“To protect our world, the gods sealed this realm off from the Aether. The Others are out there, beyond the heavens, seeking a way in.”

Chapter 66

As the sun sank low on the western horizon, a keening dirge rose from the city below them. The wailing broke the silence, as if a scream rent from the throats of thousands of lost souls. The undead were awakening as the sun set.

Wil and the others stood silently on top of the wall, staring at Aachen. Some nervously clutched their weapons, while others knelt on the cold, grey stone, praying to the departing goddess for mercy and salvation.

A cold and indifferent god emerged from the east to replace her. The black moon rose higher in the sky as the light faded.

The defenders waited as the blue sun slowly set to the west and the shadows lengthened across the city streets. The black, glowing lines of corrupted mana grew rapidly, filling the shadows left by the retreating sunlight.

It appeared as if a black web was engulfing the city, and as it did so, the miasma above thickened and grew. It was slowly eating away at any light that remained below.

The only movement in the dead city came from the small group of auxiliaries, still struggling to drag their loot across the paved roads. They had made progress and were only a few hundred feet away from the gates.

The sky above them was a deep indigo, with bright streaks of azure and blue reflecting off the clouds. The last, beautiful effort of the departing Secundus.

In the dying light and amidst the howling screams of the awakening dead, they struggled to move their cargo. They had almost made it to safety when the sunlight finally perished, and night fully descended on the dead city of Aachen.

Wil watched in horrible fascination as the darkness settled on the city like a black cloak. The walls around them glowed a brilliant and divine blue as the wards were fully powered by the clerics and their altars to the sun goddess.

In the dim light from the walls, Wil saw the small group below finally abandon their cargo, fleeing towards the gates.

They almost made it.

Out of the darkness a sea of death came rushing onto the streets. Thousands of undead creatures, only vaguely humanoid. They were malformed, half rotted, with eyes that glowed a scarlet red in the Night. They were the source of the wailing, as they opened their mouths unnaturally wide and rent the air with their shrieks. The undead screamed out their craving and yearning to feast on the flesh and blood of the living.

The undead streamed towards the small group of Auxiliaries, who had finally dropped their loot and were running through the streets. They reached the closed gates ahead of the oncoming horde, banging furiously on the doors for the guards to open them, but the defenders could not risk the undead breaching the walls.

In the dim light and from his high vantage point, Wil had a good look at the creatures. They were clearly once human, but twisted and corrupted by their reanimation. Sharp claws replaced their hands, and each had a set of long, wickedly sharp fangs.

Each were equal to a Rank 1, and there were thousands of them.

They howled as they ran, chasing the humans, running on two feet, before bounding forward on four limbs, like an animal.

As the tide of undeath emerged from the buildings below, a foul stench filled the air and many of those guarding the wall gagged and retched at the odor.

“What in the nine layers of hell are those things!?” Someone yelled out from next to Wil.

“Ghouls! Goddess shelter us, it's thousands of ghouls!” another person answered, falling to their knees in terror as the watched the ghouls pounce towards the human, ripping into them as their comrades watched from the walls.

They didn’t stand a chance, and the vicious undead ripped and chewed through them, tearing off limbs and large pieces of flesh. The ghouls fought each other more than they had the humans, lashing out over the remains.

The only mercy Wil could find in their death, was that it was over swiftly. In a matter of seconds, all that remained of the group was a wet stain on the paved road.

The Ghouls, done fighting over the remains, turned their attention to the humans standing atop the walls far above them.

By the thousand, the emaciated and endlessly hungry undead attempted to climb the glowing, grey stones. Driven by their hunger, they ran towards the wall, leaping onto it and driving their claws deep into the stone.

Wil could see the flashes of divine light as the wall sought to drive the undead off. He smelled the burning undead flesh from the goddess’s wrath as the wards burned the bodies of the ghouls.

All around the mile’s length of wall, tens of thousands of the undead ghouls climbed upwards, seeking the warm flesh waiting above. The dim blue light was replaced by bright burning orange flames as hundreds of the creatures fell, burning as they tumbled into the darkness below.

The legion assisted by hurling rocks and debris from the top, hitting the more stubborn and powerful of the climbing ghouls, dislodging some of them.

In the few short minutes that the sun had fallen, the wall was covered in burning undead, trying desperately to reach the top but failing. The wards glowed brightly, and the keening wails of desire for flesh from the ghouls were replaced by their wails of frustration and agony.

These ghouls were different than anything Wil had ever seen. He had expected slow moving undead, unintelligent and unfeeling. These monsters were vicious and possessed a strength only matched by their madness and intense desire to consume the living.

The auxiliaries around Wil cheered as they saw the ghouls burning and failing to gain any height on the wall.

“Shut it!” Garman yelled. “Do you think any of you halfwits would even be here if this was all that we had to worry about? Keep your eyes open, this is only the bloody start!”

As he finished speaking, out of the darkness, a horde of deformed flying undead birds soared into the air. They rose above the buildings and headed towards the top of the wall.

The cheering slowly died as the defenders realized what was approaching.

A swarm of flying undead birds flew towards them. Crows, pigeons and seagulls, killed in the initial disaster and reanimated to attack the living. Individually, they were negligible threats, they barely had any mana inside them.

But there were tens of thousands of the flying creatures heading towards the defenders.

The wards responded to the approaching undead birds by glowing even more brightly, and a faint, shimmering haze of power slowly rose from the wall around them. It formed a dome over the city to prevent any of the flying undead from escaping.

Gliding closer, the birds screeched in fury at the divine interference. They gained speed and plummeted towards the humans below.

Flights of arrows shot towards the undead birds, with silver heads shining in the ward’s light. When an arrow struck them, the bird would explode in a black cloud of corrupted dark Mana as the lifeless body plummeted below.

Spells flashed in the darkness and fire bloomed in the sky, striking the flying undead in massive explosions of mana. Thousands of undead fell, but their numbers seemed inexhaustible and they slammed into the dome of light, scratching and clawing in their attempts to reach the humans beyond.

The wards buckled and strained under the impact, and the humans responded with more magic attacks and arrows. Despite their best efforts, the attacking undead birds created small holes in the defenses, and soon some were swooping down on the human defenders.

One undead bird, larger than the others, pushed through the protective dome and swooped towards Wil and his group of defenders. It was as if it were drawn to the altar behind them, instinctually recognizing it as the source of the dome’s power.

Wil drew on his mana, forcing it into a barrier that surrounded the clerics, protecting them from harm. He pushed it to its limits, and he felt it bump against another barrier.

The mage next to him also sought to protect the defenseless priests behind them, and they formed a bubble of mana around the altar and the praying clerics.

The large undead bird swooped towards them, before a flight of arrows riddled its body. Spasming as the silver arrow heads burned its flesh, the bird reeled upwards.

Wil thought it was seeking to flee the attacks, before he felt the mana inside it build, reaching a crescendo, before exploding out from it. A rain of black blood and dead flesh rained down on the defenders below.

“Cover!” Garman yelled, ducking behind a large shield as many of the others did the same.

Wil felt the blood and foul flesh strike his shield of Mana, like a heavy rain, before sizzling and burning away.

Many had protected themselves, but some were too slow, or hadn’t recognized the danger. Wil saw at least half a dozen people become covered in the black blood.

The infected paused for a moment, as if confused by why everyone’s reaction. Before the blood seeped into their skin.