Enemies deserve to die, and no, it doesn’t matter if their hands are up or if they’re on their knees begging for their life, while blood is flowing out of their bodies.
That little thing called mercy, is something reserved for your own, for those who have made a mistake, not someone who chooses a side, which wants you dead, something that’s always a choice.
Having mercy, sympathy, empathy or really having any feeling beyond a healthy respect for anyone who wants you dead is beyond foolish.
Enemies deserve, to, die, but… there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that in war there’s always good people on both sides of any conflict, particularly when today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies.
The winds of fate can be fickle, and there’s always a bigger fish, an empire more evil or unable to stand some moral injustice, with the ironic thing of course being that those “evil armies” typically have the most good people in them.
People dragged into the conflict, trapped, forced or tricked into a nightmare, because that’s what war is.
A never ending terror that not only haunts one on the battlefield, but one, which follows long after they have escaped its grasp, and what good person would knowingly sign up for that?
Sign up to watch their friends die, to be haunted by memories for the rest of their lives, and ultimately be left with a question which will never be answered.
“Was it all worth it?”
The thing is, when people are coming to kill you, it doesn’t matter if they’re a good person, it doesn’t matter if they’re doing the wrong thing for the right reason, if they themselves are a victim or even a child.
The only thing that matters is your life versus there’s, which of the two is more important?
A question few struggle to answer, but one which carries a weight, few can bear.
The words of some forgotten soldier
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Osmond stares at the battlefield, thousands of Nelka, and Salazar corpses laid out on the ground.
The price of victory!
At least for a single battle yet, for some reason it doesn’t quite feel like a win, particularly when the royals show up in their glistening golden armor, and hundreds of guards who for some reason were nowhere to be found during the actual battle.
Something, which maybe wouldn’t be so bad if they were just quiet about it.
Like, no one expects a general to run face first into the grinder, but for some reason the pompous way they talk, as if none of this really matters, as if they played some role, just feels like a wedge being driven into his brain.
Each word being a strike, that shakes him, and fuels a growing ringing in his ears.
“A few more battles like this, and I’m sure we’ll wipe these filthy invaders out in no time.
It’s like I’ve always said we ju-” “And what do you know?
Five words, spat out with such vitriol, it stops everyone in place.
One of the royals, even looks confused as if they can’t actually believe what they heard, but the royal who was speaking?
Their scales flush red, underneath their golden scales, before they turn starting directly at Osmond.
“Of course, it would be you, the coward who was nowhere to be found when our liege lord met their end against these filthy invaders.”
Red, all Osmond sees is red, and before he knows it he’s on top of the little noble.
One hand holding him in place while the other is a fist pounding into their face over, and over again.
Guard’s try to tear him off, but his claws are literally digging into the noble, and when they finally manage to fling him off.
A chunk of flesh comes with him, the noble is left broken on the ground, blood pooling out of his body, and Osmond is on his knees panting.
Shuffling, the pounding of feet, then fills the clearing, and when Osmond looks up.
Guards are forming ranks in front of him for some reason looking past him, instead of just taking him into custody, and when he turns around.
He sees soldiers behind him, the same ones he just fought with, still in their blood covered damaged armor, and such a sharp contrast to the noble retainers.
“Well now isn’t this interesting.”
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The undead come back to the graveyard like conquering champions, some of the rescue corps are waving black flags in the air, and grinding the city to a halt.
Draugr stare open mouthed at the carts filled with undead, and the piles of materials being brought back.
While a sense of pride can practically be felt radiating off some of the more traditional undead, as they look at the wild undead who are now going to a fresh new chance at life.
Kacious, is walking through the middle of it all, waving at various undead, and they get about halfway through the graveyard, when a light blooms behind them.
A massive glowing blue orb, that’s quickly joined by two more, three shining blue suns rising into the sky, their glaring brilliance blinding all who look at them directly, and even putting off a faint pulsing wave of heat.
Then the lights implode, mana washes through the graveyard with more force than a hurricane.
