancer] or some other malicious intelligence was commanding the fight against me. I faced attacks from the sky or from ghosts that phased through the ground and reached up to claw at me.

The only saving grace was that they had incredibly low HP. A single [Mage Bolt] was enough to kill a ghost. The number was more like 10 for a wraith, but that was still just a single [Fire Strike].

They also seemed to have a time limit for how long they could phase through solid objects. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I would have died to a massive subterranean assault at some point.

As it was, they primarily attacked from the air, which made me incredibly grateful I’d decided to purchase [Mage Bolt] during the fight for the oasis.

However, there was one final class of undead that was prominent in that wretched army.

I didn’t even notice I was in a fight with the first one until an arrow seemingly sprouted out of my chest.

Needless to say, that grabbed my attention. The culprit was easy to spot as no normal zombie holds a weapon, and I shot off the [Identify].

As I cast the harmless information-gathering spell, it shot not one but two arrows my way.

That’s when I discovered ghouls. Dead higher-level adventurers who kept their ability to use weapons along with a few of their skills.

Soon, I had full parties of undead adventurers after me. Undead [Knights], [Warriors], and [Berserkers] that engaged me in melee, while the rest of their party sat back and shot spells or arrows at me.

And of course, the sketchiest fights were the ones where I had to fight all of those at the same time.

The undead wolves were used to catch me or herd me into place. The ghosts and wraiths would swoop in from above or below to divide my already stretched attention. The bears and horrors functioned as the hard hitters if one of them got into position, but they were mostly just used to block off escape routes. Finally, the ghouls added the element of ranged attacks to the mix.

I soon found myself playing a bizarre game of cat and mouse. I say bizarre because I still felt like the cat in the situation. It’s just… I was against an unending horde of zombie mice that would be more than happy to swarm a cat and eat it.

That analogy kind of got away from me…

Anyway, I would break through the rank and file zombies to make my escape but find out that the [Necromancer] had an ambush prepared for me in that direction.

I tried being unpredictable, like pushing through the more heavily defended areas of the army instead, but I eventually found him predicting even that.

No matter how I tried to outthink him, he eventually caught on and was waiting for me.

So, I decided the best bet was something he couldn’t predict. True randomness.

During my few precious moments of downtime, I would pull out 3 coins and flip them. Heads was 1, tails was 0. I turned the result into a three-digit binary number, numbered each of the 8 major points on the compass, and then that was the direction I would retreat during the next fight.

It didn’t solve the problem because there was still a 1 in 8 chance that I picked the direction the ambush was (or higher, depending on how many ambushes he’d prepared), but it helped.

During that protracted engagement, I also finally tested something that was long overdue.

Does [Disrupt] work on zombies?

The answer was a resounding no. No impact on normal zombies, no effect on horrors or ghosts, and not even a confused look from the ghouls.

The fight dragged on for all of winter before it showed the first signs of letting up.

I also defeated the “boss” of the ghouls without even realizing it. To me, he was just another undead [Cleric] that pestered me with healing spells, which made him top priority for taking down.

So, as the first signs of spring showed (AKA all of the snow instantly melted), the undead started a retreat.

At first, I thought it was another trick, so I was on high guard. However, after 2 full days of paranoia, I finally was confident enough to begin summoning daves and check-in with Sarah.

The upside for me taking on a literal army of undead by myself was that it bought Dryadal and Vir some breathing room. During our [Message], I found out that both countries were making counter pushes against the undead. They’d also made decent headway, as both sides had punched into Besti.

There was a part of me that just wanted to leave it there. I’d done my part. I could leave the rest to the crazy greataxe wielding lady from up north and the sickly pacifistic [Hero].

Yeah, that was kind of a “say it out loud and then realize that they’re probably hosed without me” type of situation.

So, I pressed ever onward and finally came to the center of it all.

Besti.

------

System: Zone entered, Capital City Besti. Faction - Undead

I surveyed the ruined cityscape.

“Wow, this place turned into a real dump when the [Necromancer] took over,” I said. “I bet the previous owners are turning over in their graves!”

I nudged one of the daves at my feet. “Get it? Their graves?”

I laughed long and hard, and the rest of my daves joined in too.

I gave myself a light slap to the face.

Keep it together a little bit longer, Titus. Just keep it together.

I had a couple hundred daves with me at that point, and we made our way through the streets towards the center of the city.

We encountered surprisingly little resistance. Though, I did have a brief scare where a group of zombies popped out of the rubble to surprise us.

Whatever compunctions I had against killing humanoid monsters hadn’t survived my season-long encounter. I killed them all with some swift [Fire Strikes], looted them, and we were on our way.

Where are all the enemies? Maybe the [Necromancer] isn’t here after all? I frowned at that thought. If he’s just lying low in some no-name random town I’m gonna be ticked.

