Chapter 3: Why stop?

She didn’t reach it. One of the green-robed practitioners reached out with his hand, and aura boiled out, blasting through the room in a forceful shockwave that sent everyone falling to their knees as pressure slammed into them.

Ysmera hit the ground with a crack, throwing Riven off. He grunted as he twisted, stopping himself from jamming his head into the ground, closer to the two practitioners.

He tried to stand, but the pressure in the air increased, and he went down in a huff as a weight settled on him.

The two green-robed figures were now combining their aura pressure.

Their aura was cold, a bitter coldness that made Riven shiver in a way no coldness ever had before. He found it somehow familiar.

Only the two village heads remained standing, but even then, they could only crouch, their faces tight with the effort of holding back the much stronger aura with their own.

“Will you look at that? Maybe we can use their bodies. One of mine is damaged, I want to replace it,” one of them said and began to walk forward while the other remained by the door.

As he walked, his shadow twisted and lengthened, turning thicker and darker, more like liquid, resembling a dark pool. Then, from within, a hand reached out.

It was a skeletal hand, dry and yellowed with age. Then the rest of the body pulled itself out, an undead skeleton dressed in ragged, rotting clothes. A rusted sword was strapped to its back, and its sockets burned with green fire.

Riven, along with everyone else, sucked in a sharp breath as they saw it. They understood then that the strangers must have Sigils related to necromancy. What they had said about bodies earlier wasn’t just a threat.

Everyone is born with a Sigil, but whether they can use it is another matter, just like what kind they get. This was the first time Riven had seen a Sigil that wasn’t purely elemental in nature.

And for some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. The undead skeleton drew his gaze. It walked to the side of its master, and the man gestured.

“I changed my mind, just kill them all.”

The undead unstrapped its sword, and without ceremony, it approached the first person, a man covered in a red aura shield. The man’s eyes widened, and he threw his own aura up, but it was crushed immediately.

“Wait, hold up, this is…”

The rusted sword went through his shield as if it wasn’t there and punched through his skull like an egg, splattering pink brain matter and blood.

Then the skeleton turned to the next person.

It was at that moment, when the shock of watching someone get killed so helplessly, without even having the chance to fight back, sank in, that they realized what was actually going to happen.

There was a moment of silence, immediately shattered as every aura practitioner flared their aura and threw it against that of the green-robed strangers.

And they succeeded, largely because the two village heads added more weight. They stood up hurriedly, and the air hummed with power as those who could use techniques released bolts of fire, wind blades, and lightning, along with stone spikes, at the undead skeleton and its master. But a dome of green shielding expanded outward from the man, and the attacks splashed harmlessly against it.

Riven didn’t wait to see the horror on the villagers’ faces. He was already at the door with Ysmera, it was unguarded.

Because while the villagers were focused on one of the strangers, the other had used some kind of technique to appear behind the two village heads.

Ysmera kicked the door open, and Riven leaped forward, only to be yanked to the side as something collided with him midair.

“Watch out!” Ysmera shouted above him as her weight settled on him. Then she picked him up again and began to run into the forest without hesitation.

Riven’s confusion cleared when he heard a growl.

He twisted from his place and saw something impossibly fast chasing them. It was a wolf monster, as tall as Riven, but its eyes burned with green fire, and part of its head was rotted. That was all he saw before the force of Ysmera’s speed made him close his eyes.

“They had a guard outside,” Riven thought. “They really want to kill us all.”

Ysmera blurred as she ran through the Shadowwood, twisting and ducking around trees with bone-breaking speed. She jumped over twisted roots, missing branches by inches.

It was Riven who suffered those scratches, but that was nothing compared to the fear that made his lungs clamp together. The undead monster was gaining on them, fast.

Its rotting stench didn’t leave them, even with the scent of dirt and plants surrounding them. Riven expected the monster to reach them at any moment, to feel its hot, rancid breath on him.

Then suddenly, Ysmera stopped running and dumped Riven on the forest floor.

He shouted in surprise and jumped to his feet, coughing slightly, both hands raised in a fighting position. He had lost his sword on the run.

“Why did you stop?” he asked, glancing around for anything he might use as a weapon.

Ysmera looked at him in amusement. She gestured toward the clearing they were in.

They heard the growl of the monster as it shook the undergrowth, making its way toward them.

“I’m going to fight it.”

Riven couldn’t believe his ears.

“What? No! Let’s just keep running, away from this place. There have to be other places beyond the Shadowwood—we know there are! Let’s—!!”

“Relax, Riven. We only ran to escape those strangers. The undead monster is only at rank one, I’ll take care of it,” she said, even adding a smile.

“You should have just said that,” Riven grumbled.

Relief ran through his body, and he wanted to flop onto the ground as his body trembled from the fear caused by those strangers.

That’s right. Ysmera is rank two, she’ll take care of this.

And then, like a shadow fitted with two green fire-burning eyes, the monster bounded into the clearing.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep