My Undead Legion Kills God's

Damien approached cautiously, his eyes fixed on the three animal-skin rugs scattered across the ground. At first glance, they looked like nothing more than old decorations left behind by whoever had once occupied the frozen camp, but as he got closer, he realised they weren’t just rugs at all. They were human bodies within them.

Or more accurately, skeletons.

There wasn’t a trace of flesh left on any of them. Their bones were completely exposed, yet strangely pristine. The cold should have preserved whatever remained of their bodies to some extent, but there was nothing. No dried flesh. No signs of decay. Nothing clinging to the bones at all.

Damien crouched slightly, studying the nearest skeleton with a frown.

"Shouldn’t the cold preserve them to a certain extent? Their bones are pristine white with no signs of decay, but the flesh is perfectly gone. Almost like it had been surgically removed."

He couldn’t help but find it strange.

The skeletons didn’t look ancient in the way he expected them to. Their bones hadn’t deteriorated into brittle, discoloured remains. They were clean, almost unnaturally so, as though whatever had removed the flesh had done it with incredible precision.

Andrea didn’t know what to say to that. She knelt beside the closest body and carefully studied the exposed bones, her expression becoming thoughtful as she examined what little remained.

"They were probably hiding from whatever created the ruins of humanity," she responded plainly.

"The Eidolons," Damien said casually.

Andrea glanced at him.

"The Eidolons were nowhere near powerful enough to destroy the ancient humans. It was probably something else."

Damien raised an eyebrow.

"What makes you say so?"

Andrea felt like someone with Damien’s intelligence would eventually figure it out anyway, so she didn’t bother hiding her reasoning from him.

"The weapons they crafted are way too advanced and too powerful. With what we’ve seen from the Eidolons, they would definitely have been no match for the humans. It’s possible they rose to prominence not too long after human civilization fell."

Damien stared at the skeletons again.

He had never thought that far ahead about who had actually destroyed humanity. Not that he had much time to investigate the history of the ancient world. Most of his time had been spent trying to survive, grow stronger, and keep himself from being killed by whatever nightmare happened to be waiting around the next corner.

But Andrea was curious too, that made her useful.

"Who do you think destroyed them?" Damien asked.

Andrea didn’t bother looking back this time. Her attention remained on the skeleton beneath her, though her expression had become considerably more serious.

"A really messed up god."

"Wait, when did we go from surviving rams walking on two legs to challenging gods".

Damien looked away and moved to the body closest to the tent. He crouched down and gently moved part of the rug covering it, revealing a skeleton that was different from the others. Unlike the previous bodies, this one was still clutching something tightly in its skeletal hands.

It was holding onto a book, but the book wasn’t the strangest part of it all. Faint, pulsing runes had been engraved directly into the skeleton’s bones, their dim glow making them stand out against the pristine white surface. Damien stared at them for a while, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

He was no expert on this ancient calligraphy, especially the kind that seemed to hold power beyond mere words. Still, the markings looked strangely familiar. Damien retrieved his axe and compared the runes engraved along its surface to those covering the skeleton.

They were similar, but still completely different.

There were certain shapes and patterns that seemed connected, yet Damien couldn’t quite understand how. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at, and trying to force the answer into his thoughts wasn’t getting him anywhere.

So Damien decided to just take the book instead.

He reached down and grabbed it before pulling, but nothing happened.

Damien frowned and pulled harder, but the skeleton refused to let go. Its fingers remained tightly wrapped around the book, completely unmoving despite the force Damien was applying.

"Hey, check this out."

Andrea walked over and looked down at the skeleton. She was just as stunned, although it didn’t show on her face.

"Can you help me out here?"

She didn’t argue. Andrea bent down on one knee and grabbed the book alongside Damien before they both started pulling. The skeleton didn’t even budge, even with the raw power both of them could muster.

"Why don’t you try bringing it back to life, then taking the book?" Andrea suggested.

Damien wasn’t sure if he could. The skeletons had been dead for an unknown number of centuries, and he wasn’t even sure if his ability could bring back creatures without flesh and blood. Usually, there was something for his ability to work with when he raised the dead, but these were nothing more than bones that had been sitting beneath the ice for who knew how long.

Still, it was worth a try.

"Rise."

At first, nothing happened.

The skeleton remained completely motionless, its fingers still wrapped tightly around the book. Damien calmly waited for some kind of response, but there was no movement from the corpse.

Then a cold sense of death suddenly spread through the surrounding area.

The plants and vegetation around them began to shift away, their leaves and branches slowly pulling back as though instinctively trying to escape the unnatural presence. Neither Andrea nor Damien noticed it.

A sharp burst of light suddenly erupted from the runes engraved across the skeleton’s bones.

The force violently repelled his dormant ability before it could take hold of the corpse.

Damien staggered slightly from the resistance but quickly regained his balance. He stared at the skeleton, then at the fading runes covering its bones.

"It failed... But I think I can deteriorate the runes if I can keep going."

The runes had become noticeably paler than before.