Dee looked over the army of undead wading through the marsh. The nasty terrain was not a real impediment to the tireless beings that didn’t even have to worry about accidentally drowning in the bog. Even the most humble skeletons had enough strength to pull themselves loose if they got stuck, and in an army of undead commanded by a Death Lord even skeletons were more than met the eye. This terrain was actually advantageous for the undead horde in certain ways, as the living would grow tired or could make accidental mistakes that could cost them, but there was a good reason the Lacademonians had chosen this area as the battleground. The upcoming battle would inevitably ruin any terrain it was fought on and this marsh was an area that could be sacrificed easily.

There was also the fact that the Lacademonians weren’t too fazed by the terrain either, as they had trained fighting in various terrains and could take advantage where it could be found. Even if the bog wasn’t a real impediment, it did slow the undead beings down a fair bit. No matter how much the creatures were empowered by the Death Lord from the Spider Cult, they could not move as quickly as on solid ground. All of the Lacademonians were skilled in some sort of ranged combat, and the slow-moving tide of undead made for an easy target. Countless blasts of ki scattered the undead ranks and the endless arrows and projectiles from war machines dealt with the flying monstrosities. Many of the missiles had been blessed by those among the Lacademonian ranks that had received training in holy power, and as such were perfect for dealing with ghosts and wraiths.

Not that the Lacademonians could do much in the way of lasting damage. In the end, fighting a battle of attrition against a necromancer was a fool’s errand. Despite the popular misconceptions, necromancers didn’t actually raise the bodies of the dead to bolster their ranks. Not any self-respecting necromancer anyway. A dead body made for a very suboptimal vessel for negative energy. No, what made the necromancers dangerous was that any undead being could gain a new body with a simple expenditure of power on the necromancer’s part.

The undead were essentially physical manifestations of negative energy. A battle was a nice source of negative energy, but most necromancers had enough to spare anyway. When enough negative energy came together, it coalesced into a body of the undead creature. A mindless creature was born. Though mindless, the creature had a spirit of sorts. It wasn’t a soul, as those passed on to whatever awaited them in the afterlife, though it could contain a small fragment of one. When the body of an undead being was destroyed, a skilled necromancer could recover that spirit and create a new body for the undead with fairly little effort. Of course, the higher ranked the undead being was, the more power that necromancer had to expend to bring it back.

The hardest part of creating undead was that small spirit that controlled the undead monstrosity, and most necromancers carried around hundreds and thousands of them everywhere they went. They would create those spirits when they had the power to spare and only had to give those spirits enough negative energy to form bodies when the battle came calling. As long as the necromancer was around, the only way to destroy those spirits was with the positive energy from specialized holy spells or certain spells that could attack those spirits directly, like magic of the death element.

The Lacademonians had tried avoiding the battle as long as they could, but eventually, the Death Lord hounding them marched on a city they could not give up on. The earlier retreats had just been to buy time to come up with a plan and to prepare. That effort had paid off at least partially. They had received word via Cynisca’s father that the Crimson Witches would shield them from retaliation if they killed the Death Lord attacking them, and talks of alliance were in the works. There were no Crimson Witches to support them in this battle, but a delegation was on the way to their capital city to discuss the terms of the alliance. If they had managed to gain more time, then perhaps they could have finalized the alliance, but the undead had marched on an important city before that could happen.

At least the Lacademonians were getting small reinforcements in this battle. Shunkaha was powerful when utilizing his Authority and could contest some of the more powerful undead beings. Additionally, Dee’s angelic appearance made it very clear that she could attack the undead spirits with her holy powers. Or at least that was what Dee was letting them think. She was purposefully hiding some of her less angelic features to instill confidence.

Incidentally, Anastasia had promised to send another delegation to the Five Winds to discuss the terms of that alliance. The word about the protection offered by the Crimson Witches was already circulating around the second and third circles. Dee was free to go all-out in this battle. And that was exactly what she was planning on doing. As the rain of death fell on the undead beings, she decided to add her own to the outpouring of power.

