Published at 22nd of October 2023 9:41 am

Book 2: Chapter 18

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The corruption from the zombie’s attack had nearly reached Abbius’s heart when the fifth bloom had sprung open, and for a moment, Garrett wasn’t sure if they had managed to stop its spread in time. He knew that the fifth bloom would have the strength to fight against the corruption, even using it to fuel its growth, but the side effect was dominating the awakened man. The change was immediate as five petaled flowers opened in Abbius’ eyes and his drooping arm straightened. Even as the dream flower and the zombie corruption did battle inside him, Abbius looked at Garrett, a fanatical look in his eyes.

“Your majesty!”

“Call me boss,” Garrett said.

“Of course, sir. Do you need me to eliminate these scum?” Abbius gestured to the zombies who were still milling about in the hall, enthralled by the flowers.

“No, leave them and help the other two against the stitched.”

“Of course, boss.”

Walking to the massive hole in the wall where the window had been, Abbius got out a bolt and knelt down, smoothly loading it into his crossbow. It was clear that he had not lost any of his skill, and if anything his movements were even better than before. The slightly mechanical way he had loaded his crossbow before had transformed into a natural flow, allowing him to complete the action in a single coordinated movement. Crouched in the opening, he lifted the crossbow and was about to pull the trigger when he paused, his eyes glowing once again.

The five petaled flowers began to sway and energy began to gather on the end of the steel bolt he had loaded up. Though he had come out of the dream, Garrett could see what was happening perfectly and was surprised to see that the energy shrouding the tip of the bolt was being shaped into a flower bud. A twang echoed in the room as the bolt flew from Abbius’s crossbow, tearing through the air toward the back of Maximus’ head. Though he had no idea that the bolt was coming, Maximus stepped to the side, dodging the stitched’s furious punch, and opening up the perfect shot for Abbius.

Since the bolt was already on its way, it arrived in the next moment, hitting the stitched in its unprotected face. Just before the sliver of steel hit, the bud on the tip of the bolt bloomed, revealing a five petaled flower with sharp teeth that rose from the edges of the petal. The bolt was already spinning, and the jagged petals turned into saw teeth as the flower spun around, ripping a hole straight through the monster’s face. In an instant, half of the stitched together head was gone, torn to bloody pulp by the ranged attack.

Sensing an opportunity, Obe let out a loud shout and dashed forward, his mace rising above his head and then driving down like a hammer to crush the rest of the stitched’s head. Even then, the monster didn’t immediately fall, but after a few more pounding blows, it finally dropped to the ground, inert. Up in the room on the second floor of the ruined building, Garrett’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Abbius. He had expected the dream flower to take over completely, erasing Abbius’s mind even as it absorbed the corruption that plagued him. But instead, the flower had enhanced him. While the dream flower had shifted Abbius’s emotions from positive to absolute loyalty, it had not obliterated his personality the way Garrett had assumed it would.

It must have something to do with the fact that he willingly accepted it. That’s good to know, though I’ll need to test it out so I know what the exact parameters are. But this is an important development.

With the stitched taken out, Garrett turned to the zombies that remained as Obe and Maximus scaled the wall, clambering up and into the room once again. Nearly jumping right back down when he caught sight of the half a dozen zombies that were visible in the hallway, Maximus was stopped by Obe who pulled him to his feet and pushed him forward.

“Block the doorway, while Abbius kills them,” Obe commanded, more than happy to throw the fight onto his subordinate’s wide shoulders.

“But, there are so many of them!”

“You’ll be fine. I fought them off by myself and I didn’t even have a shield.”

Grumbling, Maximus inched forward until he had passed Garrett, who gave him an encouraging smile. Peeking over his shield at the zombies, Maximus’ forehead furrowed and he glanced over at Garrett.

“Hey, what’s up with these monsters anyway?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Garrett said. “Just know that when the first one gets attacked, things will get wild. Just block the door properly and leave everything else to Abbius.”