The ground is torn, rocks, stone, buildings, trees, everything is picked up, burning in the air, and the marching undead turn in a single motion.
Their shields rise, a faint black mist beginning to cover the undead, but before it really has a chance to build, the mana washes over the undead.
The black mist is shattered, as the wave of energy smashes into them, undead are flung into the air, and everything they have built is torn apart in an instant, as the wave keeps pushing into the graveyard.
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Veronica turns towards the light, for a moment terror filling her body, before the light touches the undead.
Extinguishing so many lives in an instant, and Veronica can feel each of them dying.
Her domain wraps around her like a blanket, as if each of the undead are holding onto her, begging her to save them, and when the wave hits her, she’s tossed in the air.
The raging energy tries to consume her, until she crashes to the floor, where for some reason the energy is harmlessly blasting above her.
Talent Gained
Unstoppable – Death came a knocking, but your domain said not today, and the experience has left your domain with something more.
The strength to resist stronger attacks, and a shroud that will limit some things from leaking out to the wider universe.
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I turn towards the glowing lights, the rising suns so much worse than a raging wildfire, or even some volcano raging off in the distance, and truly only reminds me of one thing.
A rising mushroom cloud, a calmness washes over me, as utter disbelief stuns me for about half a second, while Tides, and Vie on the other hand do everything they can in order to survive.
“Move all of these materials, we need angled layers now! Furthest layer flesh, ten feet, bone layer eight feet, blood six, and lastly arcane four feet! Then drop to the floor, and feed all of your mana into the arcane layer Vie is making!” Tides says, before hundreds of undead, burn their mana.
Hundreds of thousands spent in an instant, the air literally becoming filled with its mixed light, making the air heavier, before either transforming into materials or moving the stockpile, countless tons of materials, before the wave smashes into us.
The wall of flesh is torn to pieces in an instant, the meat being pulled into the air, and blasting above the next layers.
Bone lasts maybe half a second longer, for a moment the bone takes on a blazing glow, before shattering, and smashing into the layer of blood.
The red crystal instantly begins to crack, before bursting into a dust that drifts into the arcane layer, before harmlessly floating above it.
Hundreds of streams of mana are slamming into the arcane layer, as the wave of mana roars above it.
The blue mana acts like a wave of wind, all the force slamming into the wall, before surging above, until it too begins to crack.
Lines race through the crystal as the undead run out of mana, the light of their mana slowly fading out, but two streams of mana seem endless.
Mine, and Vie’s, two lines of energy filling the cracks, while reinforcing the crystal, while the rest of the undead gather underneath the four feet of crystal keeping us safe from certain death.
One of the undead raises their hand too high, perhaps their intrusive thoughts getting the best of them or simply a mistake on their part, but either way, the tips of their fingers vanish in an instant, and then the waves of mana stop.
____________________________________________
The bombs were set off on the edge of the graveyard, and at most only a couple of miles apart, given no one really wanted to go into the graveyard.
The “Battle” more a complete, and utter slaughter, left quite the impression, but that also means a significant chunk of the city was hit by the blast.
The weapons, called mana bombs shockingly enough acting like bombs, and not a directional weapon or something that bursts in a wave.
Resulting in around ten miles of pure city ending up getting swallowed by the mana… Something difficult to even imagine, ten miles of city reduced into nothing more than dust, and glowing smooth arcane stone.
Cars, apartment buildings, houses, everything, and everyone who might have been residing in them reduced into ash.
Around twelve miles including the graveyard all that’s left is perfectly flat arcane covered open ground… the graveyard though, for some reason fared a bit better, well if better can be described as a small section of the graveyard still having something standing above four feet.
The graveyard is gone, almost entirely reduced to dust with only some of the higher tier pieces of metal surviving the blast, and some of those metal pieces are still moving around.
The scouts watch in horror, as some of the undead pull themselves out of the dust, they only see at most a couple of a dozen, but all of them can’t help, but notice that the bounty still hasn’t been claimed. Follow the newest chapters on novelping(.)com.
