“Don’t! I’m alive!” Silvy shouted out, scaring the surrounding people.

Turning her head, she saw two men watching her, eyes wide.

“How are you still alive?!” the thinner man said.

“Uh… My class. See how the blood loss has stopped? I just need time to… regrow my limbs. Yes.” Silvy said, not very convinced of her lie.

“What about a healing potion? You could probably use one…” the bigger man asked.

“No, no, I don’t need it. Could you turn me around, please? Maybe against a tree...”

The bigger man complied, turning Silvy around and placing her against a tree. Her balance was quite precarious, and she couldn’t move her head much.

“So… what should we do? Do we just leave you here like this?” the bigger one asked.

“Yes. It’ll take some time, but I’ll grow my limbs back, don’t worry. This place is safe, right?” Silvy asked.

“Well, from monsters, yes, but other adventurers might not be so… ehm, sympathetic.”

Well, at least her bag of holding was still on her side and not stolen: she’d be really mad about it, having lost one already.

“Alright, thanks. Just keep going, don’t mind me.” Silvy said.

She was projecting confidence in her voice, even if she did not have much of it herself. What should she do now? Her limbs were gone! And who knows how long it would take for the elemental core to repair the crack…

The two men watched each other, shrugged and went inside the boss room, leaving Silvy alone, waiting for something to happen.

Why aren’t you leveling up? That fight has lasted hours, you should level up for sure. Maybe even get some good Skills.

Indeed, a good idea. She closed her eyes, waiting for a level up.

[Beginner Death Dancer level 20→23]

[Passive. Basic Self-Regeneration→ Self-Regeneration]

[Passive. Self-Regeneration→ Advanced Self-Regeneration]

[Passive: Tough Body→Superior Tough Body]

Well, these were useful. She looked at her missing limbs, where muscles and flesh were exposed to the open air. She kept looking, and she could swear the wound was closing, even if not that fast. If that was the speed, it would take days to regrow her limbs, maybe weeks…

‘Core, can you do something about this? It will take too long otherwise.’

As I’ve already said, undeads do not heal themselves. The one responsible for healing was the elemental core, not me.

‘Do you know how long the elemental will take to repair?’

I’m not sure. It’s stronger than me, so it’s hard to give a precise estimation. Maybe a month? Hard to say.

‘That’s too long!’

Silvy closed her eyes, thinking deeply about this problem. After twenty minutes of reflection, she asked another question to the core.

‘Don’t undeads use mana to move around? Can’t I use mana to heal myself then?’

… I have no idea. Technically, the elementals do it. But I have no idea how to do it.

Mh. Well, it’s not like she had anything else to do. She closed her eyes, feeling the mana inside and around her. The feeling was fleeting, hard to grasp, as it had been when she was just a human. Even if her idea was possible, she couldn’t execute it with such bad control over mana…

She thought about the items in her bag. Money, a set of clothes, cores from the monsters, her undead sword… Could the undead sword help her?

Her bag was tied to her belt, and she couldn’t, obviously, reach it with her hands: she had no arms anymore. But, was it really necessary? Maybe she just needed to be in the proximity of the bag? Or just make contact with her skin?

Thinking about bringing out her undead sword, it appeared out of thin air, next to her. Good.

A link was formed immediately, much to the surprise of Silvy: she could feel where the sword was without looking, and even what it felt.

The undead sword answered, recognizing her. It felt almost… honored to link with her? Whatever. Silvy ignored the sensation, concentrating on speaking to it.

‘Hey sword, think you can help me out in some way? You see, I’m missing my limbs…’

The sword expressed its confusion, not understanding Silvy.

It’s still too weak to understand. Feed it all the cores you accumulated; maybe that’ll be enough.

Silvy did as advised, bringing out the cores from her bag and making them fall one by one on the sword, which greedily absorbed them all. The link was becoming stronger, more intense, more… intelligent. The monsters she had killed were many, and the difficulty of the operation was quite high without arms, mostly because she couldn’t just dump them all onto the sword or some would roll-off.

