From the air, it was self-evident where Dalian's domain ended, and the Black Zone began. Past the landbridge, past the precipitous rise of the Heishan, the late autumn forest turned to sickly stumps, then into blasted soil devoid of life.

"That's actually from spellfire inundating the landscape," Lieutenant Jinwei Hān, 1st Force-Recon, Fudan's Advisor, replied with a glance. "We run periodic training exercises as well as Purges in the region. When an overflow disrupts the ley-lines, the land becomes inconducive to life."

Gwen floated beside the Lieutenant, her porcelain-white armour gleaming in the morning sun. Behind her, the team fanned out, with Lulan and Richard on either side, and Eunae and Mayuree sheltered in-between.

Their liaison was a PLA officer in his early thirties, though thanks to a cracked and weathered mien, the man appeared older. Measuring just five-foot-five, the Air Transmuter-Evoker had the typical stone-face syndrome which afflicted northern military men.

"Do you know my Uncle?" Gwen's eyes brushed over the man's unit insignia, possessing the Chinese pictogram for "One".

"Never had the luck." Hān shook his head. "As his junior, I must say, I am glad I'm not from his generation. The unit replenishment rate during Captain Song's moment of glory was almost ninety per cent. Who could envy that?"

"Jesus." Gwen grimaced, as did her team. "Is it that bad now?"

"Not nearly. The Undead are losing their momentum. Running out of living bodies. That's why we're pushing back." The Lieutenant grinned at Fudan's vice-captain. "We've fought them to a standstill for almost two decades now. Even Necromancers need supplies—"

"Contact, North-North-West, two klicks. Zombies." Mayuree's voice blossomed just below the assault team's ears. From up on high, it was easy to spot the Undead by sight, though all humanoid specimens appeared identical when viewed from afar.

Hān listened to the orders transmitted into his ear, confirming Mayuree's intelligence.

"Vice-captain, this will be your first sortie." The officer's voice filled their Message Devices. "Standing Orders are to neutralise hostiles in quadrant 44-D2. Will you accept?"

"Understood!" Gwen saluted inexpertly.

The whole setup of the Chinese IIUC round was suspect, Gwen felt. The idea was that the student teams were auxiliaries who receive real-time objectives assigned by the frontline troops. That way, they "participated" in the war, and were at the same time safe where the fighting couldn't accidentally swallow them wholesale. It was very much a curated experience, one that Gwen felt was ripe for underhanded advantages.

The boon, of course, was that Fudan stood to benefit, as per the point and purpose of choosing home ground. Winning with an extra ace from the dealer was no skin off her nose. She was no child, and possessed no idealistic delusions that the world was fair. Whatever advantage they received, she would take. Whatever disadvantage they faced, she would overcome. As a future Frontiers woman in London, having more matches under her belt would ease the favour Lady Grey had to afford with Richard and anyone else she desired to bring with her.

Beside her, her cousin and Lulan closed ranks, while Mayuree and Eunae took up defensive positions in the rear. Somewhere above, where the Elemental Air was thickest, Golos coasted on unseen currents.

"Our first swarm!" Gwen's clarion voice echoed as Richard and Lulan activated their buffs even as Eunae Aided and Blessed the team. "Let's do this!"

A Zombie Horde!

Gwen had seen her share of World War Z, but that didn't' stop her eyes from watering when they arrived downwind of the ambling mass. From a bird's eye view, the ghastly sight appeared a knot of pixilated tendrils, fragmenting and budding, moving forward not as individual bodies but as a living, breathing Undead thing.

"Dull Sense!" Gwen activated Walken's long-promised Transmutation. Below, the Undead walkers made steady pace southward. The sight was almost reposed, now that she could no longer smell anything. Where she had anticipated a rush of rotting fresh barrelling toward distant Dalian, the reality was that the swarm sent out "feelers" of meandering runners before absorbing them back into the throng. Without a foe, the Zombies were entirely placid.

"What's the count?" Richard scanned the roving mass below them.

"Between three and four hundred." Mayuree performed a quick calculation.

"Lieutenant, may I request advice?" Gwen wasn't shy with potential short cuts.

"You may. I would suggest bundling these CCs tighter," Hān replied. "Do use bait."

"Live bait?"

"A good Cleric ought to do it. Zombies mindlessly seek out life and positive energy."

The party turned to regard Eunae, who grew instantly white. _Not me,_ her lips appeared to say. _Please, for the love of Korean Jesus, not me._

"Eunnie, its time for you to make Seoul proud!" Gwen grinned at the Cleric. "Have no fear, Dick is here!"

Eunae wanted to hold Luyi tight to her chest, but her doe wasn't capable of flight.

"Lea!" Gwen's cousin entreated his smiling she-devil. "Make sure not a single hair on Eunae's head is molested by the dead!"

Zombies.

In their past life, when they were still men and women, the ambling corpses had been fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Now, they were driven by insatiable hunger and an implanted drive to move south, caring only to increase the swarm's number.

Though sans mind, sans eyes and sans taste, each Zombie was acutely attuned to the presence of vitality. For months since emerging from Shenyang, the horde had shuffled across the tablelands, fording the Beida River by stepping on the floundering bodies of their fellows, splintering and reforming as the swarm ebbed and flowed.

Abruptly, the Zombie Horde turned.

Now that they scented the presence of life, a strange focus overcame the meandering figures of blackened blood and rigid flesh.

"MUURRRRRGN!"

Sensing the sweet presence of a life-bringing Cleric, the swarm began to boil like fingerling fishes at feeding time.

Nailless digits dug into cold flesh preserved by the Negative energies empowering their disfigured muscles. Limbs distended, tongues outstretched and yellow teeth gnashed. By the dozens, the Zombies piled toward their new messiah, climbing atop each other to reach her trembling, tender flesh.

Above the mindless swarm, the students watched, waiting for the Zombie pile to reach critical mass.

"MAELSTROM!" came the sound of a rumbling female voice.

Emerald lightning crackled across a cloudless blue sky. With a shuddering roar of thunder, a portal opened into the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning. An enormous vortex of air began to form, quickly descending in the guise of a cyclonic eye, vacuuming the flailing limbs, ascending their ghoulish flesh into gentle oblivion.

"Eunnie! Hold on for five more minutes!"

"She'll be right, mate." Richard kept up his spherical water shield even as a trail of white water fed into the vortex. "I've got a good RPM going, Eunae's untouchable."

"ARRRRRRRGH!" Eunae shrieked, caught between a Zombie Horde and a portal choked with living lightning.

While the healer's howls reverberated across the horizon, the horde depleted. When finally their numbers dwindled under a hundred, Gwen ceased channelling the spell and allowed the duration to play out on its own.

"Ariel! Caliban!" She allowed her Familiars to descend and stretch their limbs. Ariel sent forth bursts of intermittent lightning drawn from Gwen's Bolts, obliterating the stragglers. Caliban's spider form skittered across the battlefield, ignored by the Zombies, harvesting heads.

Not far, Lulan pounded the survivors into mince with iron girders.

Doubling her duty, Gwen fulminated as she swept the battlefield, picking off cadavers that her Maelstrom failed to absorb.

Mayuree kept up her Detect Foe until the final feeling of danger faded. "Three... two... Alright! Mission accomplished!"

"Very good, I shall verify your results." Lieutenant Hān descended. "I was hoping to see Lord Golos in action."

"He gets hungry if he exercises too much," Gwen explained. "I'll save him for bigger foes."

In her opinion, they had done a decent job. The worst aspect of fighting Zombies is when chopped up creatures continued to function. These crawling swarms, known as "Biters" or "Creepers" were a nightmare for the PLA's NoM troops.

Closer to the ground, Gwen noted that the shamblers wore the garb of military men as well as clothes worn by peasants. The gender divide, in so far as such a thing was plausible to consider, was also male-centric. As the stories of the Front had foretold, the roving hordes consisted of fallen PLA troops mixed in with missing peasants from the Manchurian Frontier.

"Well done!" came the approval from Lieutenant Hān. "Twenty-six minutes, a lesser party would have taken a least three hours. I'll Message over the debriefing while we continue our flight."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gwen's eyes swept over the fallow earth.
Her chest constricted.
To think that these were once men and women, full of hope and desire.

"Lead on, Lieutenant." She pointed to the west. "Lead on!"

The party headed north.

After their first taste of roasted flesh, the party gained a better understanding of the PLA's ploy. Across a widening Front a hundred kilometres wide, the 1st Force-Recon, joined by the 4th and 7th Divisions formed a sweeping scythe clearing the way for the NoM Divisions to follow. Quests were generated spontaneously by the officers as the advanced force trailblazed, filtered by the IIUC's chief proctor.

For phase one, the more quests a university was able to complete, the more CCs they were liable to gain. According to Hān, haste and efficiency was the key to acquiring CCs, as the operation could generate an endless volume of requests if need be.

On the first day, the projected purpose was to clear the first hundred-and-fifty kilometres from the Dalian peninsula to Shimenzi, an abandoned water treatment plant and reservoir. Before the Undead threat forced the PLA to pull back into the port city, Shimenzi was a sight-seeing region famous for its waterways. Now, in the slates provided to the students, an illusory projection displayed a bleak and abandoned quarry-cut lake grey with weathered granite.

"Looks like your contemporaries are doing well," Hān remarked on the military's internal chatter. "No problems so far. Pretoria is clearing a thousand-strong swarm as we speak. Auckland earlier destroyed a Grey Ghoul blood pack in just under forty-five minutes. Their Fire Mage must be very skilled to hunt such swift creatures so steadily."

"What's next?" Gwen was keen to get on with it. Lulan returned to the fold, using the armour's self-cleaning function to wipe away the juice-splatters staining her petite profile. Eunae had lost her voice somewhat, but as a healer, her sanity should return within the hour.

"I was so scared!" the Cleric moped, glaring at Richard. "That was worse than those bug swarms in Amazonia!"

"There, there." Richard patted her hair. "You did well. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"There'll be riskier Quests at Shimenzi without a doubt," Hān replied. "Hold on—"

Ding!

Hān's brows relaxed. "There we go. Fudan, Purge request at Zhongchang, Corpse Hulk, maybe a controller nearby. The 4th Recon made the discovery— and you have first dibs. Shall we?"

First "dibs". Gwen chewed the words.
Hazzah for the home front.

It stood to reason that the PLA would give the quests with the most CCs to Fudan, but a caveat made the seemingly unfair system balanced— the danger of dying. If the CCP was less brazen, they could have asked two or three university teams to work together. To give the request to Fudan alone meant that one team would hog the gains— and that Fudan had to stomach the risk. Should Gwen's party fail to subjugate the beast and its numberless minions, they would waste CCs, lose the match, or in the worst-case scenario, squander their lives.

According to Walken, the committee turned a blind eye toward politically driven favouritism. It all balanced out in the end, he had informed her, for the same practice occurred every time in every match, everywhere. The lesser ranked universities had been given priority to choose for good reason. Having exhausted their pick, the future Fudan will have to fight a superior team on foreign soil.

