Rhianon sweated and readied her weapons after one glance at the situation above ground.

"Those are drastic changes. My apologies."

"You've come," the woman stated without looking back.

"Yes. I had my reservations and didn't wish to disturb your karma, yet it hardly matters now."

She inwardly nodded at this explanatory cawing. That wasn't that hard to figure out, 'interfering as little as possible' had been a part of his consistent behaviour. Rhia was somewhat glad that Muninn followed her. She trusted the raven and didn't trust him at all. She wanted to figure out his hidden goals and was they beneficial to her or not first.

Where else she would be able to observe him if not in this pandemonium?

Dark cracks were snaking through the grey clouds.

Dead soldiers were raising from the coffins on the mound. They were heading south. Some were skeletons in old rusty armor, some were zombies in torn uniforms, some were almost like living people, only pale and robotic.

They all ignored the manikin woman and were marching past her and the ruined church, silent and firm. Rare arrows were whistling through the air at them, breaking the dirt, piercing some coffins and trees bark. Frozen, Rhiannon watched as a zombie stood from her coffin, caught an arrow in its head, and dissipated into dust.

Then another zombie raised from the same coffin.

"There is no end of them," she murmured. Surprisingly, she didn't feel any hostility and couldn't muster some of her own. That meant... She walked from the church into a pass between it and some memorial, and a dead soldier with a pike went in a circle to ignore her.

"It's an army of my many generations, standing against a common enemy. What is this enemy? Hey, my guide, fly up and look."

"The heart, not the head, must be the guide," Muninn gave the hiding behind a wall woman a disapproving eye but still took off.

"I am not going to be guided by hope," Rhia answered sarcastically. First I need to assess the situation...

Unfortunately, the world no longer waited for her to think things through and make a decision.

A giant white shell passed right above her head and rammed into the mound with thunder. It showered the soldiers with white chips, broken their bones and flesh. Some ever reached Rhia and hit the shield she'd covered behind.

"Wha-?" she stared at a splinter at her feet. It was a bone splinter, and it was moving.

"No way..."

The giant projectile was in fact a spheric mass of bones, human bones and weapons. Some had been broken and scattered around by the impact, like a primitive yet frightening grenade, by most of them remained in the crater, and now they were restoring their original shapes.

Rhiannon knew those shapes, knew the malice in the depths of the empty eyesockets.

This is how it is, a thought, speculation passed in her mind as her feet pushed against the ground. Those skeletons had been the invaders all along! Before, they had been most likely installed covertly, without provoking a reaction from her ancestors karma exactly because of that passiveness of theirs. They only hunted Rhia the inheritor.

All these conclusions flashed in but a split second and then Rhiannon rammed her shield into a half-completed skeleton and her mace broke a rolling on the ground skull at the same time. Her closest ancestor soldiers joined the fray and soon they dispatched the landing force for good.

An arrow flew past Rhiannon's ear and she shuddered. The ground shook: another skeleton bomb landed nearby.

"Will it end? Isn't it pointless?" she asked no one in particular and watched the sky for Muninn and stray arrows instead. Fire seed in her chest started to burn, slowly notching up her perception. It wasn't something she could train in the crypt.

The unending current of her dead soldiers destroyed the air-born company fast; there was no point in her interfering indeed. Yet Rhiannon noticed a strange thing: despite her not moving a finger, a stream of ashes gathered around her.

"They leave this neutral karma for me," Rhi was struck dumb and gave the vestiges of her ancestors a single yet very fiery glance. "There is a certain distance though... not long..."

The battles must have been happening all over the graveyard, however, she hadn't been getting any ashes until now.

"It's bad, young lady." Muninn landed behind her to cunningly hide in her shield's shadow. "You should see it yourself."

"You..." and your riddles! Rhiannon gnashed her teeth and spatted, "How long do I have? Can you at least say that?"

"Not exactly. Days at most, hours at least. Unless..."

"There is another drastic change you cannot foresee. I guess."

The raven confirmed her guess with a sad caw. Rhia lifted her shield up and let a random arrow slide, thinking.