Finally, the last core was fed to it, and after that, the sword spoke to Silvy.

‘Creator, it’s an honor to meet you.’

‘Creator? I didn’t create you, just fed you.’

‘You created sapient undeads, Creator. Every sapient undead knows about you.’

‘Wait, really?! Well, that doesn’t help me right now, does it? I need to heal myself. Any idea?’

The sword was silent for a few minutes, so much that Sivy thought it hadn’t heard her. Just before Silvy asked the same question, the sword spoke up.

‘Healing. It’s an obscured process for undeads. But, I can do what you ask, if you wish. Touch me and I’ll sacrifice myself for your well-being, Creator.’

‘Wow, hold on a moment! You’d die, no? For me? You barely know me!’

‘You gave our species a chance to be something more. None of us will ever forget it, and none of us will ever be able to repay this debt: use me as you wish, Creator.’

‘Uhm, core? Did you just create a religion?’

I believe I might have. No matter: its sacrifice would make you reach your goal. Just use him.

‘Please: it would be an honor to become part of you, even if only in death.’

‘Let me think, okay?’

Silvy thought about the sword’s offer. She couldn’t see any negatives about it: she would get her body back without effort, but something was nagging her mind; she felt like… it was not right for the sword to sacrifice itself. Why was that? She was her creator, wasn’t she? That meant having power over its life and death. She reached a decision, accepting the offer.

‘Touch me, Creator, and focus my mana on your healing. I offer you my mana, my body and my life to you.’

She did as told, making her body fall on top of the sword. Torrents of mana filled her, Silvy concentrating it on creating new limbs in their wake; she could feel them growing, regenerating, fast. The core cracked and then pulverized, dissipating into the air; the sword disappeared, flowing inside Silvy in the form of mana.

After half an hour, the flow of mana stopped; standing up, she studied her limbs. They were the same, feeling no different from before.

She danced around, dodging, feinting, slashing: her level ups after the fight had made her even better: she wanted to test them against the Treant right now.

The undead sword was nowhere to be found, as was the core core.

But the door was inaccessible, and it stayed like that for a bit more than one hour. Silvy spent her time testing her body. Silvy was left with the only hope that the normal sword was still inside the boss room, not looted by the other two adventurers or absorbed by the dungeon.

Finally, the door didn’t resist against her attempts to go inside, and the Treant was again in front of her, with the sword to his right, on the ground.

Silvy sprang forward, faster than she had been before. Branches shot forward, trying to intercept the new intruder, but failing to even brush her, too fast to be hit. Picking up her sword, she kept running, turning towards the Treant.

The trunk was in front of her in a heartbeat, Silvy twirling in place and creating two deep cuts in the wood, retreating right after that, branches trying to attack her. She circled the trunk, slashing away, too fast for the Treant to stop: she didn’t want to give him an opportunity like she had done before, so she struck fast. Rivulets of resin were pouring down the trunk from the deep cuts received, the Treant unable to retaliate. Its branches shot down around the trunk, trying to protect it, but Silvy cut through them with two-handed swings, dodging every attempt to kill her.

The battle lasted for three hours, with the Treant forced into a defensive stance, never able to lift itself; in the end, the branches stopped moving, falling to the ground. Silvy cut deeper into the trunk, reaching the core and bringing it outside...

‘How do I eat this?’

Just try to absorb it. Undeads use their mouth because it’s the simplest and faster method, but you can absorb it if you concentrate on it.

She did as told, doing it as if it was in her second nature. Mana flowed into her, dissipating the core in the meantime, disappeared after five minutes. So much power…

She got out the door and went downstairs, wanting to challenge the eleventh floor: who knew what was in here.

The stairs were made of rocks, but this time they were real stairs as if a human had made and polished them. And they went a long way down.

Flatland welcomed her, yellow grass of the same height all around. There was no obstacle in sight, and yet she couldn’t see more than fifty meters in front of her: the world behind was smeared, foggy, with no detail standing out, hiding everything behind it. The ceiling was high up above her, at least a hundred meters, maybe more.

