Duskbound-Chapter 37Book 2,

Torwin instinctively recoiled away from Gorlath’s body. His skull had partially collapsed, the damage so thorough that even if Gorlath had somehow lived through it, he wouldn’t be physically capable of speaking. Whatever this thing was, it was able to use magic to overcome that handicap.

What the hell is it? Some kind of undead? Velik said he had a [Soul Binder] class. Maybe it was just waiting for the right moment to attack me.

Without hesitating, he let the first arrow fly straight for the heart. Some undead had to protect that, though Torwin wasn’t sure if whatever was in front of him was one of those. Its arm snapped up, blindingly fast, and caught the arrow through the meat of the forearm, so maybe Torwin had gotten lucky with his guess.

“Now, now, that hardly feels like a good way to greet an old friend,” Gorlath said. “And here I was all set to surprise you, too.”

Before it could say another word, pale silvery light burst into existence all over it. The undead flailed in obvious agony, scrambling to escape the attack, but the light clung to it, burning it and scouring away its flesh. With it so obviously unable to defend itself, Torwin unleashed another arrow at its heart. This time, the missile struck true, but if it had any effect at all, it was lost amidst Sildra’s skill.

That might have been the end of whatever the monster was, except right at that instant, the sun crested the horizon. As abruptly as it had appeared, the pale light vanished, leaving Gorlath’s corpse charred but still upright. “The druid bitch,” it rasped out. “I really am having the worst luck today.”

The undead monster titled its head and peered over at the sliver of sun, then it let out a dry laugh. “On the other hand, it’s the night druid bitch, isn’t it? Maybe I’m not so unlucky after all. That all you’ve got? Come on, do it again.”

Damn thing’s too smart. How does it know about Sildra’s skills or their drawbacks? I deliberately kept that vulnerability of hers out of my report. Did Jensen say something to someone about it?

Either way, Torwin had been killing monsters longer than Sildra had been alive. Her [Lunar Flare] might have made short work of the monster, but it wasn’t the only way to finish it off. Torwin started firing off arrows as fast as he could, alternating between drawing physical ones from his quiver and using the magically generated ones his bracer gave him.

Each shot was imbued with [Hailstrike] to give it some weight, and Gorlath wasn’t fast enough to dodge them all. It was struck a dozen times in a handful of seconds and staggered back several steps, but, true to its undead nature, it was hardly phased by the damage. Even the arrows sticking out of its chest didn’t slow it down.

So what was with it blocking that first shot to the heart? Some sort of feint to get me thinking it was some other kind of undead? Just what the hell is this thing?

His biggest concern was that if he allowed the fight to drag on, Gorlath would summon up some other creature it had bonded to back in life. It might have replaced its class before its death, but that didn’t mean it was going to lose access to its skills. The best way to stop it from pulling off any unpleasant surprises was to destroy it before it got the chance.

Suddenly, Gorlath bounded forward in great, leaping steps. More arrows pummeled it, sticking into the meat of its limbs and torso or sometimes outright blowing a hole straight through it, but that didn’t slow it down in the slightest. It also wasn’t aiming for Torwin. Instead, it was locked on Sildra, who immediately realized she was its target and started running.

Smart girl. She knows she can’t do much once the sun comes up. This’ll give me a few more seconds to—Or that works, too.

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A war hammer came flying through the air, spinning end over end so fast that it was barely more than a blur, and smashed directly into Gorlath’s chest. It was hurled from his feet to fly backwards to near where it’d started, then the hammer jerked itself free with a sickening squelch. It flew back toward the hill, where Giller was standing. She stared down at the monster with a thunderous scowl stamped on her face and slowly advanced.

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A shield floated in the air to her left, and a sword matched it to her right. Her hands were empty, but with her [Ferrokinesis] skill, she didn’t need to hold a weapon to make it deadly. The war hammer dripping gore on its way back to her was proof enough of that. “Torwin,” she snapped out, her voice carrying down the road. “Care to explain why you were bringing a monster to town with you?”

