From an onlooker’s perspective, all it took were a few purple beams and most of the captains and senior mages, including Elic, the leader of the Deep Water Organization, bit the dust. The leaders who were not in this mission were in Blue Tear City.
Seeing that their leaders were mercilessly defeated this easily, more than 390 Deep Water Organization members entered a state of shock.
There still were some captains in these crowds who were experienced and battle-hardened. They noticed the aghast state of their members and started shouting out, awakening them from their stupor.
“Do not stand still! Move towards the city… Fall back! Fall back!”
With their captains sounding the retreat, all members backed towards the city in a hurry.
Thump thump thump…
Footsteps of the fleeing army of mages filled the Anderium Forest. Nick did not chase them down.
He slowly got out of the cave after inspecting the surroundings with his Wave Radar and examined the leaders’ corpses.
Other than Elic and Avir, all the other corpses were destroyed; broken flesh and blood being the only signs of the once human body.
“I need to take these two corpses. They will serve as experimental subjects and will show that I destroyed the Deep Water Organization members and disrupted their force.”
Nick removed the corpses’ space rings and checked if there were any valuable items there. Other than some measly amount of Ether Stones, he did not find anything of value that merited his attention.
After cleaning the battlefield, he used Wave Radar one last time and noticed that almost all members were now at a distance of about 10KM from his location.
Sunlight had transformed the forest once with warm colors by now, accompanied by the sounds of birds chirping and insects buzzing. But all of this was pounding on Nick’s brain that had reached the f** end of an extreme overdrive.
He took a deep breath and rushed towards the Underbroom Cave. He needed to check and defend the place for some more time before the Werfur race mages appeared. He already notified Rabial about the events so far.
—
In Blue Tear City, much was happening inside a dark, quaint manor. Elena’s father, the Devian Family leader, Artor Devian, was sitting in a small room that was adorned with black ink paintings, fashioned in gothic style decor.
He was reading the papers, with the hints of a smile on his face.
“Lilly, Elic, Arimo, Avir, Verantil, and more than 100 mages from the Deep Water Organization are dead. Not much about the enemy is known though, the only intel that could be attained was that the mage’s name is ‘Epsilon’.
“The information gathered indicated that Epsilon has connections with the Werfur Race. He attacked and killed Deep Water Organization members and leaders because they were trying to occupy the Underbroom Cave, whose current rights belong to the Werfur Base – Anderium.”
Artor did not care about this unknown mage. The only thing he was interested in were the spoils. Now that the Deep Water Organization lost almost all its important leaders and over 100 mages, with his power and allies, it should not be hard to take away what the Deep Water Organization had collected.
He also believed that with the right propaganda, the remaining organization members would leave it for benefits, and he could pay the leaders to take over the organization completely.
In the end, this was good news.
As Artor read the documents, there was a knock on the door.
Artor’s smile deepened.
“Come in.”
The door opened and a woman entered the room. This woman was no stranger. She was Elena, the very same mage student, Elena Devian, who was responsible for Nick and who was also killed by her slave. After tedious amounts of work, Artor and the other mages of the Devian Family managed to resurrect her and turned her into a Prive Level Undead.
The deed had its downsides too. While Elena had her mind and was capable of thinking and talking, since she had died once, she would always remain at the Prive level. She needed constant sacrifices or Ether Stones to keep her body functional. This was a hard thing to do but for a family like Devian, it was worth the trouble.
Not only was Elena the princess of the Devian Family but she was also the daughter of Artor and granddaughter of the Clan Ancestor Nerebial.
As Elena entered the room, she started speaking.
“Father, was there any news of that slave yet?”
Artor shook his head and informed her.
“I am sorry my daughter, but it seems like the slave who attacked and killed you has vanished from the face of the world. No matter how many mages were used for the search, we could not find him.”
Elena closed her eyes and did not say anything. Her beauty was long gone. She was after all undead. Her body always exuded the stench of rot, and she needed to consume Ether Stones or kill humans to absorb their energy.
This was not life at all. In reality, though, she should be happy. She was already dead. But now, she was still talking, moving around, capable of thinking—all this was death-defying.
If what Artor and the others did to Elena was known in the Blue Tear City, its people would use every power and mage available to destroy the Devian Family.
Not because dark magic or necromancy was not liked or punishable by death. The Devian Family did not perform dark magic or necromancy on Elena.
Instead, they resurrected a dead person with a fully active mind and body. This was not necromancy.
This was directly defying the ‘Death Law’. And the ‘Laws’ did not like any living beings whom they did not have a relationship with, to defy them. The ones who tried to do so and control the laws would be punished. At that time, it would not be a city or an organization that would mete out the punishment, but it would be the law itself to do so.
Artor and the others did not put the Death Law in their eyes. They thought that these cautionary tales about the laws were told to others so that the real powerful ones could keep all the power for themselves.
They performed a dark magic spell that could be cast only by a dark mage who had some kind of relationship with Death Law and understood it.
But Artor and the other mages of the Devian Family ignored this rule and cast the spell anyway. Death Law will punish them and the reason why Blue Tear City would want to destroy the Devian Family was that they did not want to be swept away in that retribution as well.
