Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Capital Knights and Capital Order Knights were already rallying towards the gate, all thanks to an inconspicuous signal that had been sent by fellow Capital Service combatants stationed at the lookout posts. This was done in order to not cause panic among the larger majority of civilians in the city.r

For the most part, it worked.r

The Capital Knights lead those who had been waiting to go through screening outside the gates inside promptly, and quarantined them so that they wouldn't spread news of the silent approach of an unusual enemy.r

Each delay of the inevitable burst of panic counted, and the full force of the Capital Service began to mobilise, prompted to such drastic action by higher level combatants in the hierarchy who recognised the true level of the threat.r

Other than Capital and Capital Order Knights, Honoured Level personnel rose up the wall, looking beyond it.r

Four Mages decked in pristine white robes, in their hands tall staves of different quality, stood over the mighty height separating the outside and Genhuis, their silence telling of the fact that they were reading the situation through the ambient mana.r

Two Tamers could also be seen, the lustre of their ivory armour, different from the silver that the lesser ranked members of Capital Service wore, giving reassurance to their capability.r

The dash of flair as the colour matched the snow also made them stand out, though that wouldn't contribute to the fight ahead.r

Despite the large number of combatants ready to guard the city, their collective presence could not be compared to that of a tall and aloof woman who stood at the highest point of a large building close to the gate in the city, her velvet hair featuring playful curls billowing in the wind while a thick shield rested on her back.r

With her eyes that saw it fitting to give the current crisis their attention, she identified six enemies in total, approaching Genhuis from two miles out.r

Their slow march was incredibly eerie.r

It was like a march performed by the incarnated forms of despair, terror... and emptiness.r

To make matters worse, it wasn't actually slow.r

It only looked slow to incompetent eyes.r

These things were pretty fast, but something around him distorted the weaving of mundane reality to give the illusion that their grand approach would last for an hour and some.r

They were spaced equidistantly from each other, the space they covered surrounding close to a third of the city wall.r

"What are those things?" Ornamont frowned, her caution and apprehension melding together to bring her focus to its peak.r

These creatures had different appearances and sizes, but it was obvious that they were part of a similar collective.r

The tallest among them was 3,5 meters tall and strangely muscular while the shortest was no more than a meter in height and unnervingly thin. While these creatures had humanoid appearances â€" for the most part â€" they had varying excess... additions, to their forms that rubbed everyone that looked at them the wrong way. r

Despite the plentiful differences though, the look in these creatures' eyes as they marched towards Genhuis was the same. Be it from narrow slits, or large, circular sockets, the same dim, sky blue glow suffused from their eyes.r

That calm light... that calm light made Onarmont's frown grow deeper.r

While she was looking over these creatures, she heard the ring of thousands of feet trampling over the ground within the city, their destination seemingly being far away from the gate. Ornamont didn't need to turn away from the threat ahead to know that a certain Paladin Champion was evacuating the civilians deeper into the city.r

That worked. r

There was most certainly going to be a hard fight here from the looks of it.r

A few seconds later, a vibrant dash of orange light painted the city generously, along with a terrifying explosion from deep within the confines of Genhuis.r

A massive sphere emitting dazzling radiance had descended from the sky, leaving it with only a single sun. This ball of light which had acted as surveillance sat over one of the mansions in the distance and shortly after, the residence was smashed apart with startling viciousness.r

For this, Ornamont had to give glance.r

'What Gillewart was talking about... He must be dealing with the other enemy,' she thought before jumping to the wall where one of the Mages raised his staff, a treacherous amount of mana gathering at its head with an ominous hum.r

He pointed his staff at one of the creatures in distance, completely ignoring the disturbances behind him, and a single spot of unsteady energy the size of a finger nail emerged at its end before draining the light in the surroundings voraciously. It turned to a refulgent golden red hue, a blistering heat so fierce that it caused a whirling mirage all around quickly accompanying it!r

In the next split moment, the spot of hot energy shot out at the speed of sound towards one of the enemies approaching the city from the direction of the gate.r

The creature saw the spot of a light approach but did not move even as the hurtling radiance bulged with every passing meter, becoming a giant ball of dancing fiery death that smashed point blank into it!r

