Undead city-Altraud
Inside the dungeon of shadows
A tense silence permeated the grasslands as both groups stared at each other and amidst all that Arya hesitated for a second to approach the bags filled with rat blood.
The hesitation cost her dearly as by the time she reached for the bags, the panther was ahead of her and threw the bags into the sky towards the flying crows that swiftly caught them and flew away towards the forest.
Cursing under its breath the undead bird followed them and disappeared into the forest.
With the bags now unreachable the Panther turned towards Arya expecting to see her drowned in despair but Arya's eyes were filled with battle intent as she used
The two clashed as Arya hit the overgrown cat with the large hammer but the Panther just shrugged it off as nothing and pummeled her to the ground.
Glancing around it spotted Maya preparing for combat and asked “What is a filthy vampire doing in my dungeon?” while pointing at Arya.
“She is different from the other vampires. She doesn't discriminate” Maya explained but the Panther just scoffed.
“Shut up, you know nothing about vampires. She is no different from them, to her I am just a stepping stone. She is a filthy vampire that needs to be crushed, now stop getting involved in this fight and get lost ” the Panther snared with a vicious glint and plunged its claws straight into Arya's stomach.
Arya flinched in pain as blood escaped from her mouth. The cat attacked again and again but stopped when an arrow struck its eyes causing it to jump back and release Arya from its paws.
Finally free Arya coughed out blood and glanced at her undead…friends? While lying still on the ground.
‘Why? Why are they not running away? Why are they fighting for me?’ no matter how much she pondered nothing came to her mind, they had no reason to help her but they were helping her.
’Do I deserve them?’ she didn't know but even when she was pondering Ervin was doing everything he could to help.
He fired again but this time the cat evaded it and with a loud roar ordered the large Wolf to keep them busy. The wolf did as told and pounced on Ervin while its pack surrounded both him and Maya.
“We are in trouble again” Maya sighed and used her skill book to activate
While they were busy dealing with the wolves, the Panther regained its footing and approached Arya with an angry scowl
“Why are they helping you? You don't even care about them, do you?” it asked and punched Arya's stomach with its paws. The Impact sent several cracks running through the ground underneath her.
Arya coughed out another mouthful of blood as tears flowed through her eyes because of the pain but she still refused to scream for help, opting to defiantly stare back at it instead, irritating the cat to no end.
“That look again, you think I can't kill you, don't you?” the Panther asked with a dangerous glint in its eyes.
“Let me tell you a secret, Vampires are stupidly hard to kill but they have two weaknesses, sunlight and heart. Once injured even a vampire can't heal its damaged heart” it informed while viciously slashing towards her heart but before the hit could connect a small undead jumped between them.
A
The undead had taken a hit on his spine and was now staring at Arya with a pleased smirk.
“Teacher, now I am just as brave as you” Peter announced as if he had achieved his lifelong wish but Arya couldn't have been more devastated.
She shakily grabbed his broken ribs and spine to try to fix it somehow but they crumpled to dust right in front of her eyes leaving only dust behind.
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“Noooo!” Maya who saw the situation from a distance screamed and went berserk. She broke the arm of a wolf corpse near her and used it as a club to attack every Wolf near her. Ervin too was angry but he maintained his cool and supported Maya from the back, his bow glowed with a red light and his arrows were now covered in flames that burned everything that stood in his path.
From for away the undead bird returned with 4 bags filled with blood. It had many cracks running through its wings and a metallic black Crow closely followed behind it.
None of that mattered to Arya however as to her the skull lying on her chest weighed far heavier than anything she had ever felt.
She wanted to fix him back but didn't know how to, she was scared and Peter was quick to observe that.
“Teacher don't worry nothing happened to me. Undead won't die unless their skull is cracked you know “ he informed proudly to cheer her up but the Panther had enough of their interaction and with a snarl delivered a powerful kick.
Arya saw the kick coming and protected Peter’s skull but it still sent them flying for a distance of 20m and they rolled for another 5m before coming to a stop. Luckily there were no cracks on Peter's skull but his body which already had many cracks on it couldn't endure the damage and crumbled to dust leaving only the skull behind. Arya too suffered severe internal damage but it was not life-threatening.
“Teacher, are you ok? How dare that cat, I will bite it to dust!“ Peter screamed and tried to cheer her up but an undead bird landed next to him and stopped his tomfoolery.
“That’s enough, if you do anything reckless again then I am going to lock you in a grave for life” it threatened to cause Peter to shut up.
On the other side, the metallic crow landed next to its boss and patiently waited for its orders.
Maya and Ervin were also done with their fight, they killed all the wolves except the leader.
While they assembled, Arya desperately clung to Peter's head and turned towards Maya.
“Can he regain his body?” she asked while holding his skull with trembling hands, Peter was also staring at her with an expectant look but they were met with disappointment.
“No, he won't be able to get his old body but clearing this dungeon can help him get a proper replacement” Maya informed with gritted teeth. she was extremely angry but swallowed all her complaints,
‘Now is not the time for complaining’ she thought internally but anger was consuming her each time she saw the overgrown cat.
Arya noticed her odd behaviour and bowed her head,
“He is like this because of me and I will receive my punishment for that but will you please support me in killing that overgrown cat” she asked while radiating an intense killing intent that eclipsed even Maya's intent to kill.
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Human camp
Border of human and undead area
A thick black smoke covered the camp as the humans tried to control the fire spreading towards their tents.
The fire spread from the captain's tent a few hours ago and after hours of hard work, the members of the camp finally succeeded in controlling the fire.
They all breathed a sigh of relief and stared at the captain's tent only to see their vice-captain Blaze staring back at them with a mournful expression. He waited for the commotion to die down and opened his mouth.
“Members of the camp, listen carefully. Our captain has been killed, I killed him” he announced out loud causing the crowd to go deathly silent as they stared at him with surprised and confused looks.
“The vampires have been attacking our camp for a few days now and today they dared to invade the captain's tent. I and the captain fought hard but they were too strong in the end the captain used his special affinity to Bind them to his body and ordered me to burn them alive, in the end, he died together with them” giving a small pause Blaze let his words sink in and continued
“how long are we going to bare this, we received information that the vampires and undead have joined hands. If we don't do anything now, they will attack us from both sides and after killing us they will trample on the lives of our dear ones. Do you want that to happen?”
It took a few seconds for the crowd to process his words and when they did, all of their faces either turned red in anger or pale in fright.
“Tell me, will you let them harm our dear ones?” Blaze asked again and this time they all roared back with a thundering “No sir”
“Good, then prepare for a war, we will attack Altraud in a week and after defeating them, attack the vampires. Now disperse” he ordered and the mob responded with a
“Yes sir” and scattered to prepare for the war.
Back in his camp Blaze sat on his chair and let out a pained grunt.
“Oh, looks like you received some damage from the fight with your captain” a silhouette of a person questioned but Blaze ignored it and asked back
“Are you the only reinforcement?”
The silhouette shook its head and showed 4 fingers to him. Blaze nodded and went back to prepare for the war.