Flights of fancy aside, Eric was pretty certain that both Samuel and Lord Grim would chuckle in bemusement at the thought of Eric actually feeling like an artist as necromantic energies tied so tightly to both life and death caressed the tusker corpses now springing to life before him. Because without using his Necromancer Undead Legion Perk to instantly raise the remains of anyone who fell in recent battle against himself or his men, he was still a rank beginner, dependent on pre-prepared cadavers and the ritual tarp Samuel had helped him Make. And his Tusker Cadavers had been claimed weeks ago, a world away, so his Class Undead Legion perk had no hold on them at all. Yet Eric was equally certain that his friends heartily approve of him doing his best to truly be worthy of the title: Lord of The Dead, and not just use what amounted to a System Granted ability.

He’d take the harder path, and do his utmost to truly learn the skills Samuel had started to teach him. Even if he had to do it in the dead of night on a battlefield still stinking of gunpowder, blood, and offal, his mind as much on his environment as his ritual. And he was rewarded for his efforts as the sweet, heady joy he felt when 17 tuskers became 22, then 27, then finally 40 Greater Revenants, was beyond his ability to describe, every fiber of his being now trembling with the fierce, sharp exhilaration of besting life and death at their own game.

You have successfully raised 23 Greater Revenants without using Necromancer Class Perks!

Spirit Mastery and Rituals of Summoning and Binding have each gone up one full rank!

Master Necromancer is now level 18!

Master Necromancer is now level 19!

Eric crashed to his knees, having depleted reserves he didn’t even know he had as mammoth-sized revenants lowered their front legs and kissed the ground with their tusks, swearing their silent allegiance before the night rang with the chorus of their happy squeals. As if each and everyone of them was grateful just to savor the memory of life once more.

Almost as grateful as Eric was to feel the wind whipping across his face as he raced along the plains once more, at the vanguard of a full company of 40 massive tuskers racing along the grasslands wedge formation, his entire legion sucked into his ring with a singular act of will.

He breathed deep of the now crisp and clean night air, free of the stench of hard-fought battle, savoring those halcyon moments as he raced to the lip of this territory he might not have claimed in the strategic sense, but that had most certainly served as glorious farming grounds for a stupendous surge to his undead reserves, taking a quick moment to check out his interface sheet and select yet another Necromancer perk, after increasing not one but two levels from channeling the necromantic might of his massive Soul Orb into his Spirit Boar Summonings, draining dry the absolute flood of potency that had been trapped in his necromantic vessel, absolutely perfect for raising his tuskers and increasing his own mastery of his basic necromancer skills while doing so.

He shook his head at his absolutely insane rate of growth.

He was almost positive his combined 45% bonus rate at which he now learned the necromantic arts had a hell of a lot to do with it, thanks to a pair of title boons, but he knew it was far more than that.

It was having access to incredible reserves of necromantic power one would only find on a fresh battlefield, and Eric had two class perks that allowed him to capture that power, Undead Legion and Soul orb in the same build effectively allowing him to take advantage of the necromantic energies released twice over. It was a move he’d allow no player in any campaign he ever ran, let alone let them gain even more necromancer levels just from raising dead based on those potency generating perks.

But since the System clearly allowed it, and this was his actual life, where power was everything and failure was absolutely not an option, he would take advantage of every cheat, hack, and perceived abuse that he could.

Just like the gunner who had managed to evolve his Bronze Napoleon style 12-pounder cannon into cutting edge artillery with an actual ammo feed, forcing Eric to flee a constant bombardment, nearly losing his life despite his absolutely absurd Quickness stat. A stat that was now at least 3 times that of the average speed-focused Level 30 adventurer.

Yet that auto-gunning meth-head freak, cackling like a madman and perhaps electing to keep his drug-addled body in return for the deadliest weapon his class allowed, had nearly taken Eric out as effortlessly as the thirty or forty hapless orcs that had crossed that madman’s line-of-fire.

The bottom line was, this was no gentlemanly in-game sparring match between friends.

This was a desperate struggle for survival itself.

There were no real rules, save binding oaths agreed to, and the tenets of survival alone. So Eric would no more give up his killing edge than that gunner would have surrendered his uber high-tech artillery, or the orcs would surrender the countless victims they enslaved, or the territory they claimed. No more than the goblins would give up their sniper assassins, whose very class perks allowed them to make use of outlawed weapons no one else could, the Bloodtear Syndicate doing all they could to murder Eric’s sister, imprison his girlfriend, and arrest his Blue Corp associates who should have had full diplomatic immunity, but clearly rule-twisting goblins and the corrupt administrators eager for a cut of the action had found a way.