An explosion of epic proportions ensued.r

The ground would have a tale or two to tell afterwards, as a scorching wind blew from the point of contact to lick the combatants on the wall while plumes of smoke that rose high and frankly too far obscured the view far ahead with sparks buried within them.r

Did it work?r

It didn't seem like the Mages or Ornamont believed so.r

When a pair of luminous, sky blue sockets emerged from the thick, intangible dark left behind after the ground was charred, no one showed surprise.r

The creature that had been aimed for, one with uniformly deformed skin that looked like tree bark, all in a dark blue hue, was unfazed and unharmed. Its face which looked like it had been halfway gnawed through by rot, leaving what looked like a skull beneath its ugly skin showed nothing but cool indifference... as did the two, short horns on either sides of its head.r

With its continued march, the other two Mages stepped forward and extended their staves.r

The Elemental Patch had proven ineffective, so they chose to try more advanced forms of Magecraft.r

One of the two swept her staff through the air from the direction where the first blue creature was to where the last could be seen.r

As she did, the details of the daylight lit world vanished, becoming smothered by a darkness so firm that it was as if the very horizon had been painted into a lustreless black.r

Quickly, everything five hundred meters away from the city was obscured by the dark veil, burying it within the absolute black.r

It would certainly be unamusing for a regular human to see such a thing, as a feat like this was godlike but...r

The Mage who cast the darkness frowned a little.r

All six creatures walked out from the darkness at the same time, unperturbed, resuming their approach.r

Ornamont narrowed her eyes.r

These creatures had been cast into absolute darkness. From the looks of Mage who cast it, the targets were supposed to lose their sense of direction while submerged but these creatures... these creatures were immune to the absurdity of her powers.r

The other Mage had been prepared to take a shot.r

He funnelled mana into his staff and...r

A rumbling ensued.r

The ground ahead groaned over the stretch of land where the beasts were walking on and soon, the thick snow rose into the sky, followed by pebbles, then small rock, then large masses of the once intact ground!r

An overbearing force heaved everything on the ground up, creating a reversal of a natural law that plunged the world below into the world above!r

Gravity had been reversed!r

The sheer scale of the power was frightening as for the mundane eye, everything it could see was flung up at an untamed speed, as if to relocate the vast expanse of Pelian elsewhere!r

Yet...r

'That settles it...' Ornamont said as she took a step forward, dropping below from the wall.r

Six beasts continued to walk forth.r

Even as the ground beneath their feet shot up, they continued to march ahead unperturbed, their footing looking to be the uninhabited air itself.r

The Mages couldn't believe it. There wasn't even any struggle.r

Sure, they had other advanced tricks but they were based on what they just shown and from the looks of it, these enemies seemed to be immune to magic!r

"Stop. I'll take care of it," Ornamont ordered as she took unhurried steps to meet the enemy.r

Her lone figure as she trudged through the snowy ground, her velvet hair and like-coloured leather armour pitted against it in colour, was strangely picturesque. Adding the fact that she was about to face six unreasonably powerful â€" or at the very least resilient â€" enemies, only made it even more of a legendary view.r

The seasoned veteran drew her shield from her back and held it in one hand.r

It was at least six inches thick with an oval shape about it, three stripes of crimson, silver and gold on its face which looked to have weathered through countless battles. r

Ornamont took a deep breath.r

'It would have been convenient if I could use my Territory but I don't have the skill to control the Nitros perfectly yet. I'll have to pick them off one by one, which won't be easy. Hopefully Ruhrees lends a helping hand soon,' she thought.r

Generally, Incandescent Stage experts did not use their Territory near areas with other lesser combatants. It was an unspoken rule.r

The blast of Nitros from their bodies could erase matter, superimposing itself on the nearby environment and unless an Incandescent Stage expert reached a sufficient level or better yet transcended the Incandescent Stage altogether, they wouldn't be able to effectively use their trump card around civilians without killing everyone and everything.r

And indeed, unlike the Full Body Aura of a Advancement Stage expert or the Genuine Incarnation of a Master Stage expert, Majestic Territories were trump cards. They would more often than not sap every last drop of energy from their user, leaving them vulnerable and as such weren't used lightly.r

This was the main reason Ornamont wasn't willing to use such a thing yet.r

The velvet haired woman stormed forward, the hard ground under her greaves exploding into shards as she, a rare of breed of monster called a Shield Master, viciously went for an attack.r

