Revenge of the Sorcerer King

Hey Guys! Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is enjoying the day however you feel is best. For those of you at work, my condolences. And for those of you that don't celebrate the holiday, I hope you enjoy your normal Thursday! Here is a chapter to get you through the day!

Chapter 39

Alessa

I was actually surprised none of the women refused to come. Undead were one of the major taboos of the churches after all. If they were found to have went with necromancers, then they would be burned at the stake. My real fear was my mother’s reaction. I almost didn’t want to know how she would react. 

I slowly turned to face her. Thankfully, disgust wasn’t showing. Of course, she wasn’t exactly smiling either. It’d been awhile but confusion was the main emotion with maybe a hint of sadness. I gave her an awkward smile before I turned back around and led the way. 

We freed all the women as we made our way out of the building. There were even a few men that I assumed were for the noble women’s pleasure. They were top class, but I didn’t get carried away like I was in the town. Once we got to the first floor, we finally had some women refuse to go with us. 

I just shrugged and left them. I mentally ordered one of my undead to stay behind and deal with them as the church might be able to use their memories to find us. I’d heard of stranger magic, and Oberon himself said memory magic was a real thing. 

When we got to the entrance, I held up my hand for everyone to wait. I wanted to see the situation before we ran out into the middle of it. I’d seen glimpses of it, but it appeared at least half the city was on fire now. People were fleeing in all directions. There was no sense of order at all. 

I turned to look down the street and as if by fate, four zombies rushed around the corner chasing fleeing citizens. While I watched a man was tackled and his throat ripped out. I frowned, if it was just my mother, I could protect her from any undead that might get any funny ideas, but a group of nearly fifty people would be nearly impossible to protect even with my own undead in the mix.

I looked to the roofline to judge where the fires were. If I judged it right, we had about an hour before the fires would reach this place. If I didn’t reach the gate in the next ten minutes, Oberon and Helena were supposed to come check on me. I’d felt like a child when they’d said that but now, I was thankful for it. 

“We need to wait here. My allies will be heading this way soon. I can’t guarantee that I can protect all of them from the undead,” I said turning to my mother. 

“A single entrance is easier to defend than a street full of people. We can wait,” she said. 

Five minutes went by with the horde of undead outside the building only growing thicker. I was starting to get worried when a building down the street that had several guard managing to defend the entrance, exploded from the inside. Debris rained down, as well as, body parts among other things. 

Helena walked out clapping her hands like she just done some hard work. She looked around then zeroed in on me. She smiled then was standing right in front of me after a single blink. It made me realize all over again that she was much more powerful than she let on. 

“Good you found her.” She looked behind me at the gathered people. “Snacks?”

“They know what they are getting into. I felt they deserved a chance to survive under their own power rather than stuck in a glass coffin.”

“I’m not complaining. Going to need more wagons if you plan to take them all the way back to Haven,” Helena said with a smirk. 

“We’ll figure it out,” I said pounding a fist on my chest. I said I’d get them out that’s what I would do.

Oberon

I took my time as we walked through the city. We had roughly thirty minutes before we’re supposed to meet up at the Noble district’s gate. During that time, I was studying the undead. The ones directly created by me were almost in another class by themselves. They were stronger, smarter, faster, and just all around better. 

That wasn’t to say the ones created through the corpse poison weren’t pretty tough to deal with. If mine were a ten, they would be an eight or seven. It continued down like that as people killed be the lesser undead were made into even weaker ones. It was an interesting observation and explained why the undead could be dealt with as well as why they never developed into a problem that was impossible to deal with.

“We should be coming up on the noble district now,” Ted said pointing ahead. We were surrounded by an army of undead skeletons that were equipped with an assortment of armor. Plus, Ted was still wearing Grodo so there wasn’t any risk to his life. Personnally, I thought it was going a bit to his head. 

“Or what remains of it,” I replied looking at the smoldering ruins of the gate. A rather large explosion had taken place leveling it. 

“Lady Helena must have gone slightly overboard,” Ted said with a laugh. 

“Slightly. Seriously that woman,” I said shaking my head. “At least we’re going for maximum destruction.”

The undead had long reached this point as there were dead ripped apart bodies spread around the gate. They must have tried to defend the breach after the gate exploded. I commended their courage but couldn’t help but shake my head at their idiocy. I had recovered much of mana on the walk over and used it to raise the bodies quicker. 

We made our way down the street, each of us throwing random spells into buildings that we passed. We kept score of the ones that had people still in them, as they screamed. We rounded the corner for the street Gallery sat on. Helena was talking to Alessa in front of the building. They saw me and Alessa looked inside and waved. I paused in my step when I saw not just her mother, but most of the women that had been in the building rush out.

“I think someone else went a bit off script,” Ted said rubbing the back of his head.

“Whatever. We’ll figure it out after we get out of the city.”

I was about to wave them forward when I felt a sharp pain from my back. I looked down and saw a blade made of white light prieceing through my stomach. I grabbed it and channeled straight mana into the spell overloading it. It shattered and the pain vanished. With that done, I turned to see who was brave enough to attack me. 

A contingent of knights and priests stood in formation at the end of the street. A church or temple glowed white in the distance behind them. A priestess was pointing a glowing staff directly at me. She had a surprised expression on her face. 

“Remind me to beat that bitch later,” I said with a growl. 

“The priestess or Helena?” Ted asked.

