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Ch182-Strings Attached

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“Are you waiting for me to go first?” Sylver asked the horse creature.

There was something unnaturally grotesque about it. Every “living” creature had a certain pattern to it, a theme, a style.

One of Nyx’s theories was that the reason living creatures appeared to be ugly was because undead didn’t perceive the world in the same way the living did. They were therefore unable to see the pattern that determined whether something alive was beautiful or disgusting.

In Sylver’s case, it was a matter of getting used to the living appearing a certain way. In the same manner, a person will eventually get used to someone’s accent and after a certain point stop noticing, Sylver usually managed to do the same for most people’s appearances.

But this horse creature?

It somehow managed to hit that perfect sweet spot of not quite alive, and not quite dead.

It was beautiful, in the way a powerful creature was beautiful to look at. The sharp claws of a drake, the shiny scales of a serpent, the rough fur of a wolf, and in this particular case, the ice-cold and focused eyes of a predator starting Sylver down.

But at the same time, it was disgusting. Living tissue mixed with dead limbs contoured in a way that defied nature, the uneven breathing of a creature with no lungs, and the odd motionless stance as its body was suspended in the air by its 7 spider-like legs.

If this thing had been a necromancer’s creation, Sylver would have destroyed it out of principle. Then he would have had “a word” with whoever had the audacity to let something like this see the light of day.

But since it was born, Sylver couldn’t hate it, especially since it had a soul that was compatible with his.

Which, among other things, meant it had a personality and mindset that was similar to Sylver’s. Granted, the horse creature hadn’t had the multiple centuries of experiences that Sylver has had. But if it went through the same things he did, it would develop into the same kind of person he was right now.

Probably…

Soul “compatibility” wasn’t a subject Sylver had a lot of chances to study properly. Primarily because it wasn’t something of great interest to him. He knew enough about it to recognize it when he saw it, but everything else was purely theoretical.

Information he gathered from ancient grimoires, unreliable witches, and a talkative demi-god, that had a nasty habit of making shit up just to make himself sound impressive.

Sylver was caught off guard by the fact that he only noticed it when he shifted his weight. He just stared at it, a tiny droplet of water slowly floating closer and closer towards him, despite the fact that he wasn’t doing it.

As Sylver simultaneously attempted to use [Advanced Water Manipulation] and [Advanced Earth Manipulation] he discovered 2 interesting things.

He could still feel the water covering the strings, and he could feel them slowly cutting their way through the earth below his feet, but he couldn’t control either.

As Sylver produced a tiny spark at the end of his fingertip, the horse creature caught on that he caught on, and sprung the trap it had been preparing for him.

Sylver’s ability to see nearly 360 degrees around him came in handy since he had a perfect view of the various strings flying towards his neck, hands, and feet.

It was also the only reason he spotted the flaw in the horse’s attack.

As the strings came out of the grassy ground beneath Sylver’s feet, they brought with them an explosion of dirt. His form disappeared in the cloud of dust as the strings wrapped around his body and tightened to the point they should have sliced his head clean off.

The horse creature made a barking noise, and for a moment, its body shook with something akin to laughter, as it felt its target trapped and unable to so much as lift a finger to defend itself.

The sound of palm striking palm brought it out of its moment of celebration, as it flicked its head to the left, and saw Sylver clapping.

“I genuinely hope you simply don’t know how to enchant the strings individually. Because if that was you underestimating me, you should know I won’t fall for the same trick twice,” Sylver warned, as the horse’s various spider-like legs twitched and removed the bindings from the body still covered by the cloud of dust.

It very briefly saw a pale-faced corpse covered in its own blood from the various cuts all over its neck and face, as well as the small holes that seemed to have something hanging out of them. It stopped bothering with untangling the strings, and simply sliced them clean through the corpse, as it tried to wrap them around the Sylver standing on its left.

If not for the fact that the blood running in its veins was almost painfully hot right now, it would have turned into ice, as it felt a weight appear on its back. In the very edge of its peripheral vision, the horse creature saw Sylver sitting on the spikes protruding out of its spine.

Sylver tapped the shocked horse on the side of its neck.

“Good girl, never wait for the fight to start, always-”

Sylver disappeared and the tiny cloud of Sylver-shaped fog was sliced into pieces as the strings passed through it.