"Understood." Gwen passed the thought onto Golos. She welcomed taking on the PLA's ambitious requests. It wasn't as though a regular team had a sixth-member in the form of a Mythically descended Thunder Wyvern.

As for their Corpse Hulk, Gwen conjured the vision of a monstrous creation composed of collated dead flesh, a colossal Frankenstein's Monster. Different to a self-perpetuating Zombie Horde, the Hulk had to be engineered through secret rituals to be controlled by a living Necromancer. According to the Bestiary, the Hulk could be anywhere between four to ten meters in height, pending the caster's skill; though its threat rarely exceeded the tenth tier.

"Is this your first Necromancer?" Hān pointed the students in the right direction even as he passed the coordinates onto Fudan's Diviner.

"Our very first." Gwen avoided the Lieutenant's gaze as the party's trajectory corrected, thinking of her uncle Jun. "Some advice?"

"Of course." The Lieutenant banked upward so that the team rapidly gained altitude. "What do you know about our resident Necros?"

"The bestiary says there are four common archetypes of Necromancers when discounting religion," Gwen recited from memory, having studied the book and consulted her uncle. "Ritualists are those who seek eternal life in Undeath or are trying to stay alive after Awakening with a talent for Negative Energy. Summoners are classic Necromancers who specialise in the raising of bodies, imbuing cadavers to empower Familiars. Corpse Grafters are construct-makers who experiment with the remains of humans and demi-humans, and finally, Soul Flayers are Necromancers who harken after Essence and Spirits, specialising in Ghosts, Wraiths and Spectres."

"And the Hulk?"

"… is typically accompanied by a Grafter," Gwen answered. "In addition to their minions, Conjuration-Grafters control a construct crafted from their bone, a monster that grows malignant with each additional graft."

"Well done." Lieutenant Hān appeared pleased. "How will you approach? Do you have a plan?"

"I do." Gwen's lips curled. "But first, let's see what our foes have in store."

* * *

Zhongchang.

From five klicks away, Gwen caught sight of the Zombie Horde.

Or so it seemed— until her essence-infused pupils re-focused.

What caught her off guard was the eerie appearance of a spartan but otherwise undisturbed township. With her eagle-eyes, she could see what appeared to be innumerable Zombies, some thousand or more, milling about a cabbage field three times the size of the town itself, ploughing the earth and turning the soil.

Not only that, she could see that the vegetation was neither withered or dying like the plants they had seen on their previous encounter. Instead, the plants appeared to be green and robust and thriving under the cloudless, midday sun.

"Halt," Gwen gave the command, then turned to Hān. "What the hell is this?"

"An outpost," the officer said. "Housing a Necromancer and his or her host of Undeath."

"Are you inferring that the Undead eat cabbage?" Richard, who had likewise read up on the PLA's state-issued bestiary, furrowed his brows.

"Gwen, I've heard rumours like this," Eunae, whose home city was a strategic spell distance away from the DNZ, butted in before her teammates' tone grew harsh. She hadn't been to the Black Zone in her youth, but the stories were well-circulated. "The areas occupied by the Undead can have regions where human or demi-humans live. The lower tier monsters mindlessly seek out living flesh, but the Necromancers and their minions who flock to the Black Zones still need to eat. So, they have outposts like this that provide fresh food for the still-living casters. I've heard that there are even reports of cows and sheep near Pyongyang."

Gwen's eyes swept past Eunae's entirely wholesome and completely innocent face.

"Eunnie— there are enough cabbages there to fill five semi-trailers," Gwen explained the reason for her dismay. Certainly a few fields of rapunzel weren't going to ruffle her tail feathers. "What kind of Mage subsists on cabbages? I don't even like it as a filling for my dumplings. They add nothing."

"I concur." Richard floated beside Lieutenant Hān. "Those are grown to feed NoMs."

"Your QUEST is to Purge sector G2-55." Hān's expression grew amused, his eyes forming two slits. "150 CCs, with a bonus for Necromancers. A gift from the 4th Recon."

"Mia," Gwen requested of her Diviner, ignoring their PLA liaison. "What's the maximum range on your Scry?"

"In the open? Just over two klicks," Mayuree replied. "I'll check as soon as we get closer."

"Your uncle Jun ever mention anything?" Richard asked Gwen in a silent Message as the team picked up the pace. "If there are NoMs here, surely he would know."

"Uncle Jun hasn't been at the Front since the late nineties," Gwen recollected. "He was also stationed where the fighting was heaviest. The Tangshan Line north-west of Beijing."

"Lulu, you ever heard anything about NoMs on the Front?"

Lulan shook her head. "Why does it matter?"

Mayuree's voice quivered. "Are the NoMs… food?"

"The Necromancers are growing food for their food?" Gwen questioned her friend's horrific hypothesis.

"Our serpent tamers breed Hornshell Rats to feed the Horntail Vipers," Mayuree reminded Gwen of the ingenuity of Mages when it came to harnessing power by any means. "Also, in Yunan, the Miao Clan keeps NoM slaves to temper the poisons of their Familiars."

"Let's hope you're wrong." Gwen increased her velocity, leaving a dirty trail of blue-white mana. Her agitation seemed to have infected her Wyvern, who telepathically requested the cause of her concern. "Yes, Gogo?"

"Calamity, I grow bored," Golos bemoaned. "Let me fight the Hulk."

"I'll be the judge of that." Her answer was for her Ally to hold his position. "Don't forget, you're my ace-in-the-hole, don't show yourself so easily."

"HA!" came a prideful huff from Golos. Her Wyvern had no idea what the idiomatic reference to poker implied, but felt instinctively pleased by her words.

A few minutes later, the village fell within the range of Mayuree's Scry. She could see now that the town below them consisted of only a dozen inhabited buildings, while the hundred or so dynasty-spanning mud-brick homes were left abandoned. Where the modernised houses began, a bone-white fence ran a ring around the structures, outside of which meandered the milling Zombie farmers.

"Found it!" Mayuree directed their eyes toward a large warehouse structure. "The Hulk is in there. It's not moving right now— there are glass baubles and jars everywhere. And bits of people."

"Is the Necro alone?" Gwen called Ariel to her side, informing Golos to remain ready.

"I sense… ten mana signatures in the houses. Nine low-tier readings and one at the tier of a Magus, almost a Magister," Mayuree noted. "There are other people here as well, without Mana signatures. Servants, I think, about twenty or so..."

"Lieutenant." Gwen halted. This high up, they were specks barely worth noting. "Why hasn't the main recon force annihilated this place?

"Well." Hān pointed to the houses below. "They're YOUR CCs."

"I see..." Gwen observed the village below. Now she knew the CCP fully intended to pad Fudan's score. To that end, she could open up with an Essence-enhanced Maelstrom while obliterating the Hulk with a Void Sphere, but what of the humans in the houses? There were thirty more lives below— assuming one Necromancer who had to die. "Those people—"

"Renegades and Rogue Mages," their advisor stipulated, biting each word. "Vice-captain Song, these are CCs which the 4th Recon has left for your team. I assure you that the IIUC will recognise these contributions, the same as the Wildland Mercenaries you neutralised in Kachin."

Gwen's expression grew hesitant.

"I can move in with Mia and Lulu," Richard advised in her stead. "You take care of the Hulk and the Zombies— and Golo can snag the Grafter."

"BUT— I suggest you alpha strike as soon as we close in." Richard's logic pounded her ears. "Those Rogue Mages are bunched up right now. Chasing them would be a chore."

"Why haven't they noticed us?" Gwen felt her conscience throb against her temple. She would have preferred if the acolytes fled, but these were Necromancers. For some reason, Michio Lee's words came to the fore of her mind, explaining that Necromancy was no different to Biomancy and that the mere practice of it shouldn't sign a death warrant.

"There are no Message Towers here in the Black Zone," Mayuree explained. "Our enemy's outposts likely keep in touch through physical means."

"Corpse Ravens. Ones which the 4th Recon has neutralised for you," Hān added helpfully. "Miss Song, will you proceed? Forfeiting the quest at this stage will result in a penalty. And of course, we shall then offer the same quest to your competitors."

Gwen's well-loved eyes swept over her teammates.

Richard had no qualms about doing what was necessary, that was a fact she could clutch with absolute confidence. Lulan had already proven that she thought little about carving through a wall of NoMs; even after her District 109 rampage, her remorse had been demure. For Mayuree, Gwen was sure the coup against Maymyint involved removing at least a three-digit number of ex-allies that opposed Marong's plans. And Eunae— sweet Eunae could be discounted, for she couldn't battle her way through a dozen NoMs, much less mass murder them.

As their vice-captain, it was her responsibility to make a choice.

For some time since Maymyint, she had understood that in the distant future, there would come a time for stone-cold slaughter. That future, however, had arrived a little sooner than she had anticipated.

As Gunther had said so long ago, it was a Mage-eat-Mage world out there, and even if Gwen had no desire to take the lives of others— others had great desire to make her life as humanely miserable as conceivably possible. Even now, she wasn't yet at a tier of power where mercy was something she could afford.

Didn't Mia say the workshop was a full-blown charnel house? That these Necromancers thrived on the lives of innocents wasn't an ambiguous reality. It was only her silly conscience that prolonged the inevitability of their execution.

When she opened her eyes again, her emerald-amber orbs were as unyielding as gemstones.

Necromancers were living, breathing, thinking human beings. But they were also aberrant psychopaths who pried open the body of the weak to practice their profane arts. If so, what mercy did they deserve? Didn't she boast to her Master that she had to be cruel to be kind? To be kind to a Necro was to be cruel to the living.

"Lieutenant Hān." Her husky voice took on the hardness of granite. "The quest was for the destruction of the Hulk, yes?"

"Indeed."

"Then we destroy the Hulk as our topmost priority," Gwen said. "Richard, Lulu, please take care of the Rogue Mages. If you can, show some pity for the NoMs."

"Yes, Vice-captain!" her teammates replied.

"Golos?"

"Calamity?" Her Wyvern demanded to know her mind.

"The Desecrator is yours. I'll let you know as soon as I can locate the caster."

"With pleasure."

"Ariel. We're opening with a big one."

"EE! EE!"

Gwen took a deep breath.

"FUDAN! ROLL OUT!"


"True Strike!" Mayuree's damage-divining augury flooded Lulan's mind with sudden clarity.

Below, above the workshop, her vice-captain had opened up with a triple-eruption of Element Sphere, staggered so that the first would blow away the tin roof, and the second and third, issued from Ariel, would vaporise the Corpse Hulk within.

_CRUNK!_

The roof deformed as displaced lines of current cascaded down its sides, neutralised by an unseen ward. Across the team's Mind Linked stream of consciousness, she heard her vice-captain let fly an expletive as the nova rang out harmlessly. A half-dozen heartbeats later, Ariel's cloned Spheres struck, turning the flaring Glyphs white-hot before the mandala failed, this time ripping apart the topmost portion of the laboratory.

