Chapter 434: The Living and the Dead

Although it was woven into unnatural shapes by architects long gone, the Elven city was still at its core a forest, and that forest despite being long abandoned was still a living breathing thing. Not just in the sense that the trees and the foliage lived and grew, but also for what dwelled inside and beneath them.

In the time that the Elves had been absent, an entire ecosystem had formed within the vacuum they had left. An ecosystem of Wolves, Rabbits, Bears and creatures uncontained to the limits of our world.

It was an ecosystem of predators and prey and of birthing and feasting. It was an ecosystem of life, and of death.

And where there was death, in the eyes of a Necromancer, there was an army.

His silhouette loomed over the city as Revenant stood atop its walls, his ghoulish figure shrouded in shadows with only the wicked gleam in his emerald eyes and the sadistic smile etched onto his undead face, as he thrust his hands forwards.

"Etu Rigorda Sephtis Anasima." Unholy words slipped from his lips, as wisps of black smoke emerged from his fingers like the strings of a puppeteer, before those strings plunged deep into the soil far below him.

The earth rumbled, the threads of smoke grew more plentiful as they spread further and further out, as what was once dead began to rise again.

The bones of countless creatures pulled themselves from the dirt and clicked themselves together with that of their neighbours, nothing but wisps of black smoke to act as their muscle fibres. It did not matter what the bones originally came from, there was far too many and not every bone was left from the carcass.

Instead they made do. Leg bones from rabbits being used as forearms, skulls from even smaller beasts being used as knuckles and a dozen different cracked spines linking together to create a single whipping tail.

These were Skeletal Chimeras. Each one slightly different from the next, depending on what they had on hand to create themselves. Which in some cases included a literal hand or seven.

Some took bipedal forms, some quadrupedal and some looked like they were trying to mimic a spider or something with even more legs as they stitched together discarded bones into something useful.

When the earth settled, and Revenant lowered his hands with a satisfied smirk on his ghoulish face, an army of a hundred damned souls awaited his command. A number that was only limited by his own magical skills and mana levels, rather than the material present.

But even these ’measly’ hundred were more than enough.

Belladonna looked over the damned army with an impressed nod, however she was a little surprised that not a single one of them seemed to contain any traces of an Elven skeleton. Of course it wasn’t exactly easy to tell an Elven Skeleton from a human, it’s not as if they kept the ears on death or anything. But there was no trace of what she could likely call Elven.

There was something humanoid. In fact one of the Chimera’s was nearly entirely humanoid skeleton, with only its arms being replaced by something else to give it large, knuckle dragging hammer fists and deadly claws.

But the bones that made up this Chimera were far too large, and the jaw was heavily pronounced with visible tusks to be anything Elven. Although it did make her wonder what that belonged to and why it was here in the first place, and why it would be here instead.

"When the Elves die, they do not leave a body. They return to their element." Raev explained, noticing Belladonna’s curious gaze.

She wanted to follow up on that statement, it was rather mysterious and she really wanted to know more about what ’return to their element’ meant, but it would have to wait for another time. They were on a bit of a time limit, and the task ahead of them was too big to procrastinate further.

The group leapt from the walls, gliding down the ground through various means such as Air Skates, smoke clouds and long winding vines.

With time not exactly on their side, and a city large enough to hold roughly 20,000 people to cover between them, they split the workload and divided it into quadrants.

Revenant and his army took the South Eastern Quadrant, since that was closest to where they had arrived. Figg, with Raev and Revenant’s Death Knight as back up, would take the South Western Quadrant, Belladonna would take North Eastern and Beans in his transformed state would take Belladonna’s Fox clone to the North West.

if they found any powerful undead from the previous invasion, they were to signal Revenant so that he could enthral them and add them to his permanent army.

A series of [Shadow Veil] jumps got Belladonna to her quadrant, and as she looked over the edge of the building she was stood upon, she found her first victims.

A trio of cougar-like beasts, with ashen fur and a trail of white flames down their back as well as a flickering candle light at the end of their tails, was surrounding a large beast that looked like the cross between a grizzly bear and an armadillo, as it was covered in heavy plates that were shifting with its movements to keep it properly protected.

They were locked in a staring match, the cougars having surrounded the bear as they hunted it, slowly moving in for the kill, or at least the attack.

While sitting back was an option, it was a boring one and not one that Belladonna was planning to go with today. So instead she had to choose which one to help, the cougar or the bear.

There was just something inside of her that was whispering, choose the bear.

She kicked the overgrown branch next to her, sending razor sharp leaves fluttering down to the ground slowly. The cougars growled at the leaves, pulling their bodies back as their flames flared up defensively, whilst the bear didn’t care about the leaves which barely scratched its armoured shell.

The cougars eyes whipped up to where Belladonna had been standing, which meant that it didn’t see the shadow darkening behind or not the figure rising out of them.

One swipe, and the cougars head slowly slid from its neck before its body collapsed from the sheer shock of its own death.

It’s companions let out fearsome growls and roars before one of them leapt forwards. White flames coated its fangs, but all they managed to sink into was a pair of golden arms that appeared out of thin air, before a second pair plunged into its exposed stomach, the hands flat like the edge of a knife.

With one pull, Belladonna split the cougar like an atom, and tossed the halfs to the side as blood rained down onto her.

The third cougar didn’t even get a fancy death. Belladonna simply appeared next to it like a phantom and punched it so hard in the head, it burst like a bloody balloon and the shrapnel of its skull cracked the stone where it had once stood.

Yes, choosing the bear was definitely the right choice, Belladonna thought, as she turned to see the beast looming over her. Long, viscous globules of saliva already dripping from its slobbering maw as it dreamed of the feast it would be having.

Belladonna simply lifted her hand, pressing her fingertips against the bear’s armoured chest and gave it a sharp punch. It wasn’t enough to crack the bear’s impenetrable defences, as it raised its head to let out a mighty roar of victory.

It was the right choice, because with the cougars she wouldn’t be able to practice this.

She stepped away from the Bear, who was still standing tall and ready to roar, as blood leaked from every hole in its body. Every hole. It tried to roar, or to whimper or beg. All it could do was cough up the blood of its shredded organs, before falling forwards with a heavy thumb as Belladonna sauntered off and leapt onto the roofs once again.

Her mind only occupied by what she would choose next.