A/N: The answer to last chapter's mystery~

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Once he got over his initial shock, it quickly became apparent that something wasn’t quite right. It SEEMED like Zadicus Quinn had been resurrected from the dead much like Mikael himself. His face and skull have been reconstructed from the shattered pulpy mess that Mikael’s fist had reduced both to and the former Lord of Alether stands there looking down his nose at Mikael with a sneer. To top it all off, there’s most definitely a soul flickering inside of the man, despite Mikael’s very magic being a result of consuming Zadicus Quinn’s soul wholesale.

But the key word there was ‘flickering’. And while it certainly seemed like Zadicus Quinn must have been brought back to life based on the fact that he had a soul, the rest of him… not so much. His pallor is worse than Avina’s perpetually pale skin, a filthy grey that makes it clear his head might have been reconstructed, but he’s still very much a corpse past his expiration date.

And while there is a black glow in his eyes that Mikael remembers from, beyond that… there’s nothing. Just glazed over irises. Even as his lip curls back and Mikael can see the other man’s gums… they’re pitch black. Zadicus Quinn is still very much dead. Or rather, undead. But then how does that explain the soul? Well, Mikael isn’t an idiot. He can put two and two together.

“You’re not Zadicus Quinn. I suppose I should be outraged on his behalf that you’re puppeting his body like this Foss, but honestly… he deserved worse than I gave him anyways.”

The sneer on Zadicus Quinn’s face freezes for a moment… and then drops, to be replaced by the same sort of deadened, void-like expression as Foss had exhibited when he’d been found out back in the Lord’s Tower all those weeks ago.

“So very quick on the uptake, hero.”

Even the voice sounds wrong, more like Foss Sangrey’s projected voice from back outside the walls of Alether than Zadicus Quinn’s voice had ever sounded. Indeed, Mikael had thought he’d heard the self-titled Supreme King’s voice when he’d first came into the tent and caught the ritual chant that the other man was performing. He hadn’t been mistaken… it was Foss all along, merely puppeting Zadicus Quinn’s corpse to avoid having to be present on the battlefield himself.

Smirking, Mikael holds up his sword, calling on his teal magic to be ready for whatever Foss-as-Zadicus might still have up his sleeve.

“Am I? Or are you just that predictable? I should have known that a coward like you would never show your face on a battlefield like this. Even something that should be a sure thing… you continue to hide behind masks.”

Zadicus’ face remains blank as Foss scoffs in response through the dead man’s lips.

“What you call cowardice, I deem practicality. I am a man stretched thin, hero. I must maintain control of my Kingdom, while conquering an Empire. Still… to thank you or curse you. On the one hand, you’ve returned to me the Princess. When I first discovered she’d fled Zuveria, I must admit to being quite enraged.”

For a moment, Zadicus Quinn’s face twists into a rictus of a grin, one that looks quite unsettling on the dead man’s features. But then it twists into a scowl, something much more natural for the deceased Lord of Alether.

“And yet, in the same breath you’ve brought chaos incarnate from the Sylian Woods. Creatures that take a hundred knights to bring down and you’ve somehow herded thousands of them into Zuveria. By the time they’re done with this Empire, there will be little left for me to rule over thanks to you.”

Mikael smiles thinly at that… and lies his ass off.

“You don’t have to worry about that so long as I still live, Foss Sangrey. The Sylian Beasts are under my control one and all. And even now they’re tearing through your army. Perhaps it’s time for a retreat, hm?”

That provokes a bark of ethereal laughter from the puppeteer, even as they both glance at the battlefield down below. Mikael isn’t wrong. The Children of Syl ARE turning the tide. And yet… the Supreme King doesn’t seem all that concerned. But then, why should he be? The bastard isn’t even really here.

“Is that so? Your confidence is… quaint. But you’ve just revealed to me the route to victory. Why retreat when I can simply take control of you and have an entire new army at my disposal?”

The question turns out to be rhetorical, because the next thing Mikael knows, he’s fighting for his life. Or perhaps more accurately, he’s fighting for his freedom. Foss flings out his dead subordinate’s arm and a wave of black energy surges towards him. Mikael cuts it in half with his sword still covered in teal energy, but to limited effect. The black energy simply splits and then attacks him from both sides, forcing Mikael to forego his sword altogether and rely solely on his magic.

