The sun was making its way to the western horizon. Miguel along with his two newly found companions were heading out of the Crypt forest.
Seeing that it was about time for dusk to rise, he chose a destination closer than the Kryonite town. Miguel had a score to settle with the redheaded bitch that played him like a fiddle but he wasn't too eager. After all, ten years isn't too long for revenge.
"Hehehe." Miguel chuckled, unfortunately, he isn't aware that approximately twenty years had passed.
"Hey, you!" Jacob demanded, "How come you haven't told us your name? You think you all high and mighty."
Miguel glanced back at the apparition. Lifting a hand and pointing a finger backwards, indicating the swamp elven girl, Lydia. He said, "She said I'm a champion. You can call me that."
"Bullshit!" The ghostly being retorted then continued, "Just 'cause you're a champion doesn't mean much. You can still die by a stronger hand."
"Hahaha, call me Miguel." He laughed, Miguel thought it was funny. How was it that he was having a conversation with a ghost? It was unnatural.
Was it because of his meeting with the Goddess Minerva or the fact that he had both reincarnated and resurrected. Maybe it has something to do with the feeling of having absolute power, the power to smash anything beneath his feet.
Whatever the case, Miguel laughed anyway.
Everyone continued their journey. Neither Jacob nor Lydia knew where the champ was heading.
Actually, Miguel was going to the place of his last quest, the cemetery. He had left quite a few of his belongings there. That place was his home for a number of months, it was a good pit stop for the night.
While marching on, Miguel made some inquiries on various topics. The most enlightening was about the cloud entity.
He learned that those beings had been born as a result of divine intervention, Minerva the Fertility Goddess had created them with her own power. The Goddess's wanted for her people to be not at a disadvantage when moving on land.
Minerva, the Goddess of fertility was also one of the minor Aqua Gods. Her endeavour largely went unnoticed by the living entities deep in the ocean. But for a minority like the swamp elves, those cloud fairies were greatly welcomed.
Miguel had learned that Lydia was a priestess and Minerva was her people's main deity. A temple in the depths of the marshland was also the only place known to have access to the cloud fairies. However, to make a cloud fairy a familiar was up to chance, since it is them who choose their companions.
Lydia was one of the lucky few. She was able to gain a companion and because of that, she was also accepted as a priestess.
Lydia also elaborated on the current circumstances of her tribe. A neighbouring tribe of lizard men, a type of advanced demonic beast, began invading the elven homes. For that very reason, Lydia along with her sisters and a few clansmen decided to form an alliance with the Alteria kingdom.
By forfeiting the independent land of the swamp, they will lose the freedom of living there in the sense that they would have to pay tax but in turn, they'd get the kingdom's protection. Unfortunately they hadn't managed to reach the kingdom, instead, they were ambushed by rogues.
Just as Lydia was about finished with her talk, Jacob felt the need to speak his piece too. Although no one asked, he went on with his tale.
Many years ago, he had been human. Jacob had been an excellent farmer but in those days, while the Alteria kingdom was stabilising their foundation, skirmishes from that old war would still take place. Normal citizens like himself had to leave home and go the battlefield.
Then, no one wanted to give the enemy an advantage. So the citizens gladly took up arms.
When the situation settled, just like many people, Jacob returned to his family. Devastatingly however, when he returned, he discovered that his wife had gone missing.
Later, through much effort, Jacob caught wind of his missing partner. The one who had taken his wife was not someone who he could offend. From that day onwards, Jacob started planning his revenge.
In his elderly years he was introduced to necromancy. To taste the sweetness of revenge he needed to become powerful himself...
"Looks like we're here... what happened to this place?"
Upon arriving, where the last light of day started to fade, Miguel was stumped. He understood that the previous day he had completed the quest in regards to the cemetery's maintenance. The scene before his eyes was vastly different from how he had left it.
The wooden fence that surrounded the place was crawling with weeds, he could see parts of the fence had gone missing at different locations.
The inside property of the cemetery had its surroundings covered with grass, grass so long that the tombstones remained hidden from view.
Miguel used his power to scan the area. He found lifeforms moving about in the grass. In his findings, Miguel found people that shouldn't be here as far as he knew.
"Hay! Are you listening, I haven't finished my story?" Said the violet spectre.
"Milord, what is this place?" Lydia asked politely.
"This is the Kryonite cemetery." Miguel replied, he started to move. Using an opening through the fence, Miguel entered. Simultaneously, he let loose the power to steal life.
Step by step, when Miguel strolled, the overgrown plant life began to decay at speed visible to the naked eye. Everything in the vicinity started dying, even the creatures hidden in the grass instinctively began to scatter.
"Ha... look at that! You're definitely an undead, only you're more like a living dead." Jacob pointed out, eyeing the unnatural occurrence.
"What's the difference?" Miguel asked
"You are! Chosen Champion, you screwed up the natural function of the undead. Had it been anyone else, they'd be a mindless buffoon with satisfying the pallet as the only instinct."
"Okay."
"Urgh, is that all you got to say?"
Lydia exclaimed, "Ah! There's peop-"
A hand covered Lydia's mouth before she could complete her sentence. Without realizing it, Lydia found herself being pressed against Miguel's body. The little elf became more self conscious than ever before. She was wanting to shy away, merely, it was impossible to move at this moment.
Miguel whispered to the elven priestess, "Keep quiet!"
Unlike Lydia, the Chosen Champion was able to pick up something that she couldn't. The ghost lich also refrained from bursting out.
Jacob quietly let his thoughts be known, "Migz, those three are going into the cabin. That one looks like a girl."
Even if Jacob didn't say anything, Miguel noticed it regardless. Indeed, there were three bodies heading to the cabin. Two had a very broad muscular build. One was human for sure, the accompanying man appeared to be from the beast kin race.
Both men could be seen with wooden mugs in hand and a weapon in the other, they were escorting a third figure.
From where Miguel stood, it appeared that the third person was very short. The frame of that body looked fragile. Staring at the slick and long black hair along with familiar complexion, Miguel knew he was looking at person of the same race as Lydia.
"Let's get a little closer." Miguel said, he headed away from the cabin. When he said get closer, he was referring to the direction that the three figures came from.
In the direction that Miguel and Lydia was aiming for, there, there was a dirt road that ran down a bank before leading to a pathway back to Kryonite town.
At the bottom of the bank, Jacob, Lydia and Miguel found a carriage. Two more men were stationed there. It would appear that they were guarding the area or rather the carriage.
Miguel could pick up that there, inside the carriage, life existed. Three individuals he counted.
"If my guess is correct, there should be some swamp elves in that carriage."
Lydia gasped, "Really! Milord, we must save them."
"Sure." He replied back to the elf priestess then faced the ghost man, "Can you do anything besides talking?"
"What!? If course I can, bastard."
Miguel chuckled, "That's nice "
The Chosen Champion stealthily proceeded to the carriage. The life draining quirk of his had been running since his invasion of the cemetery. This time he was consciously targeting the two guards by the carriage.
"It's about time to test the might of my prowess."
While Miguel made his way over, one of the bandit's guarding the carriage spoke. "I feeling so tired, damn it. I wanted to fool around with the elf after the other two. George... George, you hear me? Huh, you lazy bum! asleep already."
Seeing his comrade resting well, he too felt influenced by the need to sleep. Taking a seat, the man closed his eyes as well.
"WOAH!! Your 'Life Gutter' ability is not bad, not bad at all." Ghost lich Jacob commented.