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Adrenaline rushes through me, I feel alive, I feel dead on my feet, and the undead are the same.
Collapsed on the ground, or staring at all of the destruction, the emptiness surrounding us.
Vie on the other hand is in shock, her eyes are just slowly looking around, and her little hand is just out watching as specs of dust fall into her palm.
It’s jarring in a way that’s even difficult to describe, it’s the death not of innocence for Vie, could never be described as anything close to innocent.
It’s rather, she has come to face something unimaginable, and it has taken something from her.
Then her eyes are drawn towards something off in the distance, hundreds?
Thousands? of people marching towards us.
A crowd of people flinging fire balls at scattered undead covered in shattered metal pieces, who are doing their best to run.
It’s like a pin drops, rage so much rage consumes all of us, but without mana what can we really do?
Then, something changes…
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“I can’t believe that we were scared of these things.” A man says, before smashing his foot into an armoured skeleton who is missing a leg.
The undead just topples over, as the group of six humans surround them, and watch as the panic races through its fiery eyes.
Issec tries to drag himself back to its feet, but as soon as he does, another boot, another club finds its way into his back, and back down he goes.
“Not so tough now, are you?” “Hey let’s hurry up, and finish it, the necromancer has to be around here somewhere.” “About that… I’ve been thinking,” “Oh no, quick someone stop them, before they hurt themselves.” “Ha ha, but seriously… wouldn’t it kind of make sense for the necromancer to be human?”
The group grows quiet “I mean it does make sense right?” “And if it is, whose to say they’re even in the graveyard, instead of just making some undead, and then pissing off?” “Ugh, I am going to be so pissed if we wasted all our credits for nothing.” “I mean if they’re human, we would probably just throw them in jail or something right?” The group once again goes quiet, before someone laughs “Hell, before the system even showed up, if someone offered me a billion dollars to kill someone, and the money was absolutely one hundred percent guaranteed, I would do it, who wouldn’t?
Hell a hundred million would be more than enough.” “What! you’re insane?!” One of the younger members in the group shouts, but the man just scoffs “A billion is what ten million dollars every year, for a hundred years, a hundred is obviously one million a year.” He pauses, before turning towards the group “The real question, is how cheap would you go?
Fifty million is still five hundred thousand, twenty, two hundred fifty like I can’t even imagine making that much money, what could someone even spend it on?
So yeah, a billion dollars is a no brainier particularly for some stranger.”
A few people stare at him, but most of the group just shrugs along.
“Ugh, if it makes some of feel better, just think of all the good you could also do with that kind of money.
Tell me, is one life more important than the potentially hundreds?
Thousands of lives you could make better with that kind of money?” Isaac’s raspy voice then interjects “You all are monsters just pretending that you’re something better.
Look at what you actually do!
Your words are hollow, and all you think of is yoursel-” A boot once again slams into Issec driving them to the floor as their eyes faintly flicker.
“Skeletons calling us monsters, after killing all of those people? The nerve.” The man’s boot rests on top of Issec’s skull, before he lifts his foot into the air, and slams down.
____________________________________________
The boot is coming I can feel the mana surrounding his foot as it plunges towards me, but then there is a spray of red, and something falls beside me.
The foot, it’s separated from the man’s body in a clean cut, and is quickly followed by the man who is not only out of balance due to you know the whole missing leg thing, but has entered shock.
The rest of the clearing on the other hand quickly starts to fill with the sound of screams as Issec once again drags themselves to their feet, but this time.
No one is paying them enough attention to knock them back down, and with a shrug he picks up the severed leg, before smashing it into the nearest human.
____________________________________________
Ghosts, there are ghosts everywhere, an endless stream of monsters swimming through the earth, before reaping lives in an endless blur.
People try to run, try to use skills, and even spells to escape, but where is there to go in a desolate wasteland that has absolutely nothing standing for miles in any direction?
The runners are targeted first, the ghosts hunt them down like they’re dogs, then those who try to put up any kind of fight are picked off.
