Arriving at the Necron empire was different than I expected. Normally, one would expect to enter the Necron Empire the same way one travelled from the Hesmaton Kingdom to the Persol Kingdom. But that obviously wasn't the case.
Kulum led our group into a forest. It was only known as the forbidden forest among the locals of the Persol Kingdom. The reason why it was the forbidden forest was because no one that entered ever came back out. The Forest is inhabited by a clan of beasts that call themself Werewolves. They are a type of humanoid wolf that have the ability to speak like humans, but apparently are still controlled by their instinct to a degree that it came to a fight between the natives and the Nature Guard because one of them had taken an interest in Claire.
Fortunately, the Werewolf clan was subservient to the Necron Imperial Family, so Kulum and the clans Alpha were able to defuse the situation before it got out of control. Not that I would have minded. After nearly 2 Months traveling I welcomed a good exercise.
My training had nearly stagnated because I could only do some light exercises in the evening. My mana cycle training could be continued while travelling but in such a low intensity that I could barely feel it. I had to mind the pull I had on the mana in my surroundings. If I pulled too much mana, Kulum would have suspected that something was going on.
The Werewolves lead us to an underground den. After we reached a massive temple-like room, the Werewolf Alpha said his goodbye and left before a massive formation lit up the room, and the world began to spin around us. A Teleportation formation.
The next second, we were somewhere else, and everything was spinning. Most people of the Nature Guard vomited on the spot. And even the guards that seem used to this were slightly pale. The only one that appeared unaffected was Kulum himself.
It took us 5 minutes before we were able to continue our journey.
We appeared in a cave system like the one we had entered just so that everything here was more beautiful and even luxurious. The entrance to the cave system was sealed by a huge gate.
Kulum was visibly concerned about something I didn't know about. As the Necron Empire guards opened the Gate, I understood what made him nervous. Before the gate was even fully opened, spells rained into the cave.
Kulum raised his hand, and one of his rings shone brightly. A barrier of green light formed in front of us and blocked every spell that came our way. The guards that were opening the door weren't that lucky. They all died, the explosions that killed them opened the gate and revealed a small army of mages that were casting arrays constantly while a wall of knights in full plate steel armor stood between us.
More and more spells formed and rained down on the barrier that Kulum had created, making his ring loose in brightness fast.
I mentally commanded Gerak to attack while I stored Atena, who wasn't powerful enough for such a fight in the beast world.
"FORMATION!" I yelled on top of my lungs, and every member of the Nature Guard instinctively followed the command, despite being shell shocked by the surprise attack.
Gerak jumped forward, landing right next to Kulum and summoned his black Hell flames. Then, he began to cast an array, but instead of mana, he used the pure element. It increases the power of a spell by around one Rank on average.
He was casting a Rank 5 spell. The name of the spell was 'Unse maosi Fragogi' it means something like 'Torch Devils Fire River'.
By the time the barrier Kulum had created broke apart, Gerak was ready and had enough time to overcharge his spell.
The scattering of the barrier was audible and resulted in the appearance of laughter from the other side.
Fortunately, before the joy could reach their head, a torrent of black flames rushed out of the Cave and flooded over the knights as if they were nonexistent. Sadly the Enemy commander wasn't nearly as retarded as expected and had created a defensive formation in front of the Mages to block incoming spell attacks.
The River of black flames ate away at the formation and encased it as a whole. not only robbing the people inside of their vision but also covering them in total darkness.
While Gerak distracted them, the Nature Guard, with me and Esy at the helm, started to move forward. Esy cooled down the ground in front of us to allow advancement in the first place. while I started to cast the field of death spell.
Once we arrived at the Knights that were supposed to cage us in the cave we found nothing much except ash and half molten pieces of equipment. I released the spell field of death and what appeared weren't skeletons or low-level undead. Instead Ash-wraiths appeared, they are mid-level undead that sometimes are even counted among the high-level undead.
From the 250-300 Knights that Gerak burned to death 50 Ash-wraiths emerged. For those of you that might think that is little, it isn't. Wraiths are created out of the resentment and hatred someone felt. That is also what makes them so powerful.
We continued our advance while Gerak focused on burning the formation the enemy had prepared. We surrounded the formation from all sides, and those capable started to cast spells.
By the time Gerak's spell had consumed the formation, it wasn't able to do anymore damage to the mages inside. But it was enough. His spell had allowed us to turn the tables from a surprise attack into a situation where we surrounded the enemy.
The mages that attacked us had huddled themself in the center of the formation facing outward. After the formation fell, both sides unleashed their spells at each other, while the magicless Knights of the Nature Guard charged ahead.
The Ash-wraiths were the first in the battle charging through the enemy spells as if they were nonexistent.
Fortunately, the enemies were only counting 150 Mages. A grand total of 5 survived the onslaught and surrendered to people who took prisoners. Some Mages tried to surrender to the undead. Small advice: Don't do that. They do not know mercy. Only a superior undead has enough sentience to grant mercy.
The 5 prisoners were 4 women and one man. The Man was one of the few A-Class Mages that acted as Leader in the group while the 4 women were B-Class Mages and officers. It was their strength that allowed them to survive long enough to surrender.
After the fight, we obviously looted the battlefield clean of everything valuable we could find while I stored the undead in my soul pendant. They were obviously the first ones I stored there, which reminded me of the soul that was inside. Sadly, I hadn't had the time to focus on that at this point. Remarkable was the fact that the Undead didn't try to consume the soul or themself while inside the soul pendant.
While everyone was busy, I secretly tried to harvest the souls of the dead, only to realize that only a few were remaining. The Souls of the Knights had been consumed by summoning the Ash-wraiths, which is an affordable price. In turn, the Ash-wraiths had consumed the souls of their victims to strengthen themself. Only a pitiful few souls were remaining. Luckily, the soul of the Leader was still around. After I consumed it, I found a lot of knowledge about formation and other useful stuff in his memories. Sadly, it didn't reveal why they attacked us, nor did any of the other souls reveal any information about this topic.
By the time I returned to the prisoners, Samuel had already interrogated them.
Allegedly, the second and fourth prince had worked together to wipe out the third prince, who was one of the competitors for the throne of the Necron Empire. Additionally, the information was leaked that the princess' new husband would arrive with them. Killing the third prince and the Princess' new husband was just an opportunity too big to pass on. No one would miss them anyway, and the fact the Kulum was there ensured that none of the attacker's would survive to tell any tales.
They also talked about the contingency plans should one of them survive and tell the truth. The in-depth explanation and handling of the situation was to detail as that it couldn't be a coincidence.
After we extracted everything they k, ew I confronted Kulum and Gesat. Before you ask, Gesat was only alive because he cowardly stayed back instead of advancing with us, which forced Kulum to stay back as well because Gesat was his first priority in the fight.
Kulum wore a bitter face while Gesat lost his temper and punched the cave wall until his fists were completely destroyed. Reluctantly, Kulum informed us about the internal strive currently ongoing in the Imperial Family.