The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 13

The demon stands where it is like an unmovable mountain. It is unlikely this armored Undead is going to charge at them like the previous ones. This demon is smarter than the rest, it now uses the terrain to its advantage, the table is now turned against Fingers. 

Fingers are standing in almost a straight line due to the tunnel’s narrowness. Two can stand side by side, but they’ll have no room to move. Eden stands at the front, racking his brain trying to solve this problem. His opponent is heavily armored and vastly out-levels him, there’s no way Eden can take it on by himself. 

[Our best chance of beating it would be to surround it from all sides, like how we fought Narila.] Eden thinks. [If only we don’t have this narrow tunnel, but a wide entrance instead…]

[...Wait a minute!]

As if a candle was just lit above Eden’s head, he has come up with an excellent idea. 

“Astraka!” Eden turns to the old wizard and asks. “This tunnel is dug by the necromancer’s magic, right?”

“Uhh...yeah, I think? Undead labor can’t make such a deep tunnel.” 

“Is it possible for you to use magic and expand this section of the tunnel?” Eden says and points his arm over to the hallway between them and the demon. 

“Yes! It is certainly possible!” Astraka says excitedly with this revelation. “I see your point, let me try!”

Eden returns to his defensive position, imitating the demon. The enemy ahead has not moved at all since the beginning, not wanting to abandon its defensive position. 

Meanwhile, Astraka closes his eyes and begins chanting. His arms fully stretched out, flapping back and forth.

{Eliminate Earth.} He says repeatedly while making those movements. 

Slowly, the two sides of the tunnel in front of Eden begin to crumble. Bit by bit, tiny rock pebbles from each wall fall, expanding the tunnel a bit wider. 

Astraka does it for 15 minutes straight, and the demon decides to not use that chance and charge. Now, in front of Eden is a tunnel big enough to fit 3 people with no problem (and a pile of rubles, but eh). Fingers decide to not rush things and let Astraka sit down and rest. Meanwhile, the demon still stands there, grinding its teeth. It begins to doubt itself, that it should switch to the offensive instead. Its morale deteriorates while the demon continues to stand there defensively like an i***t.

Another two minutes pass and Astraka stands up, ready to fight. Harmani and Lela walk to the two sides of Eden, and they begin to step up to the pile of rubles, slowly walking towards the armored Undead. Nara and Astraka walk behind them, chanting their spells as they go. 

Eight meters away from each other, the armored demon still hasn’t moved, it decides to stand its ground to the very end. At this point, Eden and Harmani speed up and begin to charge at their enemy. Lela, however, stops running and instead moves slightly to the center, behind Eden. She is now out of the demon’s sight. 

{Bane Undead Series: Annihilation.} Nara’s voice can be heard from far behind.

A yellow ray flies over Eden with immense speed, it suddenly changes trajectory midway and flies directly to the demon. It has expected this. The demon uses its shield to block Nara’s attack. The ray bursts into a yellow glow right after contact with the shield.

“Gugh!” The demon grunts in pain, but it has endured the attack. 

Eden and Harmani waste no time and attack the Undead right after in opposite directions. The demon raises its shield to block Eden’s powerful overhead swing, while simultaneously swinging its flail at Harmani’s fist. 

“Clang!” The resonating sound of his fist and the flail hitting each other directly from the opposite direction. This causes both to full back their weapon/arm. 

{Bane Undead Series: Annihilation.} Nara is now much closer to the demon, and she attacks it once again. 

The demon tries to jump over to Harmani to dodge the incoming ray but is stopped between its tracks. 

“Ain’t happening, son!” Eden mocks it while grabbing the demon’s left wrist, pulling him back and preventing him from dodging the attack. 

The yellow ray hits it right as Eden uses his other sword-holding arm to chop its shield-holding left arm off. Their sheer difference in Levels prevents Eden from cutting its arm, but it screams in pain as Eden’s sword penetrates its armor and cuts to its bone. 

The demon manages to resist Nara’s ray attack once again, but Fingers don’t let it take the initiative and attack relentlessly. Eden releases its wrist after realizing he cannot cut through. He grabs his shield and jumps back just as the demon makes a horizontal swing at both him and Harmani. Harmani is hit by the swing and is thrown back, but he manages to keep his balance. 

“Lela, now!” Eden shouts.

Out of nowhere, the rogue appears right behind the demon, with her dagger raised high. She wastes no time and stabs downward at its exposed nape. An accurate hit can end its life right then and there. 

Unfortunately, Eden’s words have already alerted the Undead, and it quickly turns around. Its hands catch Lela by both wrists and stop her attack. It stares at her, expecting a frustrated, or perhaps scared look on her face. Perhaps it can use her moment of desperation and use Lela as a meatshield against the rest. Instead, what the demon Undead sees is a mischievous smile.

“Wrong guess.” Lela simply says.

Suddenly, the demon can feel a presence right from behind. It panics and releases Lela and tries to swing its flail as it turns around.

Too late. 

Astraka has already touched its armor with a fully charged up {Lightning} spell on his index finger. Immediately, its entire body is zapped up.

“Gahhhh!” It screams in agony.

{Lightning} is a rather effective way to counter armored opponents. Normally, it won’t be able to penetrate well-made plate armors. However, when the spell is fully charged, and released by touch range, the chance of successful penetration becomes extremely high, just as we’re seeing here right now.

Everyone then moves back and watches as lightning flows through the demon, its entire body glows a bright blue. The spell lasts for a few more seconds before it finally subsides, and the armored Undead falls to the ground. However, its body is yet to turn into dust. Fingers move closer, ready to strike the finishing blows. 

“Haha, you all got me good. I admit my defeat.” With the demon’s hollowed eyes facing the ceiling, it laughs. 