With the sheeting structure peeled like an orange blossom, a cloud of foul and poisonous gases, superheated by the electrical discharge, polluted the air. Within, the team saw what Mayuree had seen, a stitched horror, an abomination some six-meters tall, held together from bulbous face to multi-limbed bottom in gory stitches. Lulan recoiled. Against her anticipation of a giant Jiangshi, the craft used to create the now-stirring creature was western Necromancy, for she had never heard of such monsters in the annals of Huashan's index.

_DING! DING! DING!_

An alarm rang out, alerting the compound. Lulan rotated her hovering blades, shaping the iron so that the weighted tip formed an acute cone, while its latter half tapered into a four-finned, narrow-waisted fletch.

"Chakram!" Gwen let loose two of her discs to dice at the creature below.

Lulan grunted as she reshaped her conjured iron. A surge of agitating bloodlust from her enchanted heart threatened to revolt against her better judgement. Her Naga Spirit as well, raged within her Astral Soul, howling for violence. Through sheer force of will, she fought down her impulses, patiently awaiting the moment her assigned targets revealed themselves.

And they did. A flood of bodies— not the ambling Undead, but living figures, fled for their lives, pouring from the homes in the middle of the township. One by one, Lulan head-counted the escapees.

"NoM, NoM… NoM— MAGE!"

The Necromancer's Acolytes were easy to spot. Where the NoM servants wore the juniper-coloured hemp common to North Korean peasants, the Mages wore silken garbs of black edged with silver. In more fortunate times, the uniform denoted their superior existences; now, it made them targets.

"Panzerschreck!" Her borrowed premonition foretold that now was the time to let loose a modified Heart-Seeking Sword.

_Schwing!_

The largest of her projectiles, the "central" head of her Naga Spirit, punched the whistling air.

_CLANG!_

First rang the sound of shattering glass, then a thunk as her projectile ricochetted into the fortified abode.

"Wha—"
"Urk!"

The result was music to her ears.
Not only had her projectile punctured the first Acolyte through the chest, crushing his shield and penetrating the man's heart, it had also caught the second Mage unaware, mangling his unprotected legs before his barrier could manifest.

"GROOOOAR!"

Lulan's attention momentarily shifted, distracted by the earth-shattering howl of the Corpse Hulk. For whatever profane reason, her vice-captain's spells had failed to sever its bodily appendages.

"Lightning Tentacles!"

In response, Gwen switched to Lightning, entrapping the flailing beast as bolt after bolt of cobalt electricity penetrated its barrel-waisted body, igniting the alchemical compounds oozing from the ravaged lab.

"Mia— targets!" Lulan requested of their Diviner.

"Upper left, second storey! Ground level, forth window, just above the basement!"

"Got it! Panzerschreck!" Lulan sent four more projectiles toward Mayuree's nominated destinations, piercing through the feeble ward and striking at the unseen interior. By design, magical wards prevented magic from damaging or altering the shielded region of effect. Her solid-steel projectiles, however, were a matter of brute physics.

A short scream from the ground floor indicated that she was now three for five.

Lulan proceeded to "reload".

Without conscious thought, she ran her Clan's secret invocations through her Astral Body. As they passed through her Heart of Iron, a mystical transfiguration transmuted Huashan's Blade Summoning into gleaming slabs of polished steel.

"Spine Spear!" came the sound of retaliatory invocations from below, unveiled by Mayuree's sharing of Detect Foe.

The bloody bone-projectile lost its momentum at about eighty-odd meters, then fell toward the earth. As for Lulan, her Panzerschreck rounds were optimised for assault between two to five hundred meters, weather permitting. Gwen had even said that with practice, power and better 'designs' on the missile itself, distances exceeding a kilometre were entirely possible.

"Panzerschreck!" Without needing to look, she returned the favour. In times like these, having Mind Link with Mayuree was a Mao-blessed wonder.

Two solid girders of racing iron crushed the brick-facade, collapsing a portion of the outer wall. The other three, formed as twisted metal, rebounded through another window. A crash engendered, then a wailing cry began to haunt the lightless room, reminiscent of a blood-letted pig.

"That's four," Mayuree's voice came across the channel. "Be careful. They're desperate now."

From the dashed windows, what must be the oldest of the Necromancer's Acolytes emerged. To Lulan's surprise, they were almost all foreigners; one even had the blonde hair of a European.

"Panzerschreck!" Lulan unleashed another volley.

This time, the Mages had prepared defences. The leader was an Abjurer, for a wall of bone deflected Lulan's leading projectile. The second, however, crushed the skeletal barrier, while her third penetrated the resulting debris and the forth speared the woman, clearing her abdomen, withdrawing a trail of intestines.

The remaining five fanned out.

"Run—HURRK!"
"MMMMGN!"
Richard was waiting below, hidden behind his invisible Undine.

Soundlessly, Lea enveloped an Evoker before the sorceress could utter a single spell. Another, one that Mayuree detected as a Transmuter, clutched at his face as a globule of water forced its way into his mouth and nose, manifesting as a Water Tomb.

"JET BLAST!"

Simultaneously, a torrent of hyper-pressurised water sent a man shield-first against the house, obliterating first his bubble, then breaking every bone in his body before he rag-dolled against the brickwork, coughing up blood.

The remaining two fled.

Lulan's lips twisted in mockery. If she missed from this distance, she wouldn't know where to hide her face.

With the NoMs fleeing for safety, Gwen focused on the monster.

In the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the blood splatters painting the shattered panes as Lulan's invocations fired with its characteristic shriek of wailing metal.

Her alpha strike had been too conservative. She hadn't expected that such a shabby looking laboratory would possess Abjuration wards. Likewise, when the thing awoke, and she attempted a decapitation, the resistance of its un-living body far exceeded her anticipation.

Cursing, she switched from Evocation to Conjuration, Void to Lightning.

With her present expertise, her Lightning Tentacles were as thick as her thighs, with six meters of reach. Before the giant could bring to bear the momentum of its bloated body, she had it tethered by the neck and shoulders.

"MUUOOAR!" the Hulk possessed vocal cords like a harpooned whale. With a heave, it tugged at the tendrils, displacing the elemental link momentarily before Gwen re-connected the ethereal chains, tethering it like a mongrel against the workshop's concrete floor.

"Lightning Bolt!" Gwen called upon Ariel to bring the creature to its knees. Bright arcs of electricity travelled from sorceress to Kirin to the Hulk, cooking its flesh as the Positive Energy of her Lightning neutralised the Negative motes of mana empowering the monster's profaned flesh.

"Gwen!" Mayuree's voiced pinned her ears. "The Zombie Horde's closing in! Finish up with the Hulk!"

Gwen immediately upped her ante, invoking a torrent of rapid-firing bolts.

"MUAAOAR!" The Hulk pulled away from her tentacles. By now, its skin was almost crispy with char, and its eyes had exploded from its sunken sockets. Yet, unperturbed by its injury, the thing rampaged toward her with the tenacity of a runaway semi.

Given time, she could toy with it, but now, she had to deal with an emerging Necromancer and his Zombie Horde. There was also the matter of the Grafter's Familiar, a threat that would surely be more powerful than this dumb brute.

A few seconds was all it took for the Hulk to close the distance. As it swung its meaty arm, a length of bone, shaped like a scythe, swung through the air.

"Shield!"

Her diamond-facetted barrier turned opaque. Gwen smirked. Whatever the power of this thing, it wasn't even half of Golos. As for her Wyvern, it was now circling just out of sight, awaiting the Necromancer's emergence.

"Mia, buff me up!"

"True Strike!" Mayuree invoked the blessing from a distance. Thanks to Mind Link, the range of her buffs was well-extended.

Almudj's Essence boiled over, Gwen called a Lightning Bolt to her lips.

Her complexion turned pink as pippins as the vitality inside her body mingled with the mana she was sending Ariel. When the word came to her lips, it was with great relish, as though the first downpour after a muggy, humid day. "Barbanginy!"

"EEEE!"

A bean-green bolt of living lightning pierced the Hulk. Where it struck, the vibrant green energy spread through the brute's body, peeling its charred skin like an overripe avocado. A violent viridescence lit up the Hulk's interior, escaping from its eyes and its all-devouring maw.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The mountain of flesh stumbled forward, toppling like a fallen titan.

"MURRRRGGN!" a great cry of confusion and dismay uttered from the lips of some dozen stitched cadavers.

A wave of spell fatigue washed over Gwen's Astral Body.

Before she could catch her breath, the Zombie swarm grew wild. Where the Horde had earlier possessed a singular focus, its members now began to meander. Two dozen came toward Gwen, a handful gathered under her team members, and a clump of close to a hundred roved toward a shivering Eunae.

"Shit!" She connected the dots. "Mia! Where is the Grafter?"

"I sense…" Mayuree swept the compound. "His signature is gone! The Necromancer must have used a Teleportation Scroll!"

"Damn it!" Gwen cursed. "Richard, can you help gather up the NoMs?"

"Sure, I'll do it while I entertain our new friends." Richard pointed to the two Acolytes suspended in mid-air, kept barely conscious by not nearly enough air. "If you can deal with the Horde. I'll find out where our Necromancer has gone."

"HIEEYA!" Lulan was already knee-deep in the dead, pulverising Zombies by the score. Her lack of wide-area AoE, however, limited her effectiveness.

"Eunae, you're with me." Gwen Dimension Doored beside their Cleric. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."

Eunae keened, wearing an expression that suggested she wanted to remain well out of reach of the Zombies' grubby hands. With her vice-captain breathing down her neck, though, she had little choice but to offer up her sweet body to the masses.

Alighting atop a farmhouse, the South Korean Healer conjured Luyi.

"Yi—" Luyi trembled. The smell of death made it drunk with fear.

Embracing her Familiar, Eunae pumped her mana into her Sprite. Luyi glowed, its stag horns extending until they formed a dozen points. At once, the Zombie Horde lost all interest in the NoMs and the Mages.

"Wall of Lightning!" Gwen's newly learned Evocation extended almost forty-meters in circumference, with a height of three meters. With her Transmutation, she had the option of flexibly manipulating the spell's manifestation, to which she chose a circular barrier with herself as the loci. It was the sort of versatile spell-casting that Alesia once showed Yue, utilising the combination of two or more Schools of Magic.

_ZAP! SPAK! PSZZZT!_

All around her, Zombies sizzled like minute-steaks, filling the air with the rotten scent of flesh gone awry. Momentarily safe, Gwen began a second invocation.

In her hand, she materialised a rod of True Silver, one of a dozen she had specially prepared for this occasion. Weaving the somatic material into her tier 5 Conjuration, she was glad that for once, the spell which Richard had advised her to learn was used for its explicit purpose. Wincing as she overcharged her sorcery, Gwen exhaled as the final invocation left her lips.