“Good reaction, don’t worry about the how always focus on-”

The horse creature slammed its body down into the ground, and a barely visible puff of cloudy air whooshed out from beneath it. Its breath caught in its throat as it felt a stinging pain, and as it curled its head down to check, it saw a small dart sticking out of the underside of its stomach.

The strings made a creaking sound as the horse wrapped them around itself and forced the dart to remain where it was.

“Smart, you know how not to bleed to death, but what about poison?” Sylver offered, off on the horse’s right, and just as before, disappeared a fraction of a second before the strings managed to get him.

He materialized directly on top of his old body’s clone, and with a flick of his hand, Sylver turned the cubed meat into more [Necrotic Mutilation]. It disappeared along with him as the strings tried to get him, but passed through cloudy fog.

A puff of red-tinged steam came out of the horse’s nose, as it moved its head around with the speed that a dog would wag its tail, and finally had the sense to look up. It saw Sylver standing upside down on the ceiling, with a dagger made out of condensed [Necrotic Mutilation].

The string was angled perfectly, and even when it missed, it didn’t so much as graze the hexagonal ceiling.

Sylver reappeared on the horse’s back and tapped the back of its head with the pommel of his dagger. It made a rapping sound, as Sylver hit it on the skull, hard enough that it felt it, but not hard enough to actually hurt it.

“Dead,” Sylver said, as he disappeared again, and appeared right in front of the horse’s head, and tapped it on the tip of its nose.

“Dead,” Sylver said, as he disappeared again, except now, he appeared almost 50 steps away from the horse.

“Unless you learn how to simultaneously use 2 spells at once, you’re not going to win,” Sylver offered. The horse seemed to be uninterested in his analysis and tried to cut through him once again.

The strings wrapped around Sylver’s armored up body, and squeezed and slithered their way through the gaps in his helmet, and-

“You’re not getting those back!” Sylver shouted, from directly behind the horse.

Its head whipped around, and as the strings that had been wrapped around the empty suit of [Necrotic Mutilation] armor tried to pull themselves away. Instead, they got stuck in the gelatinous goop that kept swirling the strings attached to it around, and tied them into tangled knots.

Sylver appeared on the horse’s back again, and due to the lack of armor, came very close to having something vital pierced by the spikes on its spine. He didn’t even say anything as he slapped the horse on the side of the head with his open palm and disappeared before it even had a chance to react.

As Sylver’s robe yanked the spike out of his thigh, he discovered that they were barbed.

And going by the way his left leg was quickly going numb, very poisonous.

“What else can you do?” Sylver asked.

His lips didn’t finish closing on the O in “do,” as the horse’s horns appeared right in front of his face, and Sylver just barely managed to use [Fog Form] in time to dodge out of the way.

His fog was sucked up into an impossibly powerful stream of hyper condensed air and had no choice but to rematerialize prematurely. Sylver’s robe blocked one of the horse’s claws from slashing the back of his neck open and helped Sylver use the force of the blunted impact to push himself as far away from the creature as possible.

Sylver was still mid-flight when the horse once again lunged at him. It was so fast that only the fact that he could feel the water droplets floating in the air around it get frozen from the high pressure, provided him with enough warning to lean out of the way.

As the horse turned around midair again and aimed the antlers at his face, Sylver realized what it was doing. His robe stopped the antlers from impaling his face, as Sylver ever so lightly interfered in the creature’s spell, by kicking it on the side of its hind legs.

Sylver was left covered in a spray of blood, as the creature was flung away from him, and was now missing its two back left legs. They landed near Sylver and tore the grass apart as the spell finished unraveling.

Sylver used [Dead Dominion] to float the conjoined legs closer to him, and then made them disappear into one of his bones.

As Sylver made the blood that coated his body disappear, he found something that didn’t belong to him, embedded deep into his stomach. He looked down as he reached for it with his hand, and found the tip of the dart he had stabbed the horse with, sticking out from within the folds of his robe.

He struggled to grab it as he couldn’t get a proper grip on it, due to the layer of strings wrapped around it.

The horse-creature managed to climb back onto its remaining 5 feet, by the time Sylver was able to pull the dart out.

“Going by how smoothly you managed to cancel out your air resistance, your affinity for wind magic must be insane. But in the future, do keep in mind that you’re not the only one who can nullify magic, and maybe don’t surround yourself with that much pressure, you’d be surprised how flammable it is,” Sylver said.

As he inspected the dart, Sylver felt a sense of pride at the fact that his soon-to-be partner was clever enough to trick him. Sylver’s best guess was that it was using their connection to predict what he was going to do, to move the dart through his blind spot.

