A few days had passed since the group left the Scorched Mountain, and they were now heading north to the White Mountains.
It was around ten at night, and the group was riding along a dirt road towards a village to spend the night.
Even though that village was relatively close to a capital, it had a population of about fifty people.
There were no walls because, due to its proximity to the Scorched Mountain, it was a peaceful place.
Shortly before they arrived, Sariel used Illusion to alter Luna's appearance again.
When they were close enough to be seen, they were greeted and questioned by two men wearing leather armor and carrying a sword and a torch in each hand.
"Wait a minute. Who are you and what are you doing here at this hour?" one of them asked in a much calmer manner than expected.
"I'll handle this." Sariel dismounted his horse. "We are a group of travelers, and we came from the Scorched Mountain. We would normally camp on the road, but we would be grateful if you would allow us to spend the night here."
"Oh, you must be the group of visitors our armorer told us about, you were present during the eruption, right?"
"That's right."
"Alright, in that case, welcome! Since there are so many of you, you'll have to split up. Only his house can accommodate two people." He pointed to his friend next to him, who had been silent all this time. "My name is Uriel, and his name is Brian."
"My name is Sariel, these are: Luna, Raymond, Aegreon, and Shiina. It's a pleasure."
"The pleasure is all ours. Follow us and we will take you to our homes, but try not to make any noise, our families are asleep at the moment."
The two guards led the group into the village and took them to their homes. Sariel stayed in a house relatively far from Luna while Raymond stayed in a nearby house. Shiina and Aegreon stayed far from everyone.
The princess was welcomed into the home of a couple with a child.
As expected, it was a humble and small house, with only two rooms, one of which was the bedroom, but she could sleep on the sofa.
The princess lay down and soon fell asleep.
She didn't know how long she had slept, but she woke up startled in the middle of the night when she heard screams and the sound of metal clashing.
Frightened, she got up and left the house, finding herself in a completely different scene: The village, which until recently had been dark and silent, had become a battlefield, with houses burning in flames and illuminating the dark night.
At first, she thought it could be a group of barbarians or something like that, but looking closer, she realized that the invaders had their eyes and mouths glowing in a dark purple light. Their movements were clumsy and slow, but their numbers made up for their physical vulnerability.
Those who knew how to fight had to deal with five or more opponents at the same time, and as much as they took down one or two, others appeared in sequence, as if they would never end.
Another interesting detail was that the moment one of the invaders was defeated, their bodies instantly turned to ashes and disintegrated in the air, mixing with the smoke from the fire.
"By Kura! What's going on?!"
The one who shouted that was a woman who was coming out of the house carrying a child in her arms, who was crying in fear.
Luna immediately lowered her face and covered herself even more with her hood.
The princess watched everything without understanding what was happening, when suddenly she heard a voice beside her.
"Careful! On your right!"
When she turned, she saw one of these invaders wielding a broadsword and about to cut her.
As she was close, she could see that the man's face was completely dry and malnourished, as if a corpse had forgotten that it was dead.
The sound that came out of his throat was like that of someone choking who was trying to inhale air constantly, and his movements were strange and inconsistent.
Frightened, she tried to get away from that creature, but ended up tripping and falling.
The blade was about to hit her when Raymond appeared behind her and cut the creature's neck, which turned to ashes immediately afterwards.
"Are you alright?" Raymond turned to the princess with concern.
"Yes, but what's happening?!"
"It seems a necromancer with an army of undead has appeared and invaded the village. I think Sariel and Aegreon are dealing with him." Raymond defeated another undead.
"A necromancer? What are we going to do?"
"Just stay behind me and I'll protect you!"
"Alright."
Then, Raymond guided Luna and the woman with the child through the village to a quieter place, while defeating any creature that approached.
In addition, he tried to save every civilian he could, which soon made the task of protecting them increasingly difficult, since he had to protect almost ten people at the same time.
"Why would a necromancer attack a simple village?" Luna asked.
"Well..."
Woosh!
The sound of something flying near the princess made her turn her face, noticing something she never expected to see in her life.
A winged creature with a human form hovered in the air. Its wings had no feathers or membrane, they were just bones, and the rest of its body, although still retaining a remnant of decaying flesh, also had its skeleton exposed.
An angel, or rather, the corpse of one.
Like the invaders, its eyes and mouth glowed a dark purple light, and its movements were equally stiff, barely able to keep itself still in the air.
