Ma-Ginotte was designed to be the potential last line of defense in Albion, now Anglond and Francus. Its walls were over eleven meters tall and over six meters wide at the base. It was constructed in a star-like shape, giving every position on the walls the potential to have overlapping fields of fire. The fort had been designed that way to take advantage of the Magic Connons mounted on the walls, but time had done a number on the ancient artillery and they had all rusted away, making the star design quite pointless. If only the Hero who had built them had been around to repair them or even to instruct anyone in the ways of doing to it would have been fine. Maybe...

In any other siege, against any other foe the walls would have been unassailable. Unfortunately, the civil war had drained a substantial amount of the remaining manpower of what was formerly South Albion, and the fortress city only had enough of a garrison to completely protect one half of the battlements. If a foe was to assault the whole of the wall simultaneously, then the garrison protecting every part of the wall would be less than optimal. Nevertheless, the food supply was high, and the water was fresh and pure, so a prolonged siege should have been simple.

Even if their former countrymen to the north were willing to kill multitudes of them, they would surely come to the aid of their fellow humans against the tide of undeath, right? After all, if the undead managed to gain a foothold outside of the Gallows Woods, they would surely multiply and spread wildly unless they were checked, and even if they were enemies not even a few weeks ago their duty to the Light surely overrode their animosity towards the nation of Francus. With these assurances, those within the fortified city were content to let the undead wait outside the walls. After all, what were they going to do, build siege works? Undead don’t make siege works, they swarm over each other in a desperate attempt to attack the living. None of those who fled the previous battle had the heart to tell everyone that these undead were different, but while they were strange, they surely could not be able to build siege works.

This notion proved to be both correct and incorrect, as several formations of undead brought large and long ladders within eyesight of the men on the wall. These ladders were not, in fact, constructed by the undead, but rather by those who lived in Necrograd using the undead to gather the materials. So yes, they did have a hand in their construction, but not in the traditional sense. As the formations of undead built up on one side of the ramparts, on the other, poorly guarded side, an attack was being prepared. The side in question was the only one with an entrance/ exit into and out of the city, and a very particular couple of people were walking up to the gate in the middle of the day.

In the front was a person whose face had been seen many times by many people due to being on a ‘Wanted’ poster. The ‘Fallen Luminary’ herself, Arch Necromancer Alistaira Crowley waltzed up to within arrowshot of the walls and began to cast a spell. Behind her was a massive man whose death-stare sent all whom it fell upon scurrying from his sight. Whenever an arrow was being aimed toward Alistaira, he would merely send a glance in the archer’s direction and overwhelm their senses with the primordial fear of death. The flow of magic swirled and danced around the Arch Necromancer as she focused more and more of the maelstrom that built up around her into a spell that had never before been seen. With but a single utterance she unleashed a force unlike any that had existed thus far on Mortis.

“Half-life Zero.”

The magic she had built up rushed forward and washed over the massive gatehouse. At first it seemed like the spell was a dud, and the guards on the wall let out a chuckle as the Arch Necromancer was apparently not as dangerous as they were led to believe.

“She must have wasted her potential in that apocalypse! All that build up, for what?”

As the guards enjoyed a bit of mirth at Alistaira’s expense, one of them cried out in terror. As the others looked over in the direction of the cry, they saw the guard in question begin to fade away. His body was turning to dust and vapor, before even the dust began to vaporize. Soon enough the same thing was happening to everyone in the area of which the spell had washed over and eventually even the gate and walls began to disintegrate and vaporize. The spell that had been used was one devised by Alistaira herself after learning about atomic half-lives and the fact that even atoms could entropized away.

This was Death Magic at its most terrifying, as it was almost like the ‘snappening’ from Infinity War was occurring in the world of Mortis and affecting not just those who were of flesh and blood but also the very earth and metal that made up such an integral part of the defenses of Ma-Ginotte’s capabilities. Those who were not affected by the atomic entropy that was occurring in front of them were too terrified to even attempt to lash out against the two beings who now lazily walked through the widening hole in the walls, and from the direction of the Undead Army came the sound of rotten paws hitting damp ground as several units of Dire Wolves rushed to take advantage of the breach and run rampant in the city.

Before the Dire Wolves made it to the hole however, the large man launched a few Fireballs at the buildings in front of and to his sides. As the balls of flame exploded, the city caught alight and with every burning, volleyball sized magical blast that arced into a building the fire began to spread that much faster. When the Dire Wolves finally reached the gaping hole in the walls, the fire had already begun to become uncontrollable. While those who were fighting off the Skeletons had more pressing problems than a burning city, they were distracted and demoralized by it enough that it gave the undead a momentary advantage.

As more ladders docked and more undead clambered up and onto the walls, the garrison was being slowly stretched more and more. Couple that with the cries of the civilians dying either to the flames, the Dire Wolves or to the two heretical magic users and the morale kept falling; it was only a matter of time until something broke. As yet another unit of Skeletons began to climb up the walls, one of the guards broke ranks and fled down the stairs towards the city in a desperate bid to get to the only other line of defense.

Soon after he was followed by another, and then another and then more and more and more until a chain-rout began with the guards deserting the walls in droves and ceding them to the undead. As the guards made a desperate dash through the burning city, the image of the unyielding fortress city was gone. There now was only the burning and nearly overrun wreck of a once indominable fortress, overcome by superior numbers and firepower.