The undead have always existed even long before the enlightened races came into being. However, after the great war against the ancient ones, undead have established a larger territory than ever before in recorded history.

After the regional lords wiped out countless human settlements, large swarms of undead took their place and hunted any living beings within the region, enough undead were even able to arise that enough decay mana began to seep into the lands so that normal plants could no longer grow.

Low level undead seek nothing but to create more undead and to preserve themselves, but necromancers have proven that higher tier undead retain some memories of their previous lives and can even have their own personalities.

After the undead established their territory in a small section of the territory humanity used to occupy, large expeditions of forces have occasionally been recorded to have been sent towards known resting places of regional lords. It is debated by scholars whether this is due to a grudge for what they did to humanity, or if it is simply out of a desire to bolster their ranks with powerful living beings.

Regardless of the reasoning behind it, these expeditions often lead to decimated regions in the aftermath of a regional lords rampage and are often the best chance for our scouts to discover more information on the ancient ones.

Rumors speak of some of the fallen ancient ones from the seige of Citadel Juhnvoque, but none have been confirmed as any expeditions deep into undead territory are too risky and not profitable beyond the informational value.

The corrupted undead lands can be purified and turned back into arable land, but it is difficult enough to expand into territories that are already usable, so there is little intrest in recovering and expanding the undead territories.

The undead are even occasionally referred to as a 3rd faction in the war between the enlightened and the ancient ones.

-A section from The undead and their influence on modern society found in the United Enlightened Empire's national library.

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We all are already running after the magic confrontation, except for Pythana who hangs back to ambush any reckless retaliators.

I am suprised to recieve a telepathic communication from our foe.

"Well played, I was careless and you managed to take advantage of it, but do not think you will be able to escape mortal" (Giant skeletal mage)

"May I enquire as to why your army is so dead set on attacking us?" (Auxentius)

"The undead will always gather to repulse mortal invaders in our land, even at its weakest edges, I neither know nor care why you are here, you will die in these lands" (Giant skeletal mage)

"Why bother contacting me at all then?" (Auxentius)

"Because the magic your little pet their displayed was impressive, and your stratagy earned you a modecom of respect, you will make a fine addition to the undead lands" (Giant skeletal mage)

"A little pet am I? Listen up you overgrown piece of pre-processed fertilizer, I am at worst a top tier waifu and won't be taking any smack from a low level noob who doesn't know basic PVP" (Ratina)

While Ratina engages the boss in a pissing contest where I am fairly sure it doesn't understand half of the terminology she is using, I use what tidbits I learned from the rant back there.

If we are at the weakest outermost territory, than it is likely that the army came from the direction toward the local lord, so it is a good thing we are headed in the opposite direction.

It appears as though dieing in the undead territory makes you one of them, and that the strength you had when you were alive influences your strength as an undead.

The boss and his minions have left the smoldering crater Ratina just made, those that survived anyways.

The tank like rank 3s that used their defensive skills survived, but all the rank 2s died and most of the rank 3s died as well.

The survivors, boss included, have several charred bones and some of them can no longer properly walk, much less chase us.

The injured will either slow them down or they will abandon them and I will send Pythana to kill them of...... and the boss is throwing the injured at us because of course it is, at least they are tankers instead of mages so they can't blast us to slow us down.

And I was right, they can't blast us, they can however use skills that prevent us from running from them.

"Pythana get back to us, we need more DPS to kill the tanks before they catch up to us." (Auxentius)

"Coming, be there soon" (Pythana)

When Pythana uses her slither skill, she can move rediculously fast, Ratina would have trouble hitting her with any non aoe spell even at a close range, she manages to make it back to us in a few dozen seconds without bothering to use stealth skills beyond evade detection.

Nasby can finally participate in the fight slightly as she taunts the tanks to keep them from hitting us before they are dead, the undead are closing the distance between us though.

Pythana is a massive help when she arrives, using assassination on foes that are already severely injured quickly wipes them out and we are able to move again.

We could continue this back and forth, but we turn around once Ratina recharges her MP.

Between Ratina decimating their forces and them throwing the injured survivors, there are only 2 rank 3 tankers in good fighting condition, 5 clearly injured rank 3s, and the rank 5 boss.

