The masked man leaned in closer to the elder, clenching his arm with surprising strength. Particles of snow gathered on his crimson robe, soaking into the fabric and cooling the bone below.

“What makes you listen?” Came a whisper of a voice so monstrous it made the old man jump like a small animal. His face wrinkled more than the old age demanded, while the body itself shivered uncontrollably as if he wasn’t wearing a thick winter’s coat. The small eyes peered as if watching a horizon, not a beautiful one, but one the likes of fishermen feared and wished to avoid. Shivers eventually went upwards, from his shaking legs, through the cold spine, up to the head, where his flabby cheeks began flapping like it belonged to some weird sea creature. His hastening breath reached the peak and the mouth slowly opened, gawking, as if the whisper echoing in his head exposed some mind-boggling wisdom.

“I-I’ll listen.” Answered the elderly man, somehow confusing the question for an order, as he held onto the bare hand as to not fall from whatever occurred inside his head.

Magus let go of the man as though he was no longer of use. The answer rang inside his skull, breaking all the expectations he built up in those few bare moments. This won’t do. It’s not the answer he wants. It is useless. Completely. Utterly. Absolutely…

He spun to his side, scanning through the people, hoping for something to satisfy the thirst. It was so close, so incredibly close. The answer he needed for all the pieces to come together was within hand’s reach. So displeasing was the feeling he couldn’t put it into words.

The snow crunched as the elder fell to his knees, heaving and clenching onto his heart. Magus barely spared him a look and surveyed the dozens of other humans around him. Nothing great, nothing…of use, was among them.

“Uncle!” Screeched a small girl, running to the heaving man. She pulled onto his sleeves, rocking him back and forth like a swaying tree of the horizon. The others stood watching, perhaps trying to unwind the knot of mystery taking place. What did the robed man say? Who is he?

Eventually the girl’s shouting brought them back to their senses and, as it was typical of them, began their care of the dying man.

Magus observed the are-you-alright’s and what-is-going-on’s, them laying the man on his back, crushing of his ribs and blowing of the mouth. A peculiar sight to behold it was, that he even momentarily forgot the desire to scrape at his own head for answers. Bizarre, bizarre indeed were the living.

“He’s dead.” He said, crushing both their hope and rhythmic heart beating.

“No! He’s fine!” Shouted a female human, clenching onto the loud girl. The white hands held her in place, like snakes coiling on its prey, and slowly moved up onto her eyes and ears. Magus was not sure why she was robbing the little one of motion and senses. Much like why water flowed out of the girl’s eyes but not the others’.

“Move out of the way!” Again shouted a different human, though this time a male and way larger. His mouth was wide with an equally large nose. A massive crossing of a scar marked the man’s cheek.

Typically, humans looked almost the same no matter whom he looked at, some more wrinkly than others, yes, but mostly the same. Perhaps he was a different type?

People seemed to listen to him immediately and moved out of the way. He trudged through the snow, kicking it with his giant leather boots. Shooting a glance at Magus and the surroundings, he dropped onto his knees near the body of the old man. Buttons popped off as he ripped the coat and the shirt underneath open with his bare hands and placed his head onto the warm surface. Magus already felt the life extinguish from the corpse a few moments ago, but this time said nothing as he was quite interested in what would happen. Maybe he’ll finally get to see cannibalism take place.

Sadly, nothing surprising came, just more crushing of ribs and breathing into the mouth. All in a loop, over and over again.

The undead already knew humans preferred living a lifestyle filled with routine, but this seemed to be going over the top. He didn’t bother them though as the atmosphere was turning more satisfying by the minute. Their faces dropped with every push and motion of the corpse. It was mesmerizing to look at the arms jump up a bit, as if the man actually came to life, giving false hope.

Thinking it will take a few more minutes for the humans to finally give up, Magus looked around. The village was boring and the houses lacked the look of firmness unlike the previous city he been to. Not a lot of glass to smash, not many doors to rip off. Quite the useless trip apart from the human resource within.

Iphis was standing a bit further to the side of the main event, spinning what looked like a necklace around her index finger, she had left the carriage at some point. With her stood one of the zombie guards. It was its job to not let her escape further than Magus allowed. At all cost she must stay within the zone, else she dies.

