-----

Time rewinds itself a few minutes ago, as Veronica glances from above the sky towards the bear-kin tribe, where a fight to the death against a horde of endless Undead unfolds. The brave bear-kin fight for the survivability of their people as their bodies are drenched in blood and sweat, many corpses already lay into the ground, as countless graves are growing out of purple-colored dirt.

​​

And behind this horde and graves, a group of a few hooded young people glances in silence, their presences oddly… familiar to Veronica.

"This aura… Are they Undead?" she wondered, as she quickly flew down while alerting everyone inside of her body to get prepared for battle.

After having painstakingly practiced her shapeshifting abilities since the very day she acquired them, Veronica has developed impressive transformation capabilities, and with each Job change, such capabilities, understanding, and many other factors multiplied, giving her tremendous insight into the manipulation of her metallic body.

She was an impressive being, an Undead Living Armor with the ability to shapeshift its metallic body, expand it, and retract it at will, giving her a powerful advantage over an enormous amount of other living beings, she was a unique existence by itself.

By breaking through the air as she fell towards the ground, her body began to turn into liquid metal as it quickly changed shapes within seconds, by using her multiple clones minds as auxiliary helpers over the enormous pressure that was shaping her own body, Veronica extended herself as if she were a giant rocket.

BOOM!

Her body fell over the ground, generating an enormous tremor that agitated the nearby army of Undead, as they glanced at the gigantic, dark-colored tower made entirely out of metal that had fallen from the sky out of nowhere.

The tower began to glow in an eerie and abyssal aura, fear took over the enslaved souls of the Undead as an intimidating presence both suppressed them almost instantly while also instilling a slow sense of fascination.

"Deploying reinforcements!" said Veronica through her tower-shaped body, startling the Undead even more.

Flash! Flash!

Suddenly, the gigantic tower breaks apart, as several people wearing the armor of the same colors emerge one after another, alongside enormous monsters of all shapes and sizes.

A Giant Slime falls over a dozen of Undead, dissolving them instantly within its viscous body, a giant dark-colored armored spider spreads its threads around and captures another dozen of Undead within a second, three gigantic trees shaped in the form of humans rampage with their gigantic trunks, an enormous snake made out of vines begins its incessant charge accompanied by another long behemoth, alongside the many monsters, humanoid figures emerge as well, one after another, each one unleashed powerful attacks that began to annihilate the threats before them within seconds.

The Bear-kin watches with awe as these new and unexpected reinforcements suddenly change the tide of the war towards their favor.

"What… who are these people… these monsters?!"

"I don't know, but they're fighting the Undead!"

"Allies? From where?"

"Wait, perhaps Hasaen-sama has sent us Divine Helpers?" asked a religious Bear-kin, referring to their Heroic Bear-kin God, Gazdan.

"Despite everything, our prayers have been answered!" said another.

Veronica inspected the entire battlefield as she detected those that were at the brink of death, while also detecting the graves, spawn monoliths created through some kind of spell that she had never seen before.

"Those graveyards are the cause behind this incessant Undead army! Destroy them!" she said, commanding her allies as she began to work too. Her tower-shaped body suddenly transformed into a giant metallic spider with several cannon-shaped structures atop its body, charging into the battle while calling upon Ozgeth, Shade, and Pete's help, generating powerful projectiles from within the cannons of her metallic body.

"Ervas, I am counting on you!" said Veronica, as Ervas flew through the skies of the battlefield while wearing a light-weighted dark armor, that even came with a small helmet.

"Leave it to me, Veronica!" said Ervas with confidence, as he began to expand his golden-colored spectral soul and Aura all around the battlefield.

"Gaia! Alraune! Aura of Healing!" said Ervas, as Gaia and Alraune, a beautiful little girl made out of roots and a long hair made out of leaves, alongside a gigantic and phantasmagoric creature made out of countless plants emerge from within his body through Ervas' Plant Binding Technique Skill.

"Alright!"

"Guuuooon…!"

Gaia and Alraune quickly converged their powers while being fed with Ervas Mana, generating a glow of bright gold and clear green colors, spreading them through the bloody battlefield.

Flash!