Well, so had Eric.

A way so fierce, savage, and ruthless, that he couldn’t wait to show it off to all his orc and goblin friends.

Every single last one of them.

A fierce smile lit his features as he closed his eyes for an eyeblink that would last just as long as he needed, scanning over the perks now flooding his interface as his options kept blossoming like a tree sprouting countlessly smaller branches and twigs, or a fractal revealing endless repeating complexities, the deeper in one went.

It would have been easy, too easy, to lose himself in the glory of System-enhanced possibility, already astounding him with the power now at his fingertips with so many back doors to power it was all Eric could do not to crow with glee.

But getting to distracted on a night infused with the promise of so much death was a definite risk. Enemy snipers could be drawing a bead on him even now, half hidden in the middle of his tusker band charging through the night.

So he skimmed the landscape of endless perk evolution possibilities to focus on what he wanted most. Needed most.

A fighting force that could survive any foe, even one capable of blasting targets to pieces with artillery that might, or might not, include explosive shells.

He frowned, as nearly every single necromancer branch immediately greyed out, save for five.

One Perk would increase the Quickness of every Greater Revenant under his command by a full 66%. Another would increase their Vitality by a similar amount, and a third their ability to frenzy and strike with absolutely devastating force.

Eric couldn’t help but grin at the possibilities, thinking a 66% upgrade a fantastic boost to maneuverability, power, or durability, each of them fantastic front-line perks to be found near the very beginning of their respective progression branches.

Earmarking the one he favored for future consideration, he then hopped to the options requiring the most requirements of all his choices, but not before being pleasantly surprised to find that he could keep evolving Undead legion with a doubling of maximum revenants raised after each and every battle with each advancement. Best of all, it seemed to be a major branch, if not the very trunk of the necromantic tree he favored.

Eric grinned happily at the thought of eventually pushing Undead Legion all the way to Tier 6.

He patted his mount’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be something if there was an Elite perk waiting for me that could raise 10,000 troops after a battle? Now that would be awesome!” His declaration earned a pleased squeal from his pigs, racing all the faster for the faint blinking red lights at the periphery of this territory, the scattered remnants of the battalion he had broken, and how eager Eric was to claim as many soldiers from his enemies’ forces as he possibly could.

His choice all but made up, even though he thought it extremely unlikely he’d be facing any situation near as favorable as the one he had stumbled upon, making nearly 2000 kills and claiming 1600 of them for himself, evolving his perk to 3200 maximum revenants raised per battle meant that in just 2 more advancements, he really would be able to raise 10,000 in one go.

If there was ever a definition of embracing the promise of power at all costs, it was to continue evolving his unspeakably fearsome path, though he was forced to wonder what horrific confrontations could possibly generate that number of casualties in this brave new world for him to gather so many fallen in a single encounter. And what did it say about him, if a part of him had actually shaped the vessel of his soul to be in perfect position to claim such a ghastly number of lives in a single go?”

Eric winced at the uncomfortable roiling in his gut, the nearly forgotten sensation of guilt, as his cavalry approached yet another fresh territory with his invading force. He took a deep breath of chill night air, almost grateful to find his mad euphoria frozen for a few precious seconds, forced to contemplate the true gravity of the path he walked.

He was a Necromancer.

A practitioner of perhaps the most perilous of all mortal magics. Perilous arts that allowed him to step past the boundaries of life and death, mastering both the bodies and minds of corpses and spirits both. He could both grant the ultimate blessing to souls eager to embrace life, like his strictly volunteer Tusker force, or enslaved in unbreakable shackles, those who yearned desperately to be free, like his 1650 troops, now bound to him for eternity.

Eric took steadying breath, ignoring the surge of horror twisting in his gut, savoring air spiked with the scents of autumn wheat, honeysuckle and pine, his enhanced Scholarship now making it impossible to push away the truth of what he had done this night alone, his Willpower the crutch he squeezed, to endure the monster he had become.

He would dare the unthinkable for the sake of his sister, his family.

His clan.

He had butchered over 2000 souls to get this far…

Chained the spirits of most of them to the bodies that had once been their own,

and he would gladly do it again.

And again.

He would grind his foes to dust under the hooves of his Tuskers, and he would paint the wheat-filled plains red with the blood of anyone who dared to get in his way.

A bitter laugh rang throughout the plains.

Realizing he had already met the true monster of the northeast, perhaps the most ruthless killer to be found anywhere in a world now filled with desperate survivors and ex-con adventurers.

