Novel Full Chapter 1270: Elite Army
Chapter 1270: Elite Army
The first thing they saw was color.
Dozens of figures hung in the air, suspended on streams of wind that coiled beneath their feet. Their skin carried the same deep cerulean tone, but everything else set them apart as individuals.
Some wore armor that still held the dents they died with. Others carried wicked spears or rusted axes or bows that hummed with blue light.
Their eyes glowed faintly, alert and aware. These were not the lifeless eyes of the mass army that they knew Devil could summon with the spell [March of the Damned]. Those were true minions, capable of listening to orders but losing individuality.
But these… They knew them. [Awaken] was a different spell, calling on a whole different tier of subordinates.
These were the elites of the One True Necromancer.
A hundred bodies.
A hundred weapons.
A hundred shadows drifting in the night sky.
And at the front of them all, hovered a single, smaller figure.
Lilith felt her stomach tighten.
Bronnya’s jaw clenched.
Jallen’s fingers trembled around her spear.
Scar.
Still, the girl they once traveled with. Still, the teammate who followed them through deserts, mountains, and forests. The same one who used to burn meals, cheat at card games, and spend her free time robbing drunks while the rest of them were enjoying a relaxing evening in the tavern.
She didn’t do it because they were in need of cash, and Lilith even tried to get the girl to stop, as being found out could seriously ruin the Scarlet Lilies’ pristine reputation.
But the assassin did not listen; she rarely did.
Her love for the game of ’teaching people not to get wasted’ was too high.
Now she hovered in the air, stoic, blue-skinned, bound.
Jallen didn’t look at her for long. It hurt too much.
Not because she hated Scar now that she stood against them, but because four centuries of memories didn’t vanish just because death – or undeath – came.
For the past two months, they searched. Old archives, knowledgeable experts, buried vaults, forbidden libraries, dead languages, druidic chants.
Nothing.
Every so-called resurrection story turned out to be a bard’s nonsense, songs and fairy tales, not real magic.
But the worst of it all was that they didn’t even know if resurrection was the spell they needed.
Quinlan’s soul necromancy worked in a way people could simply not understand.
The Necromancers of old, now titled Corpse Animators by the universe itself, needed to take the corpses of the fallen to their labs, make preparations, and conduct the ritual for their target to potentially achieve a state of undeath.
But Scar was different.
They had her body.
After Quinlan killed her, he extracted her soul from the corpse, turned it into an Elite Soul, ranked it up by funneling Lesser Souls into her, and then called upon her with [Awaken].
After the [Eternal Damnation] spell – the one responsible for soul extraction – he did not need bodies.
As such, he left it where they fought.
But that brought up the question…
This new Scar, Lilith reasoned, was in a way still the same girl. The wicked man took something essential from her friend.
Thus, even if resurrection were possible, would it work? Would she wake up and be just like before?
She doubted it.
But then what? A spell for undeath? Now these existed. They even traced down an old lich living in seclusion and forced it to spit out some ancient knowledge.
While risky, returning from a state of undeath could be theoretically possible – with a myriad of caveats, of course. Seamless transition back and forth between alive and dead wasn’t a simple business.
But just one look at the current Scar told Lilith that she was an entirely different undead – if she even could be labeled one – from what she or anyone else was familiar with.
Would an undeath spell work? How? She wasn’t even in her original body now. What would she turn back to?
So many doubts…
Chizuru’s eyes slid over the mass of blue soldiers. Her voice slipped out in a near-whisper.
“So this is why… I see now. This Greenvale assault of his was not just about revenge. Every strong guard he cut down… fed him, becoming one of his elite soldiers.”
She didn’t know the term Elite and Lesser Souls, but she understood enough and understood that all before her was of the upgraded bunch.
And yet none of it mattered right now.
The queen launched forward first.
Kaede’s grip tightened on her blade. Her muscles tensed, ready to slice the man apart.
Lilith’s body coiled as well. Energy gathered under her fingers.
Jallen drew her arm back, preparing her spear. She steadied her breathing. One perfect throw. Straight through him.
Behind Kaede, her subordinates readied their strikes, spells, blades, whatever they could bring to bear.
They all rushed forward, flown by Morgana’s spell.
Quinlan lifted his hands.
Every blue-skinned soldier rose with his gesture.
A hundred bodies straightened in perfect unison with their weapons snapping into proper stances.
Then Quinlan pushed forward.
They didn’t drift, didn’t float, didn’t glide. They launched, fired toward their targets like bullets fired from a chamber. They showed no hesitation, no fear, no pause.
They moved as fighters who had seen death and no longer cared for it.
Kaede was the first to meet them.
She was one of the strongest, bolstered by her blade’s powers.
The leader of the Fujimori tore through the front line.
Steel cut armor. Ethereal bones cracked. A tank-class soul soldier shattered cleanly in two.
But the next soldier was already there.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Kaede’s follow-up strike hit a shield. The shield exploded, the soldier behind it going with it, but three more crashed in afterward with raised axes and spears, forcing her to scramble for space.
They didn’t care if they died.
They only cared that she did not harm their master.
And to achieve that, the best way was to simply kill her.
While the Elite Souls could not currently contend with the top dogs of the continent, they were more than strong enough to pose a threat.
Merely ignoring them as if they did not exist was not an option any of their master’s enemies faced.
Lilith clenched her teeth as two of them swept toward her, one with a bowstring drawn, the other with a scythe raised to cleave her spine.
Jallen snarled as three more closed in on her, forcing her spear into a defensive spin rather than the perfect throw she wanted a moment ago.
Every fighter in Kaede’s squad lost sight of their original target immediately.
Blue bodies crashed into them, each one a trained killer in their old life and now freed from every instinct that would make such a suicide charge lose immense effectiveness if it were conducted by mortals.
But Morgana, the Elemental Queen, remained the most unbothered.
Wind coiled around her like a crown.
Lightning crackled along her arms and fingers, sparking from one fingertip to the next.
She flicked her wrist.
A spiral of wind carved outward like a spinning blade, dragging a streak of lightning behind it.
The blast tore through a cluster of elite soldiers.
Bodies ripped apart mid-air, making blue fragments scatter in every direction.
The shockwave knocked the survivors aside, sending them tumbling out of the sky until Quinlan managed to regain control of their bodies with his own wind manipulation.
But he was not allowed to do so.
Morgana raised her right hand, and the next spell she cast showed Quinlan what being on the magical peak of Iskaris meant.