chapter 36

"You know about this one?" Leonard looked at the stunned old Necromancer that he was facing off against in a duel between magic caster.

"Intelligent zombie...a variant of the sentient undead race thought to only existed back during the dark age...never in a thousand year would I expect to see one up close like this here." the old man laughed as he analyzed Tyrant with his aged eyes.

"Never in my long life had I been surprise by a single man before… congratulation, young lad "Pater Tuus" you are the first to do so."

"All of you, attack them!" the moment the old man gave the order, the undead went back to their frenzy and swarm the both of them, Tyrant and Leonard.

Of course the two of them wasn't just standing there and be turned into feed for the swarm of ravenous undead, they fought back fiercely- Leonard purged them with his light magics while Tyrant used his fist and a steel hammer to finish off any undead in range of his attack.

Albeit, Leonard was impressed by the power of the summoned undead, as they were at the least, had rank six power and light magic only somewhat burned them a bit- he had to increase his power by at least twice the output if he wanted to completely purged them, the old man managed to summoned a swarm of roughly a hundred of these, he could only imagine how much mana it actually took him to do some and maintained them while they were within the realm of the living.

While Leonard and Tyrant were busying themselves beating back the swarm of undead summoned by the old Necromancer, the old man himself was not standing there idle.

He began laying down the outline of a magical circle and began drawing runes, the ink that he used to draw the circle and runes was his own blood.

After he laid down the final runic letter, he planted his weapon, the magical staff with a skull that had a black crystal in its mouth right in the middle of the circle and began chanting in an incoherent language.

*****

While the mayhem and carnage were playing down below, Erik and the rest of the cavalry unit was back at where the army was stationed on their side of the battlefield and began to watched the duel between the two powerhouses attentively.

They witnessed how Leonard was trading back magical spells with the old Necromancer of the Republic army casually like it was nothing, it was until they saw the potential destruction caused by each spell they began to-shivered at the thought of being hit by one of them.

"Your Grace, shouldn't we be helping out the young master?" a commander asked Erik after he saw the duke was doing nothing but watching the battle from afar.

"Just let him have his fun, I'm sure he can take care of himself," Erik replied.

They watched the two of them trading spell for a long while until they saw the old Necromancer summoned a large horde of ravenous undead and was about to use them to swarm Leonard.

It was then that Erik noticed a bulky figure rushing out from their own army and ran for Leonard- Erik was about to call out to that figure to stop, however, a voice from behind called out for Erik, stopping him in his track.

"F-father please don't stop him." it was the voice of a cute little girl, he knows that voice far too well, even though he had not heard from it in a long time already, that was the voice of Clementine, the little girl whom Leonard has brought back roughly a year ago, he had adopted her out of Leonard suggestion- there was another hidden reason behind her adoption as well, the reason was...she was just too cute.

Clementine was on a horse, of course, it was not she herself who rode the creature, it was a guardsmen name John whom Erik and Leonard had assigned to Clementine as a living body-guard, instead of just a dead, walking corpse- that was just unhealthy.

"Sweety, what are you doing here? Don't you know it is dangerous?" Erik gave Clementine a worrying look, before glaring at John who was seated behind Clementine.

"Please, don't be angry at John… It's me who asked him to take me here," she muttered in a low voice, seeing how angry Erik was at John.

"How did the three- two of you find this place?" Erik asked them after seeing it was only two people and a corpse that made it here to the battlefield, not three living being.

"We followed "Tyrant" your Grace," John answered him as he hopped down from the horse and carried Clementine down from the beast before kneeling before Erik.

"Hmm, we will talk more about this ...later," Erik stressed out the last word, causing the cold sweat to break out and soaked John back and forehead, as the voice itself was icy cold.

Erik then turned his attention back on the carnage field, seeing Tyrant had joined up with Leonard and start a massacre with his son, it was then that he had a bad feeling as he looked at the Necromancer in the back, doing a strange ritual.

*****

As Leonard and Tyrant finished the last ravenous dead that swarmed the both of them on the order of the Necromancer, Leonard noticed the old man was doing and- finishing off a strange ritual in the back of the carnage field while chanting some ancient languages.

A moment later, the magic circle drawn in blood began to glow brightly in a shade of crimson and the sky was covered in darkness.

"Hahahaha!!! I'm going all out on this one, this is the strongest undead that I can summon from the realm of the dead! If you can defeat him, then I shall count it as my loss!" the old man laugh madly as a giant arm pushed out from the magic circle, followed by another- the two arms then began to push against the ground and pulled out ahead, then soon...a hulky body that stood at least ten meters tall, the undead creature summoned could be described as the incarnation of brutality and carnages compressed together.

Its red eyes were filled with pure wrath and hatred for the living being, while the horns on it head just to make it look more menacing and evil.

"Rawwrrrrrrrrr!!!!!" it cried out loudly, the voice itself was cold enough to chill the blood of any living being who heard of it and gave them goosebumps.

"Behold! The lord of the dead! The legendary Deathlord! If this thing were to escape from my control, it could wreak havoc on a country and possibly brought it to ruin!" the old man declared loudly.

"That's your trump card?" Leonard looked at the giant creature in astonishment, as he too reached into his inventory and pulled out a sword, covered in glowing veins, and the guard was embedded with a magic crystal constantly pulsing, like a beating heart itself.

"I guess I too, should use my final trump card as a form of respect for the soon to be deceased great Necromancer of the Republic," Leonard smirked as he pointed the blade at the giant undead creature, which was glaring at him and currently having a hard time holding itself back from reaching for Leonard and tearing him to pieces.