Behind the stairs, a wall of rocks stood, which kept going left and right as much as Silvy could see.

She picked a random direction and started walking, the “fog” moving with her, showing what had been behind this veil. The answer was more grass, identical to the one behind and below her feet. Of course, the dungeon didn’t make things simple, not leaving any landmark at all for its divers.

It didn’t take long for Silvy to be attacked by a monster. A hawk swept from the air, danger coming over Silvy. She didn’t dodge, slashing instead, sure of the hit. However, the hawk quickly swirled to the side, dodging the hit and retaking altitude. She watched as the hawk disappeared into the fog at the edge of her vision, unsure of how to kill it. It was faster than she expected, dodging a swing she was sure would hit. Would it come back? She waited in place for a few minutes, expecting another attack that didn’t come.

Walking forward, more danger warned her of an attack from below. She stepped back, a worm as big as her torso shooting upward, a huge mouth and many sharp teeth inside it. It disappeared back into the ground, entering it as if it was water, leaving no hole or other sign of its passage. The hawk came back right after, attacking from behind: Silvy tried to hit it again, this time expecting its speed and anticipating the dodge. She hit it, slamming it into the ground. Her sword pierced it and the worm appeared again, Silvy retracting her sword, this time making the hawk disappear inside its mouth. Silvy swung at it, but its skin was too thick, and her sword only lightly cut it. And then she noticed it: her sword was quite battered, with the edge chipped and not sharp at all. Silvy was starting to think that this floor was too hard and she was too badly equipped for it when another worm appeared, trying to eat her with the same method, Silvy dodging back again. She abandoned her pride, running for the stairs, reaching them after dodging four more attacks from those worms. Once on the stairs, the worms stopped attacking, probably because they couldn’t reach her, or maybe because they didn’t know where she was.

Her sword couldn’t cut her enemies: how was she supposed to fight them? She needed a better sword, or more than one, or her magic. She went upstairs, leaving the eleventh floor behind: she would come back for it, but not now.

Her journey to the first floor was without incidents, passing through the tunnel which left her right at the entrance; she changed in her normal clothes before getting out, as her armor had only the torso left, and even that was in bad shape; she would need another armor as well.

The sun was going down, and the small encampment/village near the dungeon was roughly the same as when she had left, this time without the wagon that had brought her here. Other wagons and horses were around, but she had no idea when they would go back to the city, and she had another idea anyway.

She started running west, following the road. At the beginning she went at a slow pace, not wanting to attract attention to herself. After having some distance, she ran with all of her might, never stopping, never slowing. It felt so nice, so liberating, the wind on her skin, blowing in her ears. A couple of carriages and two horsemen passed her, going the opposite way, but didn’t disturb her, only watching her curiously.

Night fell, but she didn’t care. Three shadow wolves appeared in front of her, and she eliminated them quickly, dancing around to keep them in a line, so as not to be surrounded; thinking on how they had been a hard foe in the past, she felt like she had come a long way.

Morning came and with that the walls of the city. She slowed down, walking through the gate with her adventurer’s badge pinned to her chest, eyes of the guards on her.

Entering the city, she mulled over her options. Maybe she should concentrate completely on magic, or maybe go to the adventurer’s guild and take a request, or buy a new sword and armor…

You could recover your old bag of holding and its content.

Mh? But she didn’t know where- she knew where it was. The memory had always been there, only she had never recalled it, remaining hidden in her mind. Curious.

Well, first objective found, she traversed the city, reaching the other gate and outside. The bag was buried a dozen meters from the road, with all of its content intact: perfect.

Moving the content from the smaller bag to the bigger one, she went back into the city with two bags of holding now. Magic or monsters? Reaching the level required by Lindrl in magic would take a long time, monsters would have a more immediate effect on her power. Mmmh.

She reached her room, sinking into her bed. The mana line was now formed a bit more than ninety percent by her own mana and ten percent by the ambient mana; still a long way from fifty-fifty. The morning passed like this, with Silvy not moving from the bed, creating a line over and over again.

Afternoon came, and Silvy decided to get up and go around. She was not bored with this exercise, thanks to the core suppressing boredom, but she wanted to go around, just walking.

