Here's Chapter 19! Sorry it's a bit late. I had final week just now.

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Chapter 19: Small Potion, Big Power

Before Kaz had travelled far, he stopped and looked at the four physical undead minions that he had created.

Three of the hunters were more proficient with melee weapons than ranged weapons, so Kaz had raised them up into Bone Soldiers. The last one was more proficient with a bow than he was with the tomahawk, so Kaz raised it up into a Bone Archer.

“I’m actually pretty lucky that I don’t need to make a detour to the armory in order to pick up weapons for my undead minions. Having them pick up and use the weapons that their original bodies died with has saved me a lot of time since I still need to go subdue the squad leader.”

{Why do you always get so lucky? When I raised my first physical undead minion I was knee deep in swamp water trying to find a suitable body to raise. When you want to raise physical undead you’ve got hardened warriors throwing themselves at you.} Complaining somewhat bitterly about Kaz’s dubious luck, Ahriman sounded like a small child whining that his sibling got a bigger slice of pie.

“I don’t think you can count being hunted by trained professionals as lucky. If I wasn’t using magic that they were unfamiliar with, I don’t think I would be alive now. Hell, I almost died to that scout that kicked me down earlier. They weren’t pulling any punches, either.”

{Maybe you got upgraded from “Capture Alive” to “Kill on Sight.” Heh, isn’t it more fun this way? You even get to practice necromantic magic on targets that basically throw themselves at you. You should be proud that you’re so popular with kill squads.}

“Again, that’s a dubious honor. Plus, I don’t think that I can actually take on these kill squads face-first. If it wasn’t for their ignorance of necromantic magic, or the fact that I had ambushed the second group successfully, I don’t think I would be standing here right now.”

Ever the one to err on the side of caution, Kaz did not grow arrogant from his few successes so far. Commanding his Bone Soldiers to walk in front of him and the Bone Soldier to follow at a short distance, Kaz was in a somewhat protective formation. Sending his magical sense out to scout while keeping visual tab on the sergeant’s location with his regular spirits, the sergeant was unable to avoid detection.

After several tense minutes, Kaz was able to corner the sergeant near central mana crystal. The red Reaper Spirit had been able to catch up with the sergeant after a while, or the sergeant let the spirit catch up. Either way, the sergeant looked as if he had just taken a brief stroll. Lightly breathing, he was able to avoid nearly all of the red spirit’s attacks. Seeing the bodies of his former comrades raised as undead monsters, the sergeant let out a low growl of anger.

“Get out here, you filthy heretic! I know you’re here! No coward like you would be far away from his abominable servants. Face me like a man, if you dare!” Trying to get a reaction out of Kaz, the sergeant verbally issued a challenge to Kaz.

Hidden safely behind some walls, Kaz mentally issued commands to his undead minions to attack the sergeant.

Hmph. There’s no need for me to get in close combat range with that sergeant. He can challenge me all he wants, and I won’t budge. It’s too big of a risk to attempt to engage at close combat range. He’s been able to avoid the red spirit without suffering a severe injury, it’s almost certain that he’s the best combatant from this particular hunter-killer squad.

Signalling for his Bone Archer to hide and wait until an opportunity to shoot the sergeant presented itself, Kaz allowed his mental sense to probe towards the only entrance to the cavern. At this point in time, the sergeant was about to face four opponents at once.

I’m not sure even four opponents will be enough to subdue this guy. He wholeheartedly deserves his rank as squad leader, that’s for sure.

Gritting his teeth, Kaz chose to stay in hiding as we waited to see how his minions would fare.

Snarling at his ignored challenge, the sergeant put his back against the central mana crystal. Even if he is surrounded by all sides, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about attacks coming from behind him. Looking at the three skeletons in front of him along with the red spirit, the sergeant sighed. Quickly bringing out two vials, the sergeant quickly downed the brown bottle while pouring the contents of a bright silver one onto his tomahawk. With a grin not unlike that of a wolf, the sergeant didn’t avoid the red spirit’s sword this time, but brought his weapon up to parry it.

Normally, the red spirit’s sword would have gone straight through the iron tomahawk, but this time the tomahawk successfully was able to block the mana sword. His smirk growing wider, the sergeant applied both hands to his weapon and forcefully used it to push the reaper spirit back. As a bone soldier tried to attack him from the side, the sergeant quickly spun his body around and avoided the blow. Without skipping a beat, the sergeant drove his tomahawk into the side of the bone soldier’s head. Ripping his axe out as he kicked the undead minion back, the sergeant turned his attention back on his other enemies.

Stunned, both Kaz and Ahriman were speechless at this display of martial prowess.

{Kaz, my boy, you really need to find out what was in those little bottles of his. It seems that whatever was in the brown bottle increased his strength by an incredible amount, and whatever he slathered onto his axe allows it to directly block the mana sword. That’s some useful countermeasures for fighting the arcane. I wonder why the other scouts didn’t use them when you fought them earlier?}

“Yeah, that’s really not helping right now. I guess I need to personally be involved if we want to actually kill him.”

