Ondun felt himself hyperventilating as he watched humans and Mons crawl towards Cheng. There were some monster coaches with their partners deployed.

  A firey pony charged the waves of undead, scattering ashes of the deceased in their wake, but letting out a whinny when a large cluster of corpses descended on it. The whinnying stopped when a blast of light vaporized most of the attackers, letting the pony limp back to its coach, with a nasty wound on its side. A large floating jellyfish, glowing blue against the unnatural violet gloom floated over, and with one tentacle, began massaging the wound, slowly nursing it shut.

  He turned off the display on his phone, and started "box breathing." It was a technique Suzumi had taught him that wasn't constrained to the Shinobi Memory Gem. Shinobi, as a consequence of their chosen discipline, tended to see very intense things. Ondun immediately felt his frenzied panic subside as he breathed in for four seconds, held the breath for four seconds, exhaled slowly for four seconds, and kept his lungs empty for the final four seconds.

  Ondun repeated this four times, and by the end of the exercise, his mind was relatively clear again.

  The door opened, revealing a relieved Valerie. "Ondun...you don't look so good. Are you okay?" she asked, cautiously. He nodded. "I'll pull through...but Cheng is under attack. Undead."

  Her eyes went wide. "Wait, what!? That's not possible, the dead can't come back to life, and there's no microorganisms that can animate dead tissue, no matter what the Mericarian movies say..."

  Ondun held up a hand. "Dark magic can, though. In fact, 'necromancy', as the school is known, is very frequently one of the introductory schools that can lead to some very vile things. Whatever is going on in Cheng needs to be stopped. I fear I'm one of the few people strong enough to do it."

  Valerie crossed her arms. "What about Sylphie, though?"

  Ondun sighed. He'd been afraid of this question, for many, many reasons. "Sylphie comes with me. Everyone who told me I should've kept her with me was right. She was the reason I survived the Daemon fight in Xinling. I could only think of fighting the monster and winning that way. I haven't forgotten that it was a trick." He stopped. "What if it's the same thing?"

  Valerie nodded. "Yes, exactly! What if it's the same thing? You charging in to fight something might be precisely what this 'necromancer' wants! You defeating it - and if what you say is true, none could fault you for doing that, at least not immediately - might be the whole point of this."

  Ondun tried to think of ways around the zombie hordes descending on Cheng. In his career, he had stumbled onto ways of cleansing the undead. Unfortunately, most of those ways involved either Shamans, Dawn Mages, Dusk Mages who specialized in funerary magicks, or Arithmancers and their familiars. A Paladin would definitely do in a pinch, and sometimes a Monk would learn a Ki technique that could affect the undead, but it was a toss-up.

  Try as Ondun might, he could come up with no better solutions than a lot of powerful anima magic, or a lot of violence with weapons coated in powerful anima magic. Valerie saw the man feverishly working through the problem in his mind, and walked over, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  "Ondun, your heart's in the right place. You really need to think this all through, though. Even if you have something that's good against the undead, what about the source of the problem? What about what caused them to summon these undead? Yeah, the undead are scary and need to be dealt with, but there's a bigger problem here!"

  Ondun nodded. "I know." They're called the Dark Ones, he silently added. If I had an answer to them, they'd be gone and I'd go back to exploring the world like I wanted all along.

  The adventurer decided to change the subject. "Speaking of Sylphie, though...how is she? I cleansed the poison as quickly as I could, but it was a few seconds before I was able to defeat the Mons and their coaches. I've seen what poison can do, and...well...please tell me she's alright." Ondun finished, lamely and with some fear.

  Valerie turned. "You probably saved her life. Dreadvine venom is nothing to play with. She had nearly no damage whatsoever. She woke up a few seconds ago, and wanted to see you. She's basically good to go now, but another hour or two of rest wouldn't hurt."

  Ondun sighed with relief. "Oh, thank the All-Mother..." his frown turned into a grateful nod. "Thank you for helping her. Seriously." Ondun really didn't know what to say.

  "Then, follow me, and don't keep her waiting."

  As soon as Ondun came in the room, Sylphie's eyes lit up. He all but flash-stepped to her, despite not using the Shinobi arts, and carefully wrapped the young woman in a tight hug. She had a patch of gauze where an IV had been removed, and was back in her normal field wear. Valerie giggled a little bit, and after a moment Ondun realized what he'd done and removed himself. His face felt uncomfortably warm.

