Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I awoke the next morning to the sound of insects and other wildlife. While nothing had disturbed me through the night, in retrospect it was a little reckless resting out in the open like I had. Either way, I got up and got moving, making sure the coals in my fire were well and truly out before continuing up the valley.

The stream I followed wound lazily through the widening valley. It was a large stream, almost a river. Many tributaries fed into it, and I came upon one that led off in the general direction I needed to go.

It let out of the wide valley and I found myself climbing up a steep hillside. It was a tiring climb, taxing even on my undead endurance. Reaching the top, I came across my first monster. A lone wolf waited, as if expecting me to come up the trail. It snarled, and I froze. This wasnt just a wolf; it was a dire wolf.

They were significantly bigger and meaner than regular wolves. They also had large patrol areas. Which is no doubt why the temple had heard of them. Fortunately, it looked to be a weaker one.

It lunged, but I was able to roll to the side, its claws just barely scratching me.

Scrambling to my feet, I lashed out with my blade-staff to buy myself time. The tip caught the wolf and it yelped in pain, jumping back.

Now on my feet, a simple beast-creature like this stood no chance against me. The wolf predictably lunged again.

Meeting the charging lone wolf with my blade, it impaled itself, the razor-sharp blade driving deep into his chest. Twisting my blade, I ripped it to the side and stepped back. As the wolf recoiled in pain, the slash I opened in its side spilled its guts, and the creek ran red with blood. The wolf didnt live long after that, bleeding out. Like I said, it stood no chance.

I investigated its dead body, and was gratified to find a death core, which I absorbed.

Taking one calculating look at the wolf, I made a decision. Dropping my illusion, I used a different spell. Necrotic energy swirled around my hand and then infused with the wolf. The corpse twitched and got back to his feet. I winced when the guts remained hanging out of its side. Id forgotten how much these low-level undead spells sucked. At higher levels, the damage done by killing the creature would often be somewhat restored.

I gave the undead dire wolf an order to follow me and headed toward where the quest was leading me. If I was right, I was going to need his help. We came across another pair of wolves, and with the help of my undead minion, they fell with little trouble. They did not stay down long, as I brought them back to assist me.

This was the power of a necromancer. Once we started killing and bringing creatures back, our power amplified.

The path brought us to a cave guarded by five dire wolves.

Charging out of the woods, I sent my undead minions in while I held back and targeted one wolf with a barrage of necrotic magical blasts. I ran out of mana before I could bring it down, but the point had been to weaken it. My undead wolves lacked the strength of their living counterparts, but their ability to ignore pain and damage meant they fought at a similar level.

When I joined the fray with my blade-staff, I carefully brought down the already wounded wolves, a mana potion allowing me to raise them in the middle of the fight to join me. By the time the skirmish was done, Id lost two of my wolves, but gained five more.

Casting magic to heal the undead minions, I glanced at the two fallen ones and shook my head. It was too bad I couldnt raise them againwith this weak spell, anyways.

Normally when using the spell, its ideal to custom design the creature before casting. Since I was unsure about how much mana I would have available, I needed to make it more adaptable. By the time the wolves dragged in the last body, I had completed the diagram, which formed a doubled-banded circle around the dead. I ordered my remaining dire wolves into the circle, where I pulled the magic out of them and returned them to corpses.

I was impressed by the size of the pile of bodies in the center of the room, having lost track of how many wolves were felled on the way in. Including the ones from outside, I figured there were at least fifty dire wolves.

Stepping back, I began to cast the spell.

Dark magic flowed out of me, flooding into the diagram. The circles, made entirely of dark energy, rose up out of the ground. Simply activating the spell had taken a large portion of my mana, and as I hoped, the death cores began to bleed, filling the spell with dark energy.

I began to sculpt the magic.

First, I separated all of my material. Aided by the magic, the dire wolves bodies were pulled apart. It was a grisly task. Soon I had four orbs floating before me. One was a collection of bones and teeth, another of flesh, the third contained skin wrapped around itself, and the final was an orb of congealed organs and blood.

The mana provided by the death cores was enough for me to work with ease. First, I focused on the bones, creating the skeletal structure of my new creature.

My creation was going to be a true monster. Id created something similar to it before, when I was a much higher level.

Once the skeletal structure was completed, I moved on to the orb of organs and blood. Blood drained from the organs until they were nothing more than desiccated husks that littered the floor. Infusing the blood with dark magic, its red sheen turned black and started wrapping through the skeletal structure. This would serve as the power conduit to make the undead creature work. The remaining blood was compacted into a dark orb centered in the middle of the creature, condensed until it became almost solid.

Then it was time to wrap the monstrous creatures body in flesh, filling it out and giving it its final form. I was running low on mana, and had just enough to finish suffusing the flesh with as much mana as I could, turning it dark.

Lastly, I wrapped my creation in dark skin, adding extra layers to defend both the core and its vulnerable places.

A splitting headache was pounding in my temples, blurring my vision as I neared the end of the spell. Though the death cores Id used allowed me to create this monster, it was far more than I should have been able to do.

Working quickly, I ended the spell, solidifying my undead creature. I collapsed to the ground gasping for breath, even though I no longer breathed. As my vision cleared, I smiled. Standing before me was something that looked like the merging of a Cerberus and a centaur.

Extending out of the chest, rather than a neck, was a section reminiscent of a centaur. Two powerful arms extended off the base, and above that were the three heads of the Cerberus, complete with razor-sharp teeth and glowing eyes. The arms ended in wicked hands with long black claws that leaked dark energy.

I couldnt see the level, but I could tell it was powerful. Even more powerful than I was. And since it was my creation, it would always be under my control. If I created a regular undead more powerful than me, it would be harder to control.

Undead constructs were always loyal.