"Cloud Kill!"

The infamous ultra-AoE offensive spell was designed from the Glyph up to possess superior range and coverage. Now combined with Gwen's VMI, her seven tiers of Affinity, her hyper-tier control of Conjuration and the True Silver in her hand, the spell erupted.

_VOOMF!_

A rapidly expanding fog of scintillating silver fled from her general vicinity, rolling over the fields of cabbage, covering no less than a radius of a hundred meters.

_Tsssz—!_

This time, the sizzling was no longer the sound of summer insects dashing into a blue-lit mesh, but the sound of Negative Energy becoming neutralised by the invasive, lightning-charged motes of blessed silver. Whatever the Horde's resistances, the comprehensive coverage of Cloud Kill offered no solace against its corrosive sparks.

The first Zombie fell, then another, a dozen, and a hundred or more. Organs long preserved by necromantic energies erupted. Muscles slid from bone as the gentle repose preventing the flesh from deteriorating disappeared. More and more of the Zombies charged in, while the ring of carcasses around Gwen and Eunae grew by the minute, doubling then tripling in size.

"How many of them are left?" Gwen Messaged her Diviner.

"About a two-thirds," the Diviner returned with the intelligence. "Can your mana pool hold up?"

"I'll micromanage," Gwen said. "Eunae?"

"I am fine." the Healer had by now grown indifferent, her mind numbed by the horrid odour of human fat ignited by Gwen's lightning. "Let's continue."

"Take my hand." Gwen grasped her Healer's frigid little fingers. "Dimension Door!"

"I am impressed." Lieutenant Hān gave Richard a thumbs up. "And no, rest assured none of this will be broadcasted. The PLA will make sure of that."

"Thanks, mate." Richard tapped his data slate. "How about that, eh? AND Shimeizi's our last stop for the night. I guess we'll find the old fox yet."

The PLA officer was inclined to agree.

For a while now, he had watched the half-Asian Conjurer perform his inexpert labour. For a Frontiersman who couldn't be further from a Military Mage, Richard demonstrated the sort of talent that the Ghosts would unquestioningly welcome. Different to the indecisive womanliness of his vice-captain, Fudan's mobile defender was a model Mage in the matter of operational efficacy.

When the young man had entered the commandeered abode, he had allowed his Undine to take one of the prisoners, the man, into the basement. Richard meanwhile took the other, the woman, into a separate room. At first, Hān had imagined something not meant for CCVC-1, but very quickly, Richard demonstrated his "technique".

After the first Acolyte begged for sweet release, Richard questioned his second prisoner. Then, with slate in hand, he cross-examined the survivors' details, meting out punishment where specifics did not match, allowing for air when confirmations could be ascertained.

"Gwen, are you done with the Zombies?" Richard paused to ask after his vice-captain outside.

"Down to the last batch," came the reply. "Should be done before I am OoM."

Hān resisted an urge to exhale deeply. Gwen Song had proven herself to be a one-woman platoon. Her capacity for destruction exceeded any single member of the standard Recon Divisions, and that was excluding her Wyvern.

"Take your time, then some rest," Richard advised as he turned to the woman in the water bubble. The Necromancer's Acolyte was paler than a blanched egg and turning a shade of purple. At Richard's slightest behest, a torrent of information would pour from her tortured lips. "Lea, we're done with this one. Bring Lieutenant Hān the CC surprise."

The Undine's exquisite face peeped out from behind the door. Behind her semi-transparent body, suspended on coils of water, floated a middle-aged man wearing a pair of charcoal pants and a woollen vest. The man was an NoM, and from the looks of his portly belly, he held a position of some merit.

"Found this one in the basement." The Undine giggled, her mischievous eyes sparkled with glee. "He had a wand and a Storage Ring. Also, I found these."

In one hair tendril, the Undine held aloft a Lightning Wand made for NoM usage. In her other water appendages, she held a ledger of sorts and a box of HDMs.

"Good work, Lea," Richard praised his Familiar. Walking a circle around the portly NoM, the Conjurer grinned from ear to ear. "Mr Chen, how are you this fine day?"

The NoM's eyes grew wide.

Lieutenant Hān raised a brow, wondering how Richard knew the NoM's name. It took him a second to realise that the Acolytes had mentioned there was a 'trader' of sorts.

Richard flipped through the ledger, then passed the book to Hān. "Gwen's probably better at this than I am. As such, I am going to keep this short—"

"I'll talk!" the man squealed. "Mercy, Masters! I was captured— forced to work for these monsters! It's true. It's all true!"

"My heart bleeds with sympathy. But first, who is your employer?"

"I—" The man blanched. "I am just a bookkeeper— I was taken here against my will."

"It's not that I don't believe you." Richard smirked. "All things considered, you're rather calm for an NoM. You're not from around here, Mr Chen-Du-Li from Tianjin, are you?"

The "trader" began to shudder violently.

Hān recalled that Richard had demanded a list of names for the NoMs. Unsurprisingly, even under the water rack, the Necromancy students couldn't remember the names of their servants. The female prisoner had said something about a Du-Li, while the male Acolyte had referred to the trader as Chen.

"Candidate Huang." Lieutenant Hān wasn't an intelligence officer, but it didn't take a Ghost to join the dots. "Do you mean to say…"

"I do." Richard snorted. "You've got folks from the living side supplying the Undead, Lieutenant. That's fucked up."

"What for?" the military man's eyes instantly turned to obsidian. His colleagues, his comrades, had all suffered through the Front. A multitude of many millions had lost their lives pushing back the Undead, and now, a student was telling him that living men were trading with the Rogue Necromancers? "Food? What do the Necros have to trade?"

Richard placed Chen's hand against the briefcase.

"Open Sesame," he invoked an old fable.

The lock unlatched. Within its velvet folds were shimmering crystals of soul-sucking darkness.

"... Alright." Richard whistled. "Not what I expected, but just as well..."

"Negative Aligned High-Density Crystals!" Lieutenant Hān spat. "Mao's Crystal Tomb!"

Negative Energy existed in places where death and decay ruled. In a Plane full of life such as the Prime Material, it was rare indeed that such a sphere could grow a crystal counter-conducive to the germination of life.

As for the unusual HDM's uses, there were many. Weaponisation, research, and most importantly— Necromancy. The creation of higher tiers of Undead was near-impossible without Creature Cores, Crystals, and a host of grotesque materials. For the everyman of the Communist Party, the most they knew about the Negative Aligned HDM was that it empowered Mao's Crystal Sarcophagi with a perpetual Gentle Repose. Outside China itself, religions tied to pseudo-resurrection, from the Catholic Theocracy to the Jackal Priests of Anubis, ensured there was forever a bull market for such unusual commodities.

"Mr Chen" was by now sweating enough to fill an asphyxiation bubble all by himself.

"Good value there," Richard hypothesised. "Gwen once said that for a tidy profit, men are willing to flout the law. For doubling the profit, traders will disregard all ethics. Beyond that? Human greed grows to the size of Leviathans."

"Accursed NoMs!" Lieutenant Hān growled.

"Not NoMs." Richard studied his indignant advisor. "Just me— even you and I have a price."

Hān did not approve of Richard's aphorism. Mao, in his "Red Book", had warned of this exact thing, though the enemies were the capitalists and the foreign imperialists, not the people of the republic.

"How shall we proceed?" Richard jabbed a thumb at Chen. "I could interrogate him, but I am certain you'd prefer a Mind Mage to rake over his brain. There are the other NoMs as well, hiding here and there, assuming the Zombies didn't eat em."

Hān inclined his chin. "I'll request transportation."

"Good." Richard looked away for a second, then returned with a grin. "Miss Lei and Mister Nowak are officially deceased, please don't forget our CCs. Is there a bonus for the NoMs?"

"I'll put in a recommendation," the Lieutenant promised.

"Gwen should be about done." Richard checked his Message Device. "Shimeizi's how far from here?"

"Two hours as the crow flies."

"I look forward to it." Richard caught a strand of his materialising Undine's hair. "Gwen is very good with confined spaces, did you know?"

Besides Richard, his Undine giggled. Though her mien was beautiful beyond measure, Hān felt an undulating sense of unease in the Spirit's presence. In their natural habitat, Undines lured children into their lakes and waterways to drown them; ofttimes, it was for nourishment, mostly, it was for sport.

"Release."

PSSSHHT—

The Shen-Teī armour loosened, allowing Gwen to peel the plated-fabric from her torso.

"Cleanse!"

The magic from her laundry Device began to remove the embedded odours from her hair, her thermo-layered skinsuit, and the armour itself. In her opinion, she had discovered a significant design-flaw— for though the exterior was self-cleansing, the interior had an inadequate deodorising function, meaning all she could smell after the battle was the scent of barbecued human flesh.

Beside her, Eunae dry heaved, likewise victim to the deluge of assailing scents baked into her armour. Human bodies, so packed full of bone, ligaments and most importantly, fat; possessed a uniquely offensive fetor. If Gwen had to find words, she would depict the smell as acidic, with a twangy pungency that made one's eyes water.

While she recovered, Richard emerged from within the house with Lieutenant Hān.

"The Necromancer's fled to Shimeizi." Her cousin wasted no time. "That's our next stop. The main force should be arriving three hours ahead of us. I suggest we go straight there — far better CCs than grinding Zombies in remote villages. From the sound of it, there's a whole nest of the bastards holed up under the reservoir. Also, how long do your dogs last when out of range?"

"A few hours," she replied. "Why?"

"Need one to keep an eye on the NoMs until the PLA picks them up."

"The NoMs survived? That's great!" Gwen mopped her face with a towel. Even with the enchanted skinsuit, she was sticky with sweat from the expenditure of almost 300 VMIs.

Even in the Amazon, she hadn't OoMed so quickly. The eradication of a thousand Zombies was equivalent to a high-intensity workout of not only her body but her mind as well. Even now, her frontal lobe throbbed.

Across the field, three rings of Zombies littered a demolished acreage of cabbages the size of human heads. The first pile was nearly three meters high, forming a gently smoking circle of flayed corpses. The second and third were more modest, while here and there littered dozen upon dozens of stragglers slain by Lulan, Ariel and Caliban.

"Sir, we're clear," Mayuree indicated to their advisor. "I don't sense any hostiles."

"Good." Gwen repositioned herself so that her face caught the mid-afternoon light. "Give me some space. There's one more thing I have to do."

The team moved to one side. It was happening. Gwen had discussed it prior, but to see it happening for real made the team's kidneys ache.

"Lulu, I am going to do it once, and then it's your turn, alright? Don't forget, our sponsors paid good Crystals for optics."

"… Okay."

"What's this?" Lieutenant Hān turned to Richard.