The mages or warriors with any kind of magical skills are graced with a massive ghostly cyclops at least thirty feet in size, and capable of shrugging of attacks like they don’t even exist, which is the point some did what any reasonable person would do… dropped to their knees, put their hands up, and prayed that the monsters would show them more mercy than they would ever give them.
____________________________________________
Vie watches as her cyclops absolutely rips apart the humans, literally picking them up, and stretching them, until they split right down the middle.
Their entrails, and blood spilling onto the floor, is cathartic in a way, causing the fear she felt to slowly start to fade, but what’s coming from her core?
Still feels like an active wire, endless dripping fear right into her veins, until she pulls her core up.
Cupped in her little hands, before she opens them just a crack, and her core instantly presses against her fingers.
Vie then blows on her fingers, and is instantly answered with a very angry “GRUMBLE!” But after a minute or so of Vie prodding, and smiling into her fingers it finally looks outside of her hand.
First focusing on the crystal covering the ground, hidden behind a layer of ash, but feels oh so tasty, and then it sees the people.
Cowering, running, and being ripped apart by the undead.
The scary humans, being completely, and utterly destroyed.
It’s mesmerized, it’s fear quickly being replaced by fascination.
“Grumble” Vie raises her hands and brings her core directly up to her eyes before saying in a firm steady tone “Don’t worry core, I’ll make sure nothing like this can ever happen to us again.” “Grumble”
____________________________________________
Kacious is dead, Veronica rakes her hand through the grey dust, her domain showing her exactly where he met his end.
Her hand disappears about a foot into the ash, before lifting it up, ash sprinkles between her pure white bones fingers, and a metal little band rests in the palm of her hand.
The little that remains of his armor “Tides, begin reclaiming the fallen, but this time ensure we have an architect while focusing on enchanters, arcane mages, and engravers.
This, can never happen again!” He hesitates “I will begin producing some once my mana regenerates, but… what do you want done with the prisoners?” Veronica’s eyes burn, the fire raging within her orbs “They will be handled.”
____________________________________________
Ninety percent of the undead are dead, tens of thousands, having their lives stolen from them, a number that’s certainly horrific, but… how many humans lived in the blast radius?
How many people were minding their own business in their apartment or house when suddenly a bomb went off, and reduced them into nothing more than dust?
Hundreds of thousands?
Millions?
How many lives are held within a single mile of any major city?
It’s a question that haunts me, then again it’s entirely possible people were warned, or at least more realistically with everything going on, that there probably wasn’t anywhere near that many people still living around here, but the crystal shining underneath the ash stretches for miles, far further than I can even see.
A sigh escapes me, but then again, there’s no need to wonder what ifs, when I’m actually facing something like this.
Thousands of human corpses, and this time it’s actually thousands, bodies piled on top of each other.
Their torn apart bodies, not only entirely filling my vision, but stretching off into the distance.
The bodies of murderers, of those hunting a bounty, but instead finding a foe they were in no way ready to face, and being slaughtered instead.
Then, there’s the captives, hundreds of humans who either froze in shock, before they fell to their knees, were injured or just maybe looked so pathetic that the undead couldn’t be bothered to kill them.
Then again, who knows what was going through their minds, maybe the undead wanted to torture them or to execute them to send a message of vengeance, after all is a pretty normal response to being wronged… to being bombed, and having friends killed, but as I stand in the field of death.
Dead bodies as far as the eye can see, I can’t help, but wonder why anyone would want more of this?
How could anyone be driven to this?
But, if they won’t stop coming, if they’re willing to just kill us… what is the alternative?
What do you do when an enemy sees your lives as nothing more than numbers on a page or a bounty to be claimed?
“Harvest” Mana pours out of my body, drifting out in an ever expanding perfect circle, ingraining into the dust, before slowly flying into the air, and leaving behind perfectly smooth glowing white arcane stone.
The circle grows, reaching the bodies, and I can feel the gaze of the prisoners lock onto me.
Watching as the bodies of their friends, and family break apart.
Even herded together like cattle, hundreds of humans sitting on the ground while ghosts watch them, there is still something self righteous about their gaze.
