Chapter 5: Charge to Oblivion

Chapter 5:
Charge to Oblivion

 

LOREN AND LAPIS dashed through the night. They had been able to see when they were near the clinic thanks to the bonfires, but they had to rely on the moon and stars once they got too far away.

They sprinted at near full speed, taking out any zombies they encountered on the way—those wandering the streets and lurking in the shadows.

“I know my eyes are special,” Lapis said, sounding rather impressed, “but—and this has occurred to me before, Mr. Loren—your eyes are incredible.”

On their previous job, Loren had to run through a pitch-black cave with Lapis on his back. “It’s because I’m used to it,” he demurred.

In Loren’s experience, anything could happen on the battlefield. Surprise attacks and night raids were common occurrences, and if you wanted to stay alive, developing good night vision was essential. Loren, like many others in his company, had practiced moving in spaces with no light from a rather early age.

“The problem is, the undead have no presence,” he muttered. “They’re hard to sense.”

“I can’t believe you’re still finding them despite that.”

Undead were—of course—not living beings, and it was terribly difficult to detect them using cues for human life. The way they suddenly burst out of the darkness before Loren sensed them kept him on edge. He could at least make them out once they started moving; it helped that they were relatively slow, and so far, he had managed to fight them off. He still kept himself ready for the possibility of a lethal blow at any time.

“Why do I put up with these things?” Loren cursed as his swing split open a zombie coming from around the corner. He heard the damp splatter across the street but couldn’t tell what flew where. For this, at least, he thanked the night—in the dark, he didn’t have to see any unpleasant sights and colors.

“Can you make a magic light?” he asked.

“If I put up a light in this lightless city, we’d be practically screaming out our position.”

“And who’s gonna hear it out here?”

By this point, Loren was quite sure there were no living people around. At least, going off the number of undead. That would also explain why every undead in Hansa seemed to be concentrated on them. If there were other survivors, they would have distracted the swarm.

“At the very least, I think Ms. Stehr will notice. The zombies are already quite troublesome; it would be terrible if she sent a bone dragon after us next.”

“When that happens, we run.”

“Leaving Miss Scena behind?”

Loren didn’t know how to respond. His mercenary brain told him to abandon the girl. But when he asked himself if he could really do that, doubt rose. “Yeah, I’ll consider it if we get to that point…”

“Aren’t you dodging the question?”

He was, and he turned sullen as she pointed it out. However, Lapis didn’t tread any further. Her lips were sealed, waiting for his answer. But the conversation was over. He was left with little choice but to revive a prior talking point.

“Do you think this mess will be solved if we defeat Stehr?”

“I doubt it.” Her response was brutal in its simplicity, and Loren couldn’t help but swallow his breath. She went on as if it were nothing to cry over. “We likely owe this incident to a perpetrator, yes. But that wouldn’t be Ms. Stehr. I assume it is the ‘master’ she spoke of. I still don’t know what’s going on, but presumably, that person tried to do something to Miss Scena, failed, and left.”

“By the sound of it.”

“Thus, this mass outbreak of undead is also presumably the work of that master. And he’s not here. Ms. Stehr is just one of the undead he created. Neutralizing her won’t stop the others.”

Lapis made this dire proclamation so nonchalantly. At present, they couldn’t know how many people of the city-state and its encompassing region had turned undead, but given the present state of the city, it was safe to say their numbers exceeded ten thousand. Should so many undead start to rise up in earnest, it would far surpass the realm of what Loren alone could handle. It would take nations and armies years to clean up the mess.

“Two on the right.”

Loren’s mind was on the verge of shutting down entirely, but there were zombies to deal with, and on Lapis’s warning, he cut them both down with one swing of his sword. “You’re not joking here.”

“I certainly am not. To tell you the truth, the scenario I paint here is based on the most optimistic assumption of the least number of casualties.”

There’s more? Loren frowned at her.

Not that Lapis seemed to notice. She shrugged as she ran. “I’m curious about what exactly was done to Miss Scena. A wight is already rather troublesome. If something even worse appears, these zombies and revenants would be cute by comparison.”

“I don’t think they’ll ever be cute,” Loren said, cutting down another. He heard its liquids spatter into the dark alley, then swung his blade again to remove the fluids he suspected were stuck to it. “It really gets you down, fighting nothing but undead.”

“Thank goodness it’s night. It would be worse during the day.”

Although night was when undead called on their true strength, they had more than one reason to be thankful for it. Hansa’s undead had been alive not so long ago—they still looked much the same as they had in life.

