Vulture Battle

"Alright, Zarah, now that you've been incarnated, you should be able to help me, right?" said Damien as he looked around. He felt a slight hint of nervousness well up within him before it faded away, suppressed by his undead mind.

He glanced around to try and see whether the pack he had carried was still here for weapons, but true to his luck, it was not.

Damien, as a Dud, had zero combat capability.

His spirit roots, the key to channeling one's internal mana to shape them into spells, were awful. His quantity of roots was good, but their quality was so bad that if the average mage could output 50 units of magical energy, he could output only output 5 in comparison.

Not enough to fuel even the weakest fireball.

The only magic that Damien had learned in Tintagel was some basic alchemy which was more a lab activity than magic, relying on mixing the right materials rather than one's own magic.

"Hello? Where are you?" asked Damien as the vultures inched closer.

"Right here! Sorry for being late, it was hard work building this body." Damien heard Zarah's familiar voice squeak out by his shoulder.

In a puff of flames and smoke, she materialized. She was olive skinned with perfect, modelesque proportions with long legs and a thin waist contributing to an alluring hourglass figure.

Black horns curved out of a swathe of fiery red hair, and her emerald green eyes held slit black pupils like those belonging to a snake.

Puffs of dark smoke clung around her breasts and waist, forming 'clothes' that did just enough to preserve her modesty.

It would have been nice to say that her beauty could "end kingdoms" or cliché crap like that, but honestly, once someone got attractive enough, they were just that: attractive.

At that point, attractive people were just differently attractive, with maybe a girl being cute versus sexy and so on.

Also, of course she was pretty.

Djinn could change their appearance freely. Why wouldn't she make herself look good?

If Damien could do the same, he one hundred percent would have made himself the most handsome man in the entire world.

But as an Undead, Damien's reactions to Zarah's beauty for now were almost nonexistent, his thoughts focused only on survival.

"Why are you so small?" said Damien. She was basically a mini person about the length of a ruler, and she floated around his shoulder with crossed arms.

"A Blood Pact isn't enough to fully incarnate me, you know," said Zarah. "It will take me a few days to gather enough magical energy to build a better body."

"Does that mean you can't roast these vultures for me?" said Damien.

"I would if I could," said Zarah. "But I cannot fight in this state, nor ever, really. I'm a builder, not a fighter.

You do get three wishes, though. Do be warned, however. The strength of a genie's wishes increases in proportion to the strength of the bond they make with their master.

You won't get proper miracle-level wishes because we were not soulbound. So for each wish I can use, hmm, about this much mana."

Zarah pinched her fingers together, and information flowed into Damien's mind from their bond that let him understand exactly how much mana she could expend.

Spells, like monsters, were tiered from E to S rankings, and she had transmitted directly to Damien's mind that she could use up about an A rank spell's worth.

The average top tier human mage could cast maybe three strong A rank spells before running out of mana, and though he had never seen one in real life, he had heard tales of mages who called down A-rank thunder capable of carving out chunks in entire mountain faces.

If Damien wished purely to destroy these vultures with an A-rank spell, then they would be dead a hundred times over.

Massive overkill and a total waste of a wish.

"Can't you just use that magical energy to kill these things outright?" said Damien.

"That's not how we work," said Zarah as she shook her head. "When a Djinn binds themselves to a new master, we can create wishes drawing mana from the vast reserves of the world itself, allowing ourselves to vastly exceed our personal limitations, but only under the condition that it goes to the wishes.

That mana cannot be used for anything else, or I would not look like this right now."

She pointed down to the black core that Damien held. "But I know how to make things, and I can make them quickly provided I have the right materials. I can shape that core into a weapon you can use, and since it already has magical energy imbued in it, I don't have to spend any myself.

All it is is a matter of shaping what's already there."

"Sounds good," said Damien. He held up the black core to Zarah, and she pointed a tiny hand to it, making it levitate in front of her.

As long as Damien had a weapon, he could handle himself against these vultures. They were just E-ranked monsters, after all, and the core had belonged to a D+ ranked monster: the strongest in this Rift.

Any weapon produced from it would reduce these vultures into fodder.

"Got anything specific in mind? I'm open to almost anything you want," said Zarah as she clapped her hands together, causing the core to fissure with red lines before breaking apart with a gust of power.

The vultures stepped backwards in alarm at the sudden expulsion of magical energy, giving Damien more time to think.

"A gun," said Damien. He had no formal weapons training with swords or staffs or the regular stuff mages used. His dad had briefly trained him to defend himself, but it was through fists and pistols.

"Gun? What's that?" said Zarah as she cocked her head.