This world or dimension is my inheritance. If I to believe Muninn, the consolidation of generations of karma awaits me. My goal is my Chinese inheritance. There were plenty of Buddha statues to the north and I haven't noticed any eastern-looking temples to the south. Arrows and skeleton bombs come from the south. The golem, or golems and whatnot, is to the north. I am sure it's guarding something important, something I cannot be allowed to get to and my dead ancestors don't seem capable of defeating it.

Distract it? It can ignore whatever and just come after me regardless. Dead soldiers won't fill a gap between its knuckles. I cannot afford to die now. It might be a game over for real. I need to maximize my chances first.

Rhiannon inhaled slowly and then even slower,

"Control breathing, rein the brain, suppress the animal," she breathed out. "I will get stronger. I will survive. I will return to Earth."

"Muninn, guide me to invaders. Avoid large groups. And I want to see whatever you hesitate to tell."

Skeleton bombs were rare in her vicinity. Hunting for them was a low effort, low result ordeal. Rhiannon could see most of them being catapulted and landing somewhere far to the north. She could see far, now, actually. The arrows tracing through the air, dust under the feet of her dead ancestors, every crack on every ruined wall in the sight. Rhia could hear arrows coming down, fingers of her ancestors scraping coffins as they were rasing up.

Honestly, she never had had such a good perception back on Earth. The woman adapted well to her manikin body. A dozen of exhausted fire seeds heightened her sensed even more, and she had another dozen in reserve.

"...follow me."

Muninn cawed gravely and took off to a low altitude. Soon Rhiannon entered a certain narrow passage.

Rhia passed a large tomb, then a metal fence, went through a ruin into a small yard. There was a crater and half-broken wall of a temple nearby: traces of a skeleton bomb. There were also two skeletons coming her away.

"I am not an aid here, young lady!" the coward Muninn flew on a roof.

One versus two, Rhiannon squinted her eyes. Fortunately, they were a sword and a... mace wielders? That last one was new. Time seemed to slow down. She parried a downward sword strike and immediately moved her shield to block a mace hit from aside. Dull pain splashed through her hand.

Hurriedly, the woman shifted the shield down to parry horizontal sword slash and backed away three steps from a mace swing. She missed her timing for an attack; no, it was broken by the duo acting together.

In all her battles with bony bastards until this moment, Rhiannon could switch between attacking and defending freely, even against a spear in her face once she had figured the trick.

Impossible. I need to divide them.

A plan formed instantly, yet Rhiannon tossed it aside and only gritted her teeth harder ignoring the promising narrow corridor behind. She had to adapt to group battles, right now.

Bending her legs at knees, Rhi crashed her shield at the incoming sword and waved her mace wildly. She pushed the first skeleton successfully and stopped the other's attack by threatening its hands.

Yes, like this.

Fire seeds burned in her chest, waves of flames passing back and forth. They were taking certain indistinct shapes overlapping her manikin body. Those shapes were her, Rhiannon: the possible versions of her. They had shields and maces and mastery at handling them, one move at a time.

Wordlessly, the woman tapped into those possibilities. She blocked, deflected, parried advances of both skeletons. Her swings were becoming sharper and sharper. Her body itself wasn't becoming faster, but Rhiannon was slowly shredding the crudeness from her movements, smothering off the inessential.

When the last fire seed dissipated in a cloud of sparks, she caught the timing she hadn't known even possible and bashed the sword wielder. Softly she squatted under a mace targeting her head and slammed that bastard's ankle.

Crack!

That was the horrific sound of a joint popping.

Not enough.

Rhiannon covered herself with the shield and took one step forward as she was standing up. The shield hit and pushed the wrist of the sword wielder high up and just for a moment, it got wide open. The empty eye sockets seemed to stare at Rhi furiously.

Calmly, she weaved her mace into this defenseless gap and shattered its vertebra.

A falling mace swing attempted to catch her off-guard; the woman only needed to sidestep barely and then she crashed the second's bony invader's skull with a downward strike as it wallowed on the ground.

Not enough, not for that golem.

A familiar whish sipped in her ears the moment she slightly relaxed. The sound of the air being pierced and then...

Agony pierced her.