A man tried to blow some air on a horn he had been maintaining for a long hour until it shone but forgot that his mask was in the way of his breath of cleansing.
The lower jaw of his iron mask moved seemingly in it's own, opening it's dreadful maw and allowing his new new masterpiece to be struck by the warm breeze.
He carefully placed it next to another, almost identical horn on a nearby rock, grabbing a small candle of bringing it closer before grabbing both of them and bringing them to the cracked horns stuck to his iron mask.
The two horns merged inside without any resistance and the necromancer smiled softly, his smile hidden from all behind the iron.
The movements of the unorthodox necromancer made the sounds of metal scraping against itself, indicating that beneath the blue robe, more iron was crudely melted into some sort of armor.
Now that he was done with the horns, he took a look at his surroundings, working on horns always took him out of what he had been doing and often caused him to forget where he was exactly for a few moments.
In stark contrast to the care he had given to two horns, their former owner had been beaten to nearly a pulp, not giving many ideas of what or who that might have been, however, the necromancer had went easy on that person for two reasons.
First, damaging the horns wasn't something he was willing to do and second, because another corpse was always welcomed.
Despite being a necromancer, he wasn't very versed in the arts of raising the dead as undeads, not at all in fact but with his skills in death magic and the arts of necromancy, he could make use of an artefact given to him very well.
The dead body arose without any care for the wounds inflicted upon its bodies, unlike most natural zombies, the ones made through this orb wouldn't be bound by the state of theirs bodies nearly as much, the only thing that could truly impact them was the loss of a limb.
And unlike most undead creatures, destroying the head wouldn't suffice, they would actually continue on moving forward until their HP were depleted, most wouldn't expect a zombie with a destroyed head to keep attacking, allowing them to take even the strongest by surprise and inflict a wound that couldn't be brushed off like nothing.
He had been instructed by the lich to rampage through remote countrysides of Laparadi using an undead army and, if possible, bring back the undeads themselves once he was told to stop.
The artefact was a gift of the lich herself, a magic tool infused with her own necromancy skills, when it came to raising the dead, meaning that this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to her powers.
Horn-Shatterer had also been given another gift, three special undeads created through unknown means by Theli, he had told him that they were the pinnacle of their type at the moment.
A large undead dressed in a long dark coat and a hood that completely covered it's face, it was massive, one of its hands could easily take a full hold of two whole person easily.
He had called it a TVU-PRO-1, whatever that could mean, Narik had no clue, Theli had told him to try and figure it out.
There was also a much smaller and slimmer one, dressed in the exact same way as the big one, it was armed with a dagger, it was called a DSU-PRO-1, from he had gathered, this one could easily go unnoticed when attacking.
Lastly, about the same size as the assassin one but instead of a coat and hood, it was dressed with a cloak and a hood, the fabric was the same though and similarly ragged.
Narik knew that Theli had money to spare but he had still put his undeads in beaten up clothes for some reason, probably for cosmetics really.
This last one was a mage, a UMU-PRO-1 and it was proof that Theli was a genius as this undead was capable of using the four basic elements, most mages couldn't say the same and this undead could prabably outperform them even in their one element.
It could apparently make use of any element if it was put into contact with the respective mana type but this feature wasn't perfect apparently and could result in powerful explosions.
With all of these, Narik probably wouldn't even have to fight himself at all, which might be for the best since quite a lot of people knew of his face or rather mask, especially those with horns on their heads.
His mission also had another side to it, though it wasn't necessary for this to be accomplished since it would prove quite difficult.
After one of Theli's minions had failed to kill the general of the interior, an idea had sprouted inside of the lich's skull, since he was the one responsible for any intervention happening inside of Laparadi, if every single of his decisions were wrong, the undead invasion would so much smoother.
Narik picked up the one that could make this come true, an old jar covered in cracks.
Lukewarmness was a bringer of failure, Narik had thought that having him nearby would jeopardise his undead invasion but as it turns out, the lesser sin could control his aura of failure and actually listened to the commands the lich had given him, so for now he was just a skull in an old jar.
The lesser sin didn't speak at all, whether or not he could was a mystery, the lesser sins were even weirder than the main sins, Narik hadn't believed it to be possible but after meeting a few of them, it was clear that these guys won in the insanity departement.
The advantage with Lukewarmness was that he could easily appear as though he belonged wherever he was put, no one would question the appearance of an old jar or wonder why it couldn't be opened at all, he was inscompicuous and his powers weren't obvious.
Corruption should also be capable of this but he couldn't help but open his mouth and a floating head was much less stealthy.
Narik stepped out of the cave he had been in and looked over at an isolated village, this sort of villages would be the main nourishment to his undead horde.
"I hope there will be some horns..." he muttered under his breath as his few zombies went forward, the three special ones stayed by his side for now.