  Sylphie patted him on the head. "Good. You didn't run off again. By the way, I heard you from the hall. Cheng's under attack."

  He nodded. "I want to help. It could be a trick."

  She rolled her eyes. "Then...how about we just go help? Seriously, for a 'hero' you sure doubt yourself a lot. Besides...we're monster coaches. We don't fight alone."

  She released Venus the Luxli, who leapt up. "Luxli!" it cried ferociously. Ondun felt like the creature was telling him, "We're with you!" He felt Strudel's capture capsule shake, so he let the canine out who "said" much the same thing. "Aquehound!"

  The gears in his mind clicked. "Undead are created with Dark magic. We have Mons who use Light. We can neutralize the magic to at least turn the tide, without fully falling for whatever their summoner has in store."

  Sylphie nodded proudly. "Yep! And we have aerial support to help direct our strikes. You're a ninja, and a weird dragon knight...thing..., and also a healing wizard. Between all that, it'll be tough...but there might be a way to help Cheng, complete our Circuit Challenge, and hope to Olympus it's not like this everywhere we go."

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  Ondun put a hand on her shoulder. "Sylphie...even on Arcanis, everywhere I go tends to have things go wrong." He withdrew it. "Look, again...are you really-"

  She got up wrapped herself around him, and bumped her forehead into his.

  "I'm gonna put my head on yours, so that our two brain cells can work together. I think yours might die of loneliness. Yes. I'm coming with you, and fighting with you, and journeying with you, and then we're going to have an awesome battle, and I'm going to beat you. Then? I'll still keep journeying with you." She unwrapped herself and fixed her hair, while looking in a mirror. "Just get used to the idea."

  Ondun looked at Valerie, who just shrugged. "Then you better fight really, really smart. I don't like this, at all. Why don't you call the Guardian?"

  Ondun tapped his chin. "Better idea. The Rangers have some sort of relationship with her. Why don't they? We can move faster that way, and come up with our battle plan. Sylphie? Fine. When you're ready, we brief our Mons in the waiting room, then we set out."

  The young woman re-packed her spatial bag, then hooked one arm into his. "Meeting starts now!" she said sweetly. Ondun spared one look at Valerie who giggled. "Don't look at me, you're on your own. I wish she'd rest for another hour...but this isn't a normal situation. You two are strong. Don't make me write your death certificates."

  With a sigh, the two left the room. When they reached the waiting room, their Mons were all released. Ondun pulled out his phone, played the clips of the undead, and described the situation. Venus and Strudel looked particularly fearsome as they followed the unnatural shapes.

  They began growling at each other, but not in their usual competitve way, though. No, the two Mons were quietly conversing. They were planning. Ondun felt a grin form on his face. Zephanie and Maggie were doing much the same.

  After everyone had finished their conversations, no matter how intelligible to the otherworldly adventurer they were, Ondun and Sylphie shouldered their packs and recalled their allies. Ondun handed his capsules over to Sylphie, who accepted them with apprehension.

  Outside, the Rangers had two Leveagles saddled. "We're going to relieve Cheng, as well. We'll carry you there. Get on and buckle up. This is going to be a flight."

  The Leveagle rider had grossly understated the rigors of the too-fast flight. A few times, the elder avian Mon had made rapid dashes forward similar to what he'd seen Maggie and Strudel use. Some kind of quick attack? He guessed. The sensation felt a little similar to the Shinobi jutsu he used to reposition, which Suzumi had called the shukuchi.

  Maybe there's a connection there, the adventurer reasoned. My Mons could make use of that, and being able to flash step to more distant places could open up possibilities.

  As the ground grew in front of him, the lines of monster coaches of Cheng commanding a literal army of monsters, the change in the air when they got close was the first thing everyone noticed. It's colder...but in a warm sort of way. It feels...turbulent, and not like wind. Like everything in this area is in flux.

  Ondun reached up to his chest, and embodied the Dragon Knight arts. The mighty Lohengrim was ideal for dispatching waves of disposable, poor quality minions. Better still, his Dragon Knight arts tended towards elemental Wind or Fire. Wind in and of itself won't be very valuable, but for mobility. Fire, on the other hand, is nearly perfect for cleansing the undead.