Sylver disappeared the dart away into his [Bound Bones] storage, and brushed invisible dust off his robe, as he maintained eye contact with the horse.

It shimmered in the air for a moment, but Sylver didn’t even bother waiting for it to attack, and simply raised his finger to point upwards. He kept pointing, as the horse zig zagged while it tried to stealthily float towards him.

It stopped moving when it was about 20 meters away from him.

“I can see the mana you’re using to bend light around yourself,” Sylver said, as the horse just stood there.

He continued pointing at it.

“You’ve got talent. And you’re strong. All you’re missing is some training and experience. Both of which I will provide you with,” Sylver offered at the invisible monster.

Sylver heard a thudding sound and lowered his finger slightly. The field of air that made the horse invisible fizzled out into nothing as it lost concentration. The grass it was laying on was bright red, on account of the blood that was leaking through the impromptu bandage the horse creature had created.

“You need to tie the arteries up, otherwise you’re going to pass out,” Sylver explained, but could already see by the way the creature was gradually lowering its head that it wasn’t paying all that much attention to him.

Sylver looked up towards the ceiling where Bruno was peering down at them, from one of the hexagonal spider-bee holes.

“Do you have a healing potion for her or something?” Sylver shouted at the understandably upset man.

He wordlessly reached into his sleeve and pulled out a tiny flask. He threw it at the horse, and Sylver caught it as he materialized next to it.

Sylver was just about to lean down to pour the potion into the horse’s mouth when he disappeared and materialized a distance away from it.

Sylver stood where he was for 10 silent seconds, after which, the horse rolled onto its back and snorted with disappointment in his general direction.

“My people invented playing dead. But I appreciate the effort,” Sylver said.

If anyone else had tried playing dead when fighting him, he would have taken it very very personally. But it’s only fitting that a necromancer’s steed knew such a classic move.

Sylver grinned a little as the monster tried to stand up, but couldn’t gather enough strength into its legs. All jokes aside, it did lose a lot of blood when Sylver blew its legs off.

“Do you want to keep fighting, or is this enough? I’ve still got my shades that I haven’t used, I’ve got explosives, I can bury you in soil, I can throw ice at you, I can simply suck the life out of you. You’re physically stronger than me, but you need a lot more experience to know how to properly utilize all that strength,” Sylver said at the monster, who finally gave up in its attempt to stand, and just stared at him.

Sylver straightened his back and walked towards the monster as he spoke.

“My name is Sylver Sezari. As it stands I am currently a creature I don’t feel comfortable describing as a half lich, but I am nonetheless very powerful. More than that, I have more knowledge and experience than you can possibly imagine,” Sylver explained to the horse-shaped monster, as he gestured towards the untouched wooden bowl being held by a shade in the distance and made it bring it to him.

Sylver sat down next to the horse’s head and placed the bowl a short distance away from it.

“If you drink this, you will be bound to me. I’ll always know where you are, I’ll be able to summon you whenever I wish, and as long as I exist, so will you…” Sylver said to the horse.

It was a bit like harmonic resonance, their souls were similar enough that Sylver could feel what the monster was feeling in his own soul. It was tired, hungry, in an incapacitating amount of pain, and something too crude for Sylver to comprehend.

“But you’re going to die… Your body is unsuited for being alive. But if you’re willing, I can resurrect you. Your soul is strong, you’ll retain all your memories, you’ll barely notice the difference… I will make some adjustments, to make you more comfortable, and more powerful,” Sylver explained.

The creature opened its mouth and superheated steam escaped and burned the nearby grass to cinders.

A very thin and weirdly conical tongue fell out, and like a snake, began to slither through the grass towards the bowl filled with a pale white glowing liquid.

“A proboscis? Why does… Never mind, the drinking is more symbolic than literal,” Sylver said.

The thin straw of a tongue stopped just short of the bowl. Sylver felt a pang within his chest and followed the creature’s line of sight. It was staring upwards, towards where Bruno was hiding in the ceiling.

“Can you come down, I think she wants to say something!” Sylver shouted.

Bruno was lowered to the ground, and Sylver watched as the walls were covered in spider-based chimera, who all crawled down onto the ground, and followed behind Bruno. They gathered around the horse monster in a tight circle but kept their distance.

“Can you understand her?” Bruno asked Sylver, who shrugged his shoulders.