"Extra-curriculum revenue." Richard scratched his nose. He had heard Gwen boast but didn't think to see it live. How was it possible that his cousin was capable of doing something as embarrassing as selling herself, but be incapable of imploding a building and every NoM, Acolyte and Necromancer within it? Granted, the building had been warded, but he would have liked to see Ariel sneaking through a window or a chimney, and then open up with an Essence enhanced Thundering Shatter. If that didn't blow out the structure and turn the inhabitans into jelly, she could follow up with triple-set of Elemental Spheres. Better yet, a pyrite Cloud Kill would have completed the Quest like a house on fire.

Even as his imagination exercised Gwen's lost opportunities, the fresh-faced sorceress turned toward an invisible lumen-recorder. With one hand, she dramatically wiped sweat from her brow, then surveyed a vista of smouldering Undead. Suddenly, with one hand on her hip, she materialised a bottle of Maotai from her Storage Ring. Unstopping the cap with her teeth, Gwen then turned the ceramic jug so that a good handful of the precious liquid sprinkled across the fallow earth.

"For the fallen," she said to no one in particular.

An arc of cobalt electricity blazed across her pupils. She raised the same bottle so that it rested beside her exquisite face.

"Maotai— Peace for the dead, life for the living..."

She drank, allowing a few drips to slip past her lips and fall onto her bare collar bones.

Her team watched; their mouths pursed and mute.

"Okay, Lulu." Gwen gestured to the red-faced Lulan, looking as though already drunk. "Your turn, Miss superstar."


"Anything of interest?" Schalk Hertzog, Captain of Pretoria, stood over the meditating Jean-Paul as the Void Mage assimilated his latest meal.

Jean-Paul slowly opened his eyes, his face contorted with bulging veins and dripping sweat. "I do have something. A senior apprentice, I think, one who'd been commanded to gather the materials in the laboratory, then use the attuned Teleportation Circle to escape. I would imagine our junior Necromancer could have made it bar the time it took to stow the ingredients and the spell scrolls. But— then again, returning without them may be yet another death sentence."

"Too bad the circle's locked and warded." Schalk studied the crude Glyphs. "Damaged as well. I can repair it, but not without the Glyph-key."

"You mean this?" Jean-Paul incanted a few invocations under his breath. The Teleportation Circle flickered, blazed for a bright second, then died.

Schalk raised a bushy brow. The Void Mage was turning out more useful by the minute.

"Gelukkige baster..." Lencho, ever the prideful Lightning Evoker, observed sourly. He couldn't fathom why his captain so readily accepted such a disgusting being. If it was Fudan's sorceress, he could understand, but this thing?

"Well done, Jean-Paul." Pretoria's captain glared his damage-dealer into submission. "I wasn't thrilled when you replaced Lukas, but I don't begrudge your usefulness."

"I fear Lencho's right," Jean-Paul replied meekly. "The memories Umzokwe collects are entirely random."

"Is it though? I was informed your Familiar targets powerful thoughts and emotions."

"Ja, but in the moment of oblivion, a lot of things cross people's minds." Jean-Paul stared at his pallid fingers. "Moments of filial beauty, a triumphant Awakening, a lover's hands, a Master's rebuke… or a set of Glyph keys they're told to keep secret unto death."

Though he still found the aberrant Mage off-putting, Schalk patted his teammate on the shoulder. It was the sort of thing a good Captain should do.

"Helia, what say we leave our PLA Advisor and enter the portal ourselves?"

The Diviner took a minute of meditation to reveal her depthless ultramarine orbs. "I sense woe. Great woe."

Schalk regarded the Necromancer's Portal. It was a great opportunity, but as Helia said, it could also be suicide. Hours ago, when Pretoria had been given the task of clearing out an outpost, he hadn't expected that there would be Rogue Necromancers excercising their craft so close to the Dalian border. The fact that these worshippers of death operated so brazenly outside of Shenyang bespoke of a well-entrenched enemy.

Then again, what if he sent in Jean-Paul first? The Void Mage had said that he possessed an impressive AoE and that his abilities were triply as effective against lesser Mages. If so, assuming Jean-Paul could secure the Teleportation room, wouldn't Pretoria hog the CCs at Shimenzi?

Schalk took a deep breath.

It took two seconds for the impulse to pass. How would he answer Meister Bekker in the aftermath? The IIUC wasn't worth bringing trouble to his family.

"Helia, contact Lieutenant Peng," Schalk dismissed the unappetising gamble. "Tell him that we're done. Withhold the key for now, and inform him we're ready to take on other quests."

"Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!"

A triple set of explosions rocked the fortification at Shimenzi.

"FUCK!" Yue cursed out loud. "Fucking gopher bastards!"

"Bro, that ward's choice as," Rongo snorted, grumbling at the soot-laden lake. "Too bad the water's contaminated, could have done something otherwise."

Unlike Pretoria and Fudan, Auckland fully embraced the dozens of micro-Purge missions leading up to the first stronghold of the Black Zone's Necromancers. As a result, they quickly advanced through the Front, destroying hordes of Zombies, packs of ghouls, and even a village haunted by Jiangshi, demonstrating an impressive rapport that surprised even their PLA advisor. To counter each mob, Timoti utilised Quake and Magma Wall to corral the roving bodies while Rongo's Maelstroms, empowered by his He-Mango-Tohorā, swept his victims into a churning pile. Then, with enough victims gathered in one place, Yue would finish with a ten-second Flame Strike in brilliant blue, transforming the salt-water into superheated steam. It was a tactic that worked wonders against the Mermen, and though they were now far from the Tasman Sea, it proved no less effective against the Undead.

By the late afternoon, Auckland had caught up with the main troop of Force-Recon Mages scouring the landscape for signs of Necromancy. At their final Nav-point, the standing orders for the students was to patrol the waterworks' exterior. Bored, Yue wanted to try her luck at puncturing the fort's defences.

"Mao, don't you foreigners ever tire?" Lieutenant Xiao, their exhausted adviser, had grown breathless from watching Auckland quest for almost eight hours straight. Were it not for Yue; she would have suspected the giants from the Island of the Long Cloud were demi-humans.

"I could inscribe a Ta Moko for you," Opi offered, pointing at the cussing Yue. "It'll be the non-permanent inscriptions Yue is using."

Compared to Fudan's flamboyance, Auckland's team wore very little armour. In place of Magi-tech bodysuits or purpose-built garbs like Pretoria, they employed tattooed body-buffs. From what Auckland's Enchanter was willing to reveal, Yue's arms held the Mark of the Mangopare, the Giant Hammerhead Shark, gifting her with endurance and durability. On her left thigh and right calve, wrapped like a wedding garter, was the Mark of the Silver Fern, a Ta Moko that regulated mana and stifled the effects of spell fatigue. On her left lumbar was inscribed the Pakati, Mark of the Dog Skin, offering protection akin to a Maki's hide.

"Check these bad boys out." Yue caught the woman staring and pulled down the neck of her top, causing the Lieutenant to flush and blanch simultaneously. Across the Fire Mage's ample cleavage were concentric, circular rows of Unaunahi, Mark of the Fish Scale, warding her against the elements.

"Unaunahi weaved into Moana," Opi offered. "Like the sea, you won't tire, or need to sleep, so long as your mana keeps up."

"Shall we head back?" Whetu stated nervously. He was reasonably sure their orders were to waste time and not start the assault. "We're supposed to wait for the others."

"Hold up, let me give Tandy a swirl—" Yue began a long invocation. Her Nightmare manifested with a neigh, stamping the air with fiery hoof prints. "Tân-Cysgodol, lend me your strength! INVESTITURE OF FLAME!"

A blue cloak of fire wrapped around Yue's body, lighting up half the mountainside. It was an impressive scene, one that would have wowed audiences around the world— until her tank top incinerated.

"Fu—!" Whetu spluttered. One of the many horrible habits Yue had inherited from Alesia was the preference for non-magical clothing made from conventional material. "Mage Armour!"

"Aiiiya!" Lieutenant Xiao waved her arms, at once wanting to cover her contestant while concurrently fearing she might turn to cinders. Whatever the case, the two-second "slip" was NOT suitable for national broadcasting.

"Sweet-ass." Rongo beamed. In response, their Ta Moko Enchanter knocked the Water Evoker over the head with her knuckles.

Caught in a state of elemental clarity, Yue gave no shits about her momentary indecency. Instead, she raised a flaming hand, gathered the force into a pin-point, then evoked a hyper-tier invocation. "SHADOW FLARE!"

A globe of near-invisible, superheated Elemental Fire struck the warded surface of the defunct waterworks. A cascade of brilliant-blue sparks erupted where the sphere connected, filling the fetid pools below with hissing steam. A second-later, gouts of molten silica poured from the granite surface, sizzling with spell-fire as the embedded wards fought back the flames.

Auckland, as well as their advisor, shielded their eyes from the miniature sun. In the eyes of the onlookers, the assault appeared as though an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

"Bloody oath!" Yue's flame-cloak sizzled, then spluttered, leaving her encased in plated Punamu. Though she could arguably employ spells up to the sixth tier, her lack of experience prevented her from accessing ambitious sorcery like Fire Storm and Disintegrate without first deploying a lesser variation of her Master's Flame Avatar. It was a make-shift method devised by Alesia so that Yue could access higher-tier spells by drawing on her Familiar's talents. "How deep did I get?"

"… about sex meters," Rongo observed. "The ward's closing over as we speak. How bleeding strong are these Neecromancers?"

"I don't think its the Necros," Lieutenant Xiao intervened. "I believe the waterwork's wards tie into ley-lines beneath the reservoir. Shimenzi isn't just a filtration facility either. You'll find out in the debriefing."

"Can't the PLA turn the Enchantment off?"

"No, not without accessing the Mandala's nuclei." Xiao shook her head. "Unfortunately, that's also the most secure section of the waterworks. It's right below the exchange-filters and the pumps, built into reinforced bedrock."

Yue growled. "What if our CCs escape?"

Lieutenant Xiao pointed at the Mages in the main camp, patrolling the perimetre in pairs of twos and threes.

"Without access to a Divination Tower, Teleportation Circles have no more than fifty kilometres of range. Even assuming the Necromancers have Teleportation Scrolls, a stockpile is nigh impossible. Each scroll, depending on inscriber, fetches well over a thousand HDMs, more on the black market." Xiao took a deep breath. "Rest assured. The PLA will crack the gate and pry open the bunker. You're all-star students, Miss Bai, leave the dirty work to the grunts."

Impatiently, Yue turned her eyes below, where two Golems idled beside their pilots; Chinese soldiers from the 209th Armoured Regiment. As for the Iron Golems— they were American made General-Dynamics MK266 Dust Pounders, lovingly known as "the Dusty 266". The variants below were crewed, as automation remained the exclusive privilege of the USA and its Israeli allies. At close to three-tons each, the Golems had a maximum payload of over four tons, capable of carrying everything from artillery-tier wands to crystal-caches that extended its run-time to a week. Presently, the crew had outfitted the machines with sonic excavators used to breach the warded concrete. Once the Golems opened a path into the water work's interior chambers, CQB Mages may then ferret out its inhabitants.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

_Ding!_ Yue's Message Device chimed.