Lapis didn’t seem to care about this much, being the demon she was, but the thought of the undead haunted Loren enough without having to see the dead children included in their number. If he ever did see just who he was cutting through, he suspected “feeling down” would be the least of his worries.

Although the most conspicuous place in town was the dual attraction of the bonfires and Claes, wielding his power as he saw fit, a considerable number of undead continued to lunge at Loren and Lapis as they ran through the dark streets. The size of the swarm increased the closer they got to the city center. Loren’s focus was naturally fixed on fighting, but Lapis continued to think.

“It just occurred to me, Mr. Loren.”

“What? I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but go on.”

“At the moment we should be the only living people in town, right? Counting Claes, of course.”

“Don’t like how you’re writing off Brosse and the girls like that.”

Lapis might have been willing to dismiss those with a low chance of survival, but Loren wanted very much for them to live and refused to forget about them.

“Let me rephrase. Currently, we are the only ones conscious and aware of the situation. Counting Claes, of course.”

“Unless you count the enemy and Scena.”

“To the point, does this perhaps mean there are no witnesses?”

Now that gave Loren a truly bad feeling.

Sure enough, there were only undead around, and they were the only living ones in all of Hansa. Claes was doing his best to remain in that category as well, but he was already far off in the distance—too far for either party to see the other.

“What about it?” Loren asked.

“I was thinking—perhaps it wouldn’t be an issue if I got a little serious. What do you think?” Lapis asked.

Loren gave it some thought. That didn’t mean he stopped cutting down the stream of undead rushing toward him, but he worked this through his head when he could, and he reached his conclusion after a few waves. “I don’t think you should. I’m getting nothing but bad vibes about it.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine.”

Despite the complete darkness, they exchanged a look. In that brief instant, Loren could tell there would be no convincing her. Yet he hung on, knowing full well he should give up.

“No way. My sword can handle this for us, no problem. Don’t force yourself. I mean, I guess it would be a different story if something I couldn’t handle came up.”

The moment Loren said this, an intense tremor roiled up from the ground. While Loren braced his legs to hold his stance, staring down in disbelief, Lapis for some reason seemed unutterably delighted.

“Something you couldn’t handle—you mean, like a bone dragon?”

He sighed. “I jinxed it.”

What was it they said? Speak of the devil, and he doth appear. But by the time Loren realized he shouldn’t have said it, it was too late.

The tremors grew as cracks formed in the pavement. A few nearby buildings came down when, with a piercing cry, the head of that damn bone dragon they had encountered before burst from the ground.

As it did, Lapis changed. Her calm expression took on a sharp belligerence. Even her tone changed. “My skills are gonna rust if I don’t get serious now and then.”

She raised her right palm toward the draconic remains. “Through the river of lament, down to the abyss. Should thou wish to knock upon heaven’s door, let thy sins be judged in crimson flame. Purgatorio.”

Loren’s entire field of vision was drenched in red. Everything else was gone. No roar or scream, or even the sound of something falling apart. Any and everything before him simply vanished in an encompassing crimson blaze.

“What…was…?”

Loren had seen magic before, but nothing he’d ever experienced had remotely resembled what he’d just borne witness to.

“You better stay behind me,” Lapis whispered.

Then the blinding red was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. It blinked away so cleanly that Loren had to wonder if the inferno had ever existed at all. But the consequences told him otherwise.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Everything was gone. The stones of the pavement, the surrounding buildings, the bone dragon that had sprouted from the ground, and the undead that had been swarming. Gone, without rhyme or reason, and nothing but a scorched crater remained.

He couldn’t yet know the scope of the destruction, but it was undoubtedly vast—and had been nigh instantaneous.

“What did I tell you? I’m losing my knack for controlling it…” Lapis sighed. “But I got to use my full strength for the first time in forever, so I’m satisfied.”

“What was that?”

“The highest form of fire magic. But I couldn’t quite control it with my artificial hands. If, at the very least, I had my own eyes, I could have increased the scope a bit without issue.”

This was the contained version? Loren had nothing to say to that. Undead were fundamentally weak to fire, true, but Loren had never heard of a magician who could take out a dragon in one hit.

“What would’ve happened if you used that one at full strength? And hey, wait a minute, do you even need me?”

“Oh, Mr. Loren, what a joker you are. I can’t use that spell in enclosed spaces, nor when the battlefield is too jumbled. It’s flashy and has a high output, but that’s all it has going for it. Of course I need you.” Lapis stepped into the crater she’d created.