After half an hour of walking through the city, she felt a link to her mind, and then another and another. They were far from her, at the edge of her reach, but she could feel them: undeads. They were north, beyond the wall, in the slums. Were some undeads born after her massacre and escaped the cleaning up? She was curious, so she exited through the gate and went outside towards the undeads.

The closer she got, the clearer their thoughts and the more precise their position: the brothel, or at least near it. The brothel was in the western part of the north slums, so it had been left untouched by Silvy’s advanced magic: a shame. She wanted vengeance, but she couldn’t win against them: she knew it. Moving closer until the links felt strong, she hid in a crumbled house, one of the many around her, and closed her eyes. The link was clear now, and moving her concentration to one of the undeads made her see with its eyes, hear with its ears.

A hazy image appeared in her mind, hiding the details. But the undead was underground, judging from the light and the position of the link. Bars were all around it, confining him in a small space. Many undeads were all around, all enclosed in cages like this one, all of different sex and age. All of them were staring at Silvy, or more precisely, the undead she was “possessing”. She couldn’t move it like she could move her body, but when she thought about turning its head around, he did it with a small delay, following her instructions. Could she command undeads? That was useful. Maybe.

The room was quite empty, cages aside, with blood splattered on the ground, mostly close to the cages, but it was quite big, with many cages and many undeads inside. What were they doing?...

Silvy returned to her body, getting closer to the brothel and the undeads she could feel. There were so many: at least two hundred, maybe more; she’d have to stop and count to be sure.

Closing in, she realized the room with the undead was not directly under the brothel: it was around fifty meters away from it, eight meters underground. Above it, houses in various stages of decline filled the space. Silvy was sure one or more of them led to the undead room, but she didn’t know which one.

She hid again, this time behind a house, possessing one of the undeads: maybe they could help her from below. She jumped from one to another, searching for a door, tunnel, something that led above: there. A door, opposite side from the brothel.

Before moving herself, Silvy studied the cages. The doors were blocked with a simple sliding lock, not even secured with a padlock. She was a bit surprised at this, but then she realized that undeads didn’t really know how to operate doors, let alone unlocking something. But that didn’t mean Silvy couldn’t do it.

She commanded the undead, showing him how to unbolt the door. The undead repeated her instructions as best as he could, which was enough: the bolt slid away, the door opening with some creaking. Silvy didn’t lose time, sending her undead to unlock the cage in front of him. In the meantime, she switched to another undead, explaining to her how to unlock the door as well and sending her to unlock the other cages. Cage after cage was opened, undead after undead unlocking them and freeing themselves or their comrades. Silvy sent some undeads to guard the door leading above, expecting a visit from someone, given the noise all the cages and the undeads shuffling around were making.

And, as expected, it didn’t take long for the door to open, a man with a lamp illuminating the inside, followed by three other men behind him. The undeads guarding the door sprinted into action. Well, they didn’t sprint: the closest one literally fell over the now screaming human, biting and clawing; this attack had worked only because the human didn’t expect it.

But the other three behind didn’t just watch, kicking away the fallen undead. But more undeads were advancing, falling over the man or trying to reach the others behind.

Silvy wanted to facepalm at this point. The undeads had no sense of balance, falling over themselves like a newborn child, unable to run, barely able to walk: they were borderline useless. She possessed the undead at the top of the now pile of undeads, explaining to him how to stand on this pile and how to jump at the man in front of him. The results were immediate: the undead, from lying over his companions, went to four legs and lunged forward, falling over the second men. The other two kicked him away, but the damage was done and the attacked human was now bleeding.

The three men decided to retreat up the stairs, leaving the, now dead, man behind under a pile of undeads. Silvy made the undeads push forward, trying to gain ground and deal more damage to the brothel. She went through the undeads mind, starting from the ones in front and moving to the ones in the back, explaining how to run, climb stairs, jump, dodge, feint, the concept of teamwork. She didn’t have much time, so she explained it as fast as she could, but the results would be beyond her expectations.