"Gwen's here," Yue informed her companions. "Be back later, fellers. Gonna get changed and see how the girlfriend's doing."

A round of cheers broke out when Fudan alighted near the main camp. The military Mages in the 4th, 7th, and 19th Aerial Recon were mostly men in their late twenties, meaning a bevy of young and beautiful idols brought much mirth to an otherwise grim tour.

"Ma'am!" A grizzled veteran with a beard like a bristling porcupine approached Lulan. Behind him, a dozen more waited to see if the scarlet-complexioned sarge would succeed— or eat an Iron Sword to the face. "M-May I have an autograph?"

Lulan stared, her eyes entering fight or flight.

"Of course you can." Gwen shook her Sword Mage by the shoulders. "Come on, Lulu. It's all a part of the hustle."

"The…" Lulan's orbs glazed over. "… the what?"

"Here." Gwen guided the man's photo of Lulan's promotional material toward her, pushing a mana-pen into her fingers. "Sign your last name."

Lulan scratched in her mana signature, punching through the photo-paper.

Gwen grimaced at her friend's uninspiring handwriting. "Ouch. We'll work on it. You better keep that close to your chest, Sargeant. That's Lulu's virgin signature. You're her first."

"I-I'll keep this as an heirloom!" The man visibly trembled. "Mao! Thank you, Miss Li! Please win the competition!"

Hearing Gwen's titillating proclamation, the other soldiers rioted, clamouring for Lulan to sign their things. One soldier even unbuttoned his shirt and asked her to carve her initials on his collarbone so that he would never forget this day.

"SHUT UP!" Lieutenant Hān barked. As an officer of the First-Recon, his reputation preceded him. "Form a line! Proceed in order of Rank! Cue jumpers will be sent into the Necro-den first, without Golem support!"

The men quickly fell into step.

"GWENNIE!" Yue landed a dozen steps from the ogling men, ignoring their licentious attention. "What took you so long? Our advisor said you guys left your last objective four hours ago."

"The locals waylaid us," Gwen explained with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "When did you get here?"

"An hour ago, we're waiting on the Golems."

Gwen's eyes flashed. "Those? They're huge!"

"Nah, those are chicken-hawks. The 266s are medium-weight models," Yue casually informed her. "Tell ya what though. The bloody walls on that place are warded to hell. Hopefully, the Dusties will dig in through the exterior without drama, maybe soften up the inside a bit.

While Yue spoke, Gwen inspected the two humanoid Magi-tech machines. To her eyes, they resembled squat gorillas in plated mail. As tall as they were broad, most of its two-storey bulk consisted of a central torso, a massive set of shielded shoulders, and robust arms twice as thick as its hind legs. From the way the vehicles' statue hunched, Gwen guessed these were likely quadrupedal machines capable of significant velocity.

Presently, a pair of gloves that resembled a mole's forearms had been affixed to the forelimbs. The pilots, one woman and the other a man, wore high-vis jumpsuits. To Gwen, it was all very Top Gun feeling.

The male pilot caught her looking and waved.

She waved back, pausing when a growl of displeasure derailed her train of thought.

"Alright, come down," Gwen said to no one in particular, drawing a curious glance from Yue.

Much to the delight of the Combat Mages, the giant Wyvern they'd seen back at Dalian descended from the dusky sky, circling over the Shimenzi until it skidded to a halt not too far from where the girls stood.

"Calamity!" the Wyvern called out. "HUNGRY, NOW! Those horses were inedible!"

"Alright, alright. Hold your Harpies."

Yue, together with dozens of soldiers, watched with fascination as her friend approached the monstrous brute to deposit an enormous crate of stacked SPAM almost as tall as herself.

"What in Father's name is this?" Golos stretched his wings, tucked them against his sides, then sniffed the small mountain of cans.

"Its SPAM, Gogo. Nothing but the best for my drake." Gwen touched the Wyvern's snout, feeling her fingers grow numb from the static. "There's regular SPAM, Turkey SPAM, Teriyaki SPAM, Smoked SPAM, Bacon SPAM, Cheesy SPAM; I had them shipped from Hawaii."

Grunting, Golos transformed into his human form. Unlike Polymorph, the Wyvern's Draconic-racial didn't involve twisting bones and moulting skin, but rather a blast of retina-searing lightning. A second later, a nine-foot giant with horns pulled up a pair of jeans, slipped on a tight t-shirt, then adjusted his mace so that it slid down a trouser leg.

Gwen felt a nudge in her ribs. Beside her, Yue's brows came alive as though two jostling caterpillars.

Taking a can in each hand, Golos began.

"Mmmm…" the humanoid Wyvern masticated the punctured aluminium. "Not bad. The metal skin of this meat fruit adds a particular crunch."

Gwen raised a finger, opened her mouth, then allowed her hand to fall.

"It's great with rice," she said finally before returning to Yue.

By now, Whetu, Richard and a few others had joined them.

"So, what delayed you?"

"Ah." Gwen tugged at the collar of her Shen-teī armour, loosening the neckband. She was beginning to envy the comfort of Yue's fitted tank top. "We ran into Centaurs."

"No shit?" Yue swore, the warmth of her breath steaming the air. As advertised, Liaoning's temperate rapidly fell as the sun dipped into darkness. "The half-horse, half-human ones?"

"Undead ones," Richard cut in, having supervised Lulan's meet-and-greet with fans. "Great galloping bastards. They were shooting arrows and throwing spears too. Almost got us a few times. Who would have thought? Bloody Undead Centaurs, you live and learn."

"Yeah, those Centaurs were no cake-walk," Gwen continued. "We were ignoring them until they started galloping below us. When we crested a hill, they got close enough to start throwing spears."

"Zombies can use weapons?" Whetu inquired contemplatively.

Gwen shook her head. "They looked like Ghasts to me. Lean and gaunt with lots of ribs showing. Long, skinny legs, big long manes. Strong as anything."

"They followed us for almost twenty-minutes at close to eighty kilometres an hour," Richard expressed his admiration of the Centaurs' prowess. "And they didn't tire either."

"How'd you fight them? With Cali?"

"Golos took em down." Gwen gestured to her Wyvern. "We took to a higher altitude while Golos strafed them with Lightning. He picked off most of them, but a dozen or so ran. Our advisor wasn't too happy with that. He said that the NoM battalions had a hell of a time weathering centaurs, so we had to chase the rest down. That took AGES."

"Lulu's not a good flyer," Richard explained. "Neither am I. Gwen had to do most of the work herself."

"Sounds like a hassle." The diminutive Evoker inclined her chin. "Your advisor's right, though. While WE're hurling Fireballs from the air, the grounded Mages and the armed NoMs are ducking arrows and trying not to be trodden. Even armoured convoy trucks are no match if they run into something higher than tier 6. You remember that Land Shark back in the Hunters?"

"Don't remind me." Gwen grimaced.

"One of those can demolish a fleet of vehicles," Yue said. "They eat metal as well as flesh, and they're built heavy enough to erupt from the ground and knock a transport truck over. Whetu and I saw it happen in Tauranga. Local militia got bogged down, lost half their men before we arrived from Auckland."

"Yikes."

"Mobility is life. When—" her friend pronounced sagely before suddenly pausing. "Finally, they're here! Let's get this show on the road!"

Six dots appeared on the purple horizon.

Gwen's eyes searched for Jean-Paul. "I wonder what took them so long?"

"I would have kept patrolling if I knew we had to wait this long," Yue grumbled. "I take it there's a good reason those Golem units are still idling."

Two dozen Daylight Flares hovered around the Shimenzi's general vicinity, turning night into midday. As super-charged Dancing Lights, the Military staple covered a range of almost half a kilometre each, underneath which a shadowless, all-enveloping light ensured Shimenzi was laid bare.

In better times, the winding canyon would have arguably made an impressive panorama. Under the guardianship of the Undead, however, cold granite met with shattered shale, giving the river's vista the likeness of an upturned graveyard half-caught in a rock-slide.

"Students!" A uniformed Magister in pressed olive presented himself as Colonel Qin Qíao of 1st Force-Recon and the Field Officer in charge of the Reclamation of Shenyang. "Many of you may be wondering why we are so invested in Shimenzi. Now, I shall elucidate you."

The commander cleared his throat.

"While our troops clear the way to Shenyang, you have been offered the chance to PURGE Shimenzi. Lieutenant Xiao, the map."

A projection of the waterworks and its internal chambers materialised into view, vivid and brilliant under the unnatural daylight. The students' stunned faces stared at the architectural layout, knitting their brows at the sight of the extensive underground bunker.

"Shimenzi… is not just a water filtration plant for the local farms," the Colonel explained. "In the late sixties, we commissioned Russian engineers to build it as a military base during the defence of Liaoning. Apart from the Undead, the base was also built to repel Americans..."

"Strewth." Yue rolled her eyes. "No wonder I couldn't punch past the first layer. It's a legit habitat bunker. Fuck."

"You tried breaking in?" Gwen whispered.

"Destroyed the wall and everything," Yue remarked. "But— no luck."

"Firepower, firepower, firepower?" Gwen grinned.

"Not enough firepower. Master might be able to do it. Gunther could probably blast straight to the core."

Whetu coughed.

The girls zipped their lips.

"… Presently, we anticipate that Shimenzi is home to at least forty individuals engaged in the practice of Necromancy. Of these criminals, at least THREE have attained the level of Magus. Here are their profiles—"

A three score of headshots materialised mid-air.

The Colonel stood below the first floating face, a Mage with ash-blonde hair and sunken blue-green eyes reminiscent of arctic ice.

"Anton Yermolov, Russian. Sixty-Seven years of age. He served as a Biomancer in Moscow before turning to study Necromancy. He's a freelance Ritualist researching Undeath and immortality. Wanted in Russia, Ukraine, Poland and of course, China, Mister Yermolov is worth 400CCs dead or alive. Should you encounter him, expect dangerous Familiars and spells affecting the mind, as well as your Astral Body."

A second image appeared. This time, it showed a pale-skinned man in the garb of a priest. The most notable aspect of the Necromancer was his hawk-beak nose.

"Diego Valentino, Italian. An ex-communicated priest from the Ordo Praedicatorum. Fifty-seven years of age. Spent the first thirty years of his life hunting down Necromancers. Now, he's one of them. His spells principally focus on Essence and Spirits. We have it on good authority that he controls incorporeal monsters. His Tower Bounty currently sits at 550 CCs, with an additional 250 CCs if his Storage Ring and certain contents can be returned to the Ordo. If you do find it, I suggest handing it to the PLA for processing."

A third face materialised. This time, there was very little bio-metric data. To Gwen, the last Necromancer was a slim-faced North Korean woman in her forties.