The instructions were ones that Maximus could understand perfectly, and his gaze sharpened up as he got into the zone.

“Yes, boss.”

As he lifted his shield and took his place, Garrett signaled for Abbius to begin and the first bolt flew over Maximus’ shoulder, taking a zombie’s head clean off. Before, all of Abbius’s energy from his soul spark went into perfecting his accuracy, giving him a supernatural sense of aim and timing. With the addition of the five bloom dream flower, he had gained added power, transforming his steel bolts into lethal weapons of death. The first zombie that fell snapped the others out of their daze, and with ear rending shrieks they charged toward Maximus who let out a shout of his own.

Skillfully guarding against their attacks with both sword and shield, Maximus kept them contained in the hallway while Abbius rained death on them and within a few minutes, the fight was over and a ragged silence fell over the building, broken only by the rough breathing of the shield-wielding awakened. With the undead taken care of, Garrett commanded Obe, Maximus, and Abbius to clean up while he turned his attention back to the mirror on the table.

He had been able to sense that the necromancer was still there, her presence connected to the mysterious artifact by some means that he couldn’t quite understand. He had already attempted to plant a dream seed on her through the connection but it hadn’t worked, and he was now wracking his brain for another solution. The fact that he had fallen for an ambush was already bad enough, but to not be able to to track her down was absolutely infuriating, and despite the fact that their team had come through the encounter mostly unscathed, he took it as a personal embarrassment that he had been out maneuvered twice over.

Picking up the mirror, he saw the necromancer glaring at him, the blood that had dripped from her right eye mirrored on her left. Slowly, she bared her teeth at him and her hands rose, as if she wished to reach through the mirror and strangle the life out of him. Garrett could feel the corrosive influence of the mirror trying to worm its way into his mind, but he shut it out, giving it no opportunity. With a blink, he entered the dream, searching for a means of tracking down the necromancer, and finally found his opportunity.

The mirror looked even more grotesque in the dream, looking like half a skull that had been set with a hazy mirror. A faint line of twisted shadow extended from the handle, passing into the distance. It looked like a dark skeletal arm that stretched impossibly far and based on the direction that it was pointed, Garrett knew that the necromancer was to the north. That was the direction of the massive graveyard that dominated the northeastern corner of the city, and it was with some frustration that Garrett realized that the whole area was covered by fog.

Rather than planting a new dream seed, Garrett commanded the flowers that were crawling back up onto his wheelchair to attach themselves to the skeletal arm, but as soon as they got close, the necromancer must have sensed them, because the arm began to dissipate. Before it vanished for good, he saw her sneer and open her mouth.

“You were lucky this time, but your luck will not hold. My master’s will cannot be denied and I will soon offer your still beating heart up to him.”

With those words, the connection evaporated and Garrett was left holding the strange mirror. It was still shrouded by a bit of mental energy, but Garrett had no idea how to activate it so there was no way to use it to trace back to the necromancer. Frustrated, Garrett opened his eyes in the waking world and saw that Obe and the others had finished up. The mess was too much to be cleaned up in a short amount of time, and the corrupted blood was too dangerous to leave, so they had elected to gather up the corpses and cordon off the building. They had also discovered the real Mrs. Esteven and her daughter, who had both been tied up and stuffed into the building’s cellar.

With Obe’s help, Garrett made it back down to the street, but as he got resettled in his wheelchair, his mood worsened. Marching down the street, torches in their hands, were a group of hard looking men and women, their yellow armbands practically glowing. Hearing Obe swear under his breath, Garrett had to agree with the sentiment. It was bad enough that they had been forced into a corner by the necromancer, but to have to deal with the exorcists right after was nearly worse. Still, it was important to keep up appearances, so Garrett put on a relieved smile and wheeled forward to meet Chief Exorcist Fellix who was at the front of the group.