The real monster of the plains might be none other than the idiot cackling like a madman on a mount that was now definitely larger than any mastodon in the geological records, level 19 Necromancer boosting his undead revenants like nothing else possibly could.

Save the perk he finally chose, one that made him near lurch of his mount, once he truly understood the significance of its boon.

You have chosen the Necromancer Perk: Mark of Resilience. Requirements: Knowledge of a Runic Alphabet, Blood magic affinities, two or more ranks in Undead Legion or a similar Revenant forging base skill! Your (limited) Runic Alphabet meets these requirements! (Roboro, Plures, & Iram runes detected)

Once this perk is integrated, all of your revenants will manifest the Resilience stigmata upon their skulls! Each mark will boost the Vitality and durability of your revenants by 10% for every necromancer perk that enhances your Revenants!

Eric’s breath hitched, brooding existential thoughts regarding the morality of his path quickly superceded by the promise of a shocking boost to his minions’ power. “Fucking hell. Every perk I have, save maybe the UTI map, enhances my revenants! Even being able to silently communicate with them and direct them via my map is an arguable advancement! So that’s what, an 80% boost to their hit points? To the durability of their undead hides?”

He didn’t know for sure just how significant the boost would be, how much the System would count various perks as enhancing his revenants. And for all he knew, it might include Undead legion only once.

Even then, a 30% bonus to toughness and durability for both his infantry and cavalry was an incredible boon, and definitely worth the gamble, he thought, refusing to hesitate a second longer as he made the perk his own, eyes widening with a surprised gasp when yet another rune forged itself on his soul.

Congratulations! You have learned the rune Resilience! This rune may be used within any Runic Chant you forge.

Resilience. The ultimate expression of his manipulation of Dominion’s essence, at least as far as preserving the integrity of his prized artifacts went, distilling that nuance and meaning with far greater ease than he could do with his essence-infused Rune alone. He could all but taste the possibilities it might offer with his armor and weaponry before furrowing his brow, focusing on what mattered.

And what hadn’t changed at all.

He frowned, noting absolutely no change to his tuskers, no matter the ice cold shiver of sweetest potential he felt emanating from his ring.

He took a deep breath, scanning his surroundings for trouble, finally picking up the tail end of the fleeing infantry train, returning back to whence they came. A small smile came over his features as he noted on his interface map how retreating reds stopped before a growing disorganized mob of reds heading to the one territory he had failed to take, while taking far more of his foes lives than he ever had before. He could all too easily imagine the arguments breaking out behind whoever was leading the troops forward, and those ordering a retreat, after facing Eric and his tuskers.

“I’ll bet that will be a right god awful mess,” he said aloud with a bemused shake of his head. “It would be a real shame if I added to that, wouldn’t it?” He chuckled softly before summoning his tuskers after placing them back in the ring, as if restarting a program and hoping it had now loaded up the latest version. Silly or apt as the analogy was, his heart was definitely racing with anticipation…

And his mounts were exactly the same size as before.

He frowned. “Does it just not work on former Spirit Beasts?”

And that’s when he felt it. His heart raced with excitement as he lurched back, unable to believe his luck before taking a deep breath and pressing his hand to his favorite mount’s snout once more as the creature snorted and licked a sputtering Eric.

Tusker Level: 45 (64) – Note. Physical Resilience & Vitality have been boosted an additional 100%

“It boosted you guys a full 100%. A 100%! It counted every perk, including itself! Fucking awesome!” Eric declared with a smile, finally finding some peace from his racing thoughts, moral uncertainty, and too clear memories of the battles just survived by embracing what he should have been practicing far more often since he had returned to the world of his birth.

Taking deep breaths, feeling the connection of Heaven and Earth spiritual energy flowing through him even here, in a territory with hardly any spiritual energy at all.

But he could still cycle his Qi, feel the peace of his spiritual energy refining his body and soul, washing all doubt, all uncertainty away while his mounts, as if sensing his needs, eased their gallop to a slow gambol, allowing him almost half an hour of surprisingly rejuvenating meditation, not a single red blinking anywhere on the map for at least a mile in any direction.

Before he was lurched out of his fragile serenity by a sharp scream, followed by a desperate cry.

Eric’s heart pounded as he leaped off his mount, racing for a small rundown barn adjoining the dirt road his path intersected. One of a handful of buildings surrounded by a four foot deep trench and a five foot steep embankment, the most basic of earthworks that no doubt protected the farming community he was approaching from wild animals.

But clearly not invading orcs, as Eric glimpsed a scene that made his blood run cold.

Through the broken windows of a once well cared for home, he spotted two women shrieking under the attentions of a trio of grunting orcs.

