“I’m going where?” Margrethe stared at her Guildmaster. She knew he was a brilliant man, and that had only been reinforced when she’d found out just who the Oath she’d given to him had prevented her from killing. That same event made her think she had to be missing something. Or maybe she’d misheard? “There aren’t enough of us on Ranar already. How am I supposed to set up something on a planet that I can’t even go to for a couple years?”

Guildmaster Oathbinder grinned his usual grin; he seemed to be enjoying her disbelief. “That’s something a Planetary Lord can overrule. You won’t be leaving immediately, but when you do, I’m sure Serenity will give you permission.”

Margrethe ignored the implication that Serenity was Earth’s Planetary Lord. After everything else that was weird about him, it was almost to be expected. “I tried to kill him. Why would he let me on his planet? Why not someone who didn’t offend him?”

If anything, the Guildmaster’s grin widened. “Because he already knows you. He may not like you, but he still went to you for information afterwards; that means you can work with him. On top of that, you know about some of the strange things that can happen; that makes you perfect for your new role. You’re not going there to be a Knife; you’re going to be a Knife trainer.”

Margrethe stared at Guildmaster Oathbinder. She was only Tier Three. What right did she have to take on the role of a trainer? Her trainer was Tier Five! “Why don’t you send Jimma?”

Guildmaster Oatbinder’s glee disappeared as though it had never existed. “Jimma would get herself killed. If she’d been in that Tutorial instead of you, she would already be dead. The only good thing would be that Serenity wouldn’t know she was with Order’s Guild. Unfortunately, the Voice would, and we’d be facing a major penalty.”

“Already dead? Penalty?” That didn’t make any sense. Jimma was stronger than Margrethe. She knew more; why, she was the person who trained Margrethe! “She’s Tier Five!”

“And she would lose to Serenity.” There was not a hint of doubt in Guildmaster Oathbinder’s voice. “It would have gone very differently; Jimma might well not have triggered the Oath that protected him from you. He would still have won, even if he required the help of other instructors. You were a fool to attack him as openly as you did, but Jimma is worse. There is a reason she teaches now. It seems she cannot even do that right, for you should have known of the exceptions.”

“There’s more than one?” Margrethe wasn’t sure why she was surprised; why wouldn’t there be more than one?

“Jimma will continue to act in your old position; don’t let her push you into taking it back. You are now permitted to mingle with the other Knives, but do not tell them about Serenity or Earth. You may tell them that we have a new provisional Hand and that you are being considered for the position of his personal Knife. That should adequately explain the additional training you will be undertaking until the way opens to Earth. I’m setting aside two hours of my morning for you; this will start tomorrow at ninth bell in my office. Afternoons will be combat training; you may choose your location so long as it is in the city. If you wish to vary the schedule for any reason, come see me. For you, my door is open.”

The Guildmaster stood there, seeming to wait for something. Margrethe swallowed the knot in her throat then nodded helplessly. “Yes, Guildmaster.”

What had she gotten herself into now? They had a new Hand, and that was somehow connected to traveling to Earth?

It was too late to ask; the Guildmaster had already turned away. Tomorrow, then?

The next two days of travel in the Dead Swamp were as uneventful as the first.

Andarit was up a tree, searching for the mountains surrounding Lowpeak to set their starting direction for the day, when the peacefulness disappeared. There was no sign of the danger before it appeared; while there had been a few intrusions on Serenity’s aura-domain over the course of the night, that wasn’t unusual and they all immediately fled.

A wave of low-tier undead splashed towards Serenity as a bolt of lightning boomed between two trees, aimed directly at him.

Despite the sudden attack, Serenity felt little danger from the attackers; the only one that had any real chance to be threatening was the mage. At least, the only one that could threaten him. “Andarit! Stay up in the tree!”

The area spells in his new Path would have been perfect for these circumstances, but he hadn’t hit level 25 in the Path yet and didn’t have access to them. Well, at least it was a combat-oriented Path; there was an excellent chance that dealing with this horde would push him over that limit.

Serenity bounced off the flyer and into the water in the direction of the lightning bolt. He was still in the air when it hit him and fizzled on his armor, lightly scorching his scales but not doing any real damage. It wasn’t even close to enough to increase his Shock resistance.

It was easy enough to knock the Tier One and Two undead away with his ax; they were already weakened by the Eat Death Skill in his aura. One hit was enough to send them flying if it didn’t kill them outright. The undead on his sides and rear attempted to hurt him, but they were unarmed and couldn’t actually do any damage. They would only be a real threat if they managed to get ahold of him and immobilize him.

Serenity just had to keep moving forward and that wouldn’t be a problem. It was fortunate that he was stronger than they were to begin with; it was even more fortunate that they didn’t know how to use what strength they had. A similar horde of trained Tier One opponents could have drug him to the ground with their weight, properly applied so that he couldn’t get around it.

