Raising his hands, Doyle panned across a small crowd of students already trained on where he stood and shouted. "Alright, everyone! Gather 'round!"
With a sigh, I turned my sights away from the great trunk of the Bodhi Tree and onto Doyle, chuckling with a deadpan expression. Alright." He sighed. "Last outing of the semester. No games or anything planned. That comes next week." He knowingly laughed upon seeing a few intrigued gazes pivot in his direction before he invited us through the portal with a wave.
The Cove had seen quite the change since its inception.
The polished stone floors in the waterfall opening and the main space inside had been covered with dozens of pelts, fur rugs, and knitted sheets that gave a homely contrast against the living walls and braziers hidden in the corners. Tapestries and books lined the walls, painted and written mostly by Scarlett in an attempt to document the many encounters our peers would boast about over their meals.
No other structures had been carved or constructed, only decorated to such a degree that it grew to appear as a modest homestead that'd been standing in place for years. Though, that was only because something was missing.
For whatever reason, I've been returning my undead and all their creations to the Shade Palace before we returned to the Cove. Initially, I used my reluctance to have my first generation of undead killed. Then I quickly realized the preposterousness of such a notion. After that, the cycle continued with the idea of my undead accidentally killing one of my classmates.
Another paltry excuse.
Eventually, I began to use Corvus' second demand as an excuse. To show the world that the Cole Clan- that the Nox still lived.
Now that we were at the end of the semester, I had no excuse.
It was time for action.
"Alright. Eat some food, drink your drinks, smoke your smokes. Just listen for a moment."
While the party settled in the common area, I stepped onto the wall with a few unnecessary grunts and waddled over to lay above the door. And as always, Zakira used her vampiric clinging ability to skip along the wall behind me.
"The reason why Doyle is so excited is that there are guests here, at the Bodhi Tree," I explained. Then took a moment to guffaw at Doyle's suddenly widening eyes. "I've been sensing them since early this morning- powerful mages. They've been coming in groups to gather higher in the trunk.
"Now." I hurriedly raised my palms. "I don't want to spoil the surprise. But it's safe to assume these guests are here to scout. Given that, it's safe to assume that some of them will be interested in what happens during this outing. So, let's give them a show.
"I promised you all a raid, after all."
Though I spoke, an ear-splitting cheer reverberated through my room just before the bodies within jumped with either unbridled joy or apprehension. My words were drowned out entirely, but it didn't matter, my intention got across.
And the important bit had yet the come.
"Here's the thing! Here's the thing!" I calmed them with a few pats on the air. "You'll be fighting alongside a Devil. A Necromancer. So get equipped and meet me topside. I want to show you something."
I stood with a wave. Yet Zakira was already across the wall and outside.
Snickering to myself, I moseyed outside and around one of the terraced lookout posts to trail after Zakira, skipping up to the cliff.
***
"-Mr. Wolfgang?"
Though my mind was elsewhere, I turned from the small exodus of students to face the source of the voice. Scarlett Bombyx. She was the social butterfly of the party. A butterfly that flew dangerously close to the flame that was Amun. The worst part was, he was charming enough to taint her. And she was flying right into his flame.
Whether that was a good or bad thing was something I didn't know. Just an observation. But I knew others wouldn't see it that way.
In a way, it was strange. My students were just as eager as I was. Yet I was anxious about what was to come.
"Zombies, duh!" Rebecca pulled her out the door with a giggle, where her voice began to fade into a low whisper. "Or probably something crazier, knowing him."
Rebecca Plassein, Scarlett's closest friend, was capable and strong. But she didn't apply herself. Her lack of drive seemed to fade over the last six months, but it had yet to disappear.
That said, she was right. Everything Amun did was… revolutionary to say the least. His Sorcery and affinities were broken. His elemental proficiency was off the charts and his fighting abilities were nothing less either. His ability to teach and lead rivaled the Bodhi Tree's staff. And his growth potential was uncapped.
As he was now, he was powerful enough to fight a kingdom- possibly an empire.
Gods knew what he'd be capable of post-evolution.