“Chief Fellix! Thank goodness you are here! We were just attacked by undead! Just like you warned us about.”

Hearing the word undead, Chief Fellix frowned and gestured, causing a dozen of the men and women behind him to spread out, some entering the building and others rushing to encircle the property. Garrett’s men, who were keeping the citizens away from the building, relinquished the job to the exorcists and slowly gathered up behind Obe. It was impossible to tell what Chief Fellix was thinking as he looked over the group of people wearing blue coats that were coming to stand near Garrett, but soon his attention turned to the ruined building and the two women who huddled under blankets next to Garrett.

“What happened here?”

“As I said, an undead attack. Mrs. Esteven and her daughter were the victims of a vicious ambush. A swarm of zombies and a big stitched together brute tried to kill us, but we managed to fight them off thanks to my powerful companions. We were just going to send a report to the guards when you arrived.”

“Zombies? Were any of you hurt?” Fellix asked, looking sharply at the three men.

“Hurt?” Garrett interjected. “Do you think any of us would be here if we had been hurt? We would have become zombies! What is the safety of this city coming to?! It was still daytime when we arrived here, but we were attacked by undead! In the city, no less! I know that this isn’t the most affluent neighborhood, but we are tax paying citizens! Don’t we deserve to be protected as well? What is the city guard doing, allowing zombies to run around? And what about you exorcists?! Shouldn’t you have found them and killed them? We nearly died because someone was slacking on their job.”

Shaking his head in disgust, he gestured for the others to follow him and shot a shaky glare at Chief Fellix.

“We are returning to Dreamer’s Inn. If you need anything, you can find us there.”

Without waiting for Chief Fellix to respond, he turned his chair and started pushing himself away. The others behind him stood frozen for a moment before hurrying to catch up. Obe took hold of the wheelchair to push it, and Maximus watched the exorcists carefully, as if he was ready to block them if they made a move. Abbius, on the other hand, gave Chief Fellix a cold look, his crossbow not quite pointing at the chief’s chest. After a moment, Abbius spat on the ground and turned away.

“This city has really deteriorated recently. It wouldn’t have happened under our watch,” Abbius said, strolling away under the exorcists’ furious stares.

A few of them wanted to step forward to stop Garrett and the others, but Chief Fellix stopped them, his expression stormy as he watched them go. It was only after they turned at the end of the street and disappeared from view that he let his gaze move back to the ruined building, as if willing it to give up its secrets. Less than a minute later, one of the exorcists who had gone inside earlier came out, his face pale, as if he was sick.

“How is it? Bad?”

“It’s a mess in there, chief,” came the reply, “but it must have been a terrible fight. We count at least two dozen dead zombies and some sort of flesh golem.”

Gritting his teeth, Chief Fellix shot a glance at the empty street and took a breath to calm himself down.

“How did two dozen zombies escape our detection?” he asked, receiving only silence as a response. “Heads are going to roll if I find out that anyone has been slacking on the job. Come on, we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

A block away, Garrett watched them enter the building through the eyes of one of the curious citizens who was watching from nearby, and let out a sigh. The night had not gone the way he had hoped, and while he was glad that they had come out of it unscathed, he couldn’t help but feel like he had been defeated at every turn. He knew that Chief Fellix wouldn’t let this go, and that he would have to watch out for the exorcists snooping around him and the inn. It was one thing to get caught up in a single supernatural event, but for it to happen twice was suspicious. A third time was the nail in the coffin, and Garrett knew that he wasn’t going to be able to escape their attention any more.

Fine. If they come around, I’ll need some countermeasures. I guess it's time to extend my roots to the exorcists. Actually, that’s a good idea anyway. They have their fingers on the pulse of the supernatural events in the city, and are always on the hunt for cults. I might be able to use them to get a hold of the necromancer’s tail. But I’ll have to do it without alerting Chief Fellix. He’s got a sharp eye. Ugh. Why is it that every time I turn around there is more to do?

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