The moment I detected a group of undead, a smile appeared on my face, cold enough chill a necromancer if one had been unlucky enough to observe it. Discounting the encounter with the shade, I had faced against necromancers twice, and both times, they had the initiative, forcing me to face dangerous odds.
This time, I had all the control, and I was more than willing to teach them just how big of a difference it would make.
One little drawback about my increased biomancy skills was the increased detection range. I had to travel a couple of miles before I saw the group that triggered my senses. It was a small group, one necromancer, and around a hundred assorted skeletons and other low-level raised creatures. Destroying them would barely take a minute, but one detail prevented me from doing so.
They were dragging several creature corpses toward them. It wasn't the corpses itself that dissuaded me of course, but the fact that they were traveling toward a certain direction. I decided to follow them, hoping to discover their base of operation. After all, it was unlikely that I was the only one who was able to set up a hard-to-detect defensive bastion.
Following them was not a fun affair, not because of danger —as not only it was impossible for the undead to detect me, but also most creatures didn't come too close to the undead, a combination of their negative energy and their smell enough to dissuade the lower-level creatures. This meant that I had a pretty boring trek following them.
Not one to waste time, I started practicing a new trick with Biomancy. Since Biomancy allowed me to use life energy in a variety of ways, maybe it could also allow me to fake the death energy the undead was spreading around. I closed my eyes for a moment, extending my sense to examine the effect in detail, trying to understand the death energy.
Just from a glance, it was obvious that death energy was a corrupted variant of life energy, one that wasn't that hard to create. After examining it for five minutes, I realized that I could easily master its usage after a couple of repeats. It wasn't even that difficult.
The problem was avoiding the effects. I could see the effects of corruption and degradation on the necromancers pretty easily, but that didn't give me an idea about just how easily such effects had started. I wasn't really willing to test it, however. For some reason, a part of my mind was repulsed by the idea. I decided to follow my instincts.
However, that still left me with the challenge of avoiding their detection. Maybe I could reverse the effect, I suddenly decided, enjoying the sudden insight generated by the magical theory —that new perk was definitely proving its worth. I used my biomancy skill not to radiate life energy, but slowly drain it from my surroundings. It was a soft effect, not harming even a bug since it lacked the death energy's persistence, but from a distance, it looked like an undead's death energy.
It would never trick a careful examiner, or even a casual glance from a proficient one, but it gave me enough confidence to try to slip into the skeleton horde after casting an illusion to hide as a zombie. I cast the required spells, and then moved forward.
My hand was tight around my sword, but I wasn't feeling afraid. Why would I, when I could incinerate the whole horde with just a spell? The worst thing that would happen was losing the chance of infiltration. A pity, but definitely not something to be afraid of.
I moved another twenty minutes as a part of the skeleton horde, until it came to a sudden stop. The necromancers moved forward until it stopped in front of a stone, then activated a spell, making a detection wave spread, filled with death energy, enough to break through my poor concealment.
"Damn," I murmured even as I noticed the necromancer dashing forward, with a necrotic bolt already in hand, shining purple and black. I needed a distraction. Then, my eyes fell on the nearest creature corpse, and I cast a healing spell on it. The creature was dead, so it wouldn't resurrect, but it still repaired the body a bit, just enough that when I cast a weak lightning spell, it flinched wildly.
Necromancer's mad dash slowed when he noticed the wildly flailing creature. "Fucking mindless undead," he murmured, threw the death bolt to the creature to make it stop, and turned his back. When he arrived at the stone, luckily, he didn't activate the detection ward once more. Instead, he cast a couple of spells, and the ground suddenly parted, showing a tunnel, much wider than I had created.
If it wasn't for my elemental abilities, I would never dare to step into an underground facility filled with undead, but I decided to take the risk with it. No matter how crowded it was, and how strong the defensive abilities, defensive structures were not impenetrable, especially from inside. That didn't mean it was completely risk-free of course, but the temptation of finally getting some intelligence on the activities of the necromancers was simply too tempting.
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With that in mind, I stayed mixed with the horde as we stepped inside a dark tunnel layered with runes after runes, the magical energy getting thicker the further we moved. It was a work of years, maybe even decades. I couldn't help but feel alarmed at such an impressive construction project going unnoticed that close to the school.
The alternative was even scarier, that it was noticed, but their allies inside were able to suppress it. It shouldn't be possible, but considering that they were feeling confident enough to ambush one of the strongest faculty members —and gather the necessary intelligence to do so successfully— maybe they were entrenched enough to actually succeed with that.
