The battlefield was still, vultures fed on the rotting remains and damaged weapons and armor littered the ground. A pile of bodies seemed to stir slightly in the cool breeze, a limb shifted and then lay still, a leg seemed to twitch but one could not be sure. Suddenly in a flurry of motion a head popped out of the pile.

How the fuck did I get here, and how am I still alive. I remembered getting ran through by a spear as I was lopping heads off with my axe, I kept going for a while longer, killing the man who placed the spear in such a unfortunate position for my own health. And then... everything went black, but now I'm here?

I looked around with caution as my initial surprise wore off, carefully extracting myself from the pile of bodies. Well, it's hard to say exactly who won, but I don't think we did given that we were lumped together in piles that ended approximately were I last recalled their troops had set up. I realized that I was absolutely starving and surveyed my surrounding for anything that might remotely resemble food. Ohh, an arm! .... wait what?

I stared at the arm sticking out of the pile intently, I could not see the body that it belonged to, but it just looked so damn appetizing. I couldn't resist, I grabbed the arm and tore a massive chunk out with my teeth, and gobbled it down hardly even stopping to chew. The next half hour was a blur of wanton cannibalism, and it took me a good while to recover from my feeding frenzy. Feeling fuller and more content than I ever had in my life, I sat down and rested against a lone tree that I had found.

Status, I thought casually.

"Name: ?

Race: Ghoul 

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Level: 0

Class: Hollowed Barbarian

Attributes:

STR: 10

VIG: 10

AGI: 10

WIL: 10

KNL: 10

MND: 10

Skills: None

Perks:

First off, I lost all of my twenty two levels, this is ridiculous. Also, I was a Ghoul? I knew there was no way I could have survived that spear, and the whole cannibalism things is starting to make some sense now. For whatever reason, I did not feel any surprise or distress at the knowledge my death and prompt undeath. In fact, I felt more centered than I ever had in my life... or previous life should I say, no anxiety, no fear of what might happen to me now, none of those negative or excitable emotions, it was quite pleasant actually.

I looked down and inspected my body for the first time since my undeath, my skin had this gray stony appearance and texture to it, very rough to the touch. Despite it's strong rough nature, it wasn't as thick as before, I could see the muscles beneath with clarity, as if the water had been drained from my skin. Despite this, I felt powerful, even as a relatively high level barbarian I never felt this much strength waiting to be released. I searched the fields for my double bladed axe, it was enchanted and cost much of my fortune and I was very keen on relocating it. I played the battle through in my head and eventually managed to find it after many hours of searching.

The axe was lodged deep into a corpse's skull, I ripped it out with contemptuous ease and grimly slung it over my shoulder. I don't remember much at all of my previous life, but I knew this kingdom, nor the one it was at war with, looked fondly upon the undead. And by that I mean, it was kill on sight.

Some Hours Later

I wandered deep into the forest, I wanted to eventually return to civilization, but I did not know how quite yet, and I knew that I would need some levels under my belt if I wanted to survive out here. I made incredible ground, moving with a speed and nimbleness of a wild beast, and it was not long before I came across a small village. Despite it's small size, it was well fortified with sturdy wooden walls and various archer posts, this was clearly not a farming community. I would imagine this is some sort of outpost community for rangers and adventurers.

The logical course of progression here would be to simply wait, and catch some poor unsuspecting adventurer by surprise. I'll be level twenty two again in no time.