Elyscia warily moved away from the closest corpse of one of their dead soldiers. The corpses flinched and slowly began standing up like puppets. They groaned with strained sounds, raspy and dry. Elyscia looked at each single one of them with an aghast expression. The dead were moving, and they were the corpses of people she knew.
“You’re a lich?!” Gavin shouted in shock, directing a powerful glare at the girl in his anger. “How does a hero have that foul magic?!”
The girl tilted her head. “Foul? Indeed, using the dead is quite foul. But, well, that’s what I got. And no, I’m not a measly lich.” There was a flash of dark mist as she instantly disappeared, reappearing right beside Gavin, smiling towards him. “I am so much more.”
Gavin quickly swung his sword down at her, but the girl casually evaded it with a brief giggle. “Are you sure you should be focusing on me?”
A couple of zombies, or rather, undead soldiers holding swords, lunged towards the archers. Elyscia was quite surprised to see the undead go directly for the archers and dismissed the rest. Not to mention how fast they were moving. Gavin was still going after the hero, but Elyscia was deliberating whether to help him or take care of the undead first. They shouldn’t be too much trouble for knights, but it was a different case for normal soldiers. But then again, if they get the hero, it should all end.
“Avelyn!” She called her colleague. “Help the others and take care of the undead!”
“Y-Yes!”
Avelyn quickly rushed towards the enemies. However, the undead soldiers were moving nimbly, almost like how a normal human being was. One had even already killed an archer. Avelyn quickly engaged one undead, and their swords clashed. Still, in the end, a mere undead warrior couldn’t hope to defeat a knight.
Meanwhile, Elyscia headed straight to Gavin’s side. She swung her sword from the hero’s flank, but before she could reach her, slender gauntlets wrapped around the hero’s arms and parried Elyscia’s sword.
The hero, Syndra, clicked her tongue as if in annoyance. “Oh, come on. Those zombies aren’t enough to catch your entire attention?”
“Why are you doing this?!” Elyscia glared at her. “We’re not enemies!”
“You belong to the heroes’ side, aren’t you? We are enemies.”
“The demon king was defeated, hero.” Gavin said. “This is an era of peace. There’s no need to fight.”
“Does not change a thing.”
The two knights attacked, sending their fatal spells at her. But the girl evaded all attacks with ease. Even their spells were repelled with a wave of her hand. Elyscia had never tried facing a hero before, but this must be how powerful they were as people meant to kill the demon king, the great menace against humanity.
“I endured suffering and agony for what felt like an eternity while those scums enjoyed every moment of their lives built from my ‘death’.” She vanished in a puff of black smoke before reappearing a fair distance again. “I didn’t want to die… I proposed a way for us all to leave that place without sacrifice. But they would not listen! You would never understand. None of you will ever understand.”
During her mumblings, Elyscia noticed a strange emotion in the girl’s gaze for the first time. It was a familiar type of face that she had seen from veterans that fought in the bloody war. Eyes full of fear, agony from terrible memories, one that shakes them from the very core — trauma.
What did they do to her?
It was then an arrow flew towards the hero — she moved her head to the side, evading it. With squinted eyes, she looked towards the rear to see that all of her zombies were unmoving on the floor. They were defeated. Elyscia felt relieved that Avelyn quickly took care of them.
“You’re stronger than I hoped,” Syndra said with a tired voice. “But this is good information.”
Gavin raised his hands, stopping the approaching soldiers. “All knights will face her alone.”
It was the best choice, the soldiers who couldn’t keep up would only be a burden. Having the three knights work together to face her would make things more straightforward, there would be no need to be concerned about the soldiers.
“Now this isn’t just fair,” Syndra said with an exaggerated shake of the head. “Mage against a group of knights, what happened to the talk of honor I heard from all you guys in the past?”
“You deserve no honor,” Gavin said, pointing the tip of his sword towards her. “You are a monster. And I can’t let you get away from here. You will bring destruction to the peaceful realm.”
With that, Gavin engaged first, promptly followed by Elyscia and Avelyn. Gavin attacked from the front, Elyscia on Gavin’s right, and Avelyn quickly moved to the enemy rear. Syndra blocked both Gavin’s and Elyscia’s swords with her hard gauntlets, while at the same time Avelyn cast a restraining ice magic on her from the back.
“Arctic Burst!” The moment she cast that magic spell, the two knights instantly jumped back. A ball of frost burst out around Syndra, freezing everything and rooting into the ground. But it wasn’t over yet, they knew there was no way it would hold Syndra for even more than a second.
