In the ruined clearing of Frostveil Village, the next round of the battle was about to begin.
John stood off to the side with his arms crossed, sending out his newly-created undead.
"Sabría. Handle it."
Being a True Necromancer, there wasn’t really a need to fight himself. If he had, it would’ve ended almost at once -- his current stats were enough to make anyone he fought look like children. Even sending Sabría was more than enough.
Sabría gripped her curved black blade like it was an extension of her soul. Facing her was Henry in his evolved form, a disgusting mountain of muscle and fused beast flesh, as he towered over ten feet in height. His looks could be called, honestly, pretty atrocious.
John called out from the side, calmly.
"You there. Remember -- quality over quantity. Never forget that."
Henry didn’t understand a word of it. He just swung down one of his massive arms. Sabría slid aside effortlessly and the limb slammed into the earth where she had been a second ago.
Even in this monstrous state some of Henry’s combat instincts remained. He twisted his body, narrowly avoiding a rising slash intended to cleave his ribs.
John watched the fight with interest. This was one of his newly-forged undead fighting at full power and he couldn’t help but lean in a bit, slightly entertained.
Sabría didn’t give her opponent a chance to retaliate. Her blade flashed in her hands several times and she forced him to the defense.
After several passes, she ran her free hand along the length of her weapon and the black metal melted and fused together to form a long, flexible whip of necrotic energy -- dark, segmented and lined with razor-sharp edges of shadow.
She cracked the whip sideways and Henry barely managed to avoid it as the weapon wrapped around his lower leg, splitting it open and a thick amount of blood splattered onto the ground as the ten-foot monster staggered.
Sabría glanced back at John with a slight smile.
"This is overkill, Master. Perhaps we should let one of the lower undead finish this off."
John just shook his head and gestured to her to come back. What she did next actually got to him.
Sabría dropped to her hands and knees and crawled towards him like a hound approaching its master. When she reached his feet she looked up and softly said, "Master."
John chuckled and reached down, rubbing the top of her head and giving her a gentle scratch under the chin as one would do to a favored puppy.
"Stay here. I’m just going to play with that thing for a moment."
He walked towards the injured Henry who let out a rough laugh.
"Such arrogance. You could’ve let your summon finish me... but you’d rather fight me yourself.
Bring it on!"
Henry charged with his massive form. John side-stepped easily and the Azure Soulreaper appeared in his hand mid-air.
He swung it in a wide arc, nicely reopening the wound done by Sabría. The giant form fell to the ground.
John looked down at the fallen monster and shook his head. Henry’s body was shrinking in size, cracking as he reverted to being human, but his eyes were now entirely bloodshot as if something was looking out of them.
Sabría’s voice sharpened with warning.
"Master, get away from him. His stats are skyrocketing at an abnormal rate."
John could also feel it. It was as if some kind of demon inhabited the man’s body. A moment later the proof arrived as two short black horns pushed up through his forehead.
John exhaled.
"So he sold his soul for power. What a shame. His name could’ve gone down in history as the first opponent in Frostveil to face the wrath of the True Necromancer."
Henry or rather whatever was currently inhabiting him gestured and the beasts that had answered his call were different in the next wave as they were hellish creatures with burning eyes and blackened flesh as if they crawled from the pits of the underworld.
John dismissed his scythe and raised a hand.
[Death Domain]
A wave of oppressive necrotic energy expanded outward. Immediately the power of every summoned beast was cut in half.
John gestured to Sabría next.
She appeared right in front of him, ready to take over the fight again. John was a summoner before anything else and without his undead even the Azure Soulreaper would not be enough to fight the true S-rank that had sold his soul. The realization was irritating more than he cared to admit.
Sabría raised her blade and beckoned the hellish beasts forward. All four of them charged her at the same time.
She swung at the first intending to take off their heads but the creature twisted and sank its fangs into her forearm, black ichor dripping from the wound. Sabría only smiled.
"That is nothing. For my master I will go beyond my limits."
She turned towards the remaining three. Her blade flashed in several clean arcs, carving through their hardened skin like butter.
She sliced the first across the chest and the second through the neck, and the third cleanly in half at the waist. Her body seemed to glow slightly brighter each time as if the battle fed her.
The beast that had bitten her arm lunged from behind, its claws arcing to embed themselves in her spine. Sabría spun and drove her sword straight through the creature’s torso. It went still and began to regenerate almost immediately.
The constant regeneration was becoming annoying.
John decided the fight had gone on long enough. In an entirely unfair move, he sent one of his lesser undead directly at Henry himself forcing the man to split his focus.
The moment he did, the regeneration of his beasts significantly slowed down.
Sabría used this opening. She raised her blade and sent an invisible slash of pure cutting force. Henry’s eyes widened as a deep wound opened across his chest.
In the next instant he activated a skill.
[Teleport Summon]
His body vanished and was replaced by a single dying beast left as a decoy. He had fled.
John stared at the empty space where Henry had been, his expression dissatisfied.
Why am I still so weak? I have all my skills and still couldn’t finish off a simple S-rank adventurer.
"John, dear."
A calm female voice spoke from behind him.
He turned and saw the very same woman that had appeared during the Glenwood Cavern incident. The Ice Mage who had rescued Hiden at one point.
Sabría reacted immediately. She closed the distance in a blur, aiming a killing strike intending to bisect the newcomer. The blade met with a wall of frozen ice and halted.
Elise’s voice remained calm.
"I’m not here to fight. I’m here to propose a deal. And you don’t have to worry about Henry... I already killed him."
John didn’t exactly trust her but gestured for her to continue.
Mist drifted from Elise’s lips as she spoke in a calm, measured voice.
"The capital is in an uproar at the moment due to the Seven Deadly Sins."
John’s eyes narrowed. "How are they alive? Didn’t the Goddess seal them?"
Elise shook her head.
"She did. But the seal was broken. The Goddess of Alderia was killed by the Demon King of Hell."
She looked at him seriously.
"John... don’t ever return to Alderia. They already have people searching for you, Aiko, and Lyra."
"And why are you telling me all this?" John asked.
"We’re supposed to be enemies."
"I’m not your enemy," Elise replied. "I could never be your enemy. The higher-ups are the ones pulling the strings... but you already knew that, didn’t you?"
John gave a small nod.
"I had a feeling you weren’t evil. You could’ve attacked us back at Glenwood Cavern... and you knew we were coming here."
He paused.
"So the guild receptionist, Elsa... was it?"
Elise’s lips curved slightly.
"So you found out. Can’t hide anything from you, it seems."
A moment later her form dissolved into drifting mist and was gone completely.
John stared at the empty air and shook his head.
"These people and their weird teleportation skills..."
He stood alone in the clearing with the bodies of monsters and villagers littering the blood-stained ground.
The battle was over.
The only outcome was death and a deeper, heavier sadness.