The stairs ended in a squarish room, each side around six meters long. In front of the door leading outside, a line of five men with a shield was in front, supported by five with spears behind them, archers even more backward.

Silvy almost gave up seeing this setup, when the undeads did something unexpected, surprising every witness.

The shield line was expecting the undeads to rush forward without stopping, as these monsters always did. Instead, the undeads in the first line stopped in place, dropping on their knees and arms, bending forward. The undeads behind didn’t stop, jumping on the kneeling undeads as if they were a step, jumping even higher and longer from above them, slamming into the human backlines.

Chaos ensued, with the humans scrambling to put up a fight against the undeads, who now engaged the frontline as well, slamming against the shields, trying to overcome them. More undeads poured out of the stairs, some jumping above the front line, some just rushing forward and slamming into it. Silvy was looking at the fight, switching from eyes to eyes, with a muted surprise: the humans couldn’t stop the horde, hitting in too many places at once: the frontline was battered from the front and the back, easily losing balance and falling, with undeads rushing over it. The backline didn’t have the means to fight enemies so close to them, with spears and bows in such narrow room; some managed to draw a shortsword, but that quickly became useless when the undeads jumped and climbed over them, pressing them down.

The few survivors scrambled back, not understanding what was going on: the undeads had never acted like this, always being mindless creatures who rushed forward no matter the consequences; now they still ignored the consequences but were actually employing a different tactic.

This situation didn’t last long, however; the undeads started pouring outside the room, but each one was beheaded in a single hit. Silvy tried to understand what was killing them, but she couldn’t see anyone in the hallway.

Remembering the night when her friends had been killed, she looked at the shadows through the undeads eyes, but they were not as good as hers; the drying process that affected the undeads wasn’t restricted only to their skin and body, but to their eyes as well: that was why the images were hazy.

Quickly realizing that, no matter how many undeads she sent forward, they would all die, Silvy ordered them to a stop. The undeads filled the room, waiting in ambush for someone to enter and bounce on it, leaving only enough room for one person.

Unfortunately, a blurry figure, probably a man, came down the hallway, staying at a distance from the room. Wind blades shot forward from him, one every four seconds, too fast for the undeads to dodge. Silvy made them retreat down the stairs, losing many of them in the meantime; she neither could advance nor stay there.

Once in the underground room, more wind blades rained from above the stairs, this time slower and less frequent, but turning and homing on a target. Silvy was looking for another door to exit the room, and she found it, but with more mages appearing from it, defended by warriors. Spell after spell, the undeads were massacred, unable to reach the mages, protected by warriors too strong that expected the jumping tactic. And, in the end, Silvy could do nothing, with every undead beheaded and rendered useless, with the humans going around and removing every core from their head. Link after link was broken until nothing remained and Silvy’s world became dark and silent again.

Sadness came over her, this time remaining. She had failed them, failed to kill her enemies, and they had died for her. They had never doubted her orders, never showed any fear or doubt, running to their deaths because of her. She walked back to the city, not lingering to see the aftermath. It would be dangerous, as they might find and question her.

Back in her room, she once again lied in bed. The sun was setting, and she was training her magic, analyzing the battle, thinking of what she might have done better, what she should have done and didn’t.

She closed her eyes, now sleepy for some reason… and then she suddenly opened them again, not sleepy anymore. That was weird.

Three hooded figures jumped inside her room, Silvy turning to face them instantly, drawing her sword. Thieves?!

The figures were clearly taken aback but moved forward, nonetheless.

“Get her: we don’t have much time.”

The voice was old, and the figure turned around, watching out of the window and ignoring Silvy, while another walked forward and one stood in place, staring at Silvy. She was ready for a fight, when a spell shot forward from the motionless figure, white lines of air slithering towards Silvy.

She tried to dodge them, but the lines were too fast the room too small, the other hooded figure blocking half of it, forcing her close to the wall. The lines tied around her limbs and her mouth, Silvy flailing in mid-air, trying to free herself with no success. The group quickly dropped out of the window, running for the east gate, jumping across roofs with ease. An explosion resounded from the central castle, home of the royal family. A few rooms exploded outwards, flame rising in the sky together with smoke. The alarm sounded instantly, and the group picked up the pace even more; the gate was in front of them, with soldiers and guards scrambling around to close it, not sure what to do.