As if they’re not responsible for taking so many lives, as if they’re the victims in all of this.
Anger boils beneath my skin, as I take a step towards them ready to say?
Do?
What I’m not even entirely sure what, but then Veronica is there with a single skeleton, standing in front of the crowd of people, and with energy radiating off her body.
“Death would be too easy for you all.” The crowd shudders at her ethereal voice, sinks beneath their skin “Even if it’s something every single last one of you deserves, but we are not the monsters here… You are. You’re the ones who came here into our homes in an attempt to kill us, and now a debt is owed.” The crowd stills, hope even dares to start shining in some of their eyes.
“A price, which has no real way to be set, after all, what is the value of a single life, let alone the lives of thousands! Who you, are responsible for killing, which, just leaves whatever I determine to not be a complete insult to the lives lost today. Two million mana, each, that is the price of your freedom, but until then, you will remain here. Doing whatever you want in your little zone, until you earn your freedom.”
The crowd erupts in noise “That’s insan-” “BE SILENT!” A wave of black mana bursts from Veronica’s mouth slamming into the crowd, and robbing them of their voices.
“Anyone who feels this price is unfair, is more than welcome to try to run away from what’s owed, but our mercy has grown thin.”
More undead then come pouring towards the prisoners, encircling them all in a wide circle, before Veronica waves one of her hands at some of the undead.
“Pedastools will be placed along the edge of the clearing where mana can be channeled, and an accountant will track the mana paid. This edge will also be the furthest any of you can travel, an entire mile for all of you. So all of you better get comfortable.”
Around a hundred skeletons then begin building around the clearing, white arcane walls slowly start growing from the ground with glowing white channels radiating through the walls, and each fifty feet rests a glowing orb.
At first the humans just watch, but once the skeletons run out of mana, and start meditating by the walls, while the ghosts watch on.
One of the prisoners finds the courage to investigate the orb, and a stream of glowing brown mana quickly sinks into the orb.
Resulting in a blue screen appearing for all to see.
Mana Paid
Steven Bradley – 150/2,000,000
Then, the orb glows, mana streams from it, into the walls, and causes the walls to ever so marginally grow.
“They’re making us build our own prison!” Carter shouts, as the rest of the people erupt in noise, and the undead just dispassionately watch on, after all, the humans will either pay the mana or they won’t, but either way, time is on the side of the dead.
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The blast zone glows, a faint mist of mana radiating into the air, where there once was city blocks filled with apartments, shops, and well a graveyard, but so much is just gone.
Mike stands off on the edge of it all, barely having survived the blast of mana unleashed by well, he’s not entirely sure.
After all, the more or less army, which stormed into the graveyard, after the explosions went off on the edge of the graveyard.
Kind of paints a picture that he really doesn’t want to accept, but humans blowing each other up is one of the most natural things in the world, even if it didn’t typically happen here all that often.
Regardless, now Mike watches as the undead build, as glowing walls grow in the dark, a sight shared by many across the city, but what can they really do about it?
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The last leader, well besides Johnson, but the day people start listening to a priest is when everything truly has gone to hell.
Carter walks through their new home, a perfectly flat plane, filled with hundreds of people just sitting on the ground as healers go through them, and make sure they’re all healthy, even if most are still in shock.
Definitely, not the way today was supposed to go, but when has anything ever gone the way it should?
When he spots Brandon?
“Hey you’re an earth mage right?” Possibly Brandon just stares at him in response, and Carter drops down, until he’s level with him.
“I was thinking, maybe we could get some walls up, you know, so we don’t have to keep staring at the undead or have them looking at us.”
A little life enters the kids’ eyes, who can’t be older than twenty.
“Sure, just don’t blame me if they don’t take it well.” He then shambles to his feet like he’s drunk, before a stone wall begins to rise from the ground.
It doesn’t even feel like a second passes, before a dozen undead are surrounding the wall, and causing many to scramble back in fear as a ghost with a clipboard floats above it.