Loren at first worried that following her would singe his feet. However, all he felt beneath his steps was dirt—not even that hot at that. The absence of logic perplexed him.

“Not to mention, I’m a priest. It would be all sorts of trouble if anyone found out I could use magic like that. It’s fine on these special occasions but not regularly. Ah, that blew off some steam.” Lapis stretched her back.

Loren knew she never answered his question—she’d certainly not told him what would happen if she deployed that spell at full force. He didn’t really have time delve into it just now, but he swore he would do what it took to stop her the next time she suggested she use magic to destress.

The area destroyed by Lapis’s magic was vast. However, it was longer than it was wide, stretching straight toward the city center nearly all the way to their destination. The sheer extent of destruction gave Loren the chills.

Lapis walked through the aftermath holding light at her fingertips to get a better view—the very light she’d said would have given away their position.

“Why is it okay now?” asked Loren.

“I already fired off that powerful spell. Anyone with half a brain should know full well where we are by now,” she said, making it sound like it was of little consequence.

That left the question he simply had to ask. “Then why did you use it?”

“Heh.” After a brief silence, Lapis stuck out her tongue. She fully intended to brush it off.

“Don’t ‘heh’ me.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t have been able to overpower a bone dragon without magic on that level. It was a necessity, I assure you.” Lapis’s expression turned serious again, but Loren’s skeptical eyes remained trained on her.

“And the truth of the matter?”

“The slightly weaker Firestorm might have worked,” she admitted.

But, it seemed, she’d really been feeling the pain of holding back for far too long. She’d needed to get this out of her system and so used the flashiest possible magic in her arsenal. By this point it felt plain idiotic to get on her case any further, and that was the end of the matter.

“That was magic. It had nothing to do with your blessing reserves, right?”

“Nothing at all. They’re completely separate. I have three blessings to offer, same as ever.”

“Didn’t it used to be two?”

“I’ve grown a bit.”

Loren didn’t understand what skill a priest had to develop for that capacity to grow, but if Lapis’s count really had increased, it was cause for celebration. Suffice to say, the number of times he could afford to get hurt had gone up by one. He decided to just be satisfied with that.

“Let’s get going.”

Lapis grinned. “A wonderful decision.”

It was said the undead didn’t know fear. However, Loren had to wonder if Lapis’s display of raw power might have finally inspired that emotion in their foes. They met no undead for the rest of the journey, arriving at the chancellor’s estate without issue.

Loren had assumed that, being a ruler, the chancellor would live in a castle. The estate they found was definitely better built than the houses of the other residents but not quite what he was expecting. There was a moat, then a rather high wall. Beyond it, a structure that reminded him of a fort in the middle of nowhere.

There would usually be soldiers stationed to guard the bridge over the moat, but no one remained to do so. They passed over the unmanned bridge and passed again through the unmanned gate. They came to a stop in the courtyard.

“How reckless. To think you’d come all the way here,” said the wight waiting for them.

Bonfires blazed in every corner of the courtyard, giving them a full view of everything in it. Smack-dab in the center of it all was a stone platform like an altar. Scena had been laid limply on top of it. She was dressed in a white shift just like she had worn when they found her in the forest, while Stehr wore a black robe over what she had been wearing before. It looked like a sacrificial ceremony to some heretical god.

“You’ve got terrible taste,” said Loren, holding his sword at the ready. “What are you up to?”

“I will henceforth complete the work the master left to me.”

“Who’s this master of yours, and what do you want to do with a small child, you pervert?” he asked.

Stehr’s face twitched, and Lapis snickered. She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she did her best to contain it.

Loren kept laying into Stehr. “Never mind, I’ve got no interest in what a pervert has to say. I’m sure your master was a great pervert who taught you well, but can you go along and take your degeneracy back to hell? You being undead and all.”

“Wh-what insolence! You unlearned savage!”

“Yeah, I can’t deny that, but I’ve got enough good sense not to lay a hand on a child. Which means you’re beneath the savage. Pervert.”

“Age has nothing to do with it! This girl had the aptitude!”

No blood flowed through Stehr’s undead body. Her complexion remained pale even when she flew into a rage, but her mouth did twist, and her eyes filled with hatred. Loren met her glare head-on.

Then Lapis intruded. “What aptitude would that be? I’m a little interested. In the first place, what was the treasure your master gave to that girl?”