She raised her hands towards the sky and drew a lot of Lumen’s power to utilize one of the spells the goddess had shown her. Those spells were particularly effective against unnatural beings such as demons and undead. This specific one was best used against a large number of enemies like the horde of undead in front of her. A rain of golden flame suddenly started to fall from the sky. The flames ranged from small finger sized projectiles to mansion-sized comets of golden fire.

The Death Lord tried reinforcing his minions against the outpouring of holy fire but underestimated the threat. Normal holy fire could be resisted as the positive energy could be matched with more negative energy, but this was a technique designed by the angels to specifically fight their nemesis in the demons. Undead just happened to be another good target for the spells. A simple increase in negative energy did almost nothing against it. The weaker undead were melting like they had fallen into acid, while the more powerful ones were having a bad time as well.

Of course, the Death Lord was not just going to watch as his minions were destroyed, and a dark dome rose to meet the rain of fire. The Death Lord had planned on erecting a protective barrier against the rain of more standard projectiles from the Lacademonians, so this just made it a larger priority. This was within Dee’s expectations though. She had already cast her spell and done enough damage to make a point. While Dee would be hard pressed to deal with the undead by herself, the rain of golden flames caused the sort of damage the enemy could not accept. The Death Lord would be forced to maintain that barrier for the entire battle or risk another volley of golden flames. She had another plan anyway.

Dee took wing and rose above and in front of the Lacademonian forces. What she planned on doing next was much harder to aim precisely and there was no way to stop the Lacademonians from being affected if they got mixed in. Thus she had to take a more forward position, actively revealing her presence. A chilling wind started blowing across the undead side of the battlefield. The wind started getting more ominous as grey ash-like smoke was mixed in, and suddenly the undead started collapsing on the ground like puppets with their strings cut.

There were two effective ways to counter undead, and Dee had access to both. The Wind of Death started devouring the feeble spirits holding the undead together. Even souls of living beings would be put under heavy stress before being devoured, so the much weaker spirits of the undead had no chance. “Death Lords, bah! Dare to call yourselves masters of death. Let me show you what someone blessed by her can really do.” Dee declared with an acrid tone.

Undead were an affront to the Goddess of Death. The necromancers were twisted beings that claimed to be using her gifts to create unnatural abominations that were everything she was against. The undead might not have been the return of those that had moved on in death, but that was not what the necromancers claimed. They claimed many things ranging from doing Death’s work to being able to cheat their way out of her grasp. In truth, the necromancers had no reverence for the mistress of those that had passed and only served the Spider Goddess known as the Great Mother. If Death had truly cared about petty rivalries, the Great Mother would have been her fiercest enemy. Life and Death were parts of the natural order and had to coexist, but the power of undeath warped that order.

Dee had no real desire to glorify the Goddess of Death, but some of the deity’s nature had rubbed off on her and that had become more pronounced as she became an immortal. She was still a Herald of Death, so the undead awoke an unnatural hatred in her. This new emotion came as a total surprise to her, making her almost freeze as soon as she had made her small declaration. She had never liked the undead, but neither had she felt a hatred like this either. Of course, that surprise didn’t stop her from maintaining the Wind of Death.

The Lacademonians, of course, took advantage of the situation and an almost solid wall of ki projectiles crashed on the weakened and dying undead and the spirits that were released were consumed by the wind. While the ki attacks were doing damage, it was the Wind of Death that was the real problem, so that’s what the Death Lord had to deal with first. A simple necromancer might have had no way to deal with such a direct counter to his own powers, but the Death Lords were not simple necromancers.

Death Lords could come from many different backgrounds and specializations, but this particular Death Lord was a rather orthodox dark priest. His solution was a rather orthodox protective holy spell to cover the undead forces. The undead beings were surrounded by a dark glow that protected them from hostile magic, similar to some of the protective spells Dee herself was familiar with. The Death Lord had pitted his own holy power directly against Dee’s. In a contest like this the defending party always wasted more power than the one doing the attacking, but at least now the Death Lord was only suffering from that problem instead of having his forces directly under attack by their worst counter. Now the match was directly between Dee and the Death Lord and it didn’t really matter what element Dee was using.

