PreCursive

  “Whisper, with me,” Hook said lowly, maneuvering himself into the bat stance I’d seen from him so many times in training. “Hangman, Dusk. You take the rear. And remember…aim for the head.”

  As Sylvia split off and joihe leader of the Noe Division, I turned around. Eyeing the fiunnel we were in, I grimaced. We had so little room to maneuver in here. Luckily, I’d been so paranoid during our search that I’d had a realization about the possibility of bat in here. While I’d been practig heavily on using the dagger forms of my ons, I didn’t sider that my primary form of bat.

  I thought of myself as a spearman. And while the corridor was so cramped that Dusk and I were practically shoulder to shoulder, so were the advang undead.

  Long, straight lines of attack were perfect for spears.

  I extended my right Oninite bde and lowered it towards the advang horde. At the same time, I flipped my left dagger around ae as well. While I couldly fight with two spears, I wasn’t alone.

  Without a word, I hahe spare over to Dusk. She took it with a small nod, immediately uanding my pn.

  The flesh of these creatures looked too thin ao bother with needing The Stilnt Bde. Luckily, I had a neon enha skill.

  For the first time, I activated Grinding Crimson Sunder in battle.

  The blue-bck bde of my Oninite spear erupted into a furious, roiling, glowing mass of ethereally vicious thorns. They g to the edge of the bde, grinding against each other endlessly in a manner not dissimir to that of a saw.

  A low whine filled the air.

  To my side, I noticed that the bde of the spear that I had given to Dusk had been surrounded by its own aura. Oily bck smoke engulfed it, dripping onto the stone below from how thick it was.

  At that, there was no more time for words. No more time for pnning or w where these monsters had e from.

  There was only battle.

  I jabbed forward with my spear as soon as the first undead was in rahe crimson light of my skill briefly illuminating the monster. While the arms of this long-dead orc were lohan my own, thankfully the added length of my spear bypassed their graspih. However, my aim was slightly off.

  The shearih of my spear pierced through the neck of the zombie. In a moment, my Skill had worked to almost pletely remove its head.

  Almost.

  The partially decapitated head listed to hang upside down to its left side, only barely still attached by the slightest stretch of paper-thin skin. But still, those eerie blue lights shone in its empty eye sockets. The once-orc shuffled forward one more step, paying no mind to the bde that had nearly removed its head.

  I snarled in adrenaline-filled fury, broke out of my shock, and fihe job. The head fell to the floor, followed closely by the body, slumping to its desiccated khe undead behind it didn’t care about how I’d just finished off its fellow corpse. It just stepped forward over the beheaded mass of former orc.

  Not once did any of them make a single noise. Not a moan, roan, or even the slightest exhation of air from long stilled lungs. They simply shuffled frasping endlessly for the living with outstretched arms, long withered from the touch of death.

  I stepped forward to meet them, buoyed by how easily my new Skill had carved through the first one.

  Dusk had already killed three of them iime it took me to kill one.

  Well, I couldn’t have that.

  I lunged forward up under grasping limbs aed the job.

  This process itself repeated for…I don’t know how long. It was hard to tell time like that in the middle of battle.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  Despite the narrow fines of our enviro, it almost seemed like the horde of undead was endless. Where were all of them ing from? Dusk and I had gohrough dozens of them by now, which wasn’t ting what Hook and Sylvia were putting down. In a brief moment of rest, I had looked over my shoulder to find that it looked like they’d destroyed more of them than Dusk and I had. This was far, far more corpses than were tained in this one small corridor. Just how many of the resting orcs that we’d passed on the way in had been dominated by the Neancer Hook had suspis about?

  Did they have trol of the entire mausoleum?

  No…

  This wasn’t a mausoleum.

  This was a Necropolis.

  A moo the dead, and a house of worship to the twisted and insane.

  Eventually, I slipped up. I had grown too pt, even if the thoughts rag through my head were fio the depths of my rings. The rhythm I had fallen into was broken.

  An unnaturally strong limb cmped down onto my golde limb, cealed beh a bck leather elbow-length glove. I instantly activated Sylvan Vigor for the first time in the fight, bsting it all the to max power. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to break the death grip that the undead had on my false limb.