Finding the first dead scout with his magical sense, Kaz sent two spell incantations to that location. The target was on the very edge of the incantations’ range, but Kaz was still able to successfully cast what he wanted. Sending out a mental command to his new minion, Kaz turned his attention back to the fight.

Viciously, the sergeant was able to keep the four undead minions at bay through a combination of sheer strength, speed, and clever tactics. Stepping into a corridor near the mana crystal where only two undead minions could attack him at a time, the sergeant funneled the minions together in front of him so he could deal with them more easily.

Frowning, Kaz realized that his undead minions were dumber than he had thought.

“I need to figure out a way to trap the sergeant. The area around the central mana crystal is too open, he easily escaped after kicking down a bone soldier and running to the corridor behind it. Let’s see, this is what I should do…”

Sending out several commands, Kaz waited to see what the results would be.

{Really, this hunter is putting up a pretty good fight. If I wasn’t a necromancer myself, I’d take his side since he’s so valiantly fighting against four opponents. Look, he hasn’t even taken a serious wound yet. All your minions have done to him resulted in several shallow cuts and that one bruise. Actually, that’s a rather big bruise…}

Amused by how poorly Kaz’s minions were doing against the sergeant, Ahriman’s tone could have been mistaken for as a person who’s enjoying a horse race.

“We’ll see. This show has gone on long enough. Let’s try to end this.” Gathering mana in his hands, Kaz maneuvered himself in the corridors to get into a position behind the sergeant. Peeking around the corner, Kaz could see how the fight was unfolding.

Surprisingly, the sergeant had several new cuts on his arms and body that were deeper than the previous grazes that he had. The narrow space of the corridor meant that only two of Kaz’s undead minions could attack at once, but it also meant that the sergeant had limited space to dodge the blows of Kaz’s bone soldiers. However, the sergeant gave better than he got. Kaz’s bone soldiers had hideous new wounds that bloodied their bodies further. Although the open wounds weren’t of much concern to the undead minions, the broken bones that the sergeant inflicted did limit their ability to fight somewhat.

“Come on, you bastards. I’ve still got some more action waiting for you at the end of my axe. Shit...what’s it take to actually take out one of these things?” His breathing finally getting ragged, the sergeant had inflicted enough damage onto the skeletons to kill an human combatant multiple times. Unfortunately for him, the undead bone soldiers in front of him seemed to ignore their wounds. Seeing how the sergeant was finally starting to struggle, Kaz chose to not involve himself.

Swinging his axe in a high arc, the sergeant managed to slam it down with extreme force onto the skull of an undead minion. However, that caused his axe to lodge itself into the side of the minion’s skull and knocking it down to the cold floor. Trying to get it out, the sergeant was unable to avoid the second bone soldier’s shortsword as it stabbed into his side.

“Gah...damn it!”

Using all of his strength, the sergeant managed to rip out his weapon as he backed away. Panting heavily, the sergeant was was weakened considerably by this last attack. Seeing how the minion that he attacked was back on its feet, and the other bone soldier was heading towards him the sergeant felt fear for the first time.

“Desperate situations calls for desperate measures. For the Empire!”

As he swore to himself, the sergeant took out a small black vial from his utility sack. Popping open the cap, he raised it to his mouth.

“Shit. I need to prevent him from downing that!”

Popping out of cover, Kaz launched twin Frozen Spears at the sergeant.

Smirking at Kaz now that the necromancer had revealed himself, the sergeant wasted no time in pouring the contents of the black vial down his throat. Immediately, he dropped the bottle as the potion’s effects became apparent.

Kaz’s two frozen spears slammed into the sergeant’s chest, and shattered into tiny shards of ice. Seeing his attack fail miserably, Kaz’s eyes grew wide as he commanded the two undead minions to reposition themselves.

Rushing past the sergeant who was currently being transformed by the black potion, Kaz’s bone soldiers moved into formation. With one bone soldier between Kaz and the sergeant and one behind the sergeant, Kaz felt relatively safe.

{Odd. Why isn’t the fighting? It never took this long for the potions to take full effect before. Maybe he’s actually trying to poison himself?}

“I don’t think so. What kind of poison drastically increases a person’s physical body? My Frozen Spears shattered when they hit his body, and they’ve never done that before when they hit a target. I’m sure that black potion increased his physical defense by a lot, although I’m not sure what other effects he’s going to exhibit.”

Although Kaz felt a distinct sense of danger in staying put instead of trying to run away, he was fascinated with the transformation that the sergeant was going through. His muscles grew taut, and his veins darkened until they were black. Gradually, the eyes of the sergeant became so bloodshot that they became completely crimson. A low groan of pain came from sergeant as he straightened up.

Taking this chance, Kaz commanded his bone archer to launch arrow after arrow at the transformed sergeant. The arrows, designed to be as quiet as possible for assassinations, flew through the air with no audible sound. Slamming into the sergeant’s back, the arrows only seemed to prick at his skin. The sergeant’s leather armor was ruined from the bone warrior’s unrelenting attacks, but the arrows hitting their target were like needles pricking a bear.

