“It's been an hour and he's still asleep.” One of the clerics on watch said.

“Who cares about that?” Anthony asked. “Is the undead leader still there?”

“Yes, she's still right there with him, frozen.”

“So are the other undead.” One of the other clerics said.

“What do you mean?” Ksenya asked.

“Look. You can see them over there. None of them are moving like they were before.”

Everyone looked and saw that it was true.

“Okay, that changes the plan.” Anthony said. “Do we clear out the deadwood first and then go after the main bad guy?”

“Girl.” Farrah corrected. “I thought god told us it was a he, though.”

“He did... maybe he can't tell us apart?” Anthony asked with a shrug. “Anyways, we've worked out how we need to attack. Lady Matricia and her clerics will flank on the side, in her blind spot, and we'll slam her in the other three directions.”

“I don't like this.” Farrah said. “What if we get too far away from Damon?”

“You'll only be slowed down a little. We've seen the effect a few times now. If you feel the distortion as you pass through it, dart back in after a second. You'll only be out of the fight for fifteen to twenty minutes.” Anthony said. “In fact, that might even be advantageous for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw his flaming attacks, whatever they were. If we did something similar the other way...”

“...we can have surprise and quickness on our side.” Ksenya said. “Will you have enough mana for the spell after we set all this up?”

“I've got tons of mana generation, thanks to these rings and things. We all do.” Anthony said. “I'll be ready.”

“Then let's do this.” Ksenya said. “Farrah, you're on the right, I'm in front, and Anthony's on the left.”

“What about Damon?” Farrah asked, concern in her voice. “He's...”

“He surrendered and will be made into one of them.” Anthony said and waved at the undead. “If she finishes converting him before we reach them, then he'll be saved along with her.”

“What if he's not?” Farrah asked, just to make things clear.

“He still surrendered and he's enjoying some nice relaxing time with her. He's already lost.” Anthony said and several of the clerics nodded. “Let's go.”

“Wait.” Lady Matricia said and they all paused in their movements. “I think we need to let Damon...”

“What? Finish napping?” Ksenya asked. “He's not taking this seriously! We have an undead lord or whatever she is sitting right there in front of us. Our entire mission is to kill her and to stop the scourge of the undead. He surrendered and that means he's not fighting them anymore.”

“What if he has a plan that...”

“It doesn't matter. He didn't tell us anything and we can't guess what's in his head.” Anthony said. “He's been pretty much leading us around like dogs on a leash until now. I think it's time we showed him that he's not the only one around here that can bite as well as bark.”

Ksenya held her hand up in a high five gesture and Anthony smacked it. “Let's kick some undead ass!”

The group broke up and spread out to assume their attack positions. They would need to move out of the time distortion briefly to reach the right spots, then they would all attack in the same staggered attack that Lady Matricia had come up with to conserve excessive mana usage.

It was a foolproof plan that could have worked and they would have removed their target with a surprise attack, except that Anthony was a fool and didn't realize that Damon had increased the time distortion's power again. Once they stepped out of it, instead of the fifteen to twenty minutes they had expected to be out of sync, it was actually ten times that.

Two and a half hours to three and a quarter hours would pass before they would enter again, which was plenty of time for Samantha to not only see them coming, she had plenty of time to deal with them as well.

*

“Ugghhhh.” I groaned as I finally woke up. “Owwwww, my head.”

“Heal yourself, you idiot.” Samantha said, not a trace of sympathy in her voice. “You should drop those last ten time slowing spells, too.”

“That's a great idea.” I said when the healing didn't do anything for the excessive mental strain as it kept coming back when healed. I carefully cancelled just the last ten spells and the pressure inside my head eased. “Dammit, why isn't my high intelligence and wisdom helping me?”

“It is helping you, stupid. You shouldn't be able to handle any time dilation spells at all.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense.” I said and looked down at my chest where her hands rested. “Say, we didn't have sex, did we?”

“Excuse me?” Samantha leaned her face away slightly. She didn't move her hands away, though. “You do realize I'm dead, right?”

My eyes went to her chest, that upon closer inspection, looked to be quite the handful.

“Eyes up here, you ass.” Samantha said in a tone that was both humor filled and annoyed. “Are you really going to be turned on by greyish colored breasts?”

“Oh, no! Don't tell me they ate some of them!” I asked with a look of fake horror on my face. “That's such a waste!”

Samantha looked surprised and then shook her head. “You're distracting me.”

“Hey, I'm not the one with my hands on your chest.” I said and then lifted my hands to wiggle my fingers. “Although...”

“Don't even think about it.” Samantha said. She looked down at my chest where her hands rested and then she looked back at my face. “I'm undead.”

“You're not rotting.” I countered immediately. “In fact, you look perfectly preserved from the moment that you died.”

“You... can't seriously think...” Samantha shook her head. “Stop distracting me.”

“I have an erection.” I responded and she looked down at my crotch. I was wearing normal pants, so she saw the tent pole I had pitched.

“Jesus Christ.” Samantha whispered and was quiet for a moment. “You're a necrophiliac?”

I laughed. “No, you being undead isn't turning me on. You being a woman is.”

“Are you serious? You're looking at this...” Samantha nodded down at herself. “...and you're wondering if you can have sex with me? Are you crazy?”

“Well, it's better than letting you keep considering eating me.” I said and her eyes widened. “I can see the look in your eyes. You're wondering what I taste like and not in the good way.”

Samantha opened her mouth to lie and deny it, I was sure, then she smiled. “I've been debating on maybe chewing on your fingers at first, just to get a taste.” She took in a long slow sniff. “Your regeneration's pretty high. You'll have them back in ten minutes, maybe less.”