It's not whatever sickly green enchant the bastard of a necromancer had given to his soldiers at least, but that doesn’t make this any easier. Still, Mikael is able to hold Foss at bay just like he did back in the Tower. Only, this time he needs to keep doing it until his allies have secured victory. No sweat.

In fact, as Zadicus’ undead face twists into a rictus of vicious glee felt by his puppeteer, Mikael is keeping a similar expression off of his face. The urge to smirk or grin right now is almost overwhelming, but he hides his true emotions all the same. This was the reason he’d lied in the first place, after all. Focus all of Foss Sangrey’s attention on him, make the man think that he was being needlessly boastful.

… That said, he might have miscalculated. The urge to grin quickly fades away and the teeth gritting grimace on Mikael’s face soon becomes very, very real as Foss throws more and more of that inky blackness at him. More power fills the hilltop, more black energy assailing Mikael’s teal defenses.

He’s holding strong at first. How can he not be? His Soul Engine has been upgraded by Avina herself a handful of times by now, alongside adapting and evolving all on its own when he consumed Zadicus Quinn’s soul in the first place. On top of that, he’s just gotten back from absorbing a few hundred elven souls, suping up his engine and giving him a lot more power to play with.

And yet… even still, that black power that Foss can call upon is no joke. Mikael’s shield now is a hundred times more powerful than what he summoned in the Lord’s Tower all the way back in Alether, and yet there are still cracks forming, still inky sludge spilling into those cracks.

As Foss’ power spider-webs out through Mikael’s defenses right before the younger man’s eyes, he realizes he can’t keep this up forever. But neither can he retreat. He has to keep Foss engaged in the off chance that the ritual he’d stopped can be restarted right where the bastard let off. At the same time though, Mikael can’t let himself fall under the Supreme King’s control. If that’s even possible. But one thing is for shit-sure… he’s not about to find out.

Grasping at straws, searching for answers as he grits his teeth, Mikael finds himself staring at Zadicus Quinn. Or rather… at the flickering soul inside of the dead man’s chest. Now that… that was a possibility.

“Hey Foss! I wonder… what happens if I absorb a part of your soul while you’re so… stretched thin?!”

Needless to say, the last thing the necromancer is expecting him to do at this point is go on a counteroffensive. Mikael doubts he could really ‘kill’ Zadicus as he is right now anyways. But Foss had given the game away himself, hadn’t he? He’d said it outright, his incessant need to explain and justify himself exposing a secret Mikael could exploit. The man was using Zadicus’ body as some sort of beacon or relay. And to do so, he’d filled the corpse with a small bit of his own soul so that he could speak and cast magic.

But indeed… what if Mikael got ahold of that bit of soul? That flickering soul fragment was looking mighty tasty right now. Sending a surge of teal power along the ground underneath Foss’ pitch-black assault, Mikael reaches for Zadicus’ body and the bit of Foss’ soul harbored within it. Under normal circumstances he couldn’t just tear the soul of someone the size of Zadicus clean out of their body without killing them first.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. And that wasn’t Zadicus’ soul.

“YOU WORTHLESS INGRATE!”

Breaking off his assault, Foss stomps Zadicus’ foot in what looks at first like a temper tantrum but is really a defensive maneuver as he sends a sheet of black energy out that annihilates Mikael’s grasping teal magic and forces him to jump into the air to avoid it taking him out at the ankles.

“You have been a thorn in my side at every damn turn! If only Avina had failed to bring you back, this… all of this could have been avoided!”

Mikael begins gathering his power up again, readying himself for his next assault. He was definitely on to something there. Of course, at seeing this Foss just scoffs.

“Alas… this battle is clearly lost. We’ll end this where it all began… back in Alether, where even now I convert the population into more undead fodder for my armies. Tell the Princess, hero. Tell her that if she wants to save the City of Alether, if she wishes to save her pathetic Kingdom… then she’d best come and try to stop me.”

Mikael grits his teeth as Foss’ monstrous nature rears its ugly head once again. He supposes he really shouldn’t be surprised though. The bastard clearly cares much more about immortality than he does about ruling anyone. Everything he’s ever done, all the power he’s ever gathered… he’s turning it towards getting Avina. No matter what.