However, that super productive train of thought was derailed as I suddenly got a boss health bar on my screen.

Its title was “Body of the grave.”

“What the frick is that?” I asked myself. I’d seen several hearts of undeath at that point and even more corrupted obelisks, but that one was new. Since I didn’t have any other clue where to look, I continued my sweep inward toward the city center.

As I did, the health bar was joined by a group of others. The first two I was familiar with.

Heart of Undeath.

Corrupted Obelisk.

The other three, not so much.

Body of the Perished.

Mind of the Departed.

Soul of the Lifeless.

The last one’s health bar was sitting at only about 7/8ths full, but it was slowly rising.

“Anyone else hear boss music?” I muttered to the daves. “No? Just me? Alright.”

The same health bars that had derailed my train of thought had pretty much answered my question. If the [Necromancer] was anywhere, he would be somewhere close to those new undead.

And I couldn’t think of a reason you would want a heart, a body, a mind, and a soul unless you wanted to put them together. I came to the obvious conclusion that if it was completed, that would be a really bad thing™.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” I ordered the daves.

They started hopping quicker, but there’s only so much a dave can do.

However, it ended up not mattering. We were spotted.

“Ah, interloper,” a gravelly and aged voice echoed from our surroundings. “After ruining my machinations, you’ve now visited me personally.” There was a slight pause and then a chuckle. “So, elucidate me, [Demon Lord], why do you endeavor to stop my glorious goal?”

The wording alone was almost enough to let me identify him, but I was too focused on other things at the moment.

How does he know where we are? Where is he speaking from? I also realized that if he worded his question like that, he had some way of hearing me as well. Quick, stall! “And what goal might that be?”

Another laugh, but this one derisive.

“I yearn to make the world unified as the land of the undying,” the voice answered. “The place where no one must ever feel the pangs of loss again.” He continued with a dark laugh. “I suppose it conforms with the conduct of your predecessor that you would ruin even something like that.”

I tried to urge my daves to move faster as I tried to keep him talking. That particular topic seemed like one he would rant about, so I figured I may as well ask. “And how did you know my predecessor? What did he do?”

“It is his fault that I became this,” the voice became solemn. “It was his fault that the years of my youth were spent adventuring, and it was the impact of his treachery that would cause my father to die so young.”

There was a brief pause. “Still, in my vanity, I thought I could save him. Despite his death and despite the warnings of the church against my heresy. I came to these lands to learn about the magic behind death. I raised zombies and ghosts, horrors and ghouls, all in the search for a magic potent enough to bring my father back to me.”

His voice became whimpering. “I’m sorry, daddy. Please come back. I didn’t mean it. Please don’t go!”

“Uh,” was all I said before he began again.

“But what did I find?” he continued as if his outburst hadn’t happened at all. “That I was the greatest fool of them all. There was no salvation for the dead here. There was no power capable of reuniting the soul with its body. Even the most powerful of sorceries did nothing but bring back an empty husk. An undying tool and nothing more.”

After a brief pause, he continued in a defeated voice. “My father was lost to me forever. Like all the living, I was doomed to the torment of decay and death.”

His voice became louder and more animated. “But, then I realized something. Why must I be? Why must anyone be shackled to this worthless cycle of a brief period of life and growth followed by decay and then everlasting death?”

His voice took on a hint of awe. “I finally saw the undead for the glorious creatures that they were. Never decaying. Never to die again. A world where the pangs of loss will not touch anyone like they did when I grieved my father, Andrew.”

I was mostly just letting him rant and letting it go in one ear and out the other. However, the last sentence finally made it click.

“Tim!?” I blurted out. I couldn’t believe that I found myself meeting yet another one of my party members, so the name just stumbled out.

However, that was absolutely not the correct thing to say.

“Tim?” the voice questioned. “How could you… unless…” The voice turned furious. “Titus! Ruining my life once was not enough for you, was it? You’re back from the grave with a new body to do it once again!?” He laughed maniacally. “How fortunate for me that I now know you will come back every 50 years. Scream in agony as I slay you again and again for the next dozen millennia! All traps, arm!”

It’s a good thing I’d gotten to the point where [Flash Step] was reflexive because I barely had time to think Oh, sh- before the ground under one of my daves pulsed with dark mana. I used the skill and reappeared 10 feet away before the trap even finished going off. However, my instincts screamed that wasn’t far enough, so I followed it up by diving into the remnants of a nearby alleyway.

A wave of black magic exploded outward and vaporized a large portion of my daves along with a decent portion of the street.

The alleyway wall held together through the explosion but pelted me with a bit of shrapnel that cost me a tiny chunk of HP. Which, if I was being morbid, may have been enough to kill a random civilian.