"Finally done running from the inevitable?" (Giant skeleton boss)

"Yeah I am inevitably going to kill you eventually, I figured I should stop putting it off" (Auxentius)

The boss doesn't reply other than frowning, something that just looks unnatural when a skeleton does it, and begins shooting its magic.

Nasby is using taunt on the boss and aoe taunt occasionally on the others, she still has bunker down for an emergency but she should be aable to hold off the boss until we clear out the minions.

The remaining rank 3s are skeletons, all the ghosts were too weak to magic and the zombies burned too well.

Slimerene seems to be great for fighting them however, she can just dissolve away the tankers who don't have a way of dealing with her, whenever the boss tries to use an aoe on her Nasby pulls up shield aura and Slimerene has a decent HP pool all on her own.

I focus of buffing Nasby to keep her alive and buff shield aura, while using the occasional buff on Pythana to insta gib a rank 3 on its last legs, sometimes literally its last leg when Slimerene eats most of it.

The 2 healthy rank 3s try to cover for the reemaining 3 injured ones who beganbacking iff now that it is clear they won't last long, and the boss uses some skill that begins healing the injured undead and hurting us with aoe.

Nasby already had a shield aura active, and now that the healthy tier 3s have left an open path to the boss I have Slimerene charge it to magic drain it.

The boss seems to notice the loss of mana and immediately cancelled the aoe spell to focus on removing slimerene, something that it can't do well with nasby's taunt.

Although the boss seems to have decided that a big enough death ball targeting Nasby should take care of slimerene in the aftermath.

I have everyone but Nasby and Slimerene back off, Nasby is still under the effects of my buffs so I use them on Slimerene with hidden potential focusing willpower for added magic defense, Nasby bunkers down and sheild aura is still active so Slimerene should hopefully be able to tank the hit, Nasby uses first aid to top off Slimerene's health and activates minor increased regeneration rate for herself.

The first aid skill uses a lot of mana due to the decay mana terrain though, and Ratina doesn't have enough mana to help substantially at the moment.

The blast hits Nasby head on and Slimerene gets hit by the shockwave, Nasby took 580 damage which would have killed her if she didn't have extra HP due to monster buff and awakened hidden potential, but it is still a bad position to be in considering there is reduced HP recovery in the undead territory.

Slimerene was only hit by the residual blast and is resistant to death based attacks, but she still has a magic weakness so she took 220 damage.

The boss is out of MP now though so as long as Slimerene stays on him he is as good as dead already, and without the mage to support the tanks are easy pickings for the rest of us.

The boss dies in a lackluster manner after that, being just a tasty treat for Slimerene and we manage to kill off the tanks without any more suprises.

A rank 5 and some rank 3s give a substantial amount of experience, I reach level 46 and get my skills to

Assuring aura becoming LV6 Awaken hidden potential LV10 (Max) Increases stats of the targeted monster by 55%, pick one stat to get an extra 25% increase, MP cost 25 duration 75 cooldown 25 Battle advise LV7 Positive increase in moral when you are the leader of a party, when giving commands +7% stats to all allies within 70 meters of you. Death resistance LV1

Ratina reaches level 44 and gets

Increased mana recovery rate LV10 (Max) 100% increase now Death resistance LV1

(Ratina didn't get much skills after using magic overdrive cause she couldn't help much after that other than hit the tankers a few times.)

Nasby reached LV40 and got

Bunker down LV4 100% def buff now Provoke aoe LV3 6 meter radius 15 duration now Shield aura LV8 Allies within a 8 meter range get a defensive bonus equal to 45% of your stamina stat, MP cost 20 cooldown 15 duration 19 First aid LV 9 2.6 HP per MP Minor increased regeneration rate LV7 Heals 0.7% faster per MP spent with duration 0.7 per MP spent Death resistance LV4

Pythana reached LV40 and got

Assassination LV10 (Max) +80% now Dagger weilder LV 9 18% now Evade detection LV8 Slither LV10 Hide LV8 Ambush LV6 When you catch your enemies by suprise you will gain 18% movement speed for 2.25 minutes Death resistance LV1

Slimerene reached LV 39 and got

Death resistance LV10 (Max) Slime body LV9 Reduces damage of physical attacks by 72%, increases damage from magical attacks by 64% Dissolve LV10 (Max) Magic drain LV9 You can drain the MP of any target you are touching, the rate of drain is equal to your willpower/their willpowerx21 MP per second Evade detection LV7 Dissolve mana LV9

I can class up and everyone can evolve now, but I want to wait until we are able to run out of the undead territory and into the neighboring one.