“Funny that you think I’m just going to let you leave, Foss!”

He wasn’t about to let the necromancer escape. Not in Zadicus’ body, and certainly not out. Going still, the self-titled Supreme King looks at him for a moment before scoffing.

“No, I suppose you won’t. The moment I pull my fragment back from this body, you’ll be all over it. Annoying. But… sacrifices must be made, I suppose.”

That’s all the warning Mikael gets before Zadicus’ body suddenly floats up into the air. His eyes widen as the soul fragment flickering within the undead corpse suddenly begins to shift and twist and spasm wildly… before growing beyond Zadicus’ form in less than a second.

Pitch black energy erupts as Zadicus Quinn, former Lord of Alether… explodes. Mikael immediately covers himself in teal power, but he doesn’t feel the concussive or corrosive force he’s expecting… and the black energy that detonates from Zadicus does not stop at the hill top. Mikael’s eyes widen as it expands over the entire battlefield in an instant, covering the area in magical darkness.

Even Mikael can’t see anything beyond his teal shield. He can push the pitch black darkness back for a few feet around himself, but not only is that taxing, it doesn’t really help when all he sees is the ground of the hill.

Finally, he realizes what he can do and begins stair-stepping upwards into the air, using the same trick with teal platforms that he did to get onto the hill in the first place. For a few hundred feet there’s nothing but darkness above him, until finally he’s able to break free and finds himself above a massive cloud that covers not just the battlefield but also miles of land around it.

The very backlines of the Order of the Rose are clear thanks to the epicenter of the blinding darkness being on the hill but that’s not much of a consolation prize because…

Mikael hisses in anger when he sees what’s coming out of the side of the black cloud furthest from the Order of the Rose’s fortifications. Heading back in the direction of Ocreatha and indeed in the direction of Alether itself… are the remains of Foss Sangrey’s army. Undead Summoned Heroes leave the darkness as though it has no effect on them, some missing limbs, armor, or weapons… but plenty more relatively untouched beyond a few dents and dings here and there.

It can’t be called a normal disorganized retreat, but there’s certainly no order to it. They’ve all been called home, whether Foss gave one last order before spending his soul fragment on this magic, or whether it was simply hardwired for them to return if his relay was destroyed. Either way, they’re retreating. Escaping, really.

For a moment, Mikael wants nothing more than to go after them. To cut down as many of them as he can. They’ll all just be enemies that he and his allies have to fight at Alether, after all. But… no. He has no idea what this magical darkness does… and all of those aforementioned allies are currently trapped in it.

Activating his Soul Sense, Mikael is relieved to see that it still works through the magical darkness, albeit to a limited effect. And after a moment, he’s able to find one in particular and dive back into the black cloud.

Hurtling to the ground, Mikael grabs Bula by the shoulders, grunting as he takes a battle axe to the midsection in the process. No stress, it’ll heal.

“Grk! BULA! Bula, it’s me! Mikael!”

The half-orc immediately stops as he forms a teal bubble around them, clearing out the pitch-black darkness so she can see him.

“The undead are in full retreat! You need to have all of the Child of Syl stand down! The only humanoids left on the battlefield at this point are Knights of the Rose!”

Her face scrunches up in consternation and frustration for a moment, but then she nods and Mikael sees as the larger souls all around him stop blindly lashing out and rampaging back and forth. From what he can ‘see’ right now, the Order of the Rose had immediately begun pulling back as best they could from the darkness anyways. In reality, at this point, the only opponents the vast majority of the Children of Syl had to fight were each other.

Mikael lets out an explosive sigh as Bula’s order is followed after a brief second of it being relayed. He lets himself feel it then… they’d done it. They’d won this battle and even pushed Foss back from Zuveria altogether.

So then why did it not really feel like a victory? Why did it feel like this was just the beginning?

… Maybe. Maybe it was just the beginning. But if it was, it was the beginning of the end. And Mikael would be damn sure to see this through.

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A/N: This is probably where I should admit that there's only somewhere between 7-10 chapters left from here. Considering stretching it to 69 for the meme but we'll see.

Be sure to let me know what you think!