People weren’t straightforward, but nonsapient undead generally were. They wouldn’t go around unless the backup was so bad that they could no longer see him or there were too many bodies. The only difficulty should be if they had a sapient controller, and this sort of swarm most likely did. It was the most common reason for swarms, though not the only one.
Serenity took a few more steps forward. He shouldn’t need the room, but having it just in case was better than not.
It was getting dark but Serenity’s active Manasight clearly showed the approaching undead. His earlier estimate was low; there were definitely over a hundred undead there and it might be more than that. He would have thought it was a monster wave if it weren’t for the feel of a dungeon all over them; there had to be a controller. Well, the best way to get the controller to show itself was to kill the undead without letting them pass him.
The first few were easy, a set of four zombies. They made it only a few steps past the edge of his aura. The next group also had a ghost and a revenant. They continued to arrive in clumps and continued to die without reaching him. After the first dozen, they were tripping over the bodies of the ones before them.
Serenity could already see the problem forming. The undead weren’t smart, but they also wouldn’t just walk into a wall. He needed a lure. The best lure was someone with the Life Vital Affinity, and he simply didn’t have that. Apparently his dual mana/essence Vital Affinity was working just about as well, however, so at least that wasn’t a problem.
Theoretically, he knew how to make a Life Lure spell that would work on undead, but it wasn’t one he’d used more than once or twice. His Life affinity had always sucked and it wasn’t exactly something he generally found any use for, even if it would be useful now.
On the other hand, they seemed to be attracted to him even without a Life Vital Affinity. Perhaps he could form the spell without tying in an Affinity other than Arcane. For that matter, could he tie in essence as well?
The undead were coming at Serenity slowly enough to give him time to build a spellform. Life Lure was supposed to be very simple; all he had to do was convert it over to a new Affinity. Remembering it was harder than the conversion.
It took time, so it was a good thing that Eat Death didn’t require concentration unless he wanted to focus it on a particular undead. It wasn’t until he heard shouting and the thunk of a sword against flesh behind him that Serenity realized the undead had built up enough of a wall of bodies in front of him that they weren’t all headed towards him anymore and the Lure spell wasn’t ready.
There had to be fifty zombies, revenants, and skeletons lying in front of Serenity, blocking the way. Some were climbing over the hazard, but many were walking around to one side or the other. Most of those were then headed in towards Serenity, but the ones that got far enough saw the people inside the ward before they refocused on Serenity.
There was a simple solution; it wasn’t perfect, but it would help. Serenity moved several steps forward, so that his aura would hit undead that hadn’t yet reached the wall of bodies. He wished he’d started a bit more to one side or the other, but he’d started directly in the path of the undead. He hadn’t expected so many.
Even after that, it was several minutes before Serenity finished the Lure spell. Figuring out how to link essence into the spell to truly boost his entire Vital Affinity signature took quite a bit longer than expected, but the final effect was also stronger than he expected.
During that time, the undead started building a barrier of bodies slightly farther from the warded circle and fewer of them leaked past for a while. By the time the spell was ready, they were slipping past again.
Serenity cast the Lure spell. He could feel the attention of all of the undead within several hundred feet of him suddenly focusing on him; each one was nothing, but as a mass they were noticeable. Serenity moved farther away from the warded circle, past the piles of re-dead. His aura no longer reached the warded circle, but the undead didn’t care about it anymore anyway. The people inside were simply less enticing than the one standing in the open.
They came to him and died. Serenity had to move periodically as the weak undead piled up around him; he moved back and forth, but kept making his way towards the source of the undead.
There were far, far more undead than he’d assumed. It was a very good thing that Eat Death didn’t cost mana; maintaining the Lure spell was more than enough. It wasn’t overly expensive, but it was still well over his normal mana and essence regeneration rates.
More than an hour after he cast the Lure spell, Serenity was about a hundred feet away from the warded circle. There was still light in the sky, but it was after sunset and it wouldn’t last much longer. Fortunately, the stream of undead was slowing down.
Serenity knew that meant that either the swarm had run its course or the controller had figured out that it needed to do something different. He’d know soon; either the undead would stop entirely or they’d act differently.
When all of the undead he could see turned and ran back the way they’d come, Serenity knew which it was. If he was lucky, that would be the end of it.
“Who are you?” The voice was thin and reedy, completely unlike the Hollywood version of an undead creature’s voice, but Serenity knew that the speaker was lucky to have that much of a voice. Many undead didn’t and had to communicate in other ways.
He also knew he wasn’t lucky today.
Serenity turned towards the voice. It wasn’t coming from the direction of the Dead Swamp like the other undead; instead, it was a bit to his right. It had probably been hiding out of the way somewhere, watching what was happening.
