Blessed Curse of Lust

Yelena and Eris slowly walked towards the approaching skeletons. They put some distance between them and the mages behind. Everyone was ready. As soon as they got close enough, Yelena launched the first attack. She sliced with her sword diagonally up, severing the skeleton’s neck.

Once its neck was cut, the magic that held it together dissipated, and the bones clattered as they fell on the ground. The one next to the now dead one slowly raised the rusty axe in its hand. Eris was already on it and stabbed the undead being in the head.

The thin blade went in through its empty eye socket and punched a hole through the back of its head. Just like the previous one, this one fell apart immediately.

“Hmph, it is too easy!” Eris told as she pulled her rapier back and let the skull, still impaled on her blade, slide off and fall into the pile of bones.

At that moment, a ball of fire whizzed past Yelena and Eris, aiming at the approaching third skeleton. Valerie’s magic hit the being straight in the chest and was thrown back. The impact was strong enough to break through its ribcage and break its spine, causing it to fall apart before it even hit the ground.

The last one was quickly dispatched by Yelena. It was a rather easy fight, but in reality, all of them were basically the top students in their year; they made it look way too easy.

“Okay, we keep moving. Hopefully the cave system is not too large, and we can finish this quickly.” Yelena said as the group started to move.

Since this cave was never mapped, they didn’t know what to expect. If they were lucky, the whole place wasn’t that large, maybe just one longer tunnel. If they were unlucky, it could have been a complete cave system with countless tunnels leading in different directions.

They were prepared for the worst; they had supplies that could last at least 3 days. They figured that, in the worst-case scenario, they wouldn’t have to spend more time here than that.

The group carefully moved forward; their weapons were kept at the ready, in case there were more enemies around the corner. They walked for quite a while before they found any other undead.

The team arrived at a large, open area; the ceiling was much higher than the tunnel they’d come out of. There were two other tunnels, leading to different parts of the tunnel system. Looks like they weren't lucky enough to have this place be a simple, linear cave.

In this open area, several undead were wandering around; some were similar skeletons, like one onse they’ve fought before, while there were numerous zombies shuffling around too. They were rather disgusting creatures; whatever flesh there was on their bodies was in various stages of decomposition, and the smell of rot was filling the air in this enclosed space.

There were at least 20 undead creatures roaming this room; luckily, none had noticed the group yet. They’d had time to prepare and strike first, hopefully defeating a couple of them before they needed to engage in direct combat.

“Lily, can you?” Yelena looked back at the redhead.

Lily nodded and raised her arm. She started casting a spell. A fairly large magical circle appeared above the room, covering a decent part of it. Most of the undead were under it, but some were too far away to properly reach, and that was fine. The point was to clear as many as possible.

Rain started pouring down from above. The creatures didn’t even react to it; it didn’t matter to them. Unlikely they could even feel it happening. Their only instinct was to kill the living; other than that, nothing really got their attention.

Lily twisted her wrist, activating the second sequence. The rain suddenly turned to ice, sending tiny needles of ice onto the monsters. The skeletons succumbed to the attack quickly; the needles burrowed themselves into their skulls, instantly killing them.

The zombies were different. The attack pierced through their rotting flesh, but most didn’t even flinch. As Thea mentioned, it was not that simple to kill them. Of the about 8 zombies under the spell, only one seemed affected, falling to the ground, dead.

Lily stopped her spell; the circle above the room faded away. From the 20, only about 12 remained alive. 7 zombies and 5 skeletons. She did her job; the rest was on the team to clean up.

Yelena and Eris pushed into the room, both taking opposite sides to clean up. Thea shifted her position too; since there was no threat that could come from behind, she stood in front of the mages for now to cover them in case any enemy approached.

Valerie and Lily readied their spells, waiting for the right moment to unleash them. Yelena reached her first opponent. The undead barely even had time to recognize the threat. As she approached, she already looked over at the creature's body, inspecting it for the magic symbol.

