Chapter 54: Undead on the Horizon

---

"Justice will prevail, you say? But of course, it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!"

- Doflamingo, (One Piece)

---

<Himalayan Mountains, India>

<(Bruce Wayne POV)>

"When I first heard about this trip, I really thought that we would be going to someplace different, someplace that's not an extremely cold mountain covered with snow. But every 'sacred' or 'mystical' martial arts institution seems to be obsessed with snow-covered cold mountains. And the worst thing is that Ra's Al Ghul didn't allow me to do another skydive this time." I grumbled while climbing up the mountain using traditional mountain trekking equipment.

"It would have given away our position to the enemy. The Untitled is more inhuman than you can imagine. I have heard stories about them, of their ruthlessness from my... father but even those stories pale in front of their real cold-blooded malevolence. We need every advantage we can get over them and that includes the element of surprise as well" Nyssa Al Ghul stated as she climbed up the same rope I was climbing above me.

"Well I understand that but what I don't understand is why the hell did your father let you come with me under my command. I mean, doesn't he know that any responsible father should never let handsome billionaires near their young daughters? He is practically inviting me to try to ban..." 

"Don't complete that sentence or I WILL cut the rope." She threatened, not caring about the half a dozen league members who were also climbing the same rope below me immediately freezing in their place in fear of their boss's daughter actually following through with her threat.

'I guess league ninjas aren't exactly as fearless as advertised' I thought while feeling a little bad for them.

"Yeah but look at the bright side, we now have ample time for training which means that you can now perfect your archery while you are here and give a surprise to your daddy dearest after going back." I teased.

"I knew I should have said no when my father ordered me to join you as your subordinate. I would have preferred seppuku rather than... this." She said in an annoyed voice as she increased her speed of climbing.

"Huh? But I thought we were friends now. That was the deal we agreed on, wasn't it? You are breaking my little gold-studded heart you know." I also increased my climbing speed to keep up with her.

It seems that Nyssa was far more physically fit than any normal human because any normal human would have blacked out from the extreme cold and lack of oxygen by now but she was soldiering through like this was nothing to her. If I had to make a rough estimate, I would say her physical capabilities were something close to the level of the Winter Soldier from Marvel. At least that's what I calculated from my observations of her body through the 'Transparent world' ability of my golden finger.

It was probably some sort of mutation caused by her father's repeated exposure to the mystical Lazarus pits before she was born making her a born supersoldier.

"The deal was that I would give you a tour of the city and teach you about the league, not become your... 'friend' or something. In fact, if I knew that you would somehow convince my father to send me with you as your underling, I would have never agreed to it even in my worst nightmare." She huffed, her pride seemingly hurt by the fact that she despite being the daughter of the leader of the organization not only was inferior to me, a newbie in a particular skill but also, that she had to listen to me in this mission.

"Believe me, I have no part in convincing your father of anything. In fact, I am as surprised as you that he made this decision. Your father has been doing this for far longer than either of us can imagine. So, it would not be a stretch if we get easily manipulated by him without even realizing it happening." I muttered softly, making sure that nobody else could hear me but her.

As a matter of fact, I already had a couple of reasons in my mind why her father might have done this, and one of them made perfect sense strategically speaking. But that would only be possible if he was one of the worst fathers in the world who didn't care about his daughter at all which also might be true in this case, except the fact that I had no proof of it and therefore my hunch was only that, a possible hunch, one that I wouldn't be able to convince Nyssa with. So currently, I had no other choice than to just keep my theories to myself and try to collect as much proof as possible.

Nyssa heard my mumbling, evident by a small change in her facial expressions but she quickly went back to normal and continued climbing while ignoring me. 

I also understood that any further comments would be pushing it right now, so I too continued climbing behind her silently without making any more comments.

The climb was as much tiring (for the other nameless ninjas behind me at least) as it was difficult. None of us died because none of us were ordinary civilians but that didn't mean anybody liked it. After reaching our destination, the assassins covered in complete white clothing with a small bag on each of their backs were barely able to stand straight and were wheezing loudly from their lack of stamina, despite their ninja training.

"The All-caste lives around here at this side of the mountain, so all we need to do is just find their hidden cave called 'The chamber of all' and..." Nyssa tried to determine our location on an old-looking map as she tried to find which direction to go to.

"Hey N, how common are mirages and phantasms on high cold snowy mountains?" I asked looking in a certain direction a little away from us. 

"Don't call me that, it makes us seem really close which we are not. Also, mirages occur in deserts idiot. Why? Did you finally see your face reflected somewhere?" She sneered, clearly proud of her sarcastic retort at my question.

"No, but I did see a couple of zombies walking towards us from that direction. Also, they seem to be coming from that cave behind them, the same place that you have been searching for the last few minutes without any hope of success." I replied calmly.