Slimerene found a Magic orb while eating the boss and ate that too which gave her the death attribute now which I can only assume was the loot from the boss.

We get some low quality stuff from the tier 3s, but the only one interesting enough to hold on to is a Mid quality: Grimoire that increases magic damage of the weilder by 5% which is obviously given to Ratina.

We weren't able to carry our food while being chased and Slimerene is the only one who can eat undead so we need to get out of the undead lands quick.

The decay mana concentration has been weakening during our chase though so we are probably headed in the right direction.

We eventually reach the end of the undead territory, and the new area also seems to have a strange mana. It seems like its pulsating somehow, spiking in intensity for a moment and then gradually fading.

It causes noises and the ground will occasionally burts upwards, but all of the plants have strong roots and most of them appear to readjust themselves afterward.

We discover a nearby rank 2 monster and head off to hunt it.

We find what looks like a big, muscular, blue, zebra but with claws instea of hooves and standing upright with green stipes in the blue body.

I try telepathically asking for food first in case this is a bizzare enlightened race, but thankfully it tries to attack us so we can hunt it without reserve.

It pushes off the ground fast, slower than Pythana but way faster than the rest of us could move.

Ratina is about to fire off a fire ball when

"Wait Ratina" (Auxentius)

"Why? I can easily kill something like this in one hit" (Ratina)

"I want to let it hit Nasby to see how much of a threat those muscles really are" (Auxentius)

"Since when am I a punching bag for you to experiment with?" (Nasby)

"Since I also want to see how much damage I can do when I hit you!" (Pythana)

"It is better to have a living target to train skills on..." (Ratina)

"NO! I refuse to be everyone elses target practice and I won't be your guinea pig for testing the waters!" (Nasby)

"Then you better dodge quick" (Auxentius)

The zebra like thing hits Nasby square in the face, it seems to magically enhance its muscles through some skill and deals an impressive 100 damage to Nasby, which considering her level difference is quite impressive.

Ratina roasts it immediately after and we all eat our fill.

Nasby is grumbling in a corner about how she won't be so easily used as a punching bag in the future.

I have Ratina make a cave that goes below the mana infused ground which actually doesn't take too long, and look through our menus as everyone can evolve or class up now.

Auxentius class options (old ones are still available) Farmer LV1 Rank 0 (Will remove all tamer related skills) Villager LV1 Rank 0 (Will remove all tamer related skills) Lesser monster chieftan LV4 Rank 3 Wise monster sage LV4 Rank 3 Resiliant monster master LV4 Rank 3 Monster craftsmen LV2 Rank 2 (Will remove all teacher and sensei related skills) Monster stratagest LV3 Rank 3 Ratina possible evolutions Mousekin dark archmage (Dark attribute) Mousekin archpyromancer (Fire attribute) Mage-blooded Mouse archmage Mouse archmage Mousekin curse archmage (dark attribute) Mousekin deathmage (Death attribute) Mouse grand scholar Mouse earth bender (Earth attribute) Mouse fire bender (Fire attribute) Volt mouse (Electric attibute) [Auxentius inner thought: this is the p*k**** option isn't it?] Frost mouse (Ice attribute) Nasby possible evolutions Hippokin wall Hippokin Paladin (light attribute) Giant hippopotamus protector Unfaltering Hippokin defender Hippopotamus front liner Elephant bodyguard Hippokin crusher Hippokin mage blocker Pythana possible evolutions Lamia assassin Lamia stalker Lesser magebane lamia Lamia deathstriker (Death attribute) Accursed lesser lamia assassin (dark attribute) Lesser lamia shadow walker Poisonous lamia assassin Slimerene possible evolutions Enviornmental plague slime (Death attribute) Magic eater decay slime (Death attribute) Gluttonous decay slime (Death attribute) Little ball of death (Death attribute) Big decay tester slime (Death attribute) Rotting slime (Undead) Noxious acid decay slime (Death attribute)