“A dog like you could never understand!”

“I may not look the part, but I am a priest to the god of knowledge. If this was such an outstanding arcane masterpiece, I would love to hear all about it.”

Lapis pressed the back of her hand against Loren’s chest as if telling him to leave this to her. Indeed, the moment Stehr opened her mouth to object, Lapis interrupted again.

“You’re not going to tell me you’re unable to explain, are you? If the woman completing her great master’s great work didn’t understand it well enough to explain it, I would have to assume that she didn’t understand what she was doing either.”

“What?!”

“Putting aside whether or not we can understand, you should at least be able to explain, shouldn’t you?”

Stehr met Lapis’s challenge with a smile and a belittling laugh. “Trying to buy time, are you? Very well. There is no escape for you, and the preparations are already complete. If you want to know about my master’s great work so badly, I’ll tell you.”

Loren wanted to cut her down then and there, but Lapis’s arm held him back with unimaginable strength. What the hell was she thinking?

“This girl has an affinity with a treasure the master possessed,” said Stehr. “She is uniquely compatible with the Orb of Undeath.”

Loren glanced at Lapis, who shook her head. She always seemed like she knew everything, but this thing seemed to be unknown even to her.

“It is the product of his research, and it drinks the lives of others to bestow upon the bearer a power that can conquer death itself.”

Fortunately, Stehr went on without being prompted. Lapis’s interest was piqued; she focused on Stehr with a look of profound curiosity.

“The master bestowed the power unto me as well…but I did not have the aptitude. I was left in limbo, half-complete.” Stehr’s tone dropped. She hadn’t been able to meet her master’s expectations. Wights were certainly hard to kill but not invincible. Her voice picked back up as she went on. “But his research will bear fruit in this city! The girl he selected was perfectly compatible, and thus he bestowed his orb upon her, certain he would reap perfect results.”

“She’s saying that someone out there was researching death, made a magic artifact, and tried to produce certain results. But the original test subject wasn’t up to par, so he ended up with something half-baked. Meanwhile, he found a better test subject in Miss Scena and pulled a few strings to get at her. Apparently.”

“Yeah. I followed. You didn’t have to explain it again.”

“Oh, really… Ah, Ms. Stehr. There’s just one last loose thread. By your story, all this should have ended the moment Miss Scena was found and used as a test subject.”

Stehr’s expression clouded. “My master is no god. He made one miscalculation.”

Loren snorted. “Well, he already produced one failure. I think that’s more than one miscalculation.”

“Quiet, Mr. Loren. A miscalculation, you say?” asked Lapis, who couldn’t bear to have Stehr’s mood ruined lest the conversation be cut short.

Luckily, Loren’s whisper hadn’t reached the wight. “The child lacked the emotional fortitude to maintain her sanity as the power of death flowed into her,” said Stehr.

“What’s that mean?”

“That orb apparently drinks life force in order to turn the target into a specific sort of undead… Did you really think a child could endure that?” Lapis asked.

The feeling of something foreign being inserted into one’s body—the sensation of having one’s self remade as an unliving entity. Even if Loren couldn’t understand exactly what it felt like, he could tell it would be terrifying, horrendous, and beyond even what an adult could bear.

“So her body rejected this orb,” said Lapis.

“Precisely. Before the process completed, she cast Teleport out of desperation and vanished.”

“Miss Scena knows Teleport? …Oh, I see. She was halfway there.”

“Lapis, explain.”

“When she was in the process of turning undead, she rejected the orb and used the undead abilities she had incompletely obtained to flee. Since she probably didn’t set coordinates, it would be more accurate to say she cast Random Teleport.”

“You’re the one who said Scena was human.”

Lapis looked slightly apologetic. “She was in the process, as in not undead yet. Even now, Miss Scena would qualify as human. The thing killing the adventurers who rode with her was the orb inside her.”

That artifact that drank the life force of humans. As long as Scena carried it within her, she would continue to steal lives even if she was unaware of doing it.

“Wait, don’t tell me…” Lapis turned back to Stehr. “The power you poured into Miss Scena came from the people of Hansa… How many lives did you take?”

“Any success requires some sacrifice. Even more to ensure greater success.”

“This is the worst…the worst.” Lapis covered her face.

Loren looked between her and Stehr, uncomprehending.

“We can assume nearly everyone in Hansa had their life force eaten away, turning them into low-ranking undead,” said Lapis. “The power reaped from them was injected into Scena, and given the amount of energy and the magic she used when she rejected it…she’s going to become quite powerful.”