  I expected the moo try and take a bite out of me then, but something else happened. Something nearly worse.

  The jaw of the zombie that had hold of me creaked open, exposing an eerie blue light at the back of its pallid and withered throat. For the first time, one of these creatures used its lungs.

  It inhaled, and instead of air entering its lungs, Aether flowed into it.

  Mine.

  To my arm, I felt the very foundations of my soul begin to be drained of its vitality. Instead to e my flesh, this undead was trying to devour my very spirit. If I didn’t do anything, this monster was going to drain my soul of every st drop of Aether and I’d soon be dead.

  Fuck that.

  Dropping my spear momentarily, I weakly reached over and did something I never had.

  I thumbed the release ru the base of my artificial limb.

  With a clig he meism that held the gold and Mythril arm attached to its socket came undone. I immediately staggered back, free from the hold of the undead. The monster reeled back as well, breaking the feeding e that it had on me. As soon as I was free, I raised my remaining arm, fingers pointing toward the head of the uhat had nearly killed me.

  Poisonthorn Shot.

  The familiar form of my skill materialized before my fingers and immediately shot straight at my target. Its head snaped back, impaled by the nearly forearm-sized blood-red thorn. In moments, the corrosive poison of the Skill had pletely dissolved its withered face. Apparently, that was enough to end it, as it slumped to its knees, still clutg my prosthetic.

  Shit. I couldn’t lose that. I didn’t have a rept.

  Before another undead could advance, I stumblingly grabbed my still-extended spear and nearly dived for the limb. I mao grab it out of the hands of the i zombie, but another was already lurg my way, arms extended. I grimaced and tried to raise my hand to fire off ahorn, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength for it right now, so soon after my draining and the other use of the skill.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t fighting alone.

  My other spear sailed over my head, coated in an inky smoke that sizzled in the dim light that we fought by. It ly pierced through the neck of the undead grasping for me, severing its head instantly. I didn’t waste the d scrambled backward.

  Dusk advanced before I could even thank her, wielding my own spear with a fihat I wasn’t capable of yet. I wasn’t even able to thank her before the Gnoll woman had waded into the thick of the horde, gracefully dodging their grasping hands. At the same time she was using my spear with her left hand, I watched as she shed out at nearby undead with the cws of her hand. Those digits were also trailing the same corrosive bck smoke as the spear, and rapidly rotting through the dozens of uhroats. It almost seemed like she was more than able to deal with the lot of them with no help from me.

  My eyes narrowed. The hell she was.

  I refused to be dead weight.

  Jamming my prosthetic bato its base, I bore through the fsh of pain that resulted from my nerves being magically reected to the false touy golden fingers. Flexing them, I gripped my spear and charged bato the fray.

  The cycle tinued.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  Lunge, jab, decapitate.

  A problem arose. We had killed so many undead by this point that their corpses were crowding the floor of the narrow hallway. It was impossible to advany more, and so we held our positions and did our best to hahe monsters as they advanced on us. Our footing was treacherous now, and it only grew more so.

  The problem worsened. We were now shing out over a mound of undead corpses that were waist-high by now. But the stream of them opped ing. The newer ones were simply crawling over top of their fellows, endlessly grasping for the vitality i in our souls. I didn’t even know how long we’d been fighting at this point. For all I knew, it might have been hours. But…it couldn’t have been, right? I’m not sure I had that much stamina for such a protracted battle.

  At st, the problem hit its peak.

  The wall of corpses that had grown in front of us reached he ceiling by now. Withered grey hands wiggled through the small gap he ceiling, trying to force their way through. But they couldn’t. The undead couldn’t force their way through.

  This wasn’t a good thing…because it came with a problem.

  Staggering bad desperately gulping dowhs of air, I looked over my shoulder. The same thing had repeated on Hook and Sylvia’s side. There was another wall of uhat they’d created from the huhat had been sin by now.

  We were trapped, now.

  Now that the fighting was over, a visibly weary Hook and Sylvia warily shuffled over to join Dusk and I.

  “What…now…” I mao croak out iween panting breaths.

