Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The impulsive High Priest of God King Pursa was walking up and down in front of the troops that were about to enter this new world.

Urth was a world with one gigantic continent surrounded by a mighty ocean. It was perfect to be occupied by land troops. And those, they had. The dark elven general looked down at the rows and rows of undead.

A well-constructed military made of all kind of zombies and skeleton in the lower ranks, stronger undead like death knights and vampires as commanders and a ton of necromancers and liches in the rear.

Arget Nore, the Kingdom in darkness and moonlight. The sole empire encompassing an undead world, led by the Immortal God King Pursa! Their access to the Pathworks was a story of success. They did not need land to grow a new populace, they could just revive the dead of the destroyed worlds and grow their power! They took in the living who were willing and if they were not, in death they were!

The path they had chosen would lead to the northwestern corner of the continent of Urth. The information they had gotten from the Church of the System describes this place as the center of undead activity.

This was why the biggest delegation of more than 100-thousand undead had been sent here

Everyone here had already been dead, before the Pathworks were even opened! It was perfect to grow their troops before continuing to pacify this land from the northwest, before meeting up with the smaller groups across the continent.

Even better, as the center of undead there would be a lot of wild undead. The information had talked about the zombies being the result of a 'parasitic virus', whatever that even meant. Undead were undead. This meant necromancers would not have to spend mana on raising them, just taming them.

When the priest was finally done with his fanatical speech the troops were allowed to enter the Pathworks. The entrance was a gigantic dark hole that was just existing in midair, like a gab in the fabric of space. Wind, sound, Light and people. Anything vanished as if sinking into a pool of the darkest blackest ink one could find.

It was not his first time leading his troops into another world, but you would never get used to the feeling of slowly being submerged into a liquid and then sucked in and flung around as if you entered a current.

What came into view after leaving the portal on the other side was a wide plaza surrounded by high rising buildings and streets that reminded him of canyons with the straight fronts of skyscrapers bordering them. Leaving the portal that was stretching across the plaza were orderly rows and rows of disciplined undead foot soldiers, all decked in the same dark rusty lightweight armors.

In front of them, seated on skeleton horses, rode the other generals like him. They gave commands to get into formation and horns were blown as the troops gathered together on the plaza.

They set up camp for the living and sentient members of the army. One might think that in an undead world, everyone is supposed to be an undead. But that's not how it was. There were many living among the commanders and necromancers, like him.

It was unavoidable. You can't have an empire, when almost all your subject are brainless drooling sacks of rotting meat.

After camp was set up, they sent out teams of soldiers and necromancers to collect the wild undead in this megacity and bolster their troops.

It was night right now, and they would be back at sunrise so the undead would not be damaged by the sunlight.

But nobody came back at sunrise. The remaining necromancers and liches created a canopy of darkness above the camp to shield the army from the sun.

The generals and commander met and decided to wait a little longer.

Several hours passed, but there were no signs of the missing teams.

This was not supposed to happen. There should have been nothing that could endanger them in this town. So...what happened?

After waiting this long without any clues the generals and the commander had a meeting and decided to send scout teams consisting of dark elves, since the undead were not fit to move during the day.

The generals waited again. The sun was setting again. But nobody returned... again.

When sun had set the generals had decided. Sending small numbers and teams was obviously not working, so they split up the army. Each one took about half of their men and would scout in a different direction, while the other half would stay with the army commander in the plaza.

The dark elven general led an army of about 8000 men, of which more than 1500 were dark elves while the rest were a mix of different undead. They slowly wandered into the dark and foreboding street canyons.

Few cars filled the otherwise empty streets and the black empty windows were staring at the silently moving army.

He could feel the gaze of these windows...something was there.

It did not take long. As he was watching, he saw pale figures scramble out of those empty windows and CRAWL down the walls like four legged spiders.

Deformed humanoid figures with eyes and lumps of meat growing on all kinds of places and limbs moving in unnatural angles and some with a few too many limbs and extremities growing from unusual places. Others had eyeless faces or lacked a nose, but sported split jaws filled rows and rows of terrifying teeth.

The general shuddered at the sight of such atrocities. He had seen the creations of some crazy necromancers, but this and these numbers were too much for him. It was just incomprehensible. Just what was wrong with this world!?

But the worst was yet to come. From the entrances to the sides came similar, but less distorted creatures wearing shreds and pieces of dark robes and armor. This was what was left of their teams and scouts.

Before he could even comprehend what was going on the pale creatures attacked. With incredible power they jumped off the walls on either side of the street and crashed into the undead army.

This was a bona fide ambush!

The dark elf watched as the creatures easily dispatch his troops! They did not just rip and tear the skeletons like paper cut-outs, they even hunted his soldiers!

They easily entered their ranks, killed a few and would snatch a living, a dark elf or a necromancer, or even a zombie. Tongues like tentacles would strangle the living and long armor piercing claws snatched the dead. Then they would return to the buildings with a mighty jump carrying their prey!

Even though his soldiers fought back valiantly, their weapons could barely hurt these monsters! And they were just too fast for the necromancers to use their magic against them. Only few creatures fell to the undead troops.

The dark elves were better off. They could keep up with the monsters and take a few with them before they finally fell. It did not improve their situation. The blood of the beasts was viscous and dulled their blades, sickening odors broke form their dead bodies when they finally stopped moving. To make it all worse, they were vastly outnumbered.

Before the general could react and call for a retreat, they had already been surrounded by an overwhelming sea of creatures. There was no way out. He could dispatch them in a fair fight, but their overwhelming numbers pressured him. He could only fight for his life and watch his men be wiped out one by one.

Whatever these creatures were, they were not 'Zombies' as they knew them. Shouting and hacking he finally managed to gather his last troops to break out of the encirclement. Rushing back to the main army was their only chance now! Their last hope!

Was crushed. When the small group of survivors finally reached the plaza, after many losses and sacrifices, everything was already gone.

The troops that had stayed behind had been annihilated! All they ran into was an army of monsters feasting on the remains of their comrades.

Not only that. Some of these creatures were even entering the Pathworks!

It was then that the creatures behind them caught up and the dark elven general realized the true danger. Among the beasts chasing them new ones had appeared. It was a tattoo that revealed the terrifying fact. One of the creature had a tribal tattoo he knew from one of his ghoul soldiers. It wasn't just the living who had turned! Even the undead could turn into these beasts!

"'It′s just a pathetic world without magic.', 'If it′s undead we can just count them to our troops...' We were truly arrogant in our ignorance. This world is way too frightening and dangerous."

Looking at his men, they all knew, they were the last stragglers of a wiped out army. they were domed. However, there was still one thing they had to do.. He rallied his remaining men, and they made one final charge toward the portal. They had to close the gate and hinder these creatures from entering their world!