"Nevermind." Damien noted that Zarah likely knew nothing of the modern world. He looked around at the vultures and thought about what to use. If she could only create medieval age weapons, then wasn't the spear the best option?

Way easier to use than a sword. Just stick the pointy end at enemies. Plus, it had range. And, as Damien noted the vultures starting to close in again, he had no time.

"A spear. Give me a spear. On the longer side," said Damien.

"Of course!" said Zarah. "Now a spear, I can do! Just be careful, because I have to make this quickly, it won't be my best work. It'll be weaker than what this core can usually make."

"That's fine. Just get me something to use," said Damien.

Zarah furrowed her brows and twirled her fingers, causing the shattered black shards of the core to whirl in front of her in a vortex of smoke.

Then, the smoke started to heat up, flashing with flecks of red and melting the core crystals in bright liquid that then shaped itself into a two meter long spear that floated into Damien's eagerly awaiting hands.

The spear was fashioned entirely out of midnight black, and its diadem shaped head was sharpened to a gleaming point. He felt heat radiate throughout its length and a hum of innate magical energy drum at his hands as he held it.

With the spear, Damien felt more confident, and the vultures eyed the weapon suspiciously.

"Time to make some vulture skewers," said Damien as he stepped forwards, thrusting the spear at a vulture in front of him.

The head of the spear pierced clean through the vulture's chest feathers, and the sound of searing flesh sizzled in Damien's ears as the hot spear head burned the creature.

The vulture let out a screech before collapsing on the ground, dead.

[Ironbeak Vulture killed! +30 EXP] [EXP: 30/100]

Holy crap. Damien had killed a monster on his own, and so easily at that too. This was something he had never even dreamed he was capable of doing.

The vultures, seeing one of their own dead, now whipped up in a frenzy, squawking as they started to fly at Damien in a savage rush, ruining his moment of celebration.

"Good luck, Yao. I believe in you, my new master! And don't get that nice face beaten up too much while I'm gone," said Zarah as she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Right afterwards, Damien felt claws savagely tear at his chest, arms, and face, cutting out ribbons of flesh and sending blood splattering everywhere.

Feathers fell around him and screeching filled his ears.

He felt the powerful bodies of the vultures slam into him from every which way, buffeting him like he was inside of a tornado.

In all this chaos, Damien felt calm.

Absolutely calm.

He felt no pain.

No, he felt hunger.

Hunger for flesh.

He moved on with the fight.

He thrust his spear into the stomach of another vulture while it was busy tearing at his chest, running the spear right through it and sending it falling limp to the ground.

[Ironbeak Vulture killed! +30 EXP] [EXP: 60/100]

While Damien put his foot on the dead vulture to pull out his spear, another tore into his left eye with its beak and plucked the organ straight out. He felt the vision on his left side disappear, but he did not panic. He just retaliated with another thrust, slicing into the vulture's throat as it wasted time gobbling up his eye.

[Ironbeak Vulture Killed! +30 EXP] [EXP: 90/100]

Two more vultures left. One hovering in front of him in the air, waiting for a moment to strike.

The other one, Damien felt tearing into his back, sinking its talons deep into his shoulder blades while also hovering in the air so he could not get a clean hit on it. He immediately came up with an idea.

With zero hesitation, Damien stabbed the spear into his own chest, sending it through his body to pierce the vulture behind him. He realized that how he valued his body had completely changed now. He did not care about hurting himself because he knew instinctively that it meant nothing.

He had absolutely no sense of self preservation. Or rather, as a Zombie, his idea of self preservation had fundamentally changed.

[Ironbreak Vulture killed! +30 EXP] [EXP: 120/100]

[Level up!] [Level 1 > Level 2]

[3 Stat points available to distribute!]

Damien slid the spear out of his chest and heard the vulture behind him drop to the ground, dead. He stared straight ahead at the last vulture with a gaping, bloody hole in one eye socket. There were deep scars and tears littering his entire body, etched into him like a manic child's scribbles.

Blood poured out from every wound, every burst and severed artery, drenching him utterly in red.

Damien smiled a bloody, wide smile at the vulture as he grabbed his spear, blood slick in his hands.

"So, you wanna fight too?" said Damien as he felt hunger drive him.

The vulture backed away in shivering terror before immediately flying off.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Damien as he cracked his neck, feeling badass.

Unfortunately, his neck had been broken halfway through the fight, and cracking his neck broke his neck further, tilting his head to an unnatural angle.

"Oops," said Damien as he grabbed the top of his head and popped it roughly back into place. He looked down at the vulture corpses around him, hunger for flesh growing within him.

At the same time, he remembered his [Infectious Bite] skill.

That was when he figured out his ticket to getting out of here.

It was now time to raise an army of undead.