“If anyone should be arrested, it should be you,” The clerk continued. “Pretending to be an inquisitor and using a fake token to try to arrest a guild member on bogus charges… I daresay all of that carries a heavy price.”

I noted that his uneasiness seemed to be gone now and completely replaced with confidence.

Felmar’s words caused a wave of nervousness to wash over the other man as he reached for his sword with a shaky hand, rage emanating from his eyes and spilling over into the rest of his face. As soon as he’d unsheathed his sword, the other soldiers followed suit and drew theirs.

The guards sitting around the campfire were quick to get to their feet and had their own weapons drawn within a split second, hurrying to my side to oppose the false inquisitor. None of them seemed to have any idea what was going on, but their faith, and loyalty, apparently lay with Felmar.

It did beg the question of who those other soldiers were.

I focused on the man in black, my halberd at the ready, imbued by magic, and my barrier at maximum strength. From the looks of it, conflict was brewing and was likely already unavoidable at this point. We were in the minority, sure, but I knew just how much damage I could inflict. The only issue here was that I had no idea about the strength of my opponents.

The sinister man then pointed his sword at me before he finally found his words.

“Slay the others, but bring her to me alive.”

Amarys refused to sit by idly and made her way over to me despite my earlier orders. I had to command her again to stay out of this with even more force in my thoughts than before. She was reluctant, but my will was absolute on this matter.

The enemy soldiers remained far away and moved to create an arc to surround us, but despite the prospect of conflict, Felmar still remained standing in the doorway, awfully calm. What little I knew of him led me to believe something was off, and my doubt wasn’t misplaced as suddenly a familiar voice sounded from behind the closest wall.

“Well, well, well. I had heard there were odd things happening here, but this is quite something.”

Selleron’s voice caused everyone to freeze, his mere presence casting a shadow of intimidation over the would-be battlefield. As he appeared from behind the building, it became clear that the reason why Felmar wasn’t worried in the slightest was that the captain was here, and with him, several soldiers.

He walked forward and gave me a quick look with a slight smile before focusing his attention on the man who’d caused me several miserable moments.

“Wild accusations, threatening, intimidation, and now, conspiracy to murder Thymhil’s guards and an attempt to kidnap a member of our city’s guild. You aren’t who you say you are, and frankly, I don’t give a damn.”

He spat on the ground next to him, adjusted his helmet and drew his sword with the soldiers behind him unsheathing theirs. He had brought a group of five with him, making the numbers about even, which should theoretically give us an edge.

“No matter,” The short-cloaked man sputtered in anger, trying to sound calm. “Annihilate them,” He commanded.

He himself remained where he was as the soldiers rushed in. The combatants on our side spread out in a half circle as well to each meet one of our opponents. It was only when our foes got close that I noticed that nothing was visible on their faces. Everything was hidden behind their helmets, and what little would otherwise be visible was covered by cloth for some reason.

They charged in and my halberd was the first to strike a target. I used the tip to stab and felt it penetrate through the soldier’s plate armor.

That was also where even stranger things started happening. I pushed my target back, knowing the wound would be fatal, and with a yank, withdrew my weapon from the soon-to-be corpse. When I did so, I noticed there was no blood on either his equipment or on my tip. Instead, there was some kind of black oozing liquid that quickly evaporated.

Around me, the soldiers on our sides seemed to experience the same. Their targets were hit fairly easily, likely due to the experience they boasted. Hell, if Selleron was here on Felmar’s request and they had some kind of knowledge of this guy showing up, I deemed it logical for him to bring a veteran squad.

Our adversaries fell like flies, and soon enough, all of them were scattered on the forest floor around us. Yet, all of us had the same thing on our minds: What was that?

“Useless minions,” The inquisitor called, frustrated but not demoralized. He pointed his sword forward once more. “Again.”

Suddenly, the dead bodies before us were lifted and hovered a few inches above the ground as a black mist started seeping from the gaps in their armor. It swirled, much like the fire and ice in our spell orb, and it was sucked out of their bodies as it traveled through the air in a cylindrical motion, straight to their master’s sword, which it entered.

The magic that held the bodies in the air was dispelled, and they landed with soft thuds. None of us made a move and instead remained in a defensive formation. Then, our defeated enemies rose to their feet once more.

“What the actual fuck,” I heard one of the soldiers say from my side.

“Remain calm,” Selleron said. “We’ve killed them once. We can do it again.”

He then was the first to stab one of the newly risen warriors, and, while his sword easily pierced the armor, perhaps too easily, it came back clean. Besides that, the target he’d just pierced didn’t seem to care in the slightest over what should have been a fatal wound and simply remained standing. In fact, it made no sound whatsoever. I’d at least expected a scream like…

Wait.

There hadn’t been a single scream at all.

These… things weren’t elves, were they?

That much was already clear, but now, they were apparently even further from anything that could be considered a normal form of life.

Selleron narrowed his eyes as he slashed his sword upward, removing the being’s helmet with a well-aimed strike and revealed a skull with blue crystal-like orbs for eyes that peered into his own.

“Undead,” Selleron exclaimed as he swung again, removing the skeleton’s head from its torso. Unfortunately, it remained standing and tried to stab the captain as a response.

I’d quickly summoned an earthen wall to block the attack and the captain had jumped backward to dodge. The attack would have missed him anyway but he still thanked me for my assistance. The others had already started hacking their way through the risen foes, but no matter how many body parts they cut off, they couldn’t die, not by normal means anyway.

Selleron’s blade – which had seemed suspiciously ordinary for a guard captain even back during my trial run in the dungeon – started glowing red; some kind of magic or enchantment. Magic was what was needed to kill unconventional enemies like these, but I wasn’t sure how strong his ability was.

The person that was clearly controlling them let out a laugh as black mists flowed across the dirt to seep back into the skeletons, reattaching lost limbs to their bodies again and again.

“Selleron, I’m going to get rid of these, but it’s a channeled spell. I might need some help.”

“Gotcha.”

“I’ll add some of my magic to the mix as well,” Cellestra called from my back before conjuring a fireball that she flung at the nearest skeletal warrior.

“Thank you,” I said as I started casting my spell.

A ring of light appeared on the ground around me and expanded outward with a ripple, washing over the enemies, a herald of what was to come. I needed a bit of time, but this was by far the best spell for me to use in this scenario.

Several more ripples were required before I started doing at least a bit of damage as the light was starting to leave black burn marks on bone.

Our team wasn’t having the hardest time surviving, but the nature of our enemies and the fact that they kept regenerating, fueled by the magic of what I could only understand to be some kind of necromancer, meant that this was a battle of attrition. We had magic, which did some work, but the black magics before us were potent, and healed any ‘wounds’, the burns I was inflicting included.

However, my spell would ensure victory eventually as it would do more and more damage with each pulse. At one point, it would simply turn any undead into dust.

My spell grew in power and I could feel it starting to drain me of my mana. The damage I was inflicting was starting to overpower any regeneration capabilities, and I knew the end was in sight.

Then, with a couple more ever more powerful waves, the soldiers’ bones disappeared before our very eyes, turned into ashes. The armor they wore dropped to the floor for the nth time, but this time around, wouldn’t rise again.

“Necromancer…” I called out with disgust. My anger was mounting, as was my exhaustion, but my rage was so great that it completely forewent and masked any sense of tiredness. “You’re next.”