"Ahhh," Apinya sighed as he slowly expanded his arms outwards. Facing towards the moon, he began to quote, "And as Joel said; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord comes," Apinya finished solemnly.

With that foreboding proclamation, we stood there, watching the tethers of demonic mana wisp through the air.

Following the ominous event and Apinya’s frankly disturbing choice of words, we quietly decided amongst the Communal Council to set up a much stricter watch tonight. Nobody took our revelations regarding the rising amounts of demonic death mana and the so-described ‘blood moon’ very well. However, I simply iterated that the amount of mana was fairly negligible as of right now, and it’s likely we won’t see anything substantial happening for another day or two. At least with the marginal, but rising amounts of mana.

With that noted, Kevin and my Father volunteered to keep watch despite my belief we shouldn’t encounter many issues. Kevin simply retorted that he had the opportunity to rest earlier and wouldn’t be able to sleep anyways. So, I shrugged the situation off. Rachel and I subsequently retired together for the night.

꧁꧂

The following day was a rush of activity. Upon both of us waking up and getting ready, we both noted that we could feel, even inside the house, the increased amount of demonic death mana. Rachel immediately followed me out of the house as I once again went to check the mana levels and see what Kevin had to say regarding the night.

I caught Kevin just as he was returning inside the house. He groggily yawned, and when he noticed me he perked up, and woke up just a little.

“Ey there Thomas.” Kevin greeted me sluggishly.

I quizzically rose my brow, “Rough night man?” I chuckled.

Kevin just stared at me, not amused by the mirth in my voice in the slightest, “Anyways, I’m going to head and get some shut-eye… You’ll want to go outside and check the situation yourself though, your Father can probably explain it better than I can right now.”

With his cryptic words, he walked past the both of us and went to go find an empty room. Rachel made eye contact with me, and I just shrugged.

As we got outside it was almost like it was a figurative New England summer all over again. It felt as though I had just walked out of the house into an extremely hot and humid day. Except, it was the new density of the mana that was analogous to the humidity, instead of any real heat. In the course of several hours, the mana levels had risen pretty drastically in the area. As such the fact the density in the mana zone was twice as much as compared to last night took the both of us off guard. We found Noah already standing outside, seemingly having the same thought process as both Rachel and me.

“It’s kind of scary, isn’t it Thomas?” Noah asked as I walked up next to him.

I nodded, “I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in Holy Arc.”

Noah shook his head, “neither have I, and that’s what’s got me so worried. I was thinking about what the Priest said last night, and I think he might not be too far off the mark?”

I looked at him. My questioning look encouraged him to continue.

“I mean, considering the things that we know; first, the moon was red, but I don’t know whether or not that is a cause or symptom of what’s happening. Second, the mana levels are spiking, and third, there’s the new… Well, I’m sure you understand it a bit better, but there’s a new feel to the mana? Almost… Insidious in a way…? Lastly though… Well, you’ll want to go to the front of the Community and you’ll see it.” Noah finished.

I sighed as I began to walk forward, and then, turning around towards Noah, “your idea has merit. I’m curious what exactly Apinya’s thoughts are on the matter before we make any conclusions though.” I paused, before deciding, “We can just approach him whenever he gets up, he was rather vague last night anyways.”

Rachel followed me as I made my way to the front of the Community. As I got there I noticed Alex, my Father, and Dante standing there. Their attention was focused on something off in the distance. At first, I was a bit confused, until I focused my gaze and noticed the silhouettes in the morning light.

What had once been maybe a dozen undead had quickly ballooned to nearly fifty. Even now I could see an additional undead begin wandering from the distance and join the growing horde.

“It’s been picking up since last night,” my Dad told me once he saw me walk up beside him.

I sighed. "It figures." I was fairly put off by the entire situation. It seemed as though whatever was going on was probably somehow coordinated with the increase in undead activity. The new waves of mana had a mix of what felt like death and demonic mana. Basically, it was almost directly attributed to the undead in nature. If my assumptions were correct, it seemed to provide a buffing effect for any of the undead within the radius of whatever spell was being cast. As I shifted my focus towards sensing the mana in the atmosphere, I once again noted the tendrils of mana, now violently shifting through the sky. A lot of it appeared to be coalescing around the undead, as a strange reddish glow could be seen hanging over the mass of corpses.

This pretty much proved my assumptions. It was clear that the mana was directly related to the growing mass of undead. With a sigh, I turned around, and it was unanimously decided that a lot of work needed to be done if we had any hope of repelling this new incursion.

꧁꧂

Several days passed in the blink of an eye. Our preparations only increased in their fervency, and the undead increased their activity in an almost parallel manner. It was clear that they were building up for an assault. Even if a few days prior their numbers seemed terrifying, now, it was absolutely harrowing. There had to be over half a thousand of the undead arrayed in front of us. It was also clear that whatever incursion they had planned was about to be imminent. We had prepared all we could ourselves in the little time we had.

The death mana that seemed to be encompassing the Mana Zone seemed to ebb and flow the past several days, steadily increasing until it had suddenly stopped. The Mana Zone apparently had reached whatever optimal saturation levels that the suspected lich was aiming for. The moon had been a fairly obvious catalyst to the whole event as well, and we had fairly quickly deduced that whatever phenomenon was occurring, it would probably climax on the full moon.

Even though I doubted whether the new saturation of mana would make the decomposed corpses, and even newly animated undead, much harder to deal with, my main worry was the fact that the new levels of mana seemed particularly designed to sustain the new agglomerations of flesh that had suddenly appeared amongst the undead horde arrayed in front of us.

