"Hakon was a careful, diligent one, though he had his quirks as well, like how he reraised his wife after her untimely death and had her zombie accompany him all his life. His passion for modifying corpses - I had always suspected that he merely wanted to keep his wife's body beautiful forever - was what got him the nickname of Flesh Artisan.

When he departed to the north west, he did so not alone, but with a cadre of his own students, who had been fascinated by his works. I suspect that the main reason Antemeia had been relatively decent and peaceful until now was because until recently, the first elder of their council was a student of Hakon's student.

Even so, nearly a millennium had passed since his departure. While his legacy of a nation had not experienced drastic changes like Cainte or Junora, it still changed gradually, in my opinion for the worse. They grew too fascinated with death magic, to the point of disparaging other forms of magic, and treating those born without magical talent as little better than animals.

To be honest, I often wondered how my late students would have reacted if they could see what the nations they raised ended up becoming? Would they be disappointed? Dismayed? Or would they just accept that change is generally inevitable?" - Nec Aarin, the Bone Lord.

The first sign Aideen saw that hinted that something had went wrong was when Haon suddenly paused, and howled madly. Not long after, Trí and Ceathair also bellowed inhuman noises full of rage, as they went berserk, and tore apart everything before them, be it zombies, abominations, or revenants.

Just as she helped her team of Death Guards finish the last of the revenants that attacked her team, Aideen watched as Trí, who happened to be nearby, squished a revenant that leapt and tried to escape her between two of her shields, then hammered down with maces until the only thing left of the revenant was a pile of bloody meat pulp, its former shape rendered unrecognizable.

At roughly the same time, she could make out Haon's figure, rushing in her team's direction. His powerful frame of bone just barreled through the throng of undead, while the six bone blades on his back sliced and tore apart any that refused to move away, sending body parts flying all over the place.

Many of the Death Guards flinched when Haon's large bone frame leapt over their heads and landed within their perimeter, though fortunately he was not attacking them at all, and made his way to Aideen instead, where he keened sadly, as if imploring her to do something, while gesturing towards his back.

"You want me to get on?" Aideen asked the bone construct, aware that the sentient soul within understood her to an extent.

Haon nodded rapidly at her words, and gestured again, with more keening, and Aideen gave a quick word to her team of Death Guards to regroup with the others and assess their losses while she was gone. Those words said, she leapt onto Haon's broad back, and the bone wolf took off into a run, headed back where they had come from.

Aideen's premonition of the situation worsened as Haon ran his way back out from the frontlines, his large figures weaving around and leaping over soldiers in his haste, as he ran towards where Kestera's group was. Even from afar Aideen could see the commotion there, and how some guards were still busy dispatching a few remaining revenants while others formed a protective barrier with their bodies and shields around their charges.

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Haon mostly ignored the ongoing fight, other than a nonchalant flick of his bone blades as they rushed past where one of the revenant was, which severed an arm and a leg off said revenant and let the infantrymen dispatch it easily. He did not wait for the infantrymen to give way, but just leapt straight over their heads, and his large frame landed just a hair away from Clovis, causing the half orc to jolt in surprise.

With a single glance, Aideen saw just what went wrong, and why her mother's old pets had gone berserk with rage. The Bone Lord had passed the four to Mimia after her mother's death, and they had bonded with her in the years since. And now Mimia lay in Éirynn's embrace, bleeding heavily from a stab wound on her chest, while Éirynn hugged her and cried.

That said, Aideen saw Mimia cough up blood, and how bloody froth was mixed in, with her blood, and realized that she breathed still, so she immediately went down from Haon's back, who was sadly nuzzling Mimia with his nose.

Kestera and Clovis made room for her, and Aideen quickly knelt down next to Mimia, and channeled every bit of magic she could call on into her wound. There she felt a resistance, as if the flesh refused to knit as she commanded, a feeling she was familiar with, as she had experienced it herself. She also felt Mimia's own mana struggling against it as she tried to do something about the injury, her own efforts probably the only reason she still lived at the moment.

Aideen didn't take it slow this time. Back when she had dealt with the same issue, it was on herself, and she had no worries about dying again. Mimia didn't have that much time to spare, so Aideen brute forced it, overwhelming the poison that denied healing with an overflow of her own mana, which worked together with Mimia's own to rapidly seal the wound that had torn through her left lung. She had avoided death by a very small margin, as a little bit to the right and the blade would have pierced through her heart instead.

Mimia coughed repeatedly, and Aideen helped raise her up to a sitting position together with Éirynn, and gave her back a couple of slaps, which got her to cough out some globs of liquid and clotted blood that had been stuck in her lung before. Aideen pulsed her magic again to help make sure her airways were unobstructed, before she looked at Mimia in the eye and asked her.

"Feeling all right now?" Aideen asked to Mimia, who was hugging and consoling the hysterical Éirynn in her hands.

"Wasn't expecting soul puppets, guess they must've kept them hidden before this," replied Mimia as her hand stroked Éirynn's hair while she cried on her chest. "That last bastard would've hit Éirynn otherwise."

"You almost died there, you know?" Aideen said at her words. While she was happy that Mimia cared for Éirynn enough to take a blow for her, she also didn't want anything untoward to happen to Mimia either. "Another bit to the right and I don't know if I'd have made it in time. Not sure you could hold on that long if it had struck your heart."

"The blade was laced with Corpse's Bane," replied Mimia as Haon happily licked her cheek with his bony tongue. "I got a couple scratches fighting the one before it, and noticed it right away. Not going to risk that hitting Éirynn."

"What about the soul puppets?" Aideen asked again. "Anything that'd give us clues?"

"Might be a bit hard to look for those," Kestera replied from the side. "Dó went berserk after Mimia got hit, and she kinda tore them into bits in short order."

One look at the spider-lizard bone construct and Aideen saw that it did that feat not without some cost, as three of Dó's legs were broken or severed, and there were cracks all over her body, but she gently snuggled against Mimia like a pet did, albeit in a protective manner.

"Will Mimia be alright?" Clovis asked with some worry in his voice. As Mimia's junior, he had seen her like an older sister of sorts, and naturally worried for her well being.

"She should be fine. Corpse's Bane wasn't made to deal with Mortality, so it didn't react adversely. She will likely feel weak for a while since she lost a lot of blood, but she should recover in a few days," answered Aideen. "Will you all be fine now? The battle is intensifying and they might need me at the front."

"We'll be fine, aunt Aideen," replied Mimia with a nod, and indeed, Aideen could see that at least another couple hundred infantrymen had returned to establish a guard detail around them to prevent a repeat. "Go on, let Haon bring you there."

"Stay safe," said Aideen as she mounted Haon again. The bone wolf seemed hesitant to leave Mimia, but after she told him to go he acquiesced and leapt over the guards on his way out, running back towards the frontlines faster than a horse could, with Aideen seated on his back.