On second thought, maybe it was his lucky day. The controller couldn’t be very smart; it had simply launched undead at him for over an hour, letting him destroy the spell animating hundreds of them and it hadn’t tried changing its tactics at all until it was low on undead. It might not be very clever.
Serenity’s eyes found the speaker. It was suffused with the Undeath Affinity. It looked almost like an unwrapped mummy wearing the rags of a robe, but Serenity didn’t waste any time wondering what it was. The way the Undeath was moving inside its body made it very clear. “Basic lich … probably about Tier Three, there’s no way it’s the only one. Not with that kind of horde of undead. It’s probably only going to manage the zombies anyway.”
Serenity tried to remember if any of the incorporeal undead had the Undeath affinity instead of the Death affinity, but he wasn’t certain. If they didn’t, then there might not be anything worse than this lich around, though there had to be more of them.
Serenity walked towards the lich without responding. The entire situation stank. It looked like a random attack, but he didn’t really believe that. There would have been no need for so many undead against the people in the wagon circle; more than that, anyone who could gather that many would know when they truly died and would not keep sending them in for nothing.
Which meant they were a distraction. The lich in front of him was likely also a distraction.
Serenity took a good hard look at it the moment it came into his aura’s range. It didn’t have any Death-based spells running at all. Definitely a sacrifice.
“Paladin.” The word dripped with hatred as the lich threw itself towards Serenity. At that speed, it would get to him long before it died to his passive Eat Death.
Serenity barely suppressed a laugh at the lich’s assumption. If there was one thing he wasn’t, it was a paladin. He didn’t get his power from a deity and he had no desire to change that.
Instead, he threw a trio of Death Magebolts as quickly as he could at the lich. Three was all he had time for before the rapidly dying lich rammed into him and Serenity finished it off with an ax to the head. The Death Affinity wasn’t nearly as good against undead as they generally had natural Death resistance, but that didn’t mean it didn’t work, and after all the undead Serenity had killed with Eat Death, he had all the Death-aligned mana he needed.
Undead like this lich, created with the Undeath Affinity instead of the Death Affinity, had less innate resistance against Death-based attacks. It mattered more than a little exactly how the Death Concept was understood. Serenity’s Concept was quite good for this. Death was an ending, and anything could die.
The lich had acted strangely for a lich; they didn’t usually attack physically because few of them were truly skilled at it. They were almost all mages. The one he’d killed was no threat once it decided to use its claws instead of its magic.
Not that it would have been much of a threat otherwise either. Serenity’s Eat Death and Death Resistance wasn’t a perfect guard against the Undeath Affinity, but it was close.
Serenity turned towards the place the recalled zombies were headed, as that seemed like the most likely place for whatever he was being distracted from. He silently wished he had the same sort of detection and aura range as he’d had as the Final Reaper, but that wouldn’t come until he reached a higher Tier.
There was a small rise; once Serenity reached the top of it, he could see into the Dead Swamp.
He could also see the spot where the recalled undead were converging. They seemed to be crawling on top of one another, and Serenity knew what that meant; there were a whole set of standard necromancer Skills that sacrificed many smaller undead to create a single larger and generally more powerful undead.
Never mind detection abilities, Serenity needed movement Skills. Something faster than running.
He threw Death Magebolts at it as he ran, but even though they each took out at least one of the undead, all that meant was that he was weakening the final product. Actually dealing with it wouldn’t be possible until he got in range.
If he could get there fast enough, he could prevent the Skill from completing. There were a number of limitations on Skills that would create something more powerful than the caster, and this certainly looked like one of those Skills; it was both time and resource intensive. It would probably also be temporary, but temporary might not mean that it would end quickly enough to simply avoid it.
Fortunately, the giant undead being created was only about eight feet tall when Serenity first saw it; given what it was being made from, that meant it was probably relatively recently started; at a guess, when the corporeal undead were recalled from the fight. He had time.
It was ten feet tall by the time Serenity was close enough to confidently be able to hit it with his ax and he let the ax fly. It slammed into the chest of the incomplete giant. A moment later, there was a flash of mana escaping and the giant seemed to deflate.
Serenity recalled his ax and slowed to a fast walk, still heading towards the Dead Swamp. The entire attack seemed to have centered around delay and misdirection; he couldn’t have left the others unprotected while he investigated, but he could now.
A roar was quickly followed by two more as three giant undead stepped forward, revealing themselves. There were two zombies and a skeleton.
They were probably the results of the same Skill as the one he’d interrupted, cast while he was being inundated by lesser undead. Serenity grumbled again, wishing there had been a better option but he simply couldn’t be in two places at the same time.
Yet.
At least, not if any of his forms were human.
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