But like many of those in his tier, he was arrogant, disrespectful, and uncaring of authority. He was selfish and wore it like a badge. Yet, he was somehow selfless all the same. He shared his techniques with his peers, but not the school on accounts that it'd been unfair to the other party's. He openly recruited others into his guild. But he left the decision up to them and said little about it since.
I knew I couldn't beat him if I tired. I knew he was much smarter than me and possibly smarter than any instructor here. I knew he was a selfish and sometimes dishonorable person with grayed morals.
This event would showcase those qualities to the realms. Some would see them as flaws. Others, strengths. Titus would hate him. Zook already loved him. Eiriol would see him as any other.
The Optimus Regni would see him as a lost cause. Unable to be recruited. Too powerful to be restrained. So they'll resort to judgment. They'll watch for an attempt to negotiate an alliance or wait until they have an excuse to declare war.
Either way, they'll watch. They'll wait.
Through it all, I'd be here. Giving the seeds of the future the strength they needed to survive such an unjust onslaught.
"What is it!? What is it!? What is it!?"
I heard her and thus saw her jumping in my mind's eye before I stepped onto the plateau and hopped over to the wide chunk of flattened stone hovering above the lake.
Zakira was as playfully cheerful as a toddler. A clear sign of trauma for someone her age. But Amun didn't seem to care. Nor did he care for her evident need to leech off of his magic. Or anything outside his own interest for that matter.
Ironically, she behaved just like him from the start. Zakira of the Crimson Moon cared only for herself. Then, she cared about herself and Amun. Everything else to her was a game that needed toying with. Everything from fighting to formal conversation was made into an awkward joke.
And Amun thought it was hilarious.
In that way, they were like twins. Similar and strikingly different all the same.
"I want to show you all how my guild will fight." He grinned in that charmingly unsettling way of his. "There will be three forces within my Legions."
Grinning wider, he sent a wave of darkness over his peers that coalesced into pristine copies of the fifteen members of Cooke Party. Doppelganger's, he aptly called them. As their only discerning feature was their arrangement in a neat formation at the edge of the cliff's ledge, their sides facing us as they looked out at the eastern horizon.
Or waited for something.
"In war, our Doppelgangers will be known as the Twilight Runners," Amun explained. "In short, they'll use their ability to talk, move through, or store things in shadows to work logistics and communication. And as the name suggests, they are the bridge between the other sides."
"Yeah. Something crazi-ER!"
Rebecca's mutter turned into one of many yelps that spurred to life and rose in pitch as the strange force Amun called gravity tilted the Mortal Plane itself.
Slowly, as if for dramatic effect, the formation of clones loomed below us. Then shifted. Shuddered, then keeled over before coming to a grinding halt at our zenith. Bringing us to crane our necks and gaze upon the mind-breaking sight above.
It was as if a mirror had been placed atop the cliff. The Doyle Wolfgang found below stared right into my eyes with the same sense of shock I felt. And beside him, far above the ledge on which he stood, stretched the eerily calm waters that overlooked the cove.
"All others have a choice!" Amun's thunderous voice snapped the collective heads to him at once. From his grin, it was easy to assume he enjoyed the attention- which may have been true. But it was truer to say he found it amusing. Hilarious even. Though for some, that seemed to only add to his charm.
"If you so wish. You can fight in the Day alongside the living legionaries, where you can shine your might upon the land like the sun.
"Or!"
His frame blinked as he shouted. Moved from the vertical 'lounging' position he was in to spread eagle in a flicker of motion undetectable to the eyes.
The now-familiar cloud of midnight-blue darkness swelled before him after a seconds delay- a fusion of his shadow and spatial magic that enabled him to Blink at will. A technique he and the rest of his party affectionately referred to as Bamfing.
Damn kids.
In this case, his Blink sent a shockwave of maddening darkness that I've only rarely felt on occasion. Though not to this level. It felt as if a deathly explosion had been triggered. With Amun at the epicenter.
A searing flash of blue-green light preceded a frozen tidal wave of concussive force. Brain-rattling shivers ran up and down my body, shocking my nerves into motion before they were frozen still by a shrill scream that made a banshee's seem like an opera.
And just as fast as it came, it disappeared.