Then without warnings, it quickly takes out a red marble from inside its armor and opens its mouth. Fingers recognize the marble right away, their eyes are wide open in shock. 

Death Embrace Us All. The same item Narila used to try and kill them. They all try to react and stop him, but it seems Lela is the fastest.

“Oh no, you don’t!” She shouts and throws her dagger at the demon. Meanwhile, Eden rushes forward with his sword in hand.

Her dagger manages to hit right where the demon moves the marble and knocks this dangerous item out of its hand. Just after that, Eden swings his sword down and decapitates the dangerous Undead once and for all. 

The demon crumbles to dust before it can even react, leaving behind a demon skeleton and its set of armor.

After that, Fingers recompose themselves. They wipe the dirt off their clothes, sit down and drink some water to rest, then finally return to formation. Sadly, eating more sandwiches here will do them no good, the whole team is full. They aren’t like some kind of machines that eat food and immediately convert it to strength and stamina.

“You’re all ready?” Eden asks. 

After seeing everyone nod, he opens the door that demon was guarding. Behind the door, to their surprise, is a large but empty room with no one inside. The only thing inside the room is a rectangular table and a chair to the right. On the table are two stacks of books, about a dozen books for each stack. One can tell from the cover that one stack contains journals, probably of the necromancer. The other stacks are books about magic, necromancy, and demonology.

“Where is the necromancer?” Eden lowers his sword and asks.

“He probably escaped after hearing our fight back then.” Astraka strokes his beard and thinks. “Teleportation, perhaps?”

“Damn it, we’re too late!” Lela curses. “The Central Office… thingy would have paid us good money if we managed to bring the ringleader.”

“No use yelling now,” Astraka says calmly, “let’s just do a customary search around the room to see if we luck out and find where he teleported to.”

The rest of them have no reason to do anything else, so they begin to read the room, especially reading through the books he, or maybe she, or even perhaps they, left behind.

Lela and Harmani search the room while Eden, Astraka, and Nara begin to read through the books. 

“That reminds me,” Harmani suddenly says. “Eden, care to tell us how to managed to keep on fighting back then against the horde?”

“Huh?” Eden lifts his face from the journal he’s reading. “Oh, back then? It was thanks to my Teacher. He forced me to train my endurance so that I can keep up with the fast running elks. It’s no big deal, I just knew my limits.”

“You’re downplaying your stamina a bit too much, Eden.,” Astraka chimes in. “Keeping up with hundreds of Undead for hours is a nigh-impossible feat even for Talented warriors.”

“I’m just specialized in it, I guess?” Eden shrugs. “And I did it with all your help, and the sandwiches Harmani made also helped a lot.”

Astraka and Harmani have no further arguments, so they just nod and resume what they’re doing.

[Still, that amount of stamina is just abnormal. It is as if he’s...] Astraka is deep in thoughts, but he quickly shakes his head and returns to the book.

A few minutes pass in silence as Fingers continue the investigation without saying a word.

“June 7th, 698,” Eden audibly mumbles to break the silence. “The war rages on, blah blah blah, I killed the prisoners, blah blah blah, finally, I found tracks of the girl, I will not let her escape this time, blah blah blah...”

“It seems the author of this journal is obsessed with a young girl. He keeps trying to catch her.” Eden finally comments after finishing the journal he’s holding.

“What’s her name?” Lela looks over to Eden and asks.

“Don’t know, he never mentioned her name.”

“I think I heard you say something about the war?” Astraka comments. “Was it during Narn Empire Civil War? Or some foreign war?”

“No, the year was 698 and the war kept on going. It matches the Crisis War more… if it was in Narn Empire, that is.”

“Yeah, it matches, I guess. Old age has not been kind to my memory,” Astraka chuckles. “I was in both wars actually. Our mercenary team was a great help to the Emperor, and then to our current Empress.”

“Talking about the Crisis War reminds me of something,” He continues. “I happen to know a very formidable necromancer. He survived the war, and rumors said that he has finally achieved his potential. Coincidentally, Empress Nakano also encountered him...”

Astraka suddenly stops smiling and falls silent. He has finally put two and two together. His left eye twitches and his face turns into horror.

“WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Astraka shouts as he tosses the books in his and Nara’s hand away. 

“What? Why? What happened” Lela asks, confused. She didn’t listen to Astraka’s rambling.

“Just do as I say! This necromancer is HIM! He didn’t escape, he was just not here. We stand no chance against him, we have to escape before...”

Time’s up.

A portal suddenly appears in the middle of the room. Instinctively, Lela and Harmani run over to the rest. Walking out of the portal is a pale bald man with dark circles around his eyes. His face is white as a ghost, and he’s so bony, he looks like a skeleton wrapped in skin, though he’s physically stronger than you might think. He’s wearing a dark red robe and holding a bone staff. Accompanying him are four human Undead, recently raised. One knight, one rogue, one wizard, and one archer. They’re all over Level 70 and are wearing uniforms of high-ranking Imperial officers.

The necromancer is none other than Lord Shar, Master of the Undead.

You see, I had a vision a few days ago, of Eden and his friends being massacred in the hands of Lord Shar. As a nigh omniscient being, my mind sometimes makes conclusions based on all the information I had, and this vision was one of them. They aren’t always correct, of course, but they’re usually right to an extent. 

I knew from the moment they entered the cave that their encounter with Lord Shar was inevitable… 

Okay, fine, I thought they would die to the demon back then. I’m not perfect, happy? 

Still, Eden’s decision to enter the cave triggered the Intersection of Destiny event. He pulled his team into a fight they were woefully unprepared for. And now, the moment that awaits them all. m******e, or survival.