Maybe some of the dissident voices were right about the fate of the Empire, and the need for action. If the Empire's most important education organization, responsible for churning its key officials, generals, and mages was lax enough to be infiltrated by the necromancers, what hope was there for the rest. Luckily, it was a problem well-above my paygrade, so I abandoned that track of thought, instead carefully examining my surroundings. No matter how deep we moved, the tunnel hadn't lost its downward slope, so when we finally stopped at a huge cave filled with a veritable army of undead, we were at least half a mile deep underground.
And it was an army. Countless zombies, skeletons, and other low-level monsters were abound, but it wasn't as scary as some huge creatures that interrupted their monotony, goliaths, giants, and dragons. I felt a chill as I looked at the endless piles. One mistake, and I had no chance of escape.
The members of the group I was hiding split. The ones that were pulling the dead creatures continued deeper into the cave, while the others joined the army. The necromancer, after giving the orders, took a side corridor.
I stayed with the mass army for the moment, examining the cave. The scariest part of the army was not just the size itself, but the fact that I could see undead creatures moving back and forth through several tunnels, suggesting that this might not be the only cavern.
It was an army that I had no hope denting. Even worse, I didn't even know the school could resist a full-powered assault from them. Ideally, it should be able to, as there was a reason the Silver Spires stood tall for centuries, despite every type of danger. However, their allies inside were a cause of concern.
What if they were high up in the chain to be able to sabotage the defenses?
I wish that I could solve the problem directly, but even with everything I had, I couldn't make a dent in the army in front of me. But I had to be at least ten levels higher to make a meaningful impact before I heroically died. Winning against such a huge army was an impossible wish.
Luckily, however, a direct intervention was not the only option. Currently, I was in the middle of their base, and they were unaware of my presence. I might not destroy their huge army, and while killing the necromancers leading them was tempting, I couldn't kill enough of them to make a difference.
That still left an excellent way of damaging their effort. Intelligence.
The more information I could bring to Titania, the better response she could organize. Even better if I could get some strong evidence to convince the Headmistress about the danger we were facing, allowing me to make a credible first contact.
Of course, none of them was as important as me getting away from here alive…
As I moved forward, I couldn't help but feel glad to have Aviada's sword with me. If things devolved worse, it might give me the edge I needed to stay alive until I cut myself an escape. I moved into the same tunnel the necromancer had gone, and found a long, deep corridor, conveniently empty.
And more importantly, conveniently bereft of magical protection.
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I decided to create a pocket of action. I quickly draw a temporary rune in the air to hide my magical presence before I put my hand on the wall and carved a small room, only to immediately erase the wall behind me. Then I tunneled deeper, hoping that their construction was sufficiently shady.
[-420 Mana]
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[+2 Elemental]
After moving almost three hundred meters deep into the earth, and drawing several more permanent magic-concealing runes and wards —expanding even more of my dwindling stack of reagents— I found out my guess was only half-correct. They did have defenses underneath the base, but it was sloppy enough that I was easily able to penetrate it without raising an alarm.
[-1637 Mana]
Okay, I had to admit, spending twenty minutes and wasting enough mana to destroy a squad of bone dragons didn't exactly count as easy, but I was annoyed, and wanted to mock them a bit. After competing for that, I started moving to the north in a direct line, digging a tunnel of three miles —layering with anti-detection runes and other protective measures— to ensure I avoided tangling with anything important. Only then I created a tunnel upward, careful to avoid entanglement with their wider tunnels. When I finally created an exit to the fresh air, I couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction. They might have worked for years to create an impenetrable base, but it took me only a night to break it.
[-2320 Mana]
[+6 Elemental]
Now that I had an escape route, I felt more confident. I reinforced the exit point with another trap before taking the tunnel down once again, returning to the base.
About fifty feet before the base entrance, I created a larger room, piling it with traps filled with life energy, ready to explode the moment an undead stepped through the gate. I stayed there for almost half an hour, filling the room with traps twice, enough to eviscerate anyone who dared to step through. If I got caught, I needed to scare them, and an apocalyptic explosion of life energy would doubtlessly do the trick.
[-6750 Mana]
I moved only after my mana was full once again —though I was a bit sad that the first instance of my mana regeneration, the one I received from Helga, had expired— just to make sure I was prepared in case something went wrong. I once again started pulling life energy to fake their necrotic energy, and soon, I arrived at the entrance and took a deep breath, steeling my nerves.
Even with all the preparation I had made, a mistake, and I was a lifeless undead… Still, I continued forward…
—
[Level: 23 Experience: 263100 / 276000
Strength: 28 Charisma: 38
Precision: 21 Perception: 25
Agility: 25 Manipulation: 30
Speed: 23 Intelligence: 30
Endurance: 22 Wisdom: 32
HP: 2737 / 2737 Mana: 3265 / 3565 ]
SKILLS
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Tantric [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Expert Arcana [75/75]
Advanced Subterfuge [50/50]
Basic Speech [25/25]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share