Her body was dyed in a radiant white light for a split second as she reached the horned creature that had been attacked by the Mages just now, leapt up and brought down her shield!r

The speed she showed was disorienting for the onlookers.r

Her arm blurred with a film of beaming white light slicing through her enemy from above.r

At least that was what should have happened.r

That was what the eyes of seasoned Masters saw.r

Yet... it was false.r

Ornamont struck an afterimage.r

Her enemy had moved slightly, angling their body to the side to dodge the blow.r

The Shield Master was not dismayed.r

From the ground where her shield had plunged, causing an unrestrained shockwave to roll outward, she tensed her muscles and followed up with a series of swipes with the item's edge, a crackle of the shrieking air spawning each time... each unsuccessful time.r

The creature dodged minimally, which was an incredible feat considering that by the time five seconds passed, Ornamont had struck close to four hundred times.r

'Its nimble. In a match of physicality I'm outmatched. Worse yet, this bastard is only using the slightest movements to dodge. In that case...' Ornamont thought, '...just for a single moment...'r

She leapt back and smirked, guarding her body with her shield before...r

"O graceful maker of the skies, abolish all weakness from this vessel and grant it a moment of omnipotent respite..." Ornamont chanted in a low voice.r

Before she even finished the last word from her sentence, the skies above had already cleared of cloud and cover, a sharp brilliance that highlighted Ornamont's body, as if spelling to everyone that she was some kind of beckoned for the heavens, descended and with it...r

The Shield Master roared, a look of longing... and eagerness on her face.r

White, illusory flames burned lightly over her body, enthralling the Capital Service experts on the wall and almost doing the same for her enemy.r

The Shield Master didn't waste time appreciating herself though.r

In fractions of stalled time, she had crossed the short distance between her and her enemy, a trail of furious fire left in her charge. She rammed into the enemy with more than five times her normal output of mana, explosive strength and speed.r

The result was nothing short of cataclysm.r

The three Mages hurriedly erected a barrier around the city before the avalanche of snow, dust, flame and rubble bashed violently against a third of the city without care, a painfully devastating shudder humming through the ground.r

It was madness.r

It was unthinkable that one human, without enhancing themselves with Aura or Nitros could unleash such might.r

But it was so, and this impact was subdued because Ornamont was an expert at utilising her power without wasting the majority of it. r

Incandescent Stage experts, besides being blessed with nightmarish physical abilities and the ability to create a mini world of their own, were also capable of fully manifesting their blessing.r

To graduate from being common to the Foundation Stage, one had to see a Priest, get their Direction read and receive a blessing from any one of the Deities of their choice.r

It wasn't a grand blessing by any means, like for the Paladin Champions but it was a blessing nonetheless.r

This blessing was usually dormant and would only grow when said individual raided Clusters to be gifted the Conqueror's Halo and an augmentation of their blessing for their service.r

Most did not even know what their blessing could do till it grew from clearing countless Clusters.r

However...r

When one reached the Incandescent Stage, the blessing would awaken on its own, becoming free for them to use.r

Ornamont had such a thing in her pocket.r

The ground beneath the chill broke, webs of fracturing extending miles from the origin of the deafening and vibrant explosion.r

Within the cover of obscurity that wouldn't blow over for a while, Ornamont stared unblinkingly at the ridiculousness before her.r

'I put my back into that... dammit,' she thought as a droplet of sweat trickled down her brow to touch the corner of her sheepish smile.r

The edge of shield was stuck against the jaw of her blue enemy but the monster remained still, unfazed and unmoved by her fivefold increase in strength which had smashed into it just now.r

This was... this was unreal.r

Ornamont drew back her shield and regained her cool, aiming to attack again but...r

For the first time, the blue creature before her moved.r

It cocked back its arm, moulded its hand into a fist under Onarmont's bewildered eyes... and threw a lazy punch.r

--r

[Author's Note]r

I'm very sorry for the sudden disappearance. Something unexpected happened and I couldn't really write chapters for the past week or so. It's not a sensitive issue but I'm really sorry. I'll do my best to make it worthwhile for you, privilege readers and otherwise, before and after the month ends. You can be sure of it. Thank you for your patience.r