The Undead were suddenly weakened after being impacted with pure Life Energy, while the wounded bear-kin quickly had their wounds recovered, although those with broken bones or wounds too big only had the outside wounds closed.

Ragdaz felt the aura of healing impact his entire body. A warmth like he had never felt before embraced him as he was in his last moments of life. Ervas appeared right behind him within a few seconds of having conjured Aura of Healing.

"You're… Ragdaz, right? Your wounds are terrible… It seems that you were frozen all over your body before bursting. In a way, this freezing helped you not explode into pieces… Do not worry, you are in good hands now," said Ervas, as his hands touched Ragdaz, while his golden spectral soul emerged as countless tentacles, entering Ragdaz's body and beginning to quickly repair all of the internal wounds.

"Ah… Who…? Who are you?" asked Ragdaz as his eyes could barely withstand the intense fatigue, resisting the impulse of fainting at any second. His body had crossed the limits that it had several times, maintaining itself from exploding into pieces only through his Surpass Limits Skill while being constantly fed with Mana he acquired by eating bones through Digestion. When he was attacked by Azra's Demon Fire, he was unexpectedly saved from his doom, as his muscles and bones that were about to burst were frozen in place.

"My name is Ervas… I am a good friend of your son, Gaius, ah, he's here…" said Ervas, as he glanced at Gaius, who confronted Azra after having defended an old bear-kin man. Ervas of course had begun to take care of all the wounded that Azra left from his crazed attacks the moment he came, not only giving attention to Ragdaz. By expanding his spectral soul into long tentacles, he managed to touch every wounded, infusing within their bodies healing Spells.

"Gaius…? …My son?! Is this… true? Please…! Tell him… to stop Azra…" muttered Ragdaz, falling unconscious.

"He's already doing that… Sigh, you already fell unconscious…" muttered Ervas, glancing at Gaius to confront his younger brother.

"Azra… and the other people at the back of the Undead horde… Are they related to- Ah, I will just read his mind," said Ervas, reading Ragdaz's mind as he finally managed to get a hold of what was truly happening here.

"A Necromancer? And those kids… They are from this tribe? Veronica. Tell everyone to not harm the hooded people at the back!" said Ervas, communicating with Veronica through his armor, as it was one of her clones.

"Gotcha, I already read another guy's mind, so I also guessed as much… We'll be restraining them soon, though, their Auras…" muttered Veronica.

"Indeed, those Auras are not normal magician Auras of Mana… Those, clearly contain Death Attribute Magic in very concentrated amounts, it's as if their Souls were contaminated and covered in accursed miasma…" said Ervas.

"So you also thought the same, their Auras felt as if they were Undead! How crazy is that? Just who did that? Is there… that Necromancer seems to be a Death Attribute Mage of some sort, but he's clearly incredible if he's capable of gifting his own magic into these younglings…" said Veronica.

"He's clearly no normal being, it seems that, amongst the information I got, this Necromancer can grant powers similar to 'Divine Protections'… Veronica, are you thinking the same thing as me?" asked Ervas.

"Another God…?! Ah, come on! We just killed one!" said Veronica.

"I know how you feel. However, he seems to be described as too weak to simply be a God… I have an itch that it might be something else with similar powers to a God…" said Ervas.

"What else could…? Ah! An Anir or Kelsus Fragment? Perhaps if it parasitized a soul that was fitting enough… Perhaps…!" said Veronica.

"Indeed, that might be one of the cases, we are not dealing with a simple God now, but with a fragment of the Demon God King…" muttered Ervas.

"We already knew that Fragments had wills of their own, but to think that there was one so treacherous as this Necromancer! We have to hurry up and extract as much info about this guy from these Necromancer Kids!" said Veronica.

"Yeah, we are on it…" said Ervas, as he glanced from within one of his Phantom Clones accompanying his Plant-type monsters, as they ravaged the enormous graves and reached the young Necromancers, who were trying to run away.

"O-Oi, what the hell?!"

"Who are these guys?! They're too strong!"

"Run! We have to report this to our lord!

"Trap them, Ivy! Don't worry, I will negate the poison for you…" said Ervas.

"Gisshaaaaaa!" roared Ivy.

Meanwhile, Gaius bared his metallic claws as his wicked younger brother confronted him.

-----