“Hmm, both,” I said. Helena said she would take care of the church. What likely happened was she got carried away blowing shit up then failed to do anything to the church once they put the barrier up. I drew promise, it was a greedy blade and didn’t care what kind of mana it ate. “Step back. The regular undead are useless and I don’t think we have any that have been infused with enough undeath to withstand the holy magic yet.” 

“You’re the boss,” Ted said turning and running towards the others. 

“You might not have any undead but you do have a vampire that can withstand a spell or two,” Helena said appearing next to me. 

“Awe. How’d you manage to get Alessa to stay back?” I asked. I swung Promise just as another blade of light fired at me. There was a moment of resistance before the light faded into motes that were absorbed by the sword. 

“She might be a pureblood, but I don’t know how a holy spell would affect her being so new,” Helena said pulling her massive shield from the darkness. 

“Well. This should be fun!” I shouted as I tore the robe I wore off. I considered for a split second and decided to go full undead. I poured mana into my voice. I let out a ground shaking roar then seemed to call to the spirits of the after life. A few of the knights even backed away a few steps.

“Oh, very nice!” Helena grinned. 

We shoot towards the group, light spells lancing at us from the gathering. I was able to meet the ones in my direct path with Promise, while Helena was deflecting them with ease with her shield. The knights readied their weapons and we slammed into the line. Promise sliced clean through the first knight I impacted. Helena’s brute strength tossed two knights back into the gathering. 

Bringing my sword around, I decapitated the knight on my right. All while I chanted a spell, a torrent of flame left my left hand burning everything within ten meters. Helena’s chained shield slammed through the knight’s line with ease. Even though it was a blunt impact, I doubted they would be able to get back up.

The knights rallied baring their shields with a white radiance covering them. I brought Promise around chanting a spell to make a blade of wind form around it. The radiance protected the knights from the magic but it wasn’t enough to protect against the blade itself. Blood sprayed as the knight in front of me gained a slash across his chest.

A priest crashed into the next knight next to me. I glanced over and saw Helena covered in blood as she was tearing people limb from limb. She had a crazy grin that almost split her face ear to ear. Her fangs were on full display as the blood started to swirl around her. 

“I can’t fall behind,” I mumbled. Chanting my blade storm spell, I charged further into the ranks of the force. I finished chanting just as I hit the center. Blades of mana rained down around me impaling everyone near me. When they collided with the ground, they exploded into shards cast cascading into the men and women behind them. 

“Show off,” Helena said blood forming trails down her face. Her dress was completely dyed red. 

“Why thank you,” I said with a bow. I felt something and swung my sword. A torrent of holy light washed over me. Promise absorbed most of it but there was just too much, I felt parts of my body burn and turn to smoke. I growled in anger as I turned to see what it was now. 

The priestess from earlier had collapsed to the ground and was breathing heavily. There were four or five corpses surrounded her, withered away from having their mana completely drained along with their life force it appeared. I glanced at my left hand or what was left of it. Only my pinky and thumb remained. 

“Shit…” I heard Helena say, glancing quickly I found she’d taken more damage then I had. One of her arms was missing and blood dripped slowly onto the ground. 

“Fall back. I’ll handle the rest,” I said and she nodded. I turned back to the priestess. “What is the name of the woman that is causing me so much trouble?” 

“Yunio. You monster. What pleasure do you gain from destroying this city?!” the woman said as she gasped for air.

“I originally only intended to visit but something damned you. You can take that to your goddess.” I pointed my palm at her and chanted a spell. Spikes of shadow fired continuously impaling her limbs. She was lifted from the ground and impaled to the wall behind her. I turned my hand at the rest of the clergy that was with her. The last ten people died screaming painfully. 

The priestess was still alive. I tried to think of a way to make her suffer even more. I grinned when I got an idea. I walked over to her and placed my hand over her heart. “Kill… me…” she begged as blood dripped from her eyes and mouth. 

“No. That would be too easy.” I channeled my necromantic mana into her heart. There was some resistance by the light shielding her heart, but she was much too weak to fuel it for long. The mana lanced into her heart. She screamed a soul wrenching scream as lines of green and black formed over her skin. 

Her body took a semi-corporal form as her heart came to a stop. I stepped back as a cloak of shadow formed around her. A sword formed in her hand as she kneeled in front of me. “Master,” she said with a brutal tortured voice. 

“Nice to have you on our side, Yunio,” I said with a grin. 

~~~

Not long after that we managed to leave the city without anymore confrontations. Even with that church force defeated there were still several hundred more priests and knights remaining back at the church. I was already running low on mana and didn’t want to push my luck. 

The undead horde managed to reach critical numbers though. Thousands roamed the streets looking for the living to feed on. The central district was a dome of pure light. We won’t be getting to the Lord today, if he still lived. Alessa had killed a noble that was taking her mother. Standing on the crest of a hill near the city, we watched the city burn. 

We’d acquired several wagons and horses from an abandoned farm, and most of the women were loaded up and waiting to head out. Alessa had to kill a few back in the city, when they tried to flee to the church. Only three, but it was enough for the others to realize they were living on bought time. 

“Please tell me you managed to plant the evidence. You failed to damage the church after all,” I said glaring at Helena. She was nursing her arm which was currently in the process of regrowing. 

“How rude. Is that any way you talk to a lady, an injured one at that?” Helena asked with a pout. I just kept my glare leveled on her. “Fine! Yes. I managed to plant the information in a few guards’ minds. Come tomorrow, the towns and cities near here will all think that the town was attacked by ……… Rest assured.” She growled. 

“Good. Let’s head home.”