“You killed him! You killed my son! You killed my—“

A massive paw slammed against the older woman’s jaw, knocking her out, perhaps killing her. A mercy, considering what the beasts proceeded to do to her daughter then.

Words that drew Eric’s eyes to glimpse the body of a young man gazing at the world with the sightless gave of the dead, his body torn open by savage blows of an axe, his blood sprayed across what had once no doubt been the family room. Eric flinched away from the exquisite patina of detail his 112 Perception caught even with the barest glimpse through the window, before being forced to take in the charring remains of an older man, perhaps the father, presently roasting on an outside spit of crude iron the orcs themselves seemed to have brought, Eric only able to tell the man’s rough age by the relatively unburned face kept out of direct flame. The indescribable anguish in his eyes made it clear he had been impaled alive before being put on a spit, complete with multiple apples shoved down a throat further forced open by the iron spike running the man completely through.

Eric’s growing doubts burned to ash as he raced for the doomed family as fast as a dream, seeming to appear before the grunting orcs, squealing with mirth in the blink of an eye.

One of them looked up from his act of depravity with a snarl… eyes going wide with confusion his skull went spinning lazily through the air.

Two others turned and grunted as one, not even able to cry out as Eric struck with a savage fury he had kept under such tight control in the encounters he had been forced to endure so far that night.

But no longer, Eric’s blade singing a fearsome crimson dirge that painted the gutted kitchen a brilliant shade of arterial red as two more orcs slumped to the ground, unable to stem the bloody stream of entrails spurting from their sundered bellies with the bloody stumps that had been their hands, just seconds ago.

Eric glared at the creatures writhing and squealing like the dying animals they were on the bload-soaked kitchen floor, before turning his gaze to the two horrified-looking woman whose lives Eric had just saved. Women who were staring at Eric with as much fear as they had the monsters Eric had so ruthlessly disemboweled.

Their eyes a dagger cutting into Eric far deeper than any orc blade ever could.

For long moments they were all locked in that frozen tableau, and Eric wanted nothing more than to flee from their pain-filled horrified gazes just as fast as he could.

“What? Who are you?” Grunted a clueless orc, stumbling into the kitchen, shattering that endless awful moment as the two women flinched and screamed, desperately scurrying away from the eight foot tall porcine horror who had eyes only for his dying men.

Eric howled, lashing out at the confused orc before him, his right hook hitting with such force that the confused orc’s skull exploded in a shower of bone, blood, and superheated brain, the kitchen itself catching ablaze as white hot flames erupted forth.

Fire Fist is now Rank 3!

Eric quickly fled what had once been a kitchen no doubt full of memories, before being transformed to a place of carnage and unspeakable horror, unable to even bare looking at the sobbing mother now clutching so tightly her catatonic daughter huddled in the corner, the girl’s sudden screams when she caught fresh sight of her blood-spattered rescuer searing Eric’s soul with the howls of shattered innocence and pain beyond all tolerance, all comprehension.

Beyond even his ability to endure.

Eric swallowed the lump in his throat.

There was no way he could tell them about Ashland.

Any promise of solace, hope, or comfort would be a lie.

There was nothing Eric could do for these people at all.

Save butcher every orc that he could in their name.

In the name of every refugee and survivor that had lost their loved ones to the monsters that dared to invade his home.

He would purge every last one of those fuckers from his world, and laugh in the face of anyone who would dare to question his morality or his ethics.

All one had to do was look at the horror and devastation behind him, the air ringing with the shrieks of a broken girl who had lost absolutely everything, to know just how worthy his enemies were of the oath he reaffirmed to the depths of his soul.

The abominations that had infected his world must die. So that no more families would be forced to endure the horrors suffered by the farmstead he fled from even now.

It really was that simple.

Everything else was just angsty bullshit unworthy of his concern, or his time.

With that resolve firmly in mind, he no longer felt a lick of regret for the choices he had made. Feeling no shame at all for the thousands of orcs that had died by his hand. Indeed, the shrieks now echoing in his heart compelled him to race toward the growing convergence of red dots blinking on his interface map with ever greater speed, eager to add their cries to the too lonely shrieks of the girl whose family he had failed to save, now endlessly echoing through his skull.

A fierce smile lit his features as he rubbed away the tears stinging his eyes, before laughing aloud with fierce abandon. Never had he felt so free of guilt’s chains. Never had he felt more eager to forge a masterwork of crimson pain as he brought death and despair to all his foes.

Because if he could make those monsters scream loud enough… it just might drown out the bitter sobs of all those innocent souls he had failed to save.