I lead us to the closest group of undead, a small group of three that are moving towards us. I stop us at an intersection ahead of the undead and signal for Corvax and Daniel to take them out once they pass. A few seconds later we can hear the sounds of dragging feet and unsteady steps approaching us. Right before the undead enter the intersection of our alleys, my two teammates rush out of our hiding spot with weapons swinging. All three undead are lying on the ground, motionless, just a few moments later.
I immediately start leading us through the alleys again, taking a roundabout path to the next group so our location and route are harder to predict. By the time the second group is dead, the rest have formed into bigger groups of five or six and are slowly moving towards us, trying to form a perimeter around us by the looks of it.
I keep leading us through the winding maze that is this city, using the alleys and buildings to set up ambushes on each group. It takes about fifteen minutes before we clear out all of the undead around us and move back toward the bear’s territory to continue thinning the horde.
The buildings are empty of any waiting undead, with all of them now actively searching and securing the border. They are all staying within line of sight of at least a few undead and have stopped grouping up as much, likely in reaction to our tactics.
“They’re staying close enough together to respond to a melee attack, but far enough apart we can’t kill multiple with one rift shot. We might need to shift our strategy if we want to kill more.” I tell my teammates after we take refuge in a building just outside the bear’s territory.
“I say we stop with the sneaking around and face them head-on. Kill enough to force the bear to come out itself. Killing it might be as easy as a single rift shot.” Daniel responds.
“Corvax, what do you think?”
“These undead are very weak. I can’t see myself losing to less than a few dozen of them, if they’re even strong enough to take me down. I say we fight them head-on.” The four-armed alien answers.
“I’ll lead us somewhere we hopefully won’t get surrounded then. Make sure to keep your communication amulets on in case we get separated. As long as you don’t leave my spatial perception range, I can give you directions.” I say before I lead us out of the building and to the border of the bear’s territory, coming up with a plan on the way and sharing it with the other two.
I stop us at one of the few actual streets in this city, wide enough to drive a car down but nowhere near as wide as the main roads of the city. About twenty feet in front of us is where the undead scouts are patrolling the border, looking out for us. One of the undead notices us after just a second, causing all the other undead in view to eerily turn their heads all at the same time.
We stop and stare at them for a second, and they do the same. A few moments later, after the silence has built up to an uncomfortable level, all of us burst alive with movement. Corvax takes a step forward and braces himself to stay here and fight, holding off most of the undead in this alley. I chose this street specifically to let Corvax have a wider range of movement available to him.
Daniel and I peel off into alleys on either side of Corvax. He’s on the right, and I’m on the left. Our goal is to stop any undead from trying to flank Corvax and to take out as many undead as we can while staying mobile, ready to hop in and help where needed. Daniel says his [Stone Sense] is good enough to let him work alone for this, so I only have to watch out for myself and Corvax, just in case.
After a few seconds, I feel some kind of mana start leaking from Corvax. It’s wafting off of him like steam, and I get a feeling of anger and power from it. Most likely his [Berserker Rage] skill, which is why he insisted on fighting alone. He swings his axe with reckless abandon, using brute force alone to disassemble the horde trying to surround him. None get past his furious axe blade.
I notice a few groups have started moving around the alleys on my side, looking to get behind Corvax. I move towards the closest one, a group of two undead trying to move quietly. I intercept them and take them out quickly with a few thrusts and slashes from my sword. Their decaying flesh parts easily before mana-boosted swings from my sword.
The other groups of undead near me stop for a second, then they resume, taking slightly different paths than before. They are no longer just going for Corvax, it seems. Some of the groups move in a way to try and lure me into alleys with dead ends and no escape routes. I ignore these groups for now and focus on the ones trying to flank Corvax, who is quickly stacking up undead bodies.
Over the next few minutes I take out several more groups trying to flank Corvax, updating my teammates through the communication amulet as I work. Daniel seems to be doing fine as well. No real surprise there, as he might be the most combat-capable out of the three of us. Another minute later, the undead pause and start to retreat deeper into the city. I notify the others, and they say the same thing, that the undead have suddenly stopped and left. We group back up at Corvax.
Daniel and I had no injuries during our fights. We’re just covered in some of the residual filth that comes with slaying undead. Corvax, however, has it much worse. I feel the mana slowly fade from him as he deactivates his skill and turns around to face us. Behind him is a small mountain of bodies piled five feet high. He has to have taken out at least four dozen by himself, maybe even more based on the dismembered bodies strewn all over the street. There is even part of an arm on top of one of the nearby roofs. How do you even do that?
He is covered in the viscera of our enemies and not a small amount of his own blood. He has scratches covering every exposed part of his body, causing his green blood to spill out. His face is lit up with a big grin, and the light under his skin is flowing all over his body, likely already healing his minor wounds.
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“That was… satisfying.” He says as he walks up to us. “I was never much of a fighter before. Resisting just got you killed by the Skrill. But you two have shown me what it means to be free, and now that I have the power to choose, I think I will fight to give this choice to the rest of my people.”
Daniel claps him on the shoulder. “We got a regular Spartacus here, leading his people to freedom. Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you return home? Won’t the Skrill return with you?”
