Vampire Infection

The Necromancer, a type of mage who uses their mana to control the dead, binding the soulless husks to their will that would become the basis of an immortal army, almost invincible and without need for rest or food they could be considered the creators of the 'perfect' army in a sense.

The only flaw to this arrangement is that the Necromancer had to micromanage absolutely everything that concerned their 'troops.' Which either led to a Necromancer being one of the deadliest foes a Mage could face to them being one of the easiest depending on the Necromancer controlling the army.

Or so I'd read, frankly the information I had on Necromancers was limited to a few short paragraphs spread across more than a few tens of books. They were mysterious and hardly doc.u.mented but when they were it was usually only their downfall that was remembered in the records.

I had no way of judging the girls proficiency as a 'Necromancer' as she could and most likely is far older than she appears to be, even if the half of her face that still remained makes her look in her mid-twenties to thirties it was hard to accurately judge in the end.

"An undead necromancer…" I mumbled, I couldn't help but feel regret about turning Kelly into a Vampire a Necromancer would've been much more useful when my plans were to wipe out the Mage Society but there was no room for regret in this world, especially when I was faced with an undead army that was still increasing second by second.

I shook my head with a smile as I looked at her; the confidence in my smile seemed to shake her slightly as a look of wariness flashes in her eyes. Even if I didn't have a back-up plan she didn't know that, luckily I could control the emotions I showed with ease maybe the only perk of my personality 'disorder' that causes my love for 'acting.'

I could tell she was analysing every angle as she watched me like a hawk, I was all alone against an army of hundreds that were building themselves behind her but I was still able to appear confident, how?

I could imagine the thoughts racing through her head, 'do I have allies? Was I truly not alone? Was I a fake?'

I could imagine every possibility racing through her mind except the right one, I was alone. I was a single person facing hundreds of 'indestructible' walking corpses but I didn't lose hope.

"Let's do a little test, shall we?" I said confidently before moving out of her line of sight, she wasn't panicked as she looked around trying to figure out where I'd gone, unfortunately I doubted she'd guess the right answer.

The simulated weather was day right now but because of the buildings there were shadows all over the street I was standing on, all I had to do was make a feint as I pretended to disappear somewhere else when in reality all I'd done was fade into the floor.

Becoming one with the shadows, that was the ability I'd used to kill the Grandmaster but what did it really feel like? My 'body' had become a shadow and all that remained was my spirit walking in its place along solid ground, but even the slightest exposure to a place with no shadows would force me to reappear.

After a few days of experimenting with the ability there seemed to be no time limit as to how long I could remain like this but I wasn't able to interact with any 'physical' object, instead I was exposed to something more ethereal in nature.

As I stared as the hundreds of corpses I could see the hundreds of 'strings' or 'threads' binding them to the woman, it truly looked like how a puppet master looks when controlling the strings of their puppet.

This arrangement of threads caused the realisation to dawn on me that to truly control the army of undead corpses they all individually needed orders, they weren't all interconnected and neither were they grouped together – every single thread connected to one corpse and her.

Hundreds of threads, hundreds of corpses that need individual orders to perform even the simplest of tasks. Although if I had to guess I'd say it was probably easier for her to tell them to 'attack' when she had a clear target in mind, all she had to do was show them her mental image of the target and tell to attack but if she wanted 'finer' control she'd have to exert herself to reach an inhumane level of 'control.'

I shook my thoughts from my mind as quickly as they'd come, even if I was interested in how a Necromancer remained in control of so many bodies simultaneously I would naturally be able to find the answers to that later. For now I had to deal with the 'Commander' of this army.

I began to move forward swiftly, diving through the shadows to remain hidden from her as I got closer. Even if it took my full attention to dodge the light and remain in the shadows I kept one eye on her at all times.

She was still looking around for me curiously but she'd since surrounded herself by corpses to 'protect' her from harm, not that it'd do any good, it just gave me more shadows to move through as I approached her.