“Any way to stop it?” Loren asked.

“It was already too late when we got here. You heard Stehr. She’s already finished preparing.”

“Precisely. It’s all over, and this moment, this instant is when I will finally feast my eyes upon the work’s completion!”

As Stehr raised her arms high to the sky, a dazzling white light overflowed from Scena’s chest. Instead of heat, it emanated a chill that made even Loren shudder.

“Isn’t that pretty bad?” he growled.

“Yes, quite. Without exaggeration, we are rather screwed.” There was something unpleasant in Lapis’s voice. She released Loren’s chest, clenched her fist, and glared at the wight who had begun to laugh like a madwoman. “You’re definitely not going to die a decent death.”

“I won’t die. Not until I bring these results to the master! Now celebrate with me. Kneel before his work and offer your lives.”

The light overflowing from Scena grew even stronger. Loren had to hold up his arms to save his eyes from searing away, but thanks to her artificial eyes, Lapis continued to stare, unperturbed.

“Spring forth from her soul! One who has conquered death! Lifeless King!”

In that moment, Loren felt a stake of ice hammered into his heart.

The hem of Scena’s dress swayed as she floated into the air. Her golden locks, which had previously gleamed with the luster of youth, had lost all their gloss. Her hollow, half-open eyes would not focus, and her small, slack mouth leaked a ceaseless cry that, while faint, made Loren want to cover his ears. Her skin had gone a sickly white and emitted a constant stream of equally white haze. It ran along her body, then to the altar, and then the ground.

Whatever had given off the initial light continued to glow faintly in Scena’s chest, its glimmer raising goosebumps on Loren’s skin.

“Yes… This is what the master wished for… A true lord of the dead…” Stehr’s voice trembled with delight. She was long dead. She couldn’t feel the dread that overpowered the living.

“The worst. Yes, truly the worst.” Grinding her teeth, Lapis retreated a step as if forced back by Scena’s mere presence.

Stehr’s voice quivered as she declared her victory. “It’s over! The time has come for all to prostrate themselves before the master’s work!”

“It’s a bit of an overstatement to say one Lifeless King would end the world… Perhaps if he mass-produced them. But there’s a glaring hole in your logic.” Lapis held up a finger.

The Lifeless King hadn’t yet moved. Despite his goosebumps, Loren readied his sword to face her.

“A hole?” Stehr snorted. “What are you talking abou—”

“Namely!” Lapis cut her off, folded the finger back down, and raised her voice. In the short moment Stehr was shocked to silence, Lapis swiftly spelled it out. “While what you have produced is definitely a Lifeless King, I must ask, do you have any measures by which to control a Lifeless King?”

“What?”

That one word said everything Lapis needed to know. It was a horrible realization for everyone involved and a fatal oversight for Stehr.

“Now, I don’t think you’re that dumb,” said Lapis. “So you couldn’t possibly have just created an uncontrollable Lifeless King without a plan, right?”

“Th-that’s… No, but the Lifeless King shall only bare its fangs at the living! At you! As I have already departed, I am…”

“Yep, got it. You empty-headed woman!” Lapis’s rebuke came so suddenly that Stehr forgot her anger. Lapis pointed at Scena. “That over there is a Lifeless King! One who draws the entire world closer to death and stands at its summit as an absolute ruler! The highest class of undead! You think it’s going to let an undead with free will exist?!”

“What?!” In her dismay, Stehr tried to flee from the Lifeless King floating beside her. Three steps away, she turned to look back, and her eyes met Scena’s hollow gaze.

Stehr let out a short shriek. An undead wasn’t supposed to know fear, yet her body stiffened. Scena slowly lifted her hand, and Stehr didn’t move.

“Stop! I’m—” Stehr never finished.

Scena only ever looked at her, but white flames rose from Stehr’s feet, completely enveloping her body. She had no chance to scream. By the time the flames were gone, Stehr’s face was empty and lifeless. She hung her head, like a retainer ceding to her lord. A meaningless groan rolled from her mouth, and the yellow haze around her body dissipated.

“That’s incredible,” Lapis murmured. “She drained a wight’s powers and turned it into a normal zombie.”

“What are we supposed to do about that?” Loren demanded. “And wait, am I supposed to cut Scena down?”

“Well, I’d love it if you could, but that’s a Lifeless King there. She will have several layers of defense against physical and magical damage, and her body perpetually emits an energy drain effect. If you think you can cut her—ah, no, wait.”