Carter pushes Brandon behind him “Hey, what’s all this about that undead said we could do whatever we want in our zone.” The ghost with a clipboard begins to tap their clipboard, and it somehow sends off a light metallic sound “Veronica, her name is Veronica.” “Well Veronica said-” Mana wraps around Carter’s throat robbing him of the ability to speak.
For a moment, the ghost simply stares at him, before tapping the wall a few times, before tilting their head, and shrugging “Nothing is to be built above a hundred, and twenty feet or within a hundred feet of the walls.”
The ghost then floats off, without even bothering to glance at them, the undead on the ground on the other hand take more than that.
Rage, and hunger seems to burn in their eyes, before they step back in disappointment, when the clipboard once again rings.
Carter, and Brandon, both relax, as the mana binding him dissipates before Carter turns towards the crowd.
“Well you heard them, any mages out there, let’s get some privacy going in here, and if you have any useful abilities please come over here.” Just like that people begin to move, life once again entering their eyes, even if most don’t have a whole lot to offer.
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Nearby, the people who know what happened, those who gave credits towards something that killed thousands, and frankly destroyed an entire section of the city.
Those who have friends, family who have yet to return, and if the looming walls growing off in the distance with familiar black shapes marching around are any indication they won’t be.
Are also having a rather difficult time, after all how does anyone deal with that kind of loss, that kind of pain, that much guilt?
Some run, not even bothering to gather their things, simply running off into the dark, as if they can somehow escape their sins.
Some get angry, blaming the undead, each other, and quickly turning the camp into a powder keg.
So many people are at each other’s throats, but for some odd reason, no one here ever finds the stones to actually go try, and take that anger out on the undead.
Then there’s the least common general reaction, by far the smallest group, but believing in something, for some reason, has always taken more out of a person.
There are those, who have hope, remembering how the undead spared some when they fought nearby, and believe that there’s at least a chance that their loved ones could still be alive.
A rather delusional belief, but at its heart it’s something pure, and allows them to feel more than just rage or pain.
Then there are those who take comfort in what they still have, even if the only thing some of them still have is their life, but so many would give anything for just for one more minute.
The camp quickly collapses, the violence quickly forcing even the hopeful to find somewhere else to be.
A community collapsing in a blink of an eye, it’s amazing how much death can change everything.
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The walls of the cave shudder, as magma begins to flood the tunnels rising from the core of the earth, which is pretty bad, after all basically being caught in a volcanic eruption is not good, but then it somehow manages to get worse… The walls of the tunnels begin to shake, to shift as the very earth itself starts to seal itself in an attempt to stop the thief!
But they, Sarah, is undeterred, mana shrouds around her body making the earth unable to crush her, and with a steady stream of mana blasting from one of her hands she just keeps carving up.
Rising from the ground with magma at her back, until she bursts into the air where a torrent of water slams into her, and for a moment it even knocks her back into the tunnel, where she grips onto the side of the tunnel, at least until…
The water hits the magma, and steam bursts forward wrapping Sarah in a burning haze, before launching her in the air.
Where a lightning bolt tries to strike her, but it’s instantly deflected by a silver sword.
The cloud of lightning that envelopes her though, isn’t so easily deterred.
Dozens of bolts striking her in an instant, leaving scorch marks on her armor, and making Sarah’s hair stand on its ends, but not really leaving any lasting damage, even with the lightning still racing through her body.
She grimaces, for a moment even freezing in place, before she bursts into motion, turning into little more than a blur as winds going hundreds of miles an hour try to knock her out of the sky, until she once again dives through a portal.
Due to formating issues this story doesn’t quite look the way it’s supposed to 0_o and you can read an updated version on Kobo, or other platforms. https://litrpgandpolitics.wordpress.com The story is also at around chapter 60 with around 400,000 words, and will posted once per day, until it’s caught up.
Then it will either be weekly, or twice a week, with that being said, I still welcome any feedback, after all I’m still editing everything 0_0 and different perspectives can so often help one see the things we take for granted.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you have a great day!