  When the Leveagle got close enough to the ground, his rider gave a thumbs up. With a nod to Sylphie - she returned it, and let both Maggie and Zephanie out of their capture capsules - he unbuckled himself, and slid sideways off the massive, golden Mon, spinning as he fell to the roiling earth below.

  He slammed into a knot of undead, just as he'd planned, shattering their rotting flesh and bones, and dispersing their essence into an intangible black dust. Lohengrim traced three wide arcs, scattering yet more undead humans and Mons into a fine ash.

  Every undead nearby turned their unseeing eyes on him. He gave as cocky of a grin as he could under the macabre circumstances. That confirms it. I must be the guest of honor. This is definitely a trap.

  He backflipped towards the monster coach lines, where his impact was already being felt. "Hey, Lane! Back up the suicidal freak!" "Yeah, help the spear guy! We don't need a Dragoon tanking the floor!" "Maury, get some healing ready, he or his Mons might need it!"

  Ondun sighed. Some of the jeers made sense. Others less so. In any event, another wide arc with the blade returned some bodies to their final rest, and another backflip saw him standing in front of the coaches lines as waves of fire, water, wind, light, and lightning surged, shattering yet more of the undead forms. Ondun fell into his favored stance, gathered his legs, and charged a group of undead that had gathered, slamming the Lohengrim into this new, rotted clump of befouled bodies.

  Now...let's hope I've got the stamina to hold out, Ondun thought grimly. This is going to be a long one.

  Sylphie stepped off her Leveagle and released Venus and Strudel. "You two know what to do."

  With a meowing roar and a howl, the two Mons covered themselves in a sheathe of Light, and began to dash to and fro. Each undead they slammed into exploded with the force of a small grenade, just as she and Ondun had planned. Positive and negative anima polarities, she recalled as if out of nowhere. Must be like when you put an ice cube onto a hot piece of metal, only magic.

  The two Rangers didn't even bother returning their Leveagles. Instead they took wing again and began buffeting the ranks of the undead with a massive squall that nearly knocked Sylphie off her feet. More Mons were materialized - Sylphie recognized an Ignallion, the higher tier of an Ignony, and a Faedart that began summoning darts of light and slamming them into undead, where they violently exploded. The tiny needle-nosed pink Mon giggled with each undead cleansed from Monastria. That Faedart is pretty big, Sylphie thought, pulling her eyes away from the rotting rictuses of dead humans and Mons. It may evolve into a Faerrow soon.

  Sylphie was distracted from her distraction, by a band of five zombies - two mons and three humans - who charged her. Ondun was catapaulting across the battlefield in the distance, and Strudel and Venus had advanced too far to save her in time.

  That's when a shell of light formed about her - the undead slammed uselessly into it, groaning feebly as they did. Even as her mouth was agape, a woman's voice called out, "Ariel! Bring forth the wroth of the Light!"

  A tiny white-blue bead appeared in the violet, befouled air, growing as it expanded...then slammed into the ground with the force of a missile. Undead were vaporised where they had shambled, and for a moment the air felt normal, before the unnerving burning chill seemed to rush back in.

  A tall woman walked up beside Sylphie. She had white bobbed hair, two cat ears, a silken veil over a delicate face, white and black robes whipping in windless gales, and an angrily swishing tail. The feline woman brandished a massive white wood staff with what looked like an amethyst suspended from an innumerable web of fine white strings entending from the branches that made up the staff's head. She shouted over her shoulder, "Good job, Ariel. Now, take heed. I shall show you a different spell."

  The odd woman drew her staff close to her, and began saying something in a strange language, as a great aura of glowing blue splashed over her. A froth gathered in the air about her, before she opened her eyes and shoved the staff forward. "Deluge!" she cried, loosing a wave of pure, clean water that washed many, many undead - as well as gravestones, debris, flowers, and a few more freshly dead humans and Mons - out of its path with all the angry force of an unleashed ocean. Sylphie felt her shoes and socks instantly saturate.

  The woman looked down at her - she was taller than Sylphie. Even as she spoke strange words, another voice translated for her.

  "Fear not, young woman. I am Aenora. I see you fight alongside Ondun. Quickly, tell me what you know, before it's too late."