With her also was a blond haired man. Everything about him was generic, well, perhaps his nose was slightly pointier than usual. Guessing from the blade on his hip he was a soldier.

Both of them were talking eagerly, exchanging calculated glances, foolish giggles and untimed blushes. The man was so focused on that woman he failed to notice the elder’s peril.

It was ridiculous how the enemy of humanity was left alone, forgotten, in the snow. Not that it hated it of course, it actually preferred being the observer, but it felt increasingly irritated at all the living surrounding it. It’d seem that no answer will come even if it waits.

With a mental order it signaled all the undead in the area to move in on the village. Messed up howls resounded in the forest one after the other, bringing the people back to reality.

Joar bit his lip, drawing blood, and slowly stood up. His eyes reddened as he looked at the dead man, but soon a zealous glint returned and he turned to Magus. Naturally, the undead stared back as it felt no fear from the wild face thrown at it.

“I don’t know how,” he said, pointing his axe as if it was a sword. “But this was your fault.”

“You mean that?” Magus indicated the dead man and waited for an answer. Joar simply nodded, confusing him. “That was old. I did nothing.”

“Be it as it may, your presence invited his impending death.” He stepped forth, slowly moving closer. “No innocent soul walks with the dead!” He suddenly jumped forth, eager to split the robed man in half.

There was no time to answer, Magus had to react. He ordered through the link for all the undead, except the horses, to attack, while the personal guard was to protect him.

In unison all of the zombie knights ran to protect their master. The quickest of all jumped in front with its tower shield and took the role of a wall. Joar didn’t stop his mad rush and cleaved at the shield. The unusual axe glimmered to life as it’s blade sharpened a hundredfold and easily cut through it, continuing to cut off the arm of the knight. Black blood lazily dripped from the wound, but Joar’s face told he already expected that to happen.

“Hmm…” Magus felt that wasn’t right. He never saw someone cut through steel.

He ordered the knights to attack Joar, leaving one to guard Iphis, as she was acting shifty, trying to gain distance from the fight. Then he began to focus on the power around him.

The knights, three in total, attacked. Only one of them had a full plate suit, others simply wore chain mail and the like. But their faces were hidden with the combination of steel helmets and cloth. Still, Joar had no need to see them. He knew what they were from the moment he saw those horses. In unison they swung their swords around, lacking any great technique, but deadly nonetheless.

Feeling the pressure of the attackers, he backed off, not wanting to be stabbed from a blind spot. But this turned out to be a bad move as their leader turned out to be a mage. A massive fireball, the size of a dog, swirled in his hand, melting any snow in a 10-meter radius immediately, and with time turned larger and hotter.

His instincts screamed that he was about to die, forcing him to jump into the fray instead. Cuts and even stabs managed to reach him, but the mage was useless now, unless he was willing to sacrifice his soldiers…

“It’s not there?!” He shouted, noticing the fireball had disappeared.

Blades came from all sides as he dodged them by the millimeters, spinning and lunging with dexterity unfitting his age. Joar’s mind worked overtime as he looked everywhere for the magic attack all the while defending from the bothersome puppets.

This is not going anywhere!

A fight of attrition against the undead was the worst choice one could make.

He clenched his teeth, betting with his life, and paused for a moment, acting as if it was a blunder. A stab reached his side almost instantly, going through the gambeson and digging into flesh, but not gut. Taking the chance, he decapitated the attacker swiftly and jumped sideways as a yet another sword thrust came where he just was.

Two on one in the melee. The odds were in his favor as the enemy was dumb and unskilled. Magic caused trouble and not knowing where it will come from was the main problem.

Joar grinned, feeling the adrenaline pump, his brain work and lungs burn. To think he did this for the majority of his life… He left that life long ago, but it’d seem that forever avoiding fighting was impossible. Trouble always followed him after all.