Lapis broke off and thought for a moment. However, before she had finished that thought, a zombified Stehr sensed their living presence and began lurching past the altar toward them. Loren reflexively swung his readied sword and bisected her from the shoulder.

“Ah, dammit!” he cursed. “She’s looking at us!”

This action had caught Scena’s attention. That hollow gaze turned on Loren, and the hand that had made a zombie of Stehr reached out once more.

If Loren was enveloped in those white flames, perhaps he would become a zombie too. He dodged and ducked, preventing Scena from locking on to him. Lapis had the same idea, kicking off in the other direction.

“Curseflame.”

White flames burst from the ground where Loren had been a moment before. They disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, and Scena turned on the altar, her eyes chasing Loren.

Loren knew those flames would get him the moment he stopped—so he didn’t. He slid side to side, closing the distance, and realizing his intentions, Scena mouthed a different word.

“Phalanx.”

Flames erupted with a slight wave of her hand, spreading out like a folding fan as they flew toward him. He managed to avoid them with a frantic leap back, yet he had in that dodge lost all the ground he’d gained.

“I can’t get close! At this rate, we’ll never know if I can cut her or not!”

“What about your projectiles?!”

“Used them up on the zombies!”

“Hmm… May the lost find their way to where they belong. Turn Undead.”

For a moment, Scena’s body was clad in purifying radiance, but the light soon went out. Evidently, Scena had felt nothing. She didn’t even turn to look at Lapis. Her eyes continued to chase Loren, who was reconsidering his approach.

“As expected, she resists it… That was less effective than a bug bite.”

“You sure you’re not lacking faith?”

“If you know a priest who can exorcise a Lifeless King with Turn Undead, then bring them right here, right now!” Lapis yelled, but she then had to jump back as white flames burst from where she had been standing.

Scena didn’t look at Lapis, but she had registered Lapis’s existence. It seemed Scena had attempted to catch her off guard, but Lapis was no ordinary target.

“Stone of red, pierce my foe. Fire Bullet.”

Casting magic as she evaded, Lapis fired four bolts of fire from her fingertips, all of which exploded in Scena’s face. That attack would have inflicted massive damage on a human, but once the smoke cleared, Scena was completely unscathed.

Lapis clicked her tongue. “So elementary magic won’t even scratch her,” she grumbled.

Perhaps that made Scena finally acknowledge Lapis as a hindrance—she took her eyes off Loren and turned toward the priest. With sluggish motions, she raised her palm at Lapis, who stopped moving, stared back, and smiled.

“Are you sure you should be looking at me?”

Loren hadn’t let this moment slip by. Scena’s eyes were on Lapis, and as a bonus, Scena was in the midst of an attack. There was no better time to approach. He dropped all evasive maneuvers and made a beeline straight for her.

“Resent me if you want!”

His downward swing never met Scena’s body. She had sensed his attack, leaping off the altar as she unleashed her Curseflame at Lapis. Loren’s blade barely grazed her sleeve, and the leftover momentum smashed the altar.

“Lapis!” Loren cried out as he saw her body enveloped in white.

He swept upward, but Scena nimbly avoided the strike. He wasn’t going to let her get away after he’d gotten so close, and he followed it up with swing after swing.

“I’m fine!” Lapis called as the flames died out, though she looked a little winded. “One shot isn’t enough to take me out.”

That attack had been enough to turn a wight into a zombie—which made Lapis even more tenacious than the undead. Terrifying.

“Be careful, Mr. Loren! What the Lifeless King uses isn’t magic, per se. She can cast it without warning!”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

So far, Scena had always pointed her palm before attacking. The way Lapis put it made it sound like that movement was unnecessary, and if that was true, Loren had no way of telling where or when she’d next attack.

More importantly… he thought bitterly. It was hard to imagine Scena herself had no combat experience. He was astounded that she had been able to evade so many consecutive swings. Surely being a Lifeless King came with certain abilities, but it was as if Scena could see through every one of his attacks. He felt like he was hacking away at smoke, and while he held her at bay, he felt his impatience growing.

“Mr. Loren! Aim here!”

He glanced toward Lapis without letting up on his offensive. She was pointing at her own chest.

“The glowing part! A normal Lifeless King doesn’t have that! I don’t know what will happen if you hit it, but it might be worth your while!”

