“We’ve been hired by Councilwoman Talric to find her missing daughter. The poor girl disappeared from her bed in the middle of the night. This should be a standard case, nothing we haven’t handled before.”

Diary of the Adventurer Guild Team ‘Scarlet Justice’.

Chapter 73

Wil slowly walked back toward the altar in a distracted daze, with only half a mind to the danger surrounding him.

The battle around him was a blur as his mind could only focus on the mage’s horrible, agonizing screams and how he had been the one to silence them.

He had never killed anyone before. He had fought and slain monsters in battle, by both magic and sword, but never a person, a human. It was only now that he realized how sheltered his life had truly been.

‘Maybe my father was right to send me here… I am weak.” Wil thought to himself. It was statement that he couldn’t have ever imagined uttering only a week ago but was now turning over and over in his mind.

He knew that his father and brother would not have given the mage’s death another thought. They lived in a cruel and unforgiving world, and both men had long been inured to it. But not Wil, not the wastrel of Brookmoor.

His father had always called him ‘soft’ to survive, too ‘weak’… like his mother. He had hated his father for those words, had tried to spite him by drinking and shirking his duty. But for the first time, he thought that maybe his father was right.

He felt guilt, deep in the pit of his stomach for what he had done. Even as he tried to convince himself that it was a mercy, that there was nothing more he could have done to prevent her death, the guilt still gnawed at his insides.

It was a feeling he was sure that was unique to him within his family. His brother would have cut her down without a second thought, and he wouldn’t have closed his eyes while he did it.

His heart pounded in his chest, and he was conscious of the weight the sword had in his hand.

Growing up, he had been tutored by Greaves and Kellerman in how to use a sword. He was taught that the weapon was an extension of himself. A part of him that could be used to defend and protect what was important.

Now he had used it to kill a companion, someone who had saved his life! He didn’t know how he could reconcile those two opposites in his mind.

A sharp spike in the density of Mana around him brought Wil out of his dark thoughts.

To his left, in the very center of the wall, the glowing blue sphere of power was reaching a peak. What had started as a faint shimmering had turned into a brightness to rival the blue sun itself and Wil was forced to cover his face with his hand to shield his eyes.

He could sense that that priestess was finally ready to spring the trap. Tens of thousands of undead had entered the boundaries of the wards along the length of wall. From the amount of mana the cleric was channeling, whatever divine spell she was about the unleash would cover nearly half the city.

The mindless undead instinctually knew that something was approaching, and they threw themselves again the living, seeking to drown them in their numbers and consume their flesh. Hundreds of explosions rang out against the fading wards as the undead mages flung their most powerful magics against it.

The undead were too late, and with faint ‘whoosh’ the glowing sphere of blue light collapsed in on itself. The air surrounding it rushed towards the void it made, seeking to fill the vacuum.

Like a dying sun, the massive orb of mana shrank rapidly to a tiny speck of light no bigger than the head of a pin. The cleric held it in her old and wrinkled hands, cupping them protectively over the softly glowing spark.

She held it up to her lips, whispering her final prayer to the goddess as she gave her life essence to fuel the spell.

The body of the cleric began to turn grey, her skin taking the same tone as the stone beneath her feet. As her body greyed, the spark of light began to pulse, and flecks of ash were carried away by the wind as her body burned from the magic she channeled.

As the last syllable of the prayer left her lips, the spark of light erupted in an explosion of azure energy. The body of the priestess was gently blown away, becoming ash carried on the wind.

The explosion of light expanded outwards, and the wards flared to life, brighter than they had ever been since the battle begun. As the energy touched the undead, they screamed as they were consumed, their corrupted and unholy flesh turning to dust as they were purified by the light.

In an instant, the shockwave of holy energy swept over the living, leaving them healed and energized. Wil felt his wounds close, and he felt refreshed as his Core quickly filled with silver, mercury like Mana.

He ran to the edge of the wall, watching as the divine energy cleansed all the undead from the surrounding walls. He observed as the light approached the Lich and it snarled in rage, as the pulsing black webs that supported its body wrapped around it protectively.

The Lich raised both its arms and channeled its corrupted mana into the darkness, deepening it until it was almost a liquid black. The blackness swirled around him like a vortex, spinning faster and faster as the light approached.

Wil could hear the Lich chanting, but he couldn’t understand the words. His soul shuddered at the perverse language the Lich was speaking, as if it were calling to something beyond their world, to an existence incompatible to their own.

Each syllable it uttered shook reality around Aachen. Twisting and distorting the mana around them with its profane words.

With a final cry, the lich thrust its arms forward. The blackness surged ahead, like a dark tsunami of magic.

Dark and light met with a cacophony of noise and dissonance of light. Fires raged and the ground shook as the two forces collided, and for a moment they were locked in a stalemate, neither side moving an inch.

Wil watched, breathless at the forces being unleashed. The amount of mana swirling in the air would be enough to destroy the entire city if it was not contained. The air reeked with the smell of ozone as bolts of electricity arcs through the sky and the clouds overhead were rent in half from the power being released below.

Without warning, the stalemate broke when large pillars of light shot skyward from the altars all around the fortifications. Each altar was like a font of power, overflowing with divine brilliance as the light grew stronger, gradually pushing back the blackness as it flowed into the city.

The blackness the Lich was controlling was quickly pushed back by the tide of azure light falling from the walls.

With an unearthly scream that shook the wall underneath his feet, the light engulfed the Lich and the web of darkness surrounding it. The divine power mercilessly annihilated its physical body, but in the light Wil could see the black soul of the undead flee beneath the ground, retreating deep into the earth below Aachen.

The light gradually faded, and the darkness of night returned, but without the dark miasma that had infested the city. The divine power had cleansed the surface of Aachen of the foul undead, but he could still feel the evil below the ground and in every building.

The battle was over, and the living had succeeded. All along the wall, Wil could hear their cheers as they celebrated their survival. Even the veterans who knew what to expect, seemed relieved that they had won.

The causalities from the battle were high, Wil could see bodies laying still everywhere he looked. Half-eaten corpses, discarded limbs and streaks of blood covered the wall, but at least they had won. The empire would be safe for another night.

Wil let the cheering wash over him as he stared out over the dead city. The undead would return, as would the Lich. They always did.

Their physical bodies could be destroyed, but the evil below Aachen would remain. Even the divine mana of a god couldn’t cleanse this city, not without purging whatever had caused the undead blight.

But they had survived, and it would take them another month to regain their numbers, and the legion would be ready.

Wil left the cheering and celebrations behind as he walked down the stairs. He could hear Garman yelling orders and cursing behind him, but Wil was too tired and drained to care.

Even with the goddess healing and replenishing his energy, his spirit was exhausted from what he had been forced to do.

‘I don’t even know her name’ he thought to himself as he walked heavily down the stairs.