Pausing to take in the situation, the sergeant’s crimson eyes locked onto Kaz’s figure. Snarling, the sergeant charged towards Kaz with his weapon raised high. Moving backwards as he watched his bone soldiers move in on the sergeant, Kaz’s mind raced to find a way to neutralize the enraged hunter.

“This situation really isn’t ideal! I need to get put some distance between him and I, and it seems that my minion’s conventional weaponry aren’t effective any longer. Wait….the reaper spirit’s mana sword isn’t conventional. That’s probably my best bet.”

{That may be true, but how are you going to subdue him long enough to get your mana sword in range? His reflexes are insane, I don’t think your minions can even touch him now regardless of the room that he has to maneuver in this corridor.}

“Oh, I’ll find a way. Ah, that’s not good.”

Sighing, Kaz started to gather his mana as the sergeant slammed the bone soldier between them down to the ground.

“Heh. Nothing between me and you now, you filthy monster. Let’s see if you can avoid me now!”

Launching himself at Kaz, the sergeant started to close the distance between them quickly. As the sergeant closed in on Kaz’s location, he raised his tomahawk above his head, about to throw it. Seeing this, Kaz unleashed twin Distorting Fogs from his hands as the tomahawk left the sergeant’s hand.

The tomahawk slammed into Kaz’s chest as the sergeant was blasted in the face with an extremely dense magical cloud. Thrown backwards a couple of feet from the impact, Kaz steadied himself against the wall as blood started to drip from the wound on his chest.

“Augh...what...is this….?” The sergeant’s entire body was surrounded by Kaz’s magical cloud. Even though the sergeant was extremely resilient to forms of physical damage and some elemental magic, he had little to no resistance against magic that attacked his senses.

{Huh. I didn’t think that your spell would actually be of any use.}

“The sensory overload won’t last long, I need to kill him before it wears off.” Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Kaz signalled for his fifth minion to climb over the wall. The sergeant, despite his senses being overloaded, was still walking towards Kaz with a purpose. Two of Kaz’s original bone soldiers and the one that he had raised later on grabbed the sergeant’s limbs. Even in his stunned state, the sergeant was just barely being held in place by Kaz’s bone soldiers.

Without a roar, the sergeant was able to break free from the three bone soldiers, and started to stagger towards Kaz. At the exact moment that he broke free, Kaz’s reaper spirit came out of the wall of the corridor where it was waiting for its master’s command. Maneuvering itself so that it came out of the wall directly behind the sergeant, the reaper spirit raised its mana sword and stabbed down.

To the sergeant’s credit, he heard the spirit swing its weapon down and managed to turn around while pulling out the shortsword that he had at his side. Raising his weapon to parry the reaper spirit’s mana sword, the sergeant realized too late that he did not apply the contents of the silver vial onto his second weapon. There was nothing he could do as the reaper’s mana sword slammed into his face.

“AAAAAUUUUUGEUUEUUUGGGG! DAMN YOUUUUUUU!!!!”

Screaming in pain, the sergeant fell to his knees with his hands desperately trying to grab the mana sword. The moment his hands touched the bright blade, they started to burn as well. Cackling, the reaper spirit kept its burning mana sword lodged into the doomed hunter’s skull. Very quickly, the hunter stopped struggling and fell on his back on the cold floor.

“Gah...I have to give it to the man, he was one tough bastard.” Grimacing has he pulled the tomahawk out of his chest, Kaz covered and tightened the wound on his chest with his ruined shirt.

{Was the man tough? Or was it those little potions that he was drinking? Alchemy can do many weird things, but this was the first time that I had seen combat potions. Usually the greedy alchemists don’t stoop to making anything besides mana restoring potions that can sell for a huge amount of gold. The fact that combat potions are being made is really odd, or maybe these hunter’s benefactor paid a huge amount for those potions. Either way, once this squad fails to report in, they’ll probably send an even deadlier assassination squad after you. You’re definitely on the kill-at-all-costs list after this stunt.}

Moving closer to the dead sergeant, Kaz could see the handiwork done by his reaper spirit. The sergeant’s veins were still black, and his limbs were twitching very slightly. His body from the neck up was about as expected, some shallow wounds with some deeper wounds where he suffered attacks by Kaz’s bone soldiers. Everything from the neck upwards deeply shocked Kaz.

The sergeant’s face was a complete mess. The reaper spirit’s mana sword was extremely hot, and heated the air around it noticeably. When it plunged into the sergeant’s skull, the reaper spirit made sure it stayed for an extended period of time per Kaz’s orders. The result was truly gruesome. Heating up the inside of the sergeant’s skull, the contents were cooked inside the bone. Steam rose from the sergeant’s mouth, ears, nose, and eyes. Surprisingly, there was barely any blood coming out of the sergeant’s head since it had all been boiled dry.

Gagging on the smell of cooked flesh, Kaz quickly stepped away and pulled out his last water flask. Taking a long, deep pull from the warm water within, Kaz was barely able to stop himself from vomiting on the spot. Sitting down against the side of the corridor, Kaz looked down at the result of the fight.

All that greeted him were the bright baleful eyes of his undead minions and the silence of the dead.

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