Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 341: Fear The Night : Impromptu Bomb Making
Fingers digging into the ground, leaving behind molten lava and glass, raising one arm defensively, it soon flew through the air, knocked out of the way by a rocky staff, the bloody sword rose again.
Saying that Rosemary was in a perilous situation would be cutting it too nicely, her zone was at a constant risk of falling apart, she could no longer wrestle against Unacunerra for more influence, too busy making sure the fiery zone did not fall apart, the mana being corrupted by Ridfoirn’s, the minor lord’s mana aspect was special, the mana it touched was better destroyed rather than taken control of, one took the risk of having their own mana touched by the decay, with the royal guard’s zone helping his, Rosemary could not take the time, or be precise enough to deal with it properly.
And especially not with Slotriig constantly swinging at her, the hero-slayer was always much too close to her, if she tried to deal with him, Unacunerra and Ridfoirn would attack, if she tried to deal with The Earthen Catastrophe, the other two would stop her, if she tried to find the minor lord as he dove into the ground, the same thing would happen.
It was not like either of the three could be easily taken care off, even with an opening, neither one of the two royal guards would go down in a single strike, both tough and shielded by their undeath, as the for the corruptive sorcerer, he was weaker, but that didn’t matter as he kept his distances and hid most of the time, only going for rapid one spell before disappearing again, he wasn’t taking any chance.
Flames regenerating her arm back, she had to think for a moment, the foul dead had really stacked everything up against her, and most certainly against her fellows as well, the barrier had fallen, she did not know what was the result of the attack upon Loimos, terrible news and uncertainty, that was all she had to go of off to evaluate the situation, the dire presence of a gravelord was emanating from the royal castle, and another was descending from the sky.
Thankfully, the second one was not going for any of Tamaris’s champions, seemingly securing the hold of death upon the kingdom instead, which might be arguably worse, time seemed to slow down as her mind went into its maximum velocity, Slotriig was aiming to lob her head off, Unacunerra instead seemed to be preferring tiring her out, the minor lord simply aiming to be a nuisance.
The two royal guards had a different outlook on the situation, they worked perfectly together either way, but still, the mage wanted to keep her corpse as intact as possible to add her to the ranks of the king, whilst Slotriig simply wanted to crush the enemy.
Turning into fire, she simultaneously casted multiple spells in every direction, not aimed at any of the undeads, instead simply concealing her own movements, it worked for only an instant on the earthen mage, a bit longer for the warrior, who needed his fellow to tell him where to attack next.
Rosemary was already where she wanted to be, away from Slotriig and closer to Unacunerra, engaging the mage in close quarters, but without any sort of finesse this time, not bothering to dodge a thrust of his staff, instead grabbing his wrist to make sure he would not be going anywhere, moving around, spinning both herself and the undead around, Slotriig halted his wide strike, going for a more precise estoc strike instead, this change in intent gave Rosemary time to once more use a spell to turn her physical flesh into fire, and then use this fire to cast an explosive spell.
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A dangerous manoeuvre that she went for without hesitation, launching the mage against the knight, quickly turning physical again, putting one knee down onto the ground, bringing her hands together.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, she enacted conditions upon her next spell, forcing herself to remain stationary and not defend herself for a little while, as she remained well within reach of the two royal guards, the knight’s longsword passing much too close, just barely missing her skull as it shave off the flesh upon it, had she knelt a single instant latter than would have hit her brain.
But it did not, and under her breath, she recited an incantation, casting transcend spells simultaneously, forming both a spirit and golem together, Unacunerra infused an augmentative spell upon both Slotriig and his blade, urging him to strike again as he casted spells himself, a few hit true but the majority were blocked as the thing Rosemary was bringing into existence unfurled to its maximum size.
The Hero-Slayer’s sword and that of the summon clashed, both locked blade against blade.
"Hey, that thing is tough" Slotriig remarked, pushing back.
"She just sacrificed a good deal of her life force to summon that thing, keep it down!" propelling himself over the humanoid creature, which very much looked like a raging volcano condensed into a roughly humanoid shape, the undead mage’s sockets flared up
He blocked a fireball, the fight turning into a two against three, Unacunerra spoke in death tongue, telling Ridfoirn to focus on putting the summon down with Slotriig.
"Hey skeleton, any idea what my elemental affinity is?" she suddenly asked, her skin appearing much paler than before, the flames just as hot.
"I don’t sanction meaningless talk" dozens of spikes manifested above him. Your journey continues on novelbuddy
"I don’t either" Rosemary preferred to demonstrate, bringing both hands close, something flickered in between her palms, a spherical flames tightly condensed, Unacunerra did not need to pay attention to know what it was, he clearly sensed the living’s zone retracting, forced into this small orb.
Instantly, the undead zones went into full action, but it was time to brace, because Rosemary had just repurposed the most powerful of spells into a bomb, a bomb she was not bothered to detonate right up to her own face, the Volcano Witch’s flame brightly illuminated the eternal night for multiple seconds, slowly receding, all combatants picking themselves up, the entire area looking like it had been scorched by both a meteor and a volcanic eruption, all zones had been forcefully dispelled, Slotriig partly molten lifting himself up with only half of his sword remaining.
Behind him, Ridfoirn was curled up and like a dead worm, his tail of dark decay and bones was scrunched up, dried up, as the dire heat in the air went away, he sunk into the swampy corruption, put out of the fight even as Slotriig took the brunt of the damage for him.
Unacunerra was painted a charcoal black, the cracked portion of his skull had fallen apart completely, the brown flames within his sockets remained just as powerful however.
A distance away, he saw Slotriig fail to rise to his feet, originally a knight of Faraday, the hero-slayer’s skeleton was also made from iron, and they had partly melted away, he would not be moving around as well as he should for a little while.
The undead’s were in a poor state, but so was Rosemary, as good as her resistance to her own mana might be, the stunt she had just pulled went above those as well, so even if relatively unharmed relative to her position to the center of the blast, she was far from being in a good state either.
"Either way, you will die Rosemary, none of us undeads can be put down forever, we are blessed by the king’s divine beast, why don’t you swallow your meaningless living pride and just shake my hand?" walking forward, Unacunerra had never struggled so much in a fight against another mage, having to call for assistance for another zone user and his fellow royal guard just to squeeze out a victory was a first.
"I promise an eternal voyage of constant betterment of magic and of ourselves, we are good casters, but we have much to learn from King Nitok, even in life, he was a stronger mage than the two of us combined-"
Rosemary spat on the ground, saliva immediately evaporating.
"You speak nice words skeleton, but what kind of people just give up when there is still something to be done, if death wants me, it will come to find me, if life wants to keep me, then it shall say so, if I had to chose, I would rather become a pure spirit…"
"Ah ah… A true mage’s answer!"
"...And aren’t you worried that I’ll take your post? I already hold the advantage as a mage" stretching her arms, Rosemary tried to cast a spell, finding it awfully difficult at the moment.
"Who cares? No one aims for any position, frankly, the king doesn’t care for them, he makes them up on the spot anyways, so I don’t either" both manifested a simple staff in their hands.
"And don’t you worry, you’ll get a great title to attach to your name, something like… The Burning Star? The Ever-Burning Witch? Something definitely cool… Let’s get this over with"
And so, both obliged.