They were large behemoths, twice as tall as any man, and incredibly thick to boot. From this distance, even I could tell that it was unnatural in its creation. The flesh has seemingly been stitched together, and only held by the massive amounts of death mana apparently absorbed by the creatures. It was to our utter bewilderment that five of such behemoths had apparently been produced in the lich's attempt to assault the Community.

Our own defensive line was much smaller, but nothing to scoff at either. With some effort, Priscilla had actually managed to help out in crafting some very rudimentary protection for everybody who would be taking part in the fighting. Through a mixed usage of ripped cloth, leather, and whatever hardy materials we could find, an acceptable array of armor was made. To an outside observer, I was sure we would look absolutely ridiculous. However, we all figured that every little bit would help, and if the coming fight devolved into an all-out brawl, then the protection, despite how minuscule it may be, would certainly be appreciated.

Along with our armor, everyone had a fair amount of weapons at their disposal as well. Jackson proved extremely resourceful and had managed to form deadly-looking blades of steel for those who would serve as our front line. Even though they would normally be unwieldy and heavy to your average person, our front-line was far from average. The past several days had been utilized to build up their assortment of skills, as well as hunting whatever monsters strayed too close to the Community, and as a result, several members of the Community had leveled up to some fairly acceptable levels, and along with it had gained an appreciable increase in their attributes.

Behind them was our ranged group. The four of them, Rachel, Noah, Apinya, and Priscilla. Rachel was already level five, with Noah not too far behind at level four. Apinya was also at level five and apparently had managed to gain a whole host of spells that formed his personal holy magic arsenal. Apparently, as a Priest, he frequently gained skills and levels just by simply praying. He also appeared to be quite good at it but considering his background as an actual Priest, perhaps that was predictable. He also happened to have a minor healing spell. Even if its effects didn't heal much more than minor wounds, I imagined it may still keep somebody breathing if things devolved into the absolute worse possible scenario and someone was extremely hurt.

The three of them would be forming our backline, along with Priscilla who had managed to reach a pretty acceptable level after deciding to spend a lot of time picking off monsters within the vicinity of the Community. It was also decided that I would be assisting in the defense from the backline at first, before being sent to help the frontline as soon as I used up half of my mana.

Our front-line consisted of Kevin, Jackson, Harrison, Alex, my Father, Dante, Antonio, Alejandro, William, and quite begrudgingly, Liam had joined as well. All of them were at least level five, except for Liam, and some of them were even higher, like Antonio, Dante, and Alex, all of whom had been dealing with several probing attempts by the undead on our front gate. All three were now level seven. It also helped that building the Palisade provided a massive boon to some skills as well.

In fact, the completion of the Palisade had provided some surprising benefits to the Community as well. A quick look at the [Ruler Menu] was all it took to notice the glaring changes.

Of the changes, it was namely the Palisade that seemed to provide some small bonuses. Apparently, its presence provided a boon to the happiness and stability of the community. In addition to that, it had also provided twenty prestige points as soon as it was completed. The completion of the Palisade also appeared to mark a definitive border of the Community resulting in the system automatically considering any, and all structures in its boundaries under our control. As such our population capacity skyrocketed to seventy-two, and now we had a grand total of twelve houses.

Obviously, we couldn't occupy all of them, and it would still likely cause issues for us if we spread ourselves out like that anyways. But, we decided that if we somehow survive this coming battle, that we were going to redouble our efforts in finding survivors. Already over a week had passed since the start of this global apocalypse, and we were sure there were likely others nearby we may be able to find and help.

Regardless, that was an issue for another time, as our current focus was on the battle ahead. As it turned out, the Palisade provided a massive boon to our defence, and it was clear that the undead had made the decision not to try and find a different area to assault. After all, there were so few of us. Plus, part of our new boundaries and wall extended outside of the mana zone, and it was likely that the undead would have a much greater difficulty operating outside of it without the increased ambient mana to support them. As such, it was universally decided that should things go haywire, we would evacuate to the other side of the Community and hopefully, the undead would be hesitant to follow.

Our frantic efforts to build the wall, as it turned out, resulted in us actually having more timber than we had planned, and as a result, we had been able to construct and place rudimentary stakes into the ground leading up to the front 'gates' of the Community. Even though we called it a gate, it was really just several piled-up cars that were placed on their sides with an even smaller opening in the middle denoting the entrance. At the moment the vehicles were pushed together, and everyone was standing behind the cars on a mound of dirt. Interspaced behind the stakes was a large trench that had been built to hopefully slow down the undead once they were close enough. It should allow us to pick them off at a distance before they got too close. Also, arrayed throughout the battlefield in front of us were several surprises that we hoped to catch the undead off guard. They mostly involved quite a bit of flames, and I was sure it would be a nasty surprise.

It had all been rather hastily built and construed, but considering the stress of the situation, and our limited time, it really was the best the community could pull together.

Just as I finished my deluge of thoughts, the lich itself decided to make its appearance. Nearly two hundred feet away a blackened skeleton climbed on top of a disabled car. There was quite literally no flesh hanging on the body at all, which only accentuated its blackened bones. Its eyes gave off a surreal, deep blue glow, and surrounding its visage was a misty black cloak. It didn't appear to serve any purpose that I could immediately tell, but it was still outright terrifying.

It silently stood there, examining our preparations and taking our group into account. It was obvious our coming battle was imminent.

Rykurock

I waited until the end of the chapter to announce this, but! We are nearing the end of Genesis: Volume 1 of Rise of the Paragon! Of course, you guys won't be getting to the end until the end of this month, buuuuut! My patrons are already reading the final arc. And boy am I excited for this one! Things are about to get juicy folks! :)

I'm not sure exactly which chapter, but Volume 1 will likely end at either chapter 52 or 53.