"Guess I should've warned you first." Amun's loud snicker trailed through the endless silence, ending in a pitiless sigh. "Eh, you'll get used to it. Anyway."
I regained my composure with a horrendous gasp and immediately took another. With a third, my senses started to return. First, my heart, banging against my chest like a prisoner shut away with a monster. Then a cold shiver in a ragged breath that seemed to resonate with one another.
When the feeling in my hands returned, I realized they were burning with tension and sheathed my weapon at once to look around.
The other students weren't so lucky. Some had an early reunion with their breakfast. Others were collapsed onto their knees or worse, passed out. But a few, Urshure and Zakira, were staring with sheer admiration.
But not at Amun.
They were staring at the ground above us. To the same locale of our Doppelgangers' focus. And then back up to Amun as his voice boomed once more.
"If you so wish! You can fight in the Night alongside the dead legionaries, where you will lurk in the darkness to spread unseen terror."
Like a wave, the gathering of eyes snapped to the ground just as mine arrived on sight. And another jerk in my nerves forced a gasp to join in on the choir.
Standing before a small guild's worth of lesser skeletons and zombies was a live draugr in the preserved flesh. Its eyes burned with the same ethereal blue-green malice I saw in Amun's spell.
It was draugr. Which was terrifying on its own, but it was a draugr created by the purest form of necromancy in existence. Yet it stood with no regard to us at all. Instead, it and the formation of skeletons and zombies behind him craned their lifeless eyes to Amun and raised their arms in unison to drag the edges of their right hands down their faces. Almost as if they were praying.
"What the hell is that!?!"
Only a few followed Rhody's extended finger, myself included. Though it was something I'd seen many times before. Shadow Undead.
Undead with bodies composed of shadowstuff- an unremarkable name for a more than remarkable 'substance' found in the Plane of Shadow. As far as I understood, which wasn't very far, it was energy or radiation that could be anything. That gave them analogs of everything they had in life. Skin, blood, organs, teeth, eyes, spiritual bodies. Mana Wells.
Affinity Cores.
They were both solid and not. If stabbed, they'd bleed. They'd react as if they'd felt pain and they'd grow weaker as their injuries compounded. They could run out of mana and experience mana fatigue. But they were made of darkness. They could heal just by stepping into a shadow or transfer themselves freely between them. They could become invisible in darkness, or conceal themselves in the shadow of another.
And on top of it all, they were undead. Should they die, it would only cost caster, Amun, a bit of mana.
Or rather, a bit of arcana.
Though, from what I could tell, that seemed to be the only difference between his undead and the Necro King's. A blue-green glow rather than the range of vibrant grays of the latter.
Regardless, it was a Shadow Undead all the same. One of the most terrifying creatures in existence.
Given enough time- given ten or fifty or a hundred years, even the weakest corpse could grow to rival a Magus with sheer physical strength alone.
Amun's weren't anywhere close to that level just yet. But it was only a matter of time until they were capable of warring against a Calamity and coming out on top.
"In other words." Amun's voice cut into my mind. And everyone else's as well, it seemed. He had his hands cocked to either side. One pointed to the floating rock on which he stood, his fingers wiggling as he said. "For those who want to help people." His hand waved towards the undead scattered above- or below. "And those who want to kill people.
"But of course." He dropped his hands to his sides and turned his devilish smile to us. "We won't be killing anyone today. And you don't have to worry about my undead harming you. So decide. Day or Night."
Much to my surprise, half the class leapt from the platform to stand among the undead. Rhody, Urshure, Kaolinite, Slate, Samson, Elsgril, and of course, Zakira.
The rest stayed up. Except, of course, Amun, who remained in midair between the two groups, smiling with an almost sadistic pleasure as he cradled an invisible something in the palms of his hands.
Yet his voice was unnervingly calm. Unerringly clear as his orders were whispered across the crowd. "Prepare yourselves, it's about to get dark."
He didn't even need to say it. I felt it. We all did. The absurdity of his Mana Well made his spells unignorable. His Arcana flowing within him was like feeling the rising sun at my back.
And then it turned cold.
"The battle will begin when the light shines through."