Corvax’s face turns serious, and he says his next words with full confidence, as if they are a universal law. “They will not leave this planet. Not while I still draw breath.”
Daniel's lips curl into a slight smile. “Well, Ray and I can help you out with that if you need. Right, Ray?”
“Yeah, yeah, we can kill all of the slavers later. Right now we have a bear problem, remember?” Did everyone suddenly forget we were fighting undead just a minute ago? “The undead could easily just be regrouping for a more powerful attack. Let’s wait it out a little bit. Even if they move to encircle us, I will notice, and we can escape long before they are able to do anything.” I tell the other two.
“I need time to rest as well, maybe an hour or two.” Corvax adds.
We walk back to one of the buildings I noted down as being easy to flee from and sit down to rest for a while. We drink some water and eat some of the jerky that we brought with us while we rest. I focus on watching our surroundings, shifting my spatial perception area around every now and then to check other areas. After about forty minutes the undead return, this time in force.
I see several hundred undead start to fill the streets at the border of the bear’s territory. Most of them are moving in big groups, clogging up the streets and alleys, and moving to the street that marks the border.
“Well, we definitely got its attention. It sent a huge horde to reinforce the border, at least three hundred undead.”
“Are they moving towards us?” Daniel asks me as he finishes the repairs on my sword, which has taken a bit of a beating over the past few days.
“No, they’re just lining up at the border, filling up the alleys and streets over there, making an impassable wall of undead.”
“Let’s just move then. We can find another part of its territory that is less defended now that it moved a large force here.” Daniel says after a few seconds of thought.
Looking at Corvax, he readily agrees. All of his wounds are mostly healed by this point, and the rest should finish by the time we are in combat again. I give the area around us one last scan as I plan out our route, and then I lead the three of us on a route parallel to the bear’s border.
Shortly after leaving the safety of the building, I notice something big start moving at the edge of my perception, behind the gathered horde. It's the bear, flanked by four armed and armored undead. They look to be in full plate, each armed with halberds. I quickly stop the group and tell them the situation.
“Can you open a rift near it? This whole thing might be easier than we’re making it out to be.” Daniel says as he shows me a huge round he made specifically for this bear.
“I can try, but no promises. I doubt it will let me open a portal right next to it.”
I start forming a rift about thirty feet above the bear, with the other end right in front of Daniel and me. As soon as the rift starts to form, I feel a pulse of mana from the bear reach it, trying to destabilize it. It feels just like what the ants did to counter my rifts, but weaker, so I push more mana into the skill as the bear’s mana starts surrounding my rift, trying to keep it from forming.
After a few more seconds of fighting, I feel the bear's concentration lapse for just a moment, giving me the opportunity I need to stabilize the rift with one last push of mana.
“Fire—” I start to say, but I quickly get interrupted by another pulse of mana from the bear. I push my focus even harder on keeping the rift stable before the mana reaches it and likely fully destabilizes it in just a moment. As soon as the bear's attack reaches my portal, I realize my mistake and try to shut the rift down, but I am too late.
The mana from the bear doesn’t go for my rift but through it instead. The blast of mana comes through the rift just a moment before I can close it and slams into my chest with enough force to push me back a few steps. It causes no pain or damage that I can see and doesn’t even try to invade my body or do anything seemingly harmful to me.
I turn my full attention to the bear's mana, which is just clinging to my chest for no apparent reason. It had to have done that for a reason. There’s no way it spent all of that effort just for a dud. I shut off my spatial perception and put all of my focus in [Mana Sense], scanning my chest over and over again, poking and prodding at the foreign spell until I finally notice that a large part of this spell is designed solely to stick to me, and after the skill levels up, I see what the rest of the spell does too.
“It’s a tracking spell,” I say, following the faint line of mana leading from me to the direction of the bear. I’m just barely able to notice it, and after turning on my spatial perception again, I can see that it does indeed lead all the way to the bear. I can also see that the bear is leading its horde directly toward us.
Daniel looks to my chest, then his eyes go wide. “Oh fuck, that’s not good.”
“It’s coming over here now, with the entire horde.”
I start pushing against the spell with my mana, trying to get it off of me, or sever it, or do anything, but it all fails. I don’t know how, but the bear is clearly much more skilled than me at mana manipulation. It actually managed to bait me to open a portal it could use against me. I can’t help but smile at my own stupidity and ignorance after saying so many times not to underestimate them, but a small part of me is also excited to fight an opponent who will put up a real challenge.
I open a portal on the floor between Daniel and Corvax, wide enough for the four-armed giant to get through.
“You two drop through that portal. It only has a tracker on me. The portal leads to an alley out of the horde’s path.” I say as another plan begins forming in my mind.
“I’ll stay and fight. I’m not leaving you.” Corvax says immediately.
“Leaving me? You couldn’t get away from me if you tried, Corvax. I can just open a portal and escape anytime I want. My plan is to use this tracker against the bear, and I need your help to do it. It thinks it used my skill against me to attach a tracker, when in reality it just gave itself false confidence to leave its territory.”
“Let’s trap a bear then!” Daniel says, the worry and little bit of guilt already gone from his expression.