“I thought he was dead!”

“And I thought you were a gold-ranked monster hunter. How could an undead fool you?”

“Well, he didn’t act much like an undead. He was just a body until a minute ago!”

He shuddered to think of what might have happened if he’d been just a few minutes later coming up the road. Sildra’s [Eye of the Moon] could only detect monsters as long as the sun wasn’t up. Without that skill to warn him that Gorlath had turned into a monster, he would have brought the body right into town, past the walls and defenses, where it could have gotten into all sorts of trouble.

And that was not normal behavior for a monster. The only other time he’d seen anything that smart was when they’d wiped out the infestation of corrupted seed bearers up on the frontier. They’d needed Sildra to root those out, too. Come to think of it…

“Did you get the kill notification?” Torwin asked Giller.

“No,” she said. “I’m surprised it’s not moving. I guess I did more damage than I thought.”

Or it’s faking again, Torwin thought to himself.

“Hit it again,” Sildra called out.

The hammer sailed back out, this time crushing the remains of Gorlath’s head while Torwin winced. That’ll make it even harder to confirm it’s his body. This is going to be a mess once I get his remains back to the guild. What do I even tell them? Some monster got into him?

“Still no notification,” Giller said. She walked down the hill to approach the body, her war hammer hovering in the air above it. “You know, this looks really bad. Maybe we should move this off the road in case someone comes by.”

“Don’t get close to it until it’s dead,” Torwin said.

“Maybe I won’t get a notification,” Giller replied. “It’s… already dead, you know?”

“Undead still give kill notifications.”

“Alright. Hitting it again, then.”

The hammer came down, and Gorlath rolled to the side. The undead was barely even in one piece at this point—had actually left an arm behind as it dodged out of the way—but that didn’t seem to be slowing it down. Torwin hit it with three arrows, sending the undead into a spin as it struggled to keep its balance. It ended up doing a single complete rotation as it stumbled forward, then it hurled itself bodily at Giller.

Smirking, she pulled her shield into place to block the undead. With twenty feet of open air between the two of them, it was easy to get her defense into place, but when Gorlath rebounded, something red and slimy broke free of its crushed chest cavity. It looked like the world’s largest blob of snot, and it moved far faster than the body it had just been attached to.

Torwin might have expected it to swerve around Giller’s shield in a foolish attempt to finish its attack on the woman. That would have been an impressive feat, but, ultimately, a futile one. Perhaps the thing that used to be Gorlath had realized that as well, because it didn’t try. Instead, it went for the most vulnerable person in the group.

Two arrows pierced through its body, ripping away chunks of blood-red slime but not knocking the attack off course. If it had been coming at him, he still could have dodged. Sildra had only enough time for her eyes to widen in sudden shock. Then it smacked into her, splattering across her face and chest.

The slime wiggled like it was alive, which Torwin realized with a start might actually be the case. He’d had eyes on Gorlath’s corpse from the moment Velik had killed him, and he was absolutely sure nothing had crawled inside it. Whatever the slime was, it had already been there. Just like those corrupted seeds, except in this case, it didn’t kill the host. Maybe it’s symbiotic somehow?

The slime writhed around, forcing itself down Sildra’s throat in a flash. Torwin was halfway there, arms outstretched to try to grab hold of it and tear it free, when it disappeared. A moment later, Sildra started screaming.

“What the hell is happening?” Giller demanded as she sprinted the rest of the way to the road. “Sildra? Answer me!”

The only way Torwin knew to get a parasite out without killing the host was powerful healing magic. Some sort of antidotal purge might work, but he didn’t have anything like that and he wasn’t sure what it was called. Desperately, he opened the system shop menu on his status interface and started skimming it for something that would help, the cost be damned.

Before he could come up with a solution, the scream cut off and silver light started welling up from the back of her throat. A new scream started, this one a lower pitch than Sildra’s. Torwin stared at her, slack-jawed, then glanced at Giller.

“I… Uh… I think she’s got it covered,” he said.