“Still as quick as ever, I see,” Tim said mockingly. “Not to worry, I have enough traps to deter 10 armies. Your pitiful monsters will not see you through to me.” He laughed again. “But you need not concern yourself with coming to me. Once this ritual is completed, I plan to eradicate you personally.”

Well, frick. Tim and I were well aware of what happened the last time he dueled me, so if he was suddenly that confident about taking me on, I was worried.

Internally, the threat of those boss health bars went up from “really bad thing™” to “the absolute worst thing™.”

Yes, my naming convention for threats needed work.

Either way, I needed to get to the center of town fast. And I just had the tiny little hurdle of a literal magic minefield where each mine packed enough punch to kill a full party of adventurers.

My solution to that? Bowling.

Take a dave, roll them down the street, and if it doesn’t explode, follow its path.

However, I couldn’t trust my remaining daves to follow a path with that little of a margin for error. I also needed to go much faster than their hops would let them.

So, I ordered the daves to stick together (literally), made a tower out of them (or at least, as many as I could), and carried them.

It was faster. It dealt with the mines. It also gave me some new ideas for moving my daves around to places.

The only problem?

“I look frickin’ ridiculous,” I muttered as I caught sight of myself in the remains of a shop window as I ran by.

Ridiculous or not, it was much more effective.

Tim took the time to heckle me and try to distract me.

“I wonder how many people you have slain for the second time,” he mocked.

I ignored him, but he continued.

“Ghouls require at least a level 10 body, you know,” he stated. “So many level 10 adventurers. Eager to prove themselves. Only to become fodder and to be trampled down by you like nothing.”

I wasn’t willing to let him get a rise out of me.

“A shame that there were not more level 25 bodies to use. Death Knights are indeed much more powerful,” he chuckled. “Tell me, did you enjoy slaying my father again?”

“That was Andrew!?” I was shocked enough to stop short. However, I paused only for a moment. Frick, don’t let him get in your head. Keep moving!

“A useless undead servant,” he replied. “[Heal] will have no place in the new world.”

His voice took on the same frantic tone it had earlier. “Daddy! No! I didn’t mean to! Come back! Please! I’ll be good!”

“Uhh, this may be the pot calling the kettle black here, but you need help, Tim,” I answered. “It’s not too late. Trust me, the [Hero] could [Restore]-“

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” he shouted. “I won’t fall for it! You’ll betray me again! It isn’t what I want!”

I turned the corner and finally caught sight of the undead obelisk on a raised pedestal in the center of town.

There were a horde of zombies surrounding Tim and the 5 pulsing boss monsters that were slowly approaching him. The final boss health bar was also full.

“Besides, you’re too late, Titus,” Timothy continued. “Death and the siren song of the grave-”

I dropped the daves and sprinted. Heedless of any more mines.

“[Disrupt]!” I shouted the name of the skill along with the snap as if that would somehow help it cross the distance better.

I saw no effect.

Tim paused his chant to laugh at me. “Did you seriously believe I would allow such a simple trick to do me in? I have layered 15 spells that your skill will have to go through to have any impact.”

“[Hell Blaze]!” I cast and aimed the ball of flame at him.

“[Counterspell],” he intoned. He simply pointed his right hand at the incoming ball, and it winked out of existence.

“[Mage Bolt], [Mage Bolt], [Mage Bolt]!” I cast continuously as I kept up my sprint.

As they pinged off him and the surrounding bosses, he gave a disinterested wave with his black-gloved left hand. “Handle that, would you?” he said to his zombies.

The larger zombies all interposed themselves in my line of fire.

I had nothing else I could do but try to close the distance.

He restarted his chant. “Death and the siren song of the grave, I offer this feeble body in exchange for the undying. End the useless cycle of life and bring forth the everlasting grave.”

I reached the line of zombies and tried to bat my way through them with [Air Strikes].

Meanwhile, the grotesque mounds of flesh that made up those bosses kept moving closer.

“No more shall the pangs of loss assail me. No more shall life’s curse taint me. No more shall the tyranny of living be my undoing!”

I didn’t have time to be fancy. I charged through the horde with my shoulder down, [Air Striking] the zombies with my body alone.

I went as fast as I could. I was reckless. I took damage.

And even so, I was too late.

“[Undead Ascendancy: Lich, King of the Undead]!” Timothy shouted as the bosses smothered him.

I [Flash Stepped] the remaining distance, and my fist was hurtling towards the mound as the spell completed.

I was tossed backward a hundred feet like a ragdoll and watched my HP bar drop to half.

Meanwhile, one by one, all the health bars but the corrupted obelisk winked out of existence.

In their place, a single one appeared.

Timothy Pace, Lich, King of the Undead.

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[1] ½m*v2 is actually the formula for calculating kinetic energy, not right of way. However, if something really big is moving really fast, it does tell you that you should probably yield (e.g. see semi-trucks and trains)