That angel raised its left hand, and a red flame appeared in it. Aiming at Raymond, it aimed that flaming sphere and fired it at him.
A small ruby fireball flew rapidly towards the group. However, Raymond pointed his hand at that sphere, then three strands of violet electricity came out of his fingers and collided with the fire.
His magic overcame the angel's magic and continued until it hit him, who writhed and disintegrated in the air into ashes.
"Why... Why was there an angel here?" Luna felt nauseous, her legs weak and her body sweating cold at the sight of that bizarre figure, reminding her of all the nightmares she had had.
"Since we're still near the Scorched Mountain, there are several places with buried and forgotten corpses of angels. This necromancer must have known about it and must be trying to create an army of undead angels."
And, as if to prove Raymond's theory, dozens of angels appeared in the air and began to cast various magics against the village, coloring the sky with a rainbow of death.
For some reason, the vast majority of these angels focused on Luna.
Raymond tried to defend her, which was impossible since he would have to deal with dozens of undead at the same time as he couldn't cast any powerful area-of-effect magic, which could hurt the villagers.
An angel managed to flank Raymond and was about to hit Luna when a small wind spear pierced the winged being's chest and defeated it.
"Are you okay?" Shiina appeared in front of Luna, while helping Raymond deal with the angels.
"Yes, thank you..."
"I thought you were an assassin..." Raymond commented.
"Whether I like it or not, I have to protect the helpless princess."
With her help, they managed to balance the battle and protect everyone. Whenever Raymond failed to defeat an angel, Shiina immediately appeared to protect Luna.
Despite having met now, they both fought in sync, anticipating each other's movements and adjusting their attacks, even if their relationship wasn't the best.
Minutes passed and the angels showed no sign of decreasing, on the contrary, more and more of them appeared, which was making it impossible to protect Luna even with Shiina's help.
Raymond tried to protect the princess as best he could, and even threw himself in front of some attacks to serve as a human shield, which earned him some negligible injuries all over his body. However, despite his efforts, he was unable to deal with all of them.
"Why are they focusing on me?" Luna began to feel guilty about what was happening.
"I'm sure that necromancer wants your soul..." Shiina spun and cut down several enemies at once.
"Soul...?"
"Careful!" Raymond warned.
Shiina had been distracted by the princess' question and ended up letting an angel pass by her.
The enemy, with a spear glowing dark purple, pierced near Luna's left shoulder.
The blade pierced her body, and the princess instantly felt an intense pain in her shoulder. The entire area around it burned intensely, as if the weapon were made of lava and was melting her body.
Unable to bear that unimaginable pain, she lost consciousness almost immediately, leaving her even more vulnerable to another attack from that angel.
"LUNA!" Seeking to free himself from the enemies around him, Raymond made his body emit an intense amount of electricity, defeating several undead in a second.
The angel pulled out the spear and prepared to plunge it in again, but Shiina, in a quick movement, cut it before it could do so.
Realizing that simply killing them wouldn't work, Shiina created a strong gale that knocked down the angels that were trying to fly, thus protecting those around her.
Because of this, the fire in the houses around began to increase in intensity and heat.
The undead still tried to cross that barrier of wind, but gray blades of wind cut them.
Still, some were more resistant and managed to get through.
It was then that a sudden explosion of lightning swept through all the dead that were crossing the barrier. The power that Raymond had used was so great that it ended up destroying a house that was right next to it.
"Hey, watch out! You're going to kill one of the villagers if you don't control yourself!"
"I can't let Luna die!"
However, despite his demonstration of power, it was not long before more and more dead advanced towards the princess.
Raymond and Shiina prepared to kill them when, but suddenly, all the undead immediately disintegrated into ashes, leaving only the living there.
Shiina's gale made their ashes spiral in the air, like a black snowstorm.
Raymond, without time to think about what had happened, ran to the princess and tried to wake her up.
"LUNA! WAKE UP!"
But she remained unconscious.
"We need someone with the Protection element to heal her!" Shiina knelt beside her.
The wound on Luna's shoulder, although it had not hit any vital point, glowed faintly in a purple light.
Raymond checked her pulse and noticed it was very weak and decreasing, in addition to noticing that she was burning with fever.
He knew very well how that wound was not common; he would not be able to heal it.
Therefore, he looked around desperately as he shouted the name of the only one who could do something.
"SARIEL!"