“Grab him!” The voice came from the same direction as the lightning bolt. It sounded like whoever it was did have control over the undead and had realized the same weakness Serenity had.

All he needed to do was see the enemy, but so far he hadn’t caught more than the glimpse of a dark robe.

Serenity hit one that didn’t immediately fall over; it was simply tougher, either higher Tier or more likely with a Skill that gave it some protection. He stepped around it as he smacked it again, then a third time; that time, he managed to damage it enough to get it to fall.

Another lightning bolt hissed out from ahead of Serenity; it went wide and didn’t even come close to hitting him, but he was able to trace it back to behind a particular tree.

Unfortunately, the sturdy zombie delayed him enough that two of the lesser undead were able to latch on to his legs. He kicked one and smashed the other, but it was too much of a delay; more piled on top of him faster than he could physically remove them.

They were still not actually hurting him, but he didn’t want to be immobilized. Giving the enemy time to come up with something that would hurt wasn’t a good idea.

Serenity dropped himself to the ground, crouching with his palms on the ground instead of being knocked over. He tucked his head down; his armor stretched up, forming a partial helmet as he hid his face. He got low enough that his face was just barely above the water.

The undead continued to pile on, adding to the weight but not achieving anything.

Serenity pulled his aura closer to himself. To really concentrate his Eat Death, he needed to limit the amount of space it was going to cover. Once his aura was covering the crowd of undead immediately on and around him, Serenity increased the intensity as much as he could.

It hurt to push that much on a damaged Skill, but it was still the best solution he had. He could only hope he wouldn’t damage it farther; Eat Death had not only saved his life but proved a remarkably flexible defense and utility Skill afterwards. Serenity knew some of what it was doing, but there was no way to do it as seamlessly without the Skill unless he could somehow incorporate it into another Skill. That would be the best solution, but it meant finding a Path with a similar Skill, and he’d deliberately prohibited himself from gaining any new undead-related species options.

There was a bright flash visible even through his closed eyelids and actual pain ran down his body starting at his upper spine, continuing down all four limbs. For a moment, Serenity thought he’d truly broken Eat Death, but it was still working; it simply wasn’t pulling in any more Death energy.

In fact, he didn’t feel a circle of Death-based undead around himself anymore even though he still felt their weight.

That had to have been a massive lightning strike. A quick check of his Resistances said it still wasn’t enough to improve his Shock resistance, but other than a little temporary pain he was fine.

Serenity decided to play “dead” for a moment and see what happened, but he stretched his aura out as far as he could while weakening Eat Death to little more than enough to easily sense undead by the mana they provided.

Then he waited. Patience came easily; the only concern was Andarit. He simply had to hope that she wouldn’t leave the safety of her tree until this was all handled.

A death-filled figure entered Serenity’s aura and headed directly towards him. There was a lot of Death to it, but as he focused Serenity could tell that there was something strange about the being approaching him. Its Vital Affinity was definitely Death and he could sense the Death-attuned mana flowing off it, but that mana felt oddly constrained.

“...expect that to work.” Serenity could hear the voice of the undead being that was approaching him. “I knew they were dumb and weak, but one Called Lightning? Really? All of them? At least it got the dangerous thing. Maybe I can find the source? I can feel the residual effect even with the caster dead…”

Serenity settled on his next step. There was only one being there, and it was undead. He remembered how the previous undead, Timmat, responded to Gaze of the Origin; it was better than most control spells. It would probably not work on multiple enemies, but it was worth a try on an individual, and the undead was now close enough that even if it failed Serenity would be able to hit it more than once before it could flee.

Serenity pushed himself up from his crouch. Re-dead bodies slid off him, scattering to either side, and Serenity locked his eyes on the figure standing almost directly in front of him. He triggered Gaze of the Origin as he took in the surprisingly intact black robe covering the skeletal figure.

From its appearance and Tier, it was probably either a powerful Skeletal Mage or a weak skeletal lich variant. Liches were far more likely to control other undead and were also generally far smarter than Skeletal Mages; it almost had to be a lich, but it was a variant Serenity had never been.

Of course, Vengeance hadn’t become a lich until he was far higher Tier than the one in front of Serenity.

Analyze

Skeletal Lich (variant unknown)

Lightning Mage Evolution

Tier Three or Four

This dungeonspawn was designed to be a lightning-variant lich with both necromantic and lightning magic. After escaping its dungeon, something happened to the lich which weakened its necromancy to Minor Undead Control (Swarm). Since then, it has primarily practiced its Lightning magic and used low-Tier undead as disposable tools to restrain prey for target practice.

Currently Fascinated