She saw it on the undead’s right side, just under the armpit. Once she was close enough, she swung her blade. The zombie’s arm was in the way, but it didn’t matter. Her sharp blade cut through the rotting flesh and bone alike, the bit deep into its side. The mark was cut; its glow faded almost instantly. With the magic gone, it was nothing more than a lifeless husk and fell on the floor.

Eris wasn’t wasting her time either. Her first targets were two skeletons standing close together. She used her wind step spell to reach them faster before they could even react to the threat she possessed.

She thrust forward with her rapier, easily piercing through the skull of her enemy, finishing it off in a second. She spun around; the momentum forced the lifeless skull to fly off her blade. She aimed at the second one, and with a quick slice, she severed its head from its neck.

Both Lily and Valerie were ready to strike too. Their aim was at the opponents near the middle of the room. Lily focused on the three remaining skeletons. She aimed with her hand; the blue magic circle appeared in front of her hand.

A singular, long ice spike shot out of it at high speed. Her aim was good; the attack pierced through her target’s skull in an instant, then came to a halt inside it as the tip poked through the other end as well.

She quickly turned, retaining the magic and repeating the action two more times. The second time, it was no issue; she managed to hit the spot. The third time she missed, managing only to graze the skeleton’s skull, not able to deal enough damage to it to cancel out the magic on the undead being.

Lily clicked her tongue and adjusted her aim. She shot her magic again, this time nailing the undead creature straight in the head. With that, the last skeleton was dispatched; now only the zombies needed to be taken care of.

Valerie was already focusing on the closest ones, two rotting undead, slowly shuffling towards them. She summoned a red circle, and large flames shot out from it. The fire flew towards the two approaching enemies. Once it made contact, it completely enveloped those undead creatures.

For Valerie, it didn’t matter where the magical sign was. She melted their flesh in one single spell, making sure it was destroyed. The zombies didn’t scream, make any noise, or even react to being on fire. In the end, their flesh charred, the sign was broken, and they fell over lifelessly.

Four more opponents remain. Yelena rushed towards the closest Zombie. She looked at it, but she couldn’t see a glow anywhere on its body. Even if it was under its tattered clothing, it would have shone through it enough to be noticeable. That meant that it was likely on its back, which the white-haired girl couldn’t see.

She approached the being with the goal of running past it and getting behind it as quickly as possible to find the sign. As soon as she got close enough, the zombie moved with surprising swiftness and swiped its hand towards the girl.

Yelena was caught off guard for a moment, but she quickly raised her blade to block the incoming attack. The undead creature’s palm struck the sharp blade; it cut into the rotting flesh, stopped by only the bones under it.

“Damn!” Yelena cursed; she felt that strike more than she expected.

While zombies were generally slow, they had greater physical strength than the average person. Still, Yelena had above-average strength and was further powered up by using Vareen. To feel the strike this much was certainly odd.

Yelena pulled back and swung her sword, aiming at the zombie’s leg. With a clear hit, it wasn’t hard to cut through it, severing the limb and making the disgusting creature fall forward.

It still tried to crawl towards the girl, although its movements were even more restricted than before. With its back now exposed, Yelena could see the mark on its body. She turned her sword upside down and stabbed down, going directly through the sign. The magic broke, and the body went limp, as it should be.

Eris rushed towards her next opponent. Lucky for her, she could already spot the sigil in the zombie’s right hand. Unfortunately for her, it was on the back of the creature’s hand, which can be tricky to hit. Once she was close enough, she took aim and was ready to stab when the zombie suddenly moved with increased speed, just like the one Yelena fought against.

The elven girl tried to step back as the zombie reached out with both hands to grab her. She managed to avoid one hand, but the other one firmly grabbed onto her shoulder. She winced; the grip was strong enough to cause some pain.

She turned her palm towards the monster and cast a spell. A strong gust of wind shot out of the magic circle, strong enough to send the undead flying back a couple of feet. Eris still felt the pain in her left shoulder, even after the undead’s hand was long gone from it.