"Finally, Sung Min-Seo. A local. Information regarding Sung's whereabouts was recently gathered thanks to Fudan. From what we can deduce, she is a Magus-tier Grafter, so expect monstrous creations such as Hulks, Abominations and at worst, Demi-human Bone Golems. Currently, the PLA will offer 300 CCs for her and 50 CCs for each of her upper-tier creations."

The Colonel paused, then raised his head to survey the students.

"All three have been pushed from their laboratories and hiding places. All three should now be in Shimenzi. These are your principal Quest targets, in addition to the complete Purge of the fortification."

The Colonel pointed to the Golems.

"When the operation begins, the PLA will breach Shimenzi from the Front with our mechanised units, distracting the innumerable Undead defenders who will meet us. As for your teams…"

The Colonel pointed to three separate sections on the map.

"You may choose an entry point cleared for your convenience or breach the fort by individual means. If you are unsure, I want to remind our guests that this mission is not compulsory and that you may continue collating CCs tomorrow and in the next six days until we reach Shenyang. Note that requests we are offering you are neither easy nor safe. It will test every spell you have at your disposal, as well as stretch your resources to the breaking point. Do you understand?"

"Yessir!" the students answered as one.

"Good!" The Colonel cleared his throat. "Fudan, will you proceed?"

"We accept!" Gwen's husky voice reverberated through the day-lit night.

"Pretoria?"

"None shall survive, Colonel!" Schalk crisply answered, standing to attention. His movements were curt and flawless, despite his cumbersome seeming Armscor booster-plate.

"Auckland?"

"We'll kill em all!" Yue snapped a salute, her heels clicked. "Nothing will survive, not even a Zombie rat, sir!"

"That's what I like to hear!" The Colonel returned to the cross-section diagram. "Now, pick your entry points."

"Sir!" Schalk raised a hand.

"Yes, Mister Hertzog?"

"We would like to offer an alternative entry, Sir! We have obtained the Glyph for Shimenzi's mid-level Teleportation Circle, Sir!"

The Colonel paused.

"Well, well..." The man's countenance then contorted in the manner of a smiling wolf. "What wonderful news!"


The leaders of the triumvirate huddled.

"I volunteer for the breach." Schalk raised his hand. "With my booster armour and my talents, I should be able to hold the Teleportation room until the rest of you can safely arrive."

"Schalk, you're too reckless," Izette, Pretoria's Diviner, dissuaded her captain. "Neither mine nor Mayuree's Divinations showed weal."

All three teams were keen on the idea of teleporting into the enemy base while their main force was distracted by the Golems kicking through the front door, but then the question arose of who would breach the great unknown. If Ghouls and acolytes held the entryway, then all would be well. If Ghasts and Bone Monarchs, supported by Senior Necromancers, held the portal, then doom awaited the intruder. Yet, no matter the difficulty, someone had to be first, for the PLA would not wait to make their assault.

Of the three Abjurers, Schalk suggested that he could withstand whatever spells, curses, and afflictions the Necromancers threw at him.

Richard conveyed that he could instantly flood the vicinity to extinguish any opportunity for retaliation.

Whetu assured the teams that nought would bypass his Pounamu barrier.

"How about we send in our Familiars?" Jean-Paul meekly susurrated, shirking the artificial daylight, his complexion so pale as to glow. "Umzokwe can independently manifest. As can Caliban."

"But then we'd lose control of them. Besides, how're your vital stores?" Gwen countered her companion. "I've got supplements... and Eunae if need be, but if our connection is cut by the ward..."

"Umzokwe's stores will suffice." Jean-Paul wheezed. "If not, I can replenish once we're inside."

"…" Gwen felt as though she should issue a rebuke. But since none of her fourteen compatriots batted an eye, she realised that perhaps, she was the weirdo and not Jean-Paul. Wistfully, Gwen felt once again struck by the banality of her old world sentimentality. Even now, she felt no desire to murder NoMs, nor become a cannibal; no matter if her victims were Necromancers.

Watching the others luridly vociferate the methods of accredited murder, she felt dirty. In her mind, death should be clean, not obscene.

Sighing, her eyes wandered toward Golos.

A thought took root.

"WAIT—!" she slapped the table, causing the others to stare. "I have a better idea!"

"... Let's hear it." Schalk folded his arms with mild annoyance.

"Gogo can breach for us." Gwen jabbed a thumb at the diminishing mountain of SPAM. "As a Thunder Wyvern, he's highly resistant to all kinds of magic, even Void. His element is also directly opposed to Negative Energy users and Necromancy. He's stronger than a bone golem, AND he's also immune to status attacks due to his mythical bloodline. If need be, I'll front up the extra HDMs for his weight-class."

The students' eyes wandered to the burping Wyvern, then back to the Teleportation Circle. Somehow, the prospect of dropping an eleventh tier Thunder Wyvern into the midst of a Necromancer's lair seemed— utterly amazing?

Indeed, after Golos cleared the Teleportation Circle, they could leisurely teleport in, leading with their Abjurers, then branch off in their irrespective group to hunt the named Necromancers.

"What a wonderful idea," Yue cooed in gleeful agreement, her eyes full of anticipated mayhem. "Gogo go-go!"

Golos lifted its head, wondering why a stumpy peasant was hollering his name.

"I…" Schalk struggled to think of a disadvantage. "Well... Let's do it."

"Great!" Gwen exhaled with some relief. She turned toward her SPAM-eating Wyvern. "GOGO! Finish up! It's time to earn your keep!"

From the blueprint of the old PLA fortification, the hidden megastructure comprised of eight tiers.

The ground floor consisted of a fortifiable lobby connected to a guards' barracks, an administrative sub-floor, and levitation lifts proceeding up and down the stratum. The upper floors, involving Levels I, II and III, were the heart of the bunker, with shared rooms for Mages, a command theatre, a mess, and storage rooms for HDMs and equipment. A different set of lifts, however, descended past the Lower Ground floor, accessing Basement levels I to III.

Thankfully, the Teleportation Circle Pretoria had obtained was the magical personnel entry built into the Lower Ground, an elaborate chamber about sixty or so square meters, depressed so that it could be accessed from several adjacent sections simultaneously.

Of the lower floors, B-I consisted of a substantial troop barrack meant to house up to a thousand NoMs, a kitchen and mess, segregated showers and bathrooms as well as food stores and an armoury. B-II housed the water filters together with the now-defunct pumps feeding the reservoir sitting adjacent to an engineers' section. Finally, B-III represented a principal objective, covering the control Mandala, the Crystal Core tapping into the ley-line, and the loci for the superstructure's wards.

Each of the levels furthermore possessed sub-stratum and off-shots in the form of chambers, hidden or otherwise, connected by a mole's lair of transmuted tunnels.

"Hello, claustrophobia," Gwen remarked for herself and the others. The corridors' width stood two Mages abreast at best. The cramped space was great for her line-based Lightning Bolts, but the same confinement meant there was no evading her enemies' AoEs either. If she teleported away, she would leave Mayuree or Eunae open to assault.

"Time is of the essence," Schalk said. "One team should circle back and attack the enemy from the back. Another team should push upward into the headquarters, while the last team should aim for the control Mandala. You know your abilities best, so let's hear it."

Yue was the first to speak.

"Alright, maties. I've got firepower bleeding out my nose, Timoti's got both damage and control, and Rongo's got snares well-suited to confined spaces," the Fire Mage transcribed, pointing to each of her team. "We got Whetu as well, and Opi doubles as a CQB Transmuter Mage. Ergo, we'll Fire Lance the Necros right in the starfish."

"Do you need a healer?" Gwen frowned at her friend's bluster. "What if one of you got drained or injured?"

"We'll toast any and everything before they get close," Yue replied with confidence.

"You can take our Eunae with you." Gwen looked toward her healer. In turn, Eunae shook her head vigorously. "… or not."

"I'll be fine." Yue shrugged. "Got pots, got tats, we're sweet as, bruh."

"Right." Gwen looked to Whetu. The big man nodded, affirming Yue's boisterous confidence. "How about you guys?"

The others gave their two-cents.

In the interim, Gwen regarded her Void counter-part. For the whole while, Jean-Paul had remained silently receptive to whatever demand Schalk placed upon him. Was he being bullied? She wondered, but couldn't tell from Jean-Paul's expressionless mien. In the end, she chewed her lower lip, remembering that there were plenty of talented but introverted folks who preferred extra work to contentious confrontations.

".... and I am well versed in Spellcraft theory, particularly the construction of wards and Mandalas relating to Abjuration wards," Schalk stated nonchalantly. "Who here can say the same?"

Whetu remained silent, as did Richard. As for Gwen, she could at best inscribe a cooking fire.

"Then Pretoria shall take the lead down to B-III," Schalk declared. "Miss Song, I guess that leaves the upper levels for you."

"I am fine with that. Richard? Everyone?"

"No complaints here." Lulan was her usual, accommodating self.
"I am game," Richard replied.
"I'll follow you," Mayuree stated.
"So long as we're not reckless." Eunae eyed Yue, hoping there wasn't going to be another offer of rent-a-Cleric.

"Alright." Gwen pointed to L-II and level L-III. These were chambers where enemy Mages resided, a prospect that suited her just fine. "Assuming the PLA is going to be holding the lobby, we'll head for these levels."

"Wonderlik!" Schalk clapped once. "Don't forget, the levitation platforms will be disabled, so you'll be flying up the shaft. Meanwhile, we shall be relying on your Wyvern."

"What sort of resistance is the PLA anticipating?" Gwen asked for a reminder.

"Lower-tier Undead in the thousands. Up to a century of mid-tier Necromantic beings. A few mid to higher-tier constructs. And acolytes in addition to our Magus-tier targets." Mayuree recollected from the briefing. "The lesser Undead will be bolstered and buffed by the apprentices, that's why the PLA will handle the frontal assault."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"That's a tough slog, bro," Rongo remarked. "Poor bastards."

"That's why we're here." Lencho, Pretoria's Lightning Mage, looked from Gwen to Golos, appearing apprehensive.

Agreeing with the Evoker's assessment, Gwen offered a prayer for the soldiers below. Having sent a thousand Zombies into oblivion, she knew first hand just how troublesome a swarm could be. It wasn't so much that each Zombie was cumbersome to kill, but that the possibility of a group of Mages growing OoM before the majority of Zombies perished was relatively high. Add in ambusher-types like Ghouls with low-cunning or the swift-limbed Ghasts, it was relatively easy for a Mage to be snatched while taking a breather from spell fatigue.

Ding! Ding!

The teams' Message Devices chimed, accompanied by the revving of the Dusty-266's roaring mana-engines.

The time for action was nigh.

Shimenzi.

Lower Ground Teleportation Circle.