“Jesus, you can tell that from just my smell?” I asked, surprised. The irony of smelling someone to gauge their deliciousness was not lost on me.

“I've been sitting here for about fifteen hours waiting for you to wake up.” Samantha said. “I've had a lot of time to examine you unimpeded.”

“Unimpeded? That sounds like someone tried to...” My eyes looked around the area of my time distortion and I saw a group of twenty undead clerics guarding something about thirty feet away. They moved apart to show me what they were standing around and I sighed. The three heroes and Lady Matricia were kneeling on the ground, bound and gagged.

“Before you decide to try and retaliate against me, you should know that they attacked without regard to your welfare.” Samantha said. “It was quite a daring and pathetic show, I must say.”

“HM! Mmm hmm!” Anthony mumbled through the thick gag and didn't try to struggle. He was hog-tied and couldn't move if he tried.

“What happened to the other clerics?” I asked and she waved at the undead ones. “You converted them already?”

“It's been about ten hours since their attempt to kill me and not rescue you.” Samantha said. “I was going to kill them all and convert them, since that's what I should have done... but...”

I put a hand on hers and her face softened. “You saved them for me?”

Samantha gave me a smile and then she moved her other hand for the first time since it had been planted there. “You and I are alike.” She tapped my heart. “I can feel it.”

I was surprised to hear that. Really surprised. The plans I had formed in my head kind of went out the window at that realization. I quickly cast Silence on the three heroes and Lady Matricia and then the Obscure and Stealth spells on myself and Samantha. Since we were touching when they were cast, we could still see each other.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asked. “You just cast those powerful spells on me as well.”

“Yes, and I have a very important reason for doing so.” I said. “But first, I need to ask you something.”

“Yes, I ate the other three heroes I was summoned with and unlocked the Devourer class.” Samantha said. “Your perception isn't high enough to feel the combined energy inside of me like I can feel inside of you.”

I closed my eyes for a second as I considered that and then opened them to look into her eyes. “You want to know how I can have it and still have three other heroes around.”

Samantha nodded. “I can only speculate that you were summoned before, the heroes either died or you killed them, ate them, and the mission failed. Is that what happened?”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Before I answer that, I want to ask you one more thing.”

“I know what you're going to ask.” Samantha said and waved at the prisoners. “I want to see you do it.”

“I... Samantha, I can't. When I did it before, I was desperate and...”

“I'm going to kill you, turn you into someone like me, and then unleash you upon the world to kill and destroy in my name.” Samantha said. “How long will the people last if an undead you is unleashed upon them?”

I had another flash of Divine Sight. I was floating above the temple that was her namesake and I generated the same multi-attack spell with my armor... except the blades were solid black and covered in black mana. Millions of them appeared around me, blotting out the sky from above and cast a shadow over the entire capital city, then I let the spell go.

The swords were not stopped by magic, shields, walls, or barricades. Every single person in the city became an undead a minute later. I flew ahead of the new horde and did that for every city. In less than a day, the entire country was in ruins and everyone was dead. A month later, the continent had fallen. Six months later, the world was full of undead and nothing was left, except Samantha and myself at the top of the world with me kneeling at her feet.

A bright white light appeared above us, pierced through the miasma of black mana that had covered the planet in my wake of destruction, and then we were cleansed personally by several gods. The whole world was cleansed an hour later, then they started to summon hundreds upon hundreds of people to start rebuilding and repopulating the planet.

I felt a heavy slap on my face and my head jerked as the vision faded. “Ow!”

“You were in a daze.” Samantha said. “Now answer my question.”

“This world...” I shook my head. “No, you can't do it. You'll be dead... actually dead... right after you complete your task of killing everyone.”

Samantha tilted her head slightly. “What makes you so sure of that?”

“It doesn't matter.” I said. “All I know is, we can't do things your way.”

Samantha squinted her eyes. “What do you mean, we can't?”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I'm only really concerned about going home. I honestly don't care about what happens on this world after I leave.”

“Liar.” Samantha said. “You have a stake here, I can feel it.”

“I have a child on the way.” I said. “So, maybe I do care. A little.”

“Then why should I listen to you?” Samantha asked.

“Two reasons.” I said. “One, you want revenge on the god that sent you here and killed you on a fruitless quest.”

Samantha's hands gripped my shirt tightly and I felt some of the stitching pop. “What's the other reason?”

“You don't want to stay on this world any more than I do.”

Samantha was quiet for several minutes before she spoke. “What do you plan to do?”

“Can god see us like this?” I asked and waved at her.

“No, his powers can't perceive what's going on in my immediate area. He would have stopped me years ago if he could see what I was doing.”

“Hmm. Well, that could be a bit of a problem. Maybe... no, I think...” I started to babble.

Samantha let me go on for several minutes before she smacked me across the face again. “Damon!”

“Right, right.” I said and rubbed the spot as it healed. “Okay, this is what I want to do...” I said and started to explain what my revised... re-revised plan was.

Samantha's greyish undead face changed from a blank expression to one of happiness and mirth as I explained. When I was done, her hands had let my shirt go and she gently rested them against my chest.

“I'm almost tempted to let you enjoy my cold flesh.” Samantha said, almost with a purr.

“Only almost? That's great. I think I'm insulted.” I said and she laughed.

Samantha covered her mouth with a hand and looked startled for a moment, then she genuinely smiled. “I haven't laughed in forever.”

“Stick with me and you'll be laughing a lot more very soon.”

“I didn't agree to have sex with you.” Samantha said, teasingly.

“Thanks. Now I know I'm insulted.” I said and she laughed again.