That glowing spot was where he would most likely find that unknown master’s Orb of Undeath. At first, he hesitated to follow Lapis’s instructions, but the moment the Lifeless King heard the warning, her hands inadvertently moved to cover her chest.

“You’ve seen a normal Lifeless King before?” he muttered. “Well, looks like it’s worth a shot.”

Naturally, the Lifeless King did not reply. Instead, she continued to protect her chest, her eyes darting back to Loren, her mouth raising a piercing shriek. He was overcome with a desire to block it out, but he needed his hands to do their job, and he wasn’t going to give the Lifeless King a moment to breathe.

He would have to endure it. If he could. A sudden fatigue had set in, weighing down his chasing feet and swinging arms.

“Mr. Loren! The Lifeless King is strengthening her perpetual energy drain! If you don’t hurry, she’ll make it through my evil-ward!”

“So there’s no time.”

Loren hadn’t been able to hit her even once. Now he had to hit a specific point on her chest, and there was even a time limit to wrestle with.

Given that, it didn’t matter if he blacked out afterward. He had to do this. Once he found his resolve, he felt as if he heard something click into place at the back of his skull.

With Loren’s next step, he barreled forward at speeds incomparable to his movements before. The bolts of fire cast soundlessly by the Lifeless King passed through the empty space he left behind.

In that time, he bounded directly into arm’s reach of her and unleashed a horizontal swipe—which the Lifeless King tried to block by mustering her physical defenses, to no avail.

She raised no cry, and her expression didn’t change. But there was a slight air of confusion about her as her forcefield shattered, and she retreated out of striking distance. She once again attempted to use some power on Loren but completely lost sight of him.

“Over here.”

Scena turned to the sound only to find the point of a sword waiting for her. She reconstructed her broken forcefield, ready to take the thrust this time. Her eyes caught the symbols on the blade’s black surface letting off a suspicious light, and in the next moment, the new forcefield was severed, earning her a shallow nick on her chest.

She deployed Phalanx, which should have swallowed Loren whole when he was so near, but his blade was drawn back just as quickly as he had thrust it. He was already out of sight by the time the protective flames burst forth.

Loren wielded his sword at unimaginable speed for a weapon of that size. Firing one shot at a time wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

The Lifeless King roared. Any life-form who heard the cry would be drained of its life force, yet Loren didn’t stop moving. Nor did he wait for the fan of flames to fade. He stepped in with his sword at the ready, and the moment the inferno touched his blade, the flames split as if conceding to his power.

This was inconceivable. The moment the Lifeless King froze in disbelief, she was assailed with a storm of swings. For the first time, the king was desperately trying to dodge. Her defensive field met Loren’s sword, a shrill sound striking the air. As the Lifeless King warded off the endless onslaught, it frantically searched for countermeasures.

Loren’s advantage came in the fact that Scena, the body’s former owner, had no true combat experience. Thus, the king failed to come up with any effective resistance—she had never endured anything like this before. She was forced to retreat one step at a time.

The waves of flames she released in her panic were torn to shreds by the rampaging blade, failing to so much as singe Loren’s hair.

Even so, the Lifeless King knew no fatigue, but Loren was flesh and blood. The end would eventually come. His speed dropped bit by bit, and the Lifeless King’s face filled with delight, knowing that soon Loren would be too tired to properly fight.

Loren struggled to keep up his assault. But before long, his attacks let up, and his sword stuck into the ground. Loren leaned against it like a walking stick.

“Dammit.” Loren turned the flat of the blade toward the Lifeless King, hiding in its shadow to catch his breath.

With a surge of renewed power, the king fired Phalanx. The flames spread out around him, and while the large sword did serve as a shield to a degree, it would only help until the heat and oxygen deprivation killed Loren for certain. The Lifeless King was sure of her victory.

But that victory never came.

“Eat this!” Loren’s voice came from overhead.

When she looked up, she took the sole of Loren’s boot to her chest. Her small body jolted and was sent flying back. With no idea what had just happened, she flailed her arms wildly, desperately trying to get Loren to back off. But Scena’s body was still a fledgling’s, and no matter how she swung, Loren had the clear reach advantage. She offered only paltry resistance.

Before the Lifeless King could construct a new forcefield, Loren’s right fist and all his body weight hammered into her chest with a dull thud, right where his boot had struck before. The clean hit smacked the Lifeless King’s body into the ground. She slid quite a distance and left a cloud of dust in her wake.