Iosif Mazylak was the senior apprentice to Anton Yermolov, a Ritualist Magus in all but Tower accreditation. Iosif

Like many in his Romanian village, Iosif believed in the existence of the immortal Koschei, a myth whose stories and legends had permeated the collective memory of his people. As the tale tells it, the 12th century Immortal King, without formalised knowledge of sorcery, lived until the twenty-fourth generation of his kin— an impressive feat for a Mage of antiquity.

Thus raised on outlandish tales, Iosif had forgotten all about Tower's propaganda when Anton arrived looking for potential apprentices. A dream-prone adolescent, Iosif was full of delusion and grandeur. It wasn't an unusual trait— for life on the Frontier was boring but hard; it was a place where sudden, violent deaths daily occurred.

While the Tower Masters of the Black Sea ate caviar in Istanbul, the meagre fortune of not starving to death in Poiana Brașov was a luxury few could afford. That and the villagers were predated upon by the Night Hags, Dhampirs, and the Nachtkrapps that roamed the mountains.

"O God so merciful in heaven," the old men in his village would pray when the Dhampirs came for their milk-skinned daughters. "O Lord, Father of all, deliver us from harm."

But it wasn't God who came to save the village.
It was Anton Yermolov.
At once, Iosif knew he had found his calling.

Before he had learned the Craft from his Master, Iosif's greatest ambition was to take Elena, the Mayor's daughter, on her wedding bed. A year on, Iosif had forgotten all about that banal fantasy. He came to realise the vastness of the world, how high the mountains of knowledge, and how fathomless the Spellcraft seas. Very quickly, Iosif exposed the lies besmirching Necromancy and the scourge of the Undead plague. Now, as a senior acolyte, he recognised Necromancy in its true form— art.

For what else could he label magic that could arguably be utilised by anyone with a hint of talent? Like death, Necromancy was an equaliser. All one needed to ply the Craft was knowledge, mana, and the capacity to suspend worldly ethics.

"Mages were born free," his Master had quoted a famous philosopher. "Yet, thanks to the accursed Imperial Magic System, he is everywhere in chains."

Iosif agreed. Compared to the Seven Schools of Magic, Necromancy was freeform and primal, drawing on the raw Essence possessed by all beings.

Where there was life, there was death.
Where there was decay, there was regeneration.
How can one outlaw the foil to life itself? It was absurd.

When he had finished his first half-decade under the Master, raised his first Zombie and watched his minions perpetuate, Iosif felt elucidated. When a decade later, the first of his slaves rose not as a mindless being, but a thinking, feeling Ghast, Iosif attained an epiphany.

"Life is death!" his Master had hollered to his students. "Don't you see? It is reversible! Life is death as death is life! Undeath is sovereignty over the tyranny of nature! It is an escape from the karmic forces of the material world! Undeath is the bottling of God's domain! It's true freedom!"

But the journey to transcendence was long and arduous.

Master Yermolov's Path, as the Tower Mages would say, was one of Ritualism, the prolonging of life through the exploitation of death. It was an easily misunderstood goal, for the actual purpose wasn't life, but the attainment of Undeath— the transformation into an immortal legend known as a Lich.

At first, Iosif had disputed if such a tier of mastery existed.

But after a visit with his Master to Pyongyang, all doubts had ceased.

After an august audience with what must be a Magi, Iosif knew that God, or Gods, or at least a facsimile of divinity, did exist on the Material Plane.

"Master Iosif…" a voice more juggling stones than vocal cords addressed the day-dreaming apprentice. "When may we… feed?"

Iosif frowned. He disliked being interrupted, especially by a slave.

The Ghast that spoke was Paul, a dear friend and Elena's fiancé. In his youth, Iosif had been greedy and had practised his Craft on Elena before his skills had matured. Luckily, his friend promptly arrived at the end of a two-year sojourn searching for his fiancée. Full of remorse, Iosif had welcomed his friend into his Master's abode, after which, the rest was history.

"You may feed when the PLA has had their fun, or when reinforcements arrive from Shanyang," Iosif stated. Disgracefully, the PLA's assault had caught them all by surprise. Their contacts in Dalian had been told that it was a routine military drill— until reality had caught up, too fast for many of the Masters to preserve their experiments. From what he had heard from upstairs, Master Valentino had lost a senior apprentice in his haste to retreat to Shimenzi. Having then lost his precious materials, the Mage had flown into a rage and Soul Flayed a lesser apprentice when the girl was clumsy enough to bump into him.

Now, caught in the cramped confines of Shimenzi, the brooding Masters bid their time.

In the gloom, Iosif's Ghast nodded, then returned to staring blankly at the Teleportation Circle.

Together with Paul were a half-dozen of his Master's lesser creations, as well as a few of his experiments. Though Iosif felt he could be arguably be made useful elsewhere, someone had to guard the portal in case allies arrived.

Suddenly, the ground swayed.

"Whoa—" Iosif muttered when the ground shook. The PLA's assault on the front gate had begun. "Death preserve us."

Paul said nothing. Other than the occasional complaint about his eternal hunger, the Ghast voiced little of anything.

The floor shook again.

Iosif's greatest worry was the stock of fresh flesh in the larder. Economical Undead like Skeletons and Zombies could be starved for years and indeed, possessed higher functions when frenzied, but not so intelligent variants.

Unlike their bio-mechanical cousins, conscious Undead required maintenance and sustenance. One of Iosif's tasks for the first decade of his apprenticeship had been precisely that, a Ghoul farmer whose job was to throw meat to the howling horrors while avoiding being eaten himself. Indeed, of the ten gathered from his village for the test, only Iosif survived.

_BOOM— Rumble—_

Dust fell from the ceiling. The PLA were really giving it their all, but Shimenzi wasn't an easy fortress to penetrate.

Iosif yawned. The Undead made good guards but made terrible conversationalists. If he was bored, maybe he should take the time to pick apart one of his Master's Clawed Ghouls? Or perhaps one of the Mutated Zombies to see how their imbued enchantments caused Negative Energy to warp their flesh?

_THRUMMMMMM—_

Iosif blinked.
The Teleportation Circle churned, filling with mana.

Another ally, arriving from an outed outpost? Iosif frowned. With the PLA assaulting the upper levels, wasn't it a bit convenient for someone to be visiting?

But then again, only senior apprentices knew the key to the teleportation array. Even if an acolyte encountered a Mind Mage, the Death Geas would ensure they drained themselves to death before a single Glyph could be uttered.

_—NMMMMM_ — the thrum of silvery Conjuration filled the air with static. The amount of mana being channelled through the portal was terrific.

It must be an ally. Iosif relaxed. The size of the thing coming through was at least the volume of an Abomination or a Hulk.

"I hope the chamber's big enough," Iosif muttered warily. The individual rooms were generous, but the corridors were barely two and a half meters high.

_ZAAAP!_

The circle deposited its cargo.

"Welcome!" Iosif hailed the new arrivals in guttural Korean. "You've come at a…"

His lips grew transfixed.

A man appeared amidst the firefly motes of Conjuration, a nine-foot giant.

"What the—?" Iosif muttered in his native tongue.

The man's stature was enormous, akin to an Armoured Revenant, possessing arms like trunks and a body sculpted of Grecian marble. Atop the man's brows grew two horned ridges that ran the length of his skull, half-hidden within a mess of platinum-white hair.

The man looked around, his silvery orbs refracting the lumen-globes like the eyes of a cat.

Iosif swallowed, fighting the panic in his heart.

"ATTACK! All attack!" He wasted no time summoning a staple invocation to his lips. "Agonising Enervation!"

A stream of Negative Energy, conjured by the inscribed artificial Sigil drawn into his Astral Soul, flooded through Iosif's warded mana conduits. Of his collection of spells, the fourth-circle debilitator was his favourite, for it afflicted the target with spine-wrecking agony while transferring their vitality back toward the caster.

"Sisargh hofiba!" the demi-human uttered in a bone-chilling, alien tongue.

Iosif's charm struck.
A split-second later, nothing happened.

The Senior Apprentice grew confused. There was no fizzle— his spell had been successful. He had seen its dark miasma connect with the demi-human. If so, why didn't it work?

"GAWWWRRR!"

Paul had by now reached its enemy. From all ten digits, it distended blade-like claws pumped full of ghastly venom, fully capable of disabling the stoutest of Mages.

The demi-human looked up, frowned, then moved like a blur.

_Snap!_

The Ghast halted mid-stride, suddenly caught in an iron vice.
Iosif's eyes grew impossibly wide, then fuller again, pressing against his sockets.

While the Mutated Zombies gnawed on the Demi-human with their distended jaws to no avail, the man effortlessly reached out, catching Paul's head like a ball. Then, with a single, fluid motion, the giant tore the Ghast's skull, spine and all, from his torso.

"GRAAA—" Paul made just one sound before his Necromantic energies expired, washing over the man's well-muscled body like water off a duck's back.

Iosif shook, his fingers trembled, spells long recollected failed to pronounce themselves.

His assailant began swatting at the lesser Undead.

_Whack!_ With a bone-shattering blow, a Zombie's head exploded like an overripe melon.

_THWAK!_ A quick stomp sent the lower half of another Ghoul flying into the distance to splatter against the wall.

_CRUNCH!_ A simple sweep cut six Ghouls in half, mutilating both flesh and bone.

"HA!" The demi-human giant swung Paul's head like a mace, smashing apart Iosif's and his Master's beloved creations with Paul's profaned remains.

Across the chamber, the Necromancer acolyte felt as though his brain was spinning like a top. What the hell was this? His soul rioted. Who was this monster, and why was it here in Shimenzi? For Iosif, there was only a single recourse. He had to inform Master and bring reinforcements! Surely a Bone Golem could best this creature!

"Shield!" Iosif preemptively erected a barrier. He wasn't an Abjurer, not to mention his minions usually blocked his foes. Unfortunately for Iosif, his present defences rapidly deteriorated as the humanoid dreadnaught pounded his pets into mincemeat.

"Blood Walk—" In desperation, he opened a vein.

"LOREAT!" came a cry more bark than speech.

Iosif was a few incantations from completing his limited-range teleport when his long-neglected testicles suddenly shrivelled up into his torso. A spine-wrangling, strength-sapping wave of fear overwhelmed his faculties, turning his frontal lobes into quivering soup. Something indescribable relaxed in his gut, his innards revolted, and the room grew suddenly heavy with the scent of excreta.

His mouth filled with bile, Iosif looked down in disbelief.
Was he the first Necromancer in history to suffer Mana Burn because he shat himself? What would his Master say?

But he needn't worry about that. Not when the collated strength of a dozen Ogre Ghasts punched through his feeble grey shield to take him by the neck.

Moments later, against the concrete fortification, Wyvern and former Necromancer painted an impromptu Pollock.

"… Gogo's done." Gwen licked her drying lips. It was unexpected, but Link Sight somehow worked on Golos, bypassing the ward. "We're clear, for the moment."

Schalk, Whetu and Richard stepped into the circle.

"Miss Song." The captain of Pretoria inclined his butt-chin. "See you on the other side."

****