But there was something… off about the situation as I got closer which is when I caught it. It was the slightest twitch and under normal circ.u.mstances it would probably have gone unnoticed if I hadn't been paying attention to her at all times out of the corner of my eye.

But with my increases senses and eyesight provided to me from my rank-up I saw it. Her eye twitched and flashed in my direction, she looked directly at me as if she could see me and it most definitely wasn't just 'chance' or a coincidence that she'd done so.

I cursed in my head before forcing myself to reappear from the shadows a few meters from her corpses. "You knew?" I asked with a look of defeat, I was met with her face full of pride and eyes full of triumph as she stared at me.

"Now that'd be telling." She said smugly, "I don't see much sense in talking to a dead man either." With that she clapped her hands and her army advanced, they quickly surrounded me on all sides and without another word they all charged.

It didn't matter that there wasn't enough room for them to do so; they swarmed me as if they were a hive. It was the most basic and crudest way to attack but I had to admit it was the most effective, there was no way for me to possibly block all of their attacks and even less chance for me to escape knowing that she could see me even if I had in the shadows, all she had to do was have her army follow me until I reappeared again and she'd repeat her swarm tactic once more.

But it wasn't like me to retreat in the first place, so naturally I'd already ruled out that option. In the short second I spent in thought they were on me, with speed and strength I crushed the legs of the first corpse that rushed towards me with two swift kicks before turning and crushing the head of one with a single blow.

I continued to fight, inflicting normally mortal wounds on their frail bodies but no matter what I did they just continued to rise and fight again, even the ones whose legs I destroyed crawled their way over despite being stepped on by other corpses to keep up the fight.

The only 'true' way to destroy them would be to completely destroy their bodies but was that even possible? Minutes that felt like hours passed as I began to feel exhausted from the non-stop fighting, something that I'd never felt before.

But then again I'd never fought against enemies that didn't know the meaning of fear or retreat.

I looked up to see the woman looking at me smugly as if she was enjoying a good show, I couldn't help but become enraged as I began to fight with even more ferocity. In my rage I didn't even notice that I'd transformed into a wolf, biting off their heads and cutting them in half. None of it worked.

This wasn't a battle a single person could fight and win in; with that in mind I summoned the Shadow Wolf again. When I'd gone back to clean up the corpses I had to decide between the body of the Grandmaster and the wolf, the wolf was naturally the better option when it came to raw fighting power and considering it was a shadow it was simply impossible for it to feel fatigue in the first place much like these corpses.

I fought desperately alongside it as we tore them apart again and again but it was seemingly never ending, for every ten that we cut down another twenty would appear. For every one we crippled we'd have to defend against attacks on our legs from below.

At least an hour passed in this fashion, corpses littered the ground but they unless all four of their limbs were cut off even the severed heads were trying to bite at us if we got too close. The female Necromancer still looked as if she had no cares in the world, she didn't even try to interfere in the battle from the start.

If it continued like this… 'I'll die.' The thought crossed my mind causing me to shiver subconsciously as I imagined by body just becoming another corpse in this army of hers.

"Did I really pledge my loyalty to such a stupid master?" A familiar voice came from the street behind me, "Who?!" The Necromancer stood up and glared in the direction, it was Kelly.

She was still carrying a book as she walked towards us, temporarily the corpses had stopped attacking as if she was deciding what to do about this newcomer.

"If you want to kill them all… it's simple." She said, her voice monotone as she continued to flick the pages of the book in her hand, completely uncaring about the hundreds of corpses staring at her as half of them began to advance towards her with the other half continuing to attack me.

The corpses were fast but they weren't faster than the speed at which she read through the remainder of the book, just as they reached a few meters from her she'd flicked to the final page and closed the book.

"We burn them."

Timed to perfection an explosion erupted from the ground below them, a roaring fire swallowed the walking corpses that had advanced towards her.