‘That was not a good choice on his part. Trying to compare your respective pools of holy power against a person blessed by four of the most powerful deities is an exercise in futility. Especially since he has the defenders disadvantage.’ Croestia commented with a victorious tone.

‘That would be true if he was facing me alone.’ Dee countered.

‘What do you mean?’ Croestia asked. They had not seen any sign of anyone else nearby and they had looked. If they gave their all against this Death Lord and suddenly faced enemy reinforcements, then they’d be in trouble. That’s why they had carefully made sure that no other Death Lords were present.

‘I felt it when he matched his power against mine. He isn’t fighting me with just his own strength. There’s at least a dozen other beings of similar rank behind him. He might be the only one officially here, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get help from others.’ Dee explained the feeling she was getting.

‘Channeling power to someone over such large distances is very inefficient. Unless…could he have some sort of artifact that is facilitating the transfer of power?’ Croestia asked Dee. She didn’t have the same special vision that Dee had.

‘I’m guessing that would be his staff. It’s glowing with enough power to match anyone I’ve seen before, except maybe Xinglong.’ Of course, that didn’t mean the Death Lord had enough power to match the great dragon or the skill to utilize such power. It simply meant that the dragon was the only one Dee had seen use more power. For all she knew she had met several beings with more power who simply had not used that power, like the Phoenix that hung around the seers from Threads of Fate. Dee might be able to see the flow of power in beings, but she could only give a rough estimate of their true strength if they did not use all of their strength.

The Death Lord also had a problem similar to what Dee sometimes had. Channeling such large amounts of power that you were not used to could tire you out quickly. As one’s power grew, so did the ability to deal with such power. Channeling powers beyond your ability could also do a lot of damage to the body. Dee could always regenerate, but what would the Death Lord do?

‘Are we in trouble?’ Croestia asked with her tone of victory dampening.

‘Hard to say. We’re not alone in this. Lacademonians have their own immortals, though not that numerous. With the Death Lord focused on us, those immortals have a better chance to act without being hampered by a bajillion curses and corrupting spells.’ Dee replied. She didn’t mention that if the Lacademonian immortals didn’t do their part, then Dee would have to come up with something else and allow the Death Lord the freedom to respond in other ways that would be more deadly to the Lacademonians. If they didn’t carry their own weight, then they would have to carry the consequences. Dee had already done her part by tying the Death Lord down for now.

Before anything else could happen, Dee’s thoughts were interrupted by the mental equivalent of being poked with a finger. Rapidly and repeatedly. She was then swarmed with a flow of images and emotions that basically translated to the Living Mountain wishing to be allowed to participate. Apparently it had finished with Dee’s Domain and totem, and had noticed her dilemma. Now it wanted to help. ‘How can you help?’ Dee sent back the question.

The mountains answer was basically complete confidence in its combat power. It seemed a puny Death Lord was nothing in front of the mountain’s might. Only thing Dee had to do was let it out. ‘Can you get back if I do?’ Dee asked.

Last time much of the reason the mountain had been able to enter her Domain was thanks to all of Xinglong’s power flowing through Dee. Now that power had become Dee’s own power, with the exception of the power hiding her Domain from prying eyes. In reply, the mountain assured there would be no problem. Part of the reason it had been making itself busy all over the Domain was so that now the mountain had become a part of that Domain. Well, that was a minor part of why it had been doing such things. Mostly the mountain just did what it wanted and cleaning was one of those things. Any other benefit was mostly incidental.

This thought gave Dee a small pause. She had heard that extremely important items could be stored inside the Domain. Maybe the mountain now counted as important? There was another problem. Could she just flippantly allow the Living Mountain to be seen? The Crimson Witches now knew she had the mountain. Dee had noticed the realization in Anastasia’s eyes, but they had not tried taking it back. They had not even asked. In fact, Anastasia had seemed even more eager to make the alliance a reality after the realization. Who else might come after the mountain? She would have to reveal it sooner or later, and it might be better if the knowledge was out there so she could properly utilize the mountain. There were not that many beings who could actually even try to take the mountain by force and even fewer that would do so.