The creature hit the floor with a heavy thud. It wasn’t all that bothered by it and immediately started getting back on its feet. Eris was not going to let that happen. She used her wind step spell, rushed forward, and stabbed her rapier through the creature’s hand.

The body froze in its mid-attempt to get up, then quickly fell back on the ground, no longer moving. The elven girl looked around; she saw the last remaining two enemies burst up in flames thanks to Valerie’s magic.

The immediate area was clear, but who knew how many more were lurking in the tunnels. They started regrouping.

“That went fine, good job all. Wish I could have more to do.” Thea said, a bit frustrated that the whole time she didn’t even have a chance to engage in a fight.

“Do you want to swap?” Yelena offered, but Thea just shook her head.

“It is fine; we are not here to show off anyway. Plus, given the situation, I assume soon my position will be a bit more relevant.” Thea pointed at the tunnels leading out of the area.

This was exactly the reason why they decided on this formation. Since they expected that there might be multiple tunnels down here, they had to put a competent melee fighter on the back to ensure that the team, and especially the mages, wouldn’t be attacked in the back from behind by enemies that walked out of tunnels that they’d passed.

“Weren’t these things supposed to be slow?” Eris kicked one of the zombie corpses as she was rubbing her still aching shoulder.

“Yes, they should be. I noticed it too with those two zombies you and Yelena fought. They are clearly servant types, but they moved much faster than they should have.” Thea was rubbing her chin as she pondered.

Undead creatures were categorized in the following groups. Servant, fighter, warrior, knight, king, and emperor. Servants like the ones they fought are generally slow and weak. Higher-tier ones tend to get exponentially stronger and more dangerous. Especially the last two, which were special cases.

Those who belonged in the king or emperor category were not raised corpses, but rather powerful necromancers who turned themselves into undead. This meant that they not only gained powers and resilience beyond normal humans, but also retained their memories and intelligence. This made them even more dangerous, since other undead were mindless husks, either following orders or acting on a base instinct of killing living beings.

Still, the issue here was something else. While the undead they fought didn’t look like higher-tier ones, they did move like they were more powerful than they should have been. This was concerning, but since they didn’t suffer any serious injuries and they still had a job to do, they decided to keep on going.

They explored the nearest tunnel and kept clearing up any undead they’ve come across. They remained more vigilant, since these turned out to be faster and stronger than they should have been. Something was going on, but none of them knew what. Yelena only had a feeling, since Lucia did seem to know something. Still, the goddess remained silent, not sharing whatever she knew.

Luckily, each tunnel was fairly short, ending in a dead end. They reached a somewhat bigger open area at the end of the last tunnel. The final enemy was slain, and the cave was undead-free once more. It took a couple of hours to finish; by the end, everyone was a little exhausted. They didn’t exactly count how many they killed, but a rough estimate would be a little more than a hundred.

“What is that?” Lily pointed at the wall at the far end of the room.

The others turned and also saw a faint, bluish glow seemingly coming from the ground. The group stayed close together and approached it carefully. They didn’t expect it to be a trap; the undead were not capable of doing such a thing, but considering that this mission was already rather odd, they decided to be cautious.

Once they reached the middle of the area, the ground suddenly shook beneath them. They all tried to keep their balance, but it was pointless. The next moment, the floor gave in, and they were all falling.

“Ugh! Dammit!” Yelena cursed as she slowly stood up. Lucky for her, the drop wasn’t that high, so no serious injury was sustained, but it sure did leave a few bruises.

“Everyone okay?” She called out and looked behind her. It seemed like the others were also fine, although a little hurt by the fall.

“By Imera! This place is…” Eris’ voice made Yelena turn around.

What she saw was more than shocking. Smooth, stone walls on both sides of the hallway they found themselves in. In the walls, runes were carved, each glowing in a faint blue light. All of them knew what this meant.

“We found a… Lirdonian ruin.” Yelena breathed with disbelief in her voice.