When I see the five of them, my first thought is that they are vampires. However, I am too far away to be able to tell for sure and I don't plan to get closer. The four males are all wearing armor, but the female is wearing a long dress.

The four males kneel around the female, so I guess she must be the maker. As I look at her she actually spots me and when our eyes meet my instincts start screaming at me to run. She doesn't do anything that I can see but suddenly all the undead move towards me.

There is no way I can fight all of them, so I turn and run towards the edge of the island. The main reason I don't gate immediately is I want some distance from the maker. I am worried that if I am too close she might block my gate, or worse learn how to gate.

If the undead are trapped on this island then they won't be much of a threat. However, if they can move about freely, then they will become a threat to the elves. I don't really care if they cause problems for the humans, but I need to protect the elves.

The best way to do that is to keep the undead trapped on this island until we have left. I doubt I can trap them permanently, the humans will come here to explore eventually. Besides, at some point I may want to come back to get more Origin Energy.

Although, if I ever do come back I will probably have to deal with undead dinosaurs. That will be a problem to deal with when and if it happens, for now I don't want to think about it. The entire time I am running away I can feel the maker's eyes on me.

As soon as I reach the edge of the island I create the gate and jump through. The instant my feet hit the sand on the other side I spin around and close the gate. Unfortunately, before it fully closes, something stops it from closing the rest of the way.

Then, despite me struggling to close it, the gate opens back up and undead start coming through. As the first undead tries to step through the gate I kick it as hard as I can. It flies back through the gate and hits the other undead, buying me a few more seconds.

I summon up all my remaining mana and throw it at the gate in an effort to force it to close or overload. As I do I can feel the energy of the maker holding the gate open and fighting against me. Despite using all my mana, it isn't enough to fight against the maker's power.

It is a good thing I didn't gate directly back to the village, the elves would be in danger. However, I still don't want to let the undead have this island, but how do I close the gate? I am already out of mana, I have Origin Energy but I have no clue how to use it in this instance.

The undead have picked themselves up and are once again pushing to come through the gate. At this point I have no choice but to use some divine power, so I cast Holy Light. The undead in the gate, and probably those behind them, instantly turn into ashes.

12 Ancient Zombies defeated! 600,000 Exp gained!

7 Ancient Skeletons defeated! 280,000 Exp gained!

While I may not have been able to steal their energy, these undead are really nice exp! If it wasn't for the fact that all the released energy goes back to the maker I would just wipe them all out. Then again, that would mean using a lot of divine power, which would get me in trouble with Krenocia.

However, if I don't find a way to close this gate I am not going to have much choice. It should have closed on its own when I stopped providing mana to it. Somehow the maker has taken it over and is the one providing the power to it.

All the mana I shoved into it in an attempt to close it is still there, but it isn't doing anything. The gate is staying open even though it is showing signs of being unstable. The undead will still be able to pass through though, so I need to think of something!

In the end I am unable to come up with any fancy ideas and just switch to brute force. I grab the sides of the gate with my hands, which hurts a little, and start squeezing. Pushing with all my strength I manage to make the gate bow a little in the middle.

Now instead of the normal oval it looks more like an eight, but it still isn't closed. Despite trying with all my might, I can't get the gate to move any further than that. However, the edges of the gate are starting to spasm and I can feel the energies going out of control.

If this keeps up the gate is going to explode, which is fine, but I feel like it is going to hurt. Luckily, I don't sense Brightfire and Nala close by, they must be out hunting. Meaning I am the only one who will be injured by the explosion on this side.

Hopefully, the explosion on the other side will kill a whole bunch of the undead. Maybe if I get lucky it will hurt some of the higher leveled ones, but I probably won't be able to tell. While I want to let go and run away, I can't, if I let go the gate might stabilize.

So, as the gate starts showing more and more signs of collapsing, all I can do is turn my head away. I don't actually remember the explosion, the next thing I know I am waking up with my head in Brightfire's lap. Although I am curious as to what happened, for the moment I don't move.

For one thing, I am enjoying the current view, for another I am not sure if I am hurt. When I examine myself I find no wounds, but from how my body feels I can tell there were some. Luckily, it looks like there wasn't anything that my regen couldn't take care of.

"Uh, what happened?"

Brightfire says "I have no idea. There was an explosion and I found you lying in a crater. You were badly torn up, but you slowly healed. What were you doing?"

"There was a slight problem. How long has it been since the explosion? Have you seen any undead?"

Brightfire says "About two hours have passed since the explosion. No, I haven't seen any undead. Why?"

"There was a problem with the gate, the maker of the undead took control of it. The explosion was the destruction of the gate, I was standing next to it. I just wanted to make sure no undead got through."

Brightfire says "You were in the middle of the explosion and you survived? How?!"

"Well, it was just the force of the explosion. I am immune to the fire part of it. In fact, the fire healed me, which is probably how I survived."

Brightfire says "Why would you do something so insane?!"

"Because, otherwise the undead would be flooding this island and you and Nala would die."