  “I should’ve seen this ing,” Hook said tiredly, slumping to sit on a nearby funerary sb bereft of its. “This is Neaactie-oh-one. If you ’t kill your target with your undead, exhaust them. Ohey’re exhausted, drown them in even more rotting bodies.”

  “We ’t get out,” Dusk said quietly, leaning on the shaft of my borrowed spear tiredly. “We…might be able to force our way through the horde with suffitly powerful Arts or Spells, but…”

  “Even more undead will just move in to fill the gap left in the breach,” Sylvia picked up, shuffling over to my position. "But beyond that, it might damage the hallway too much." Ung about Hook or Dusk’s opinion, she slumped against me. I gdly threaded my golden arm around her ba an embrace. I he reassurance as much as she did, after the grind of that battle.

  “But we ’t stay here,” I said lowly. “Eventually, the press of more and more bodies oher side will cause the 'walls' to colpse and then…”

  As if to punctuate my statement, a desiccated hand succeeded in shoving a loose corpse free from the wall of its fellows blog its path. It slowly crawled halfway through it, before Dusk speared its questing head. It slumped in pce, more mortar for the grisly barricade.

  “We really will drown uhe weight of everything we killed,” Hook said grimly, shaking his head. “They’ll colpse over us, and we’ll suffocate to death. Well, most of us.” He said, with a bleak nod of his head towards Sylvia.

  Sylvia smiled humorlessly. “I would join you soon,” She said quietly. “My soul would be dined upon not long afterward, and all that would be left is the Mythril of my body.”

  I tightened my grip o the thought.

  Hook stood up abruptly then, casting a gaze over us. “Alright then,” He said briskly. “Options? There must be a way out of this.”

  Sylvia raised her head. “Could one of us force our way through, perhaps? If someone sought out the Neancer in time, would killing them cause the uo retreat?”

  Dusk shook her furry head. “No, Neancy doesn’t work that way. They’ve been given their ands, and they’ll follow them even past the death of their master.” She paused. “But…perhaps one of us could still force our way through? We could…inform the Orcs of the Neancer and ask them to rescue everyone else?” She sounded doubtful of her own pn.

  As expected, Hook just shook his head. “No, the Orcs wouldn’t care about us. They would e down aermihe unlised Neancer, but they’d leave everyone else to die down here.”

  While they debated pns, I was stu something else Dusk had said earlier. “Suffitly powerful Arts or Spells…” I muttered to myself. My gaze drifted downwards, to rest oone of the corridor below.

  “Something to add, Hangman?” I heard Hook ask me. Raising my head to meet his gaze, I nodded slowly.

  “Instead of going through them, how about we…go around them?” I asked the group. “Hook, Dusk. Do you have anything that could punch through the walls or the floor?”

  Hook and Dusk exged a g that, before both of them looked down. Dusk hummed in thought, before nodding slowly. “Yes, I believe I do. I’m…not sure what is behiher, however.”

  “I do,” Hook said thoughtfully. “This entire plex is shaped like a spiral with brang paths, in case you didn’t notice. Below us should just be another floor of the mausoleum. That would bring us closer to the pathway into Ttec, which is at the very bottom. We 't do the walls, though. These are solid rock with nothing beyond them. We’ll just have to watch out for more of these bastards below, but it’s better than staying here. Yes. This’ll wood thinking, Hangman.”

  An air of tension that had fallehe group at our fihat I hadn’t even noticed eased, now that we had a pn.

  “Stand back,” Hook said warningly to Sylvia, Dusk, and I. “I’m going to try and make as small of a hole as I in the floor, so the whole damn thing doesn’t colpse under us.”

  The three of us shuffled as far away as we could from Hook without getting in range of any questing hands poking through the undead wall. When we were clear, Hook kneeled down with one of his daggers exteo my surprise, it lengthened into what looked like a bde of razor-sharp pressed air. The very wind of the corridor whistled and split over its surface from the iy of its edge. Without another word, Hook smmed it into the stone below and began to try and saw a hole in the floor.

  However…

  I don’t know if it was just another yer to the Neancer’s trap, or if it was just sheer bad lu our part

  Because wheoh us ierced?

  The ehing colpsed.

  I only had time to meet Sylvia’s widening eyes once, before we all fell away into darkness.