Dodging both of the oncoming strikes yet again, he rolled through the snow and bolted towards the mage in red. As a general rule of thumb of combat against mages, taking out the caster was the easiest and quickest way, so naturally he chose that. Undead were strong, but with all that equipment even they could not catch up to him. Faster and faster he approached the masked figure, expecting for it to run or even fight back. He heard there were some mages that practiced close combat after all. But the figure did not do any of those. It simply stood in place.

“Dieee!” He screamed, already close enough for him to have no time to cast, and swung his axe.

“Fool.” Said the figure, hinting at an unforeseen move.

“[Overclock]” muttered he, sending shockwaves of pain throughout his brain. In an instant, all turned clear, all his blind spots erased and the surroundings were known. The knights were coming slowly from behind, the woman stood at the far back watching…with Rene?!

He stood there, mesmerized and unreactive to anything around him. Muffled screaming reached him – people were in danger somewhere - but he was in the world of his own.

There was no magic hidden anywhere.

Something attacked them while I was busy here! He quickly realized and hoped that Silver had gone to help them, as he was nowhere to be seen.

Approaching with high speed from the previous burst, he skimmed along the limit of his power. [Overclock] was a magi-art he was taught by his master the Lord of Swords. Unlike magic, it’s origin, it required hardly any mana and was perfect for close-combat specialists. Naturally, very few knew of it, but there were similar variations of it known by the many, the most common called [Accelerate].

Joar was already within the strike distance. Nothing shall stop him at this point. Bringing his axe downwards, he was eager to see the man under the mask split in half.

In panic the mage lifted his hand, as if that would stop the giant opponent. Still in [Overclock], Joar expected for a hidden dagger, or even a delayed spell to come, even if he saw no traces of it before.

‘Never let your guard down when finishing the opponent off.’ His Master’s words resounded in his head and the mage showed more movement.

Joar did not let his guard down, he couldn’t at this point. Not when [Overclock] was in action. But even with the overwhelming mind boost he did not foresee what was about to happen.

The mage of crimson unveiled his robe, snickering sinisterly, and exposed the fiery hell that hid underneath it all this time. With a blinding flash Joar felt his flesh sizzle and catch fire, as if a million of needles piercing his skin all at once.

His enhanced mind amplified the pain even further, to the point that his mortal senses reached the breaking point. The old gambeson seemingly turned to cinders, his holy mark melted as well, but the broken mind let not his body crumble. He pushed his right hand out, the axe gone somewhere from the initial blast, and reached forth, grabbing for the last straw of hope that was the mage.

“[Dispel]” spoke the gauntlet on his arm, shattering into a thousand pieces as it broke the light rivaling that of the sun.

The sky turned black as the snow retook its position. In the moist mud fell a charred torso, it’s chest moving like a pump that spat blood from the owner’s mouth.

Its world began to crumble.

***

World span around in his skull, as if he had lost the balance of it all. The colors pulsated and the objects stretched as his marrow grew hotter and hotter. With a sting of intense light hundreds of millions of words, sounds, images, thoughts, reactions, knowledge…memories, entered his head. All turned clear, all made sense. As if the world suddenly gifted him with everything imaginable…

No. It was not a gift, but the experiences of his former self. The invisible hand of the past reached for his small self. Why was he so little in this world of black? Like a ripple in the water, all of him echoed throughout the empty space. The dots connected, combining and reforming anew. Stretching far and wide like the roots of a forest.

“Hello? Are you there?” Spoke a voice… He felt a tug on his right arm.

Opening his ‘eyes’, the view of the world greeted him again. The sky of daylight…but with pale stars lingering for a millennium...

“I’m fine,” he answered, standing slowly. The voice belonged to Iphis.

“I thought you had died…” She paused, confused by her own words. “Ah… but you’re already dead…”

As usual, she scanned the undead as any other man, trying to predict his thoughts and actions. But this time was unlike the other, as he seemed overflowing with… life.

“I don’t think this is the right time to gaze at the stars.” She said, noticing his silent contemplation.

The undead force that was hidden in the forest had reached the village already and began killing many of its inhabitants. Fighting still continued in some places even now.

“I suppose that’s true,” he said, slowly taking off the silver mask, unveiling the empty eye sockets blazing with unnatural flame of gold.

“Let’s put an end to this.”