Elyscia raised her hand. “Lightning Call!” Then a powerful lightning strike slammed from above Syndra the moment she broke her ice encasing. A bright flash of light lit up the surroundings, followed by a burst of wind and scattering dust.
At the same time, Gavin ran up from the side and cast his most powerful magic. It was the spell that could easily break through the skin of a great demon he once faced, one with the toughest skin and was a lieutenant of the demon king. The clear hit from this spell rendered that demon incapable of moving.
When the dust had slightly settled, Gavin caught a glimpse of the girl. With that, he knew where precisely to aim. He drew in his sword. “Searing Lance.” And he thrust his sword forward with intense force, unleashing a powerful, dense, piercing orange flame. As it moved in a flash, the girl wasn’t able to dodge, and she took the spell whole. Dust flew around in the shockwave's power.
Elyscia covered her face from the dust while still keeping a sharp eye towards the enemy’s position. That was a powerful spell, even Elyscia doubted that she herself would be in one piece if she ever took such a spell head on. No one should be able to come out of that unscathed. However, when the dust had settled, what they saw beat all sense.
The girl was still standing straight, not a sign of trouble on her face. She casually looked down at the slight burn on her dress and patted her shoulder. After all of that, the result they could make was a small scratch on her skin. Letting out a bored sigh, the girl waved her hand and the damage on her dress was restored as if it had never been damaged at all.
“You’re strong. Stronger than I was. That’s good, promising.”
The three knights raised their swords, their anxiety growing ever stronger. Seeing this, they have come to a conclusion — this was a bigger monster than they have ever expected. The girl was stronger than a demon king’s lieutenant that led armies? No, judging from the miniscule damage they caused, could she be at the level of a demon general that worked alongside the demon king? No, she was a hero, then she could be as strong as heroes truly were. If that was the case, then a feat like this was not so unexpected.
“But it is time to end this charade.” She slowly raised her hand, pointing towards Gavin. “Death Holds All Fate.” Faint black smoke streaked from her palm and quickly reached out and touched Gavin’s chest. An orb of absolute blackness hovered in the girl’s hand, attached to the smoke, linking both it and Gavin. “Allow me to tell you what I have become. I am the one who devoured death. The one who was lost in the dark, but has returned to the light. And I hold your lives in the palm of my hand.”
She closed her hand, and the orb shattered like glass. And instantly, Gavin dropped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Elyscia watched with wide eyes, filled with shock and confusion. There was nothing else that had happened, he just dropped.
“G-Gavin?” Elyscia slowly approached him, calling his name. But there was no response.
“He is dead.” That confirmation came from the bringer of death herself.
The girl uttered the spell again, and another orb appeared in her hand, but this time, the streak of smoke was connected to Avelyn. The young knight began panicking.
“W-What?! W-What is this?! Don’t, ple—” the orb shattered, and Elyscia witnessed firsthand the moment life was taken from Avelyn’s eyes. And the young knight dropped to the ground.
Seeing how absolute her power was, Elyscia trembled slightly in fright. The other soldiers began murmuring amongst themselves, confused and afraid. Elyscia clenched her fists and turned a sharp glare towards the former hero. She was afraid, true, but she should not lose herself in it. She still had her duty.
I must do everything for the Empire and people. For the world and its peace.
She could not let this person go. She was too dangerous to be left alone. She would certainly bring chaos.
She gripped her sword tightly with both hands.
“Fighting to the very end?” the girl asked.
“I will not let fear win over me. No matter how hard, no matter how impossible it may seem, I will stop you.”
“How futile.”
“Such a word is said many times in the war against the demon king. And yet, in the end, humanity prevailed.”
The girl fell silent for a moment before nodding faintly. “Indeed, humanity prevails. But not always. Sometimes, all it takes is one major failure.”
The girl uttered her spell, and instantly, Elyscia charged towards her. However, her orb was shattered at that same moment. And everything became a blur, and darkness overtook all of Elyscia’s vision. She fell to the ground, and yet she did not feel any of it. Because Elyscia was already dead.
***
The girl watched with a satisfied smile as the three knights had perished. Her eyes shifted towards the surviving soldiers. They stood there, they neither attempted to flee nor fought. Perhaps they were confused and uncertain about what to do next. What were they to do against a being that could kill the knights with a single spell in an instant? But they couldn’t just pretty well leave the monster alone.
The girl approached the dead knights, placing both hands on her back.
“Your souls still linger. I will not consume them, for you shall serve a new purpose,” she said to the dead knights. “You have done your duty well. But now, you shall become anew.”
Syndra held out her hand, and blue bright light shone from her palm. A massive wave of magical energy radiated throughout the surroundings.
“Serve your new master. Arise, my death knights.”