"Wait, what?" Nyssa exclaimed as she also looked at the way I was pointing with squinting eyes.

There was about a score of walking dead slowly marching towards us. All of them seemed to be the corpses of some kind of monks or saints wearing long orange robes with disfigured faces and limbs that looked like they were broken in a scuffle.

"Holy shit." I heard one of the masked ninjas, a female one mutter behind me under her breath, making me wonder if Ra's Al Ghul had assigned me the runts of the litter as my group.

"What do we do?" Nyssa asked me as she took her position beside me with her bow drawn in her hands. She might not be happy with this situation overall but that didn't seem to reduce her sense of responsibility for this mission. She didn't try to act like the leader or someone of a higher position than me at all and completely left the leadership and decision-making part to me as her father originally wanted.

"There only seems to be about two dozen of them. Also, they seem to be extremely slow and... blunt. We can take them. All we have to make sure is that we do not let them overwhelm us. Use long-range weaponry like bows and arrows, kunai, or shuriken. Try to target their heads. Destroying their brains should do the trick." I commanded with a no-nonsense voice as I guessed the last part from my years of experience in watching zombie films.

As soon as I gave the order, everyone under my command started their assault on the white walkers according to my instructions. Besides Nyssa who used her arrows, everyone else used their standard kunai and shuriken. Only the female ninja (yes, I am guessing her gender from her body structure, sue me) used throwing knives and poison darts. 

The coordinated attack was immensely successful and most of the undead were... dead even before they reached near us. The few that did were either decapitated by Nyssa using her bow which could be separated into a pair of sharp hunting daggers or got their skull punched in by me since I was too lazy to use an actual weapon.

"That wasn't hard. I guess I can slash 'fighting a horde of undead' off from my bucket list now." I murmured as I cleaned the brain matter from my gloves using the snow and started to check the dead bodies.

There were no bite or scratch marks on them. So, it didn't look like a zombie-virus-caused event. Instead, it seemed like they had been killed by a group of people through either the use of brute force or something sharp. There were even whip marks on a few of their bodies.

My guess would be that they had been killed and then raised from the dead by some bullshit necromancy spell. I had heard of a few that could do this sort of thing while training under Giovanni but the weird thing is that no matter what spell is used, the cost of replicating this effect would be... huge. So why would anyone use such a spell to raise a bunch of monks from the dead? They could have just killed them and left. Why show off, unless they are powerful enough to afford to flaunt uselessly.... or do they have access to something equally as powerful?

"Ah, it seems that you have already taken care of them. You have my thanks, traveler. However, your presence here makes me wonder why exactly the league is here in our territory. Does Ra's Al Ghul plan to finish us off while we are struggling to battle the Untitled?" A short old woman asked calmly with a blank visage as she appeared out of nowhere, standing beside where I was currently kneeling to examine the unmoving bodies of the undead.

[Image]

"What the...?" Nyssa was startled as she aimed her now-drawn bow at the short granny who just stared back at her with a dull face.

Even the other ninjas were surprised as no one had sensed her coming. They were all trained assassins who were trained to be invisible when they needed to be as well as sense even the tiniest of danger around them but not being able to sense an old frail looking woman with a walking stick in her hand was greatly insulting for them.

"... If you were aiming to shock me, then I should tell you that I have been able to sense you from the moment we reached here. I sensed how you were observing us from the top of the cliff, how you were the one who attracted the undead towards us probably to test our combat skills, and even how you silently walked toward us after we were done putting down these walking dead. So to me, you trying to walk silently with muted breath and hushed steps just seemed silly, not surprising." I said, not really exaggerating anything.

"..."

Everyone was quiet for a couple of seconds as it seemed like everyone else was wondering how to react to my statement until the old granny ultimately opened her mouth.

"Yes, you are perfect indeed, child of Wayne. Now, follow me. We have much to do." 

---

(A/N: Wow, writing this chapter was really fun. I just wish that you guys have equal fun reading it. Btw, I finally decided on how to end the Ra's Al Ghul arc, and let's just say the arc will end with a bang with something none of you will see coming. I'll both stick to the main source material as well as go far and beyond in giving the legendary Demon's Head the ending he deserves at the hands of none other than THE 'Batman'.)

GIVE me POWAH-STONES💎💎💎.

Also, you can check out my Pat reøn page as well to read ahead or just to support your fantastic author.

Right now I have about 12 chapters in advance there.

(My Pat-reon uses the new billing method which means if you pledge on the 15th of this month, you will have to pay again on the day you pledged, i.e., the 15th of the next month. So whenever you subscribe, you will get a whole month.)

pátreon.com/God_Doom

(replace the á with a)