Dee finally decided that while hiding the mountain might be smarter, she was tired of living in fear of what could happen. Once she reached a decision, she suddenly flew higher into the air. If she was going to materialize the mountain again, then at least she could utilize that moment to her advantage. Once she gained some altitude, the Living Mountain just appeared above the battlefield in its full size. For a fraction of a second, the mountain just hovered in the air before the massive object plunged to the ground right on top of the undead horde.

Dee had made sure the fall distance was short enough that the massive mountain would not be able to gather any real momentum. Otherwise she might have accidentally destroyed the entire territory of the Lacademonians. A mass of that size falling to the ground could be a catastrophe on a scale never seen on Pantheon. ‘Something I should keep in mind for future use.’ Dee thought to herself.

Still, the Living Mountain was one of the largest singular mountains in existence. The tremors and earthquakes did a number on the Lacademonian forces that were luckily smart enough to use their power to try and protect themselves. The undead were less fortunate. All of the undead beings were turned to paste. What was even worse was that the mountain didn’t tolerate the existence of foreign power like the negative energy spirits and dispersed those spirits without even noticing.

A silence prevailed over the battlefield after the rumbles subsided. Dee had quite literally dropped a mountain on her enemies. That gave her further ideas that she could explore later on. As she was feeling rather pleased with herself, she was suddenly sent a series of emotions and images. It felt like the mountain looked down below itself at the crushed enemies, then at Dee, then at the enemies again and then finally at Dee with distinct disapproval. The following emotions made the message clear. Translation: “Not what I had in mind when I wanted to participate.”

‘What? You wanted to help, and you helped. You didn’t even have to do anything too difficult.’ Dee messaged back a little defensively.

Dee was rushed by a swarm of emotions and images. Translation: “Not like this! Now everyone will think I’m a fat mountain that can only defeat its opponents by crushing them! Besides, look at all this marsh water and undead bits stuck on me! It will take me hours to clean it all off when I drag it back to your Domain.”

“What? I don’t…what? Can a mountain even be fat? Who would even think something like that?” Dee muttered in dismay. She was completely confused. Not a new phenomenon with the mountain.

Dee was sent a series of images of other mountains. Some of them were supposed to be fat while others were supposed to represent other mountains that might gain sentience one day. Not that Dee could tell the difference. They all looked the same to her. That was followed by a message about how the Living Mountain had trimmed many of the minerals and other materials that were growing on its slopes. Apparently no one had been mining those materials for hundreds of years and it had made the mountain feel fat and self-conscious. Now the mountain wanted to show off its sleek form and Dee proceeded to drop it on some enemies and get it dirty with marsh gunk. Not the entrance the mountain had wanted. Incidentally, those materials were stashed in the corner of Dee’s Domain.

The Domain didn’t actually have corners, but Dee decided not to argue that particular point. “I mean, you look good. Definitely slimmer. That’s why I had so much trouble even imagining someone could think of you as fat. You could always show your new self out by doing something to the Death Lord over there. He’s the instigator of all this, so killing him would show off your grace nicely.” She tried to save herself with some compliments and a distraction. She pointed at the Death Lord still standing at the side of the battlefield checking if any of the spirits could be saved.

Suddenly a beam of what looked like white liquid fire shot out from the halo surrounding the Living Mountain and bored a hole through the swamp and ground. Dee looked at the hole in shock. There was no sign of the Death Lord and the perfectly circular and smooth hole seemed to go on forever through the earth. Dee could not sense the end of the tunnel, but it seemed likely the marsh would be drained in the near future as all the water started flowing into the new path of least resistance.

“Well then.” Dee muttered in a state of slight shock. She had just seen the perfect example of what happened when you didn’t utilize your power correctly. The Death Lord had access to enough power to defend himself, but that power had not been directed towards defense when it was needed, so all that power became useless. The Death Lord also didn’t have the reactions of a trained warrior so he didn’t have time to correct that mistake as the mountain attacked. “Good job.”

‘Remind me not to piss the mountain off!’ Croestia silently messaged. Dee could only agree.

The mountain sent the feeling of preening with pride, and how swatting mosquitoes like that was hardly any effort. Dee could swear the mountain actually twisted physically a little to preen better.