The hooded figure in front, ahead of a couple of buildings, suddenly looked to the left and jumped higher than Silvy thought was possible, stopping and floating in mid-air. A boulder four-meter wide smashed into the house he had been standing on, reducing it to rubble. The two other figures stopped in place, looking left, with Silvy following their gaze as well. Kal was floating a couple of dozen meters away, facing off the first hooded figure. They didn’t move or talked, confusing Silvy: why was Kal not attacking?!

Unbeknownst to Silvy, the two were having a high-level magical duel. Kal would start to create a rune in mid-air, with the hooded figure creating a rune for a spell that would counter Kal’s one. Kal would then change the shape of the rune, trying to create a spell to counter the new one, and the hooded figure would follow suit. The two mages were too close level to overpower the other without consequence, so they were trying to get an advantage by choosing the right spell for the job. A single mistake, or being too slow in the creation of the rune would make the other close the rune and attack, but their level and concentration were so similar that neither of them was able to catch the other off guard, at least for the moment.

The two other hooded figures dropped from the house, running for the gate again, but stopped after a few steps. Lindrl and Gorvan came out from behind two houses, engaging in a duel just like Kal had done.

Silvy was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, spell keeping her restrained dissipating. She drew the sword and tried to hit the guy who had imprisoned her when a voice stopped her.

“Don’t!”

A soldier was shouting and waving at her. Why shouldn’t she kill them?

Well, he probably had his reason, so Silvy just rushed past Lindrl, reaching the soldiers who were gathering around the group.

“Did you really want to kill a mage of that level when engaged in a duel?! Are you mad?!” he seemed quite angry.

“Why not? I had him!” Silvy said.

Silvy was slapped in the back of the head, the soldier speaking again. “You would have killed us all! We have orders to protect you; I don’t know why, but stay behind us.”

Silvy was dragged in the back behind the soldiers by the captain when she spoke up again.

“I don’t understand! Why would I kill you if killed him?!”

The man sighed. “This is why I hate children. Listen, you know how magic is divided in basic, intermediate and advanced, right? Well, when the mage is drawing an advanced spell, if the rune goes awry, there is a good chance it will explode, usually fifty-fifty. And the explosion would be devastating, razing the town to the ground.”

Noises of explosions and destruction came from the front of the soldiers, marking the start of the fight; Silvy couldn’t see anything more than flashes of light, as the bodies of the soldiers, taller and bigger than her, covered her vision.

“Someone succeeded: let’s hope it was one of ours.”

Silvy was then hidden in a house, in a room without windows. Sounds of battle drifted from outside, dampened by the walls, the other rooms of the house filled with soldiers watching outside and standing guard.

The battle died down around twenty minutes later, silence falling onto the city. Lindrl entered the room after an hour, followed by some soldiers. Her right side was badly put, with her clothes tore, cut and burnt away, with the right side of her head missing the hairs. She had probably used a healing potion to heal the wounds, as Silvy could see some scars.

“Are you alright Silvy?” Lindrl asked.

“Yes. What just happened?” Silvy asked.

“Elves,” Lindrl answered. “they attacked the city. A Grand Master was with them, but they escaped.” Lindrl sighed. “Let’s go, I’ll explain more in my study.”

Silvy followed Lindrl outside, house vacated by the soldiers. She looked around, destruction all around her: houses had crumbled, fires were being extinguished, and a chunk of road had just disappeared. Looking into the sky, she could see smoke coming from the north, behind the walls. The mages’ guild was not left untouched either, with a scorching line going across the garden. Almost all the buildings were intact, but Silvy noticed one missing: the library. But the tower had taken the biggest hit: it was now half of its previous size, the upper part completely missing, Silvy not being able to locate it. This was the aftermath of an incredible battle, and it showed in the destruction it had left around the city.