“That’s crazy. I can’t believe you challenged a Lifeless King to close-quarters combat,” Lapis mused from the sidelines.

Loren’s exhaustion had been for show. He had still possessed plenty of energy to spare when he hid behind his sword. The moment the Lifeless King had shot out Phalanx’s flames, believing her victory assured, he had used that same sword as a foothold. Both his kick and his punch had definitely inflicted damage.

“You’re not down for the count just yet, are you?!”

Loren stepped back, opening his body to attack as he reached out his left hand and single-handedly plucked his sword from its resting place. Without wasting the time to assume a stance, he swung, building up plenty of angular momentum as he sliced into the torso of the Lifeless King struggling to stand.

Two blunt strikes and a cut were all it took for the glowing piece at the king’s chest to crack with a dry snap. In the next moment, it crumbled, the fragments falling at Scena’s feet.

“Ah…” A small voice escaped her lips as a sliver of light returned to her hollowed eyes.

The sound made Loren hurriedly contain his next attack. In a blink, he was on his knees, leaning on the sword to keep him up as a surge of fatigue rendered him immobile. “The recoil…is here.”

He could hardly move. This was no different from his usual comedown, but typically, he quickly lost consciousness as well. Yet now, while somewhat hazy, he managed to retain himself as he stared at the Lifeless King.

Loren understood that this exhaustion had nothing to do with getting used to his bursts of strength. If it did, he would have grown accustomed to the fatigue long ago. So why was he awake this time? His eyes were naturally drawn to the sword holding him up.

“It couldn’t be.”

This blade was all that had changed. But if the large sword was the cause, then the item he held would have to be a demonic blade—an unfathomable rarity. Of course, something like that wouldn’t just be sold in stores, and if it was, it would be a few factors of ten higher than what Lapis had paid.

He tried looking toward her when a thud caught his ears, and he looked that way instead.

“Mi…ster.”

Scena’s left arm had fallen—straight out of its socket. The cross section was filled with a white substance. There was no blood left in her body. As she stared at it in wonder, she tried getting to her feet, only for her right leg to tear off as well.

“What’s happening?” Loren asked, teeth grit.

Lapis crouched to study Scena. “Her body is breaking down. It was reckless to turn a normal person into a Lifeless King. It’s likely the Orb of Undeath was maintaining her, and now that it’s broken, she can no longer retain her form.”

While the fallen left arm held its shape for a while, it eventually crumbled as if made of ash, swept up as white grains in the breeze.

“Anything we can do?”

“I think this is the result of a modification on Become Undead—a heretical spell. The original version is cast on oneself and doesn’t create an undead of nearly so high a rank. To cast it on another to create a Lifeless King…the spell was pushed much too far. And now it comes back to bite the victim. There is nothing we can do.”

Scena continued to crumble. More and more white powder poured onto the ground, and Scena stared at it absentmindedly. Her eyes met Loren’s, and she asked, “Am I…going to…die…Mister?”

“Yeah. Sounds like it.” He wasn’t going to lie or pretty it up.

“I see… But I’m glad…I won’t cause…more trouble.”

Scena was apparently aware of what she had done while bound as the Lifeless King. If things had carried on, she knew there would have been countless more casualties. So she was glad to fall here without killing anyone else.

“It’s thanks…to you.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything. I just cut you down.”

Whether that had saved Scena or not, Loren had done it out of necessity. Considering his original objective, this quest was a failure.

“Thank you.” Still, she offered him gratitude.

“Dammit…” Forcing those words out had increased the speed of her decay. Loren forced his own exhausted legs to carry him forward. In the end, he could at least hold her hand as she went.

“Ah? Hold on—”

Lapis tried to say something, but Loren didn’t stop. He gripped Scena’s outstretched right hand before it disappeared. But she held form for only a moment before she was dust between his fingers.

“You’re a good person…” The whisper traveled from disappearing lips.

There was nothing he could do. Scena’s crumbling face smiled as he clenched the white powder in his hand.

“But a little too careless.” Scena’s voice was suddenly vividly clear.

Loren reeled back in shock, but he could already feel his mind leaving him at a rapid pace. What had he just heard? He couldn’t even lift his body to ask Lapis.

Slowly, he fell. Scena’s decay was complete the moment his body hit the ground, and there he lay, coated in white ash.

He didn’t know why, but only then did he lose everything. He couldn’t move a single finger. He faintly heard Lapis’s voice as he lost consciousness.

“Mr. Loren? Hey, Mr. Loren?!”