“Not verbatim, it’s more than simply reading body language, but less than telepathy. She’s happy. And proud. Also oddly anticipating something, but I don’t understand what exactly. Something to do with feathers,” Sylver said hesitantly, as he did his best to puzzle out the feelings being mirrored inside him.

“Probably Aleri. He came out of the pit a couple of days before she did, but he died within the first month. I prepared his corpse for you to use, and whenever she was home, she normally slept next to him,” Bruno said.

His guess was confirmed by the fact that Sylver felt a blip of joy when she heard Aleri’s name. The horse’s tongue moved another inch towards the bowl.

“She’s a bit upset that she didn’t manage to kill me. But I’m also getting the feeling she understands how impressive it was that she damaged me,” Sylver said as he patted the almost completely sealed-up wound in his stomach.

“What is this anyway? I know you said it used to be a piece of Igri’s staff, but I’ve never seen such a highly concentrated framework before. What does it do?” Bruno asked as the horse’s straw of a tongue was now touching the wooden bowl.

Sylver couldn’t help it, it had to drink it by its own choice.

“A very primitive enslavement curse. Or rather, that’s the base of the spell, I only left the parts that bind us together… Technically it’s a marriage spell. Till death do us part, and all that. Although that takes on an entirely different meaning given that I only ever use this on undead,” Sylver explained, as he placed a hand on the horse’s head and brushed the small fin-like spikes backward.

Bruno just looked at the horse, who seemed to be blinking less and less with every passing moment.

“It’s afraid. Understandable, most are afraid of dying,” Sylver said.

Bruno placed his hand onto the horse’s head and Sylver felt the moment it dipped its tongue into the glowing liquid and took a metaphorical drink.

The ring would act similar to a staff, although in a very indirect way. It would help Sylver get a grip on his and the horse’s connection to fortify it.

“I usually put the ones that are like this down before they open their eyes. She couldn’t breathe when she was born, couldn’t properly eat food, was always starving, and her lower half wasn’t working. Felt less cruel that way. With the healthy ones, at least they die in a fight, or from natural causes, this thing was destined for a slow death from the moment it was born,” Bruno explained.

“Still… She lived a good life. At least in her mind, it was a good life. You didn’t name her,” Sylver said.

He didn’t need to ask, he felt it, in the vague way the horse was referring to itself.

“She had a code I assigned her, but I assign everything a code. I only give the ones I know are going to live more than a month a name. Or rather, one of the kids does. This one was on death's door every single day of its life. Every time it went out into the dungeon to hunt, I honestly didn’t expect to see it come back,” Bruno explained, as the horse’s tongue slithered back into its mouth, with the tip glowing a little.

“I see…” Sylver said.

The horse made a sound as if it was about to throw up, but instead, its throat began to glow. The light spread out into its veins, and Sylver could see an outline of its circulatory system, from all the vessels glowing underneath the creature’s pale skin.

“How does Morana for a name sound?” Sylver asked.

Bruno’s eyes widened a little.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t the Amphitrites have an issue with that?” Bruno asked.

“There are no more Amphitrites. Edmund killed all of them, and then I helped him starve their god out. She’s going to bring me to Edmund, so I thought the name was fitting. It was the last thing we did together before we were promoted to arches,” Sylver said.

“Morana, Morana… Winter, death, and wind… Oh, I get it. The story of Morana walking alongside the corpse, you’re the corpse, I see,” Bruno said with a very faint chuckle.

“That too, but also their head priest used strings, and back then I must have died… 8 times? Used to be all you needed to kill me was to cut my head off. But as Nyx always says, for all of its faults necromancy has an inherent advantage that all the other magics don’t,” Sylver explained, as all 4 of the horse’s eyes that he could see were now closing.

“What’s that?” Bruno asked.

[N/A (N/A) Defeated!]

[Due to defeating an enemy 40 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 29!

+5AP

[Vigorous Conditioning (III) Proficiency increased to 2%!]

It felt like someone plucked a string that had been connected to Sylver’s very essence. The string moved up and down, and vibrated, playing a note that was impossible to describe.

And with every shake and passing second, Sylver felt the string tighten and solidify until it was no longer a string, but rather, a bridge.

[Koschei] has reached level 10!

+5AP

+Perk [N/A]

+Trait [N/A]

“Death is not the end,” Sylver said, as the slit on the palm of his hand opened up and started pouring his mana into Morana’s corpse.