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The flower buds on her shoulders began to bloom as they absorbed the surrounding darkness so fast that her surroundings glowed for a second. Next, Treevor mixed a large amount of corrupted world energy that his yggdrasil arm attracted and mixed with the darkness, before touching the pedestal and injecting it all at once.

The entire room began to glow with a dark light as the runes absorbed its energy like a bottomless bucket. Treevor kept pouring out all of his mana until his core was empty, before stepping out and telling the next one to come in.

Athos entered shortly thereafter and poured all the mana from his core and body before leaving. All the skeletons kept doing this for hours, as it was the only way to feed the large-scale spells. Comfort mana was injected, energy flowed between the death mithril plates and the air between the plates was sucked out and the vacuum held them together.

A dark barrier began to slowly rise, blocking most of the sunlight and making the interior of the fortress darken like night. The barrier closed in a perfect dome before disappearing and the light returning to normal, but all the skeletons knew it could be activated at any moment.

“It’s done?” Athos asked looking out of one of the fortress windows. He was constantly drawing corrupt world energy to recover and had already injected energy three more times into the pedestal.

“We’ve barely started. The only active enchantment at the moment is the barrier, the other three are missing so we’ll need a few more rounds to fill the enchantments completely.” Treevor said with a tired smile. Its wooden body looked withered and its leaves droughts.

“Haah... work never ends.” Athos thought in defeat, his core had recharged so he went to power the spells once more.

*********

.....

“What the hell was that?” A soldier on horseback asked in a daze, looking at the fortress in the distance. He was using a spyglass to observe the fortress in the distance and noticed the barrier rising. The soldier was one of the scouts sent to confirm the situation in the fortress and there were five other soldiers on horseback around him.

“I don’t know, but we should report this as soon as possible.” Another soldier on horseback said before turning to leave, but a sharp object hit him in the chest, piercing through the leather armor he wore. His horse whinnied as it too was hit and knocked to the ground.

“Enemy attack! Disperse!” the soldiers split up to increase their chances of survival, as they looked for where the attack came from. One of the soldiers screamed as he pointed towards the sky and saw three skeleton birds flying, shooting black feathers at the backs of his companions and knocking them down along with their horses.

The soldier reached for a flare, a small stick that fired a tiny sphere that exploded in a red light, signaling danger to the other scouts scattered around here, but his horse was hit by something and fell, knocking him to the ground.

The soldier tried to roll over to cushion the impact and get up, but a skeleton suddenly appeared and pierced his heart from behind and killed him. Emilia looked around and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that everyone was dead.

‘They are increasing in number. Our time is tight, but it looks like the master will be able to complete the large-scale spells in time.’ Emilia thought, not knowing whether to be sad or happy about it.

She still had hopes of convincing him to go to the demihuman empire, but the large-scale spells thwarted her plans. Emilia began raising the corpses into the undead and interrogating them in the same way that Athos did when he stormed the fortress, discovering that the army had already been dispatched and was on its way to the fortress.

They were expected to arrive in a week, but the scouts had no information on the size of the army. It appeared that the kingdom had guarded against leaking information and dispatched the scouts without important information.

Emilia heard the sound of approaching footsteps and turned slightly, looking at Caio and five skeleton soldiers on horseback approaching. “How was it on your side?”

“No problems. One of them almost set off a flare, but I stopped him in time.” Caio spoke as he approached. “What do you want to do now?”

“We’re going to kill a few more groups. The master seems to have managed to complete the large-scale spells and the scouts have definitely seen that. We need to kill as many as possible before-” A yellow flare went off in the sky, interrupting Emilia. “Before that happens.”

“That was the signal for the scouts to retreat. It’s going to be nearly impossible to hunt them all down silently now, so let’s hunt as much as possible before retreating to the keep.” Emilia spoke up, determined to prevent the information from the large-scale spells from leaking out.

The birds with blades reported the position of the scouts on horseback. There were a total of five five-man units, all on horseback and fleeing in different directions. Emilia and Caio had already killed most of them and these were the only ones left. Some had retreated before Emilia started hunting them, but they wouldn’t have any relevant information other than that the undead hadn’t fled.

“Skeletons on horseback, split up and hunt one unit each. You originally had the same position, so the difference in strength shouldn’t be that big. Blast yourself with the enemy if necessary. Birds with blades take care of the farthest group while Caio and I take care of one each. Go.” Emilia ordered and the skeletons split.

********

Half an hour later, on a distant hill.

A group of seven light-armored adventurers lay on the ground, using magic spyglasses to observe something in the distance. Their bodies were smeared with mud and dry leaves, camouflaging with their surroundings.

They were watching as a single scout on horseback tried desperately to evade two skeleton knights. The scout was covered in wounds and tried to outwit the pursuers, but the skeleton horses’ speed was superior and they were slowly closing the distance.

He was the last surviving scout and it didn’t look like he would last long. The adventurers had been watching over these scouts since the group of skeletons caught up with them and engaged in combat. Three of the skeletons died during the combat, but so did most of the scouts and only one of them managed to escape, sacrificing the rest of the group in order to escape.

“Should we help him? He’s going to die at this rate.” One of the adventurers commented, but no one moved.

“And risk our lives for an army dog?” One of them asked scornfully and the rest chuckled softly.

“Besides, that particular skeleton looks very dangerous. I don’t like our odds against him.” The leader of the group spoke as he watched a different direction, where Emilia was lifting the scouts’ corpses like undead.

He couldn’t use mana vision at this distance, but her movements were a blur to the leader and that was more than enough for him to decide the skeleton was something they couldn’t handle.

His group of adventurers were known as the sewer rats and they specialized in espionage and tracking. They were a C rank group, but their real power was only around D rank.

They were even further away and couldn’t see the fortress, but it wasn’t a problem. The orders they were given were to investigate the army and not the undead. They didn’t know why, but guildmaster Florence ordered several teams of adventurers to investigate every move within the army.

The group faintly imagined that there was a political war behind it, but they were given enough not to ask questions. Originally, they planned to capture a unit of scouts and interrogate them, but Emilia thwarted their plans.

“What do we do now, boss? We can’t go back empty-handed like this.” One of his companions grumbled.

“No, we already have enough information. We know that the army scouts were all killed without exception and that the undead are already aware of our presence, so they will be prepared when we arrive. We also discovered that there are assassins among the enemy forces and although it’s not part of our mission, it can earn us a nice bonus.” Small smiles of greed appeared among the adventurers as they thought about the money.

They were loyal only to themselves and whoever paid the most, after all.

“Boss, the movement in the sky. Skeleton birds flying over our area in 10 seconds.” One adventurer watching the sky reports and all the others take camouflage cloaks and cover themselves from head to toe, hiding themselves well from view.

The bladed bird passes over them, its less-than-sharp eyesight unable to discern the adventurers’ disguise. After a few minutes, one of them pokes his head slightly out of his cloak and looks up at the sky, before sighing in relief and warning the others that the danger has passed.

“Let’s back off now. With all the scouts dead, we’re just taking our chances here.” The party leader speaks and everyone else nods, packing up all their gear and quietly retreating, rather than rushing hastily like the scouts.