Chapter 831 Chapter 830: Outpost Epsilon
?Hearing the grumbling and groaning of the undead as they shuffled out of the various ruined buildings inside of the outpost, I reached for my Khopesh and exited the carriage first, taking a cursory look before nodding at the others, signaling for them to exit the carriage as well.
"That's a sizable number of undead for a mere outpost... Do you think some of the citizens escaped from Custodia and made their way here? To the other outposts as well, hoping for rescue and shelter?"
I shrugged as I looked over the approaching undead, their flesh a dried out, withered grey that belied the strength coursing through their scrawny bodies, their appearances deceiving to those that had never encountered the undead before. The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Mana streamed through their rotting veins and kept them functional, even as the cartilage between their joints and the muscles connecting their body together rotted away, or how their flesh was pierced, cut, slashed and otherwise damaged to the point of being non functional; mana allowed such a heinous creature to continue operating in ways that shouldn't be possible, and it gave them more strength then they had in their life.
In this form of 'unlife', the new, putrid mana running through their Core and coursing throughout their body grants them a new strength, one that was locked behind their body's natural reluctance to utilize its entire strength, that was blocked by their Core not desiring to be emptied of mana and drained of all life.
So, what was shuffling around in front of us was a hideous monster that went against most of nature's set rules, and as such we needed to take it seriously... well, at least as seriously as we could manage against something as easily defeated as undead.
Bashing in the knee of one, I brought its face down to the level of my palm and blew off its head, all while my Khopesh was arcing up towards the chin of an undead beside me, cracking against the bone and destroying the jaw completely, sending splinters of bone and teeth straight into the undead's brain, though it needed another whack to fall down for good.
Beside me, Jahi went for utter destruction of the undead by coating her great sword in Light Mana before cleaving it through their bodies as swiftly as she could, bisecting them cleanly and stomping on their heads or chests to finish them off, should they have survived the initial attack.
Anput used a long, heavy headed spear to obliterate the skulls of the undead from afar, or to stab their Cores with precise thrusts, which kept her at range and away from the disgusting blood that poured from those wounds.
Meanwhile, Leone was taking this time to practice with her Estoc, the two handed blade singing through the air as its flame coated surface sliced through flesh and bone with ease, burning the undead and cauterize the wound, keeping the blood from ever being spilt.
Each of us took a unique route to the same end result, and we did so with the same amount of efficiency as well; what felt like a hundred, perhaps two hundred undead was whittled down to zilch in no time at all, corpses piling up around us as they finally died their final death, free from the corrupted mana and allowed to rest properly...
The horde died quickly, and we all looked at the hellish sight behind us with pursed lips and conflicted emotions... with the most common one being an annoyance at the sudden lack of enemies to fight.
But... this was merely the appetizer anyways, and now we were able to head out for that main meal...
The Terracotta Grottos.