Chapter 14
A silver tear appeared, a rip through reality, a wound on the very fabric of this dimension. It floated above the ground, silver light shining through, blinding everyone. If anyone had looked into the light they would have seen a humanoid shape. Moments passed before a being finally stepped through the tear. Another tear appeared beside it and then another and another. More and more creatures began to step through. With every tear the fabric of our reality became weaker and weaker. With every wound our reality bled.
A long time ago a tiny little male witch insisted that the school needed an alarm system for dimensional intruders. People laughed and laughed. Today was the day that he proved them all wrong. The entire school started to buzz with activity. Administrative staff were instantly teleported outside, many still in their pajamas. Armor automatically appeared over their night clothes. They were a sad sight to me as I gazed down on them from my dorm room window in a daze. The defenders of the school, out in their nickers and half asleep. A glass of warm milk could have taken them all out.
School statues came to life and the plants took on a life of their own. Warriors formed from the elements, golems of water, fire, earth, and even air appeared. Alarms wailed, waking up all of the students and faculty. It was utter chaos and somewhere a tiny little male witch turned over in his grave with a snicker on his face.
An older witch with her curlers still in her hair cast a spell to make the entire school light up. Night blazed like day. This allowed everyone to be able to see the intruders clearly. From the tears, silver furred werewolves flooded into the school along with other monsters and began to scatter everywhere. Many were carrying axes and all looked ferocious.
The administrative staff were being quickly pushed back towards the school walls. They cast every spell they could think of but they were unprepared for the number of monsters flooding into the school.
The teachers had begun to appear as well. Their numbers helped, but they were still outmatched. The majority of the monsters were werewolves. Despite all the powerful spells being thrown, most did very little lasting damage to the werewolves because of their impressive healing ability. As teachers and staff fell under the claws of monsters their corpses were dragged back through the tears.
I was still looking out my window when I noticed one of the werewolves had Bob thrown over his shoulder. He was kicking and screaming and trying to get free, but the wolf was too strong. I sighed. It would be Bob. I was three stories up, but with my improved body I managed to jump out the window and land without any injuries. I looked up at how far I had jumped and I was a little impressed with myself. Then I turned and took off running towards the werewolf holding Bob. He had Bob tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Following close behind me was the tiny dog with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Crowley was as happy as he could be, running between the feet of witches and monsters and completely unconcerned with everything that was happening. The large body of a werewolf fell between me and Crowley. He jumped up onto the werewolf’s chest and then hopped off without slowing. He looked as if he were grinning as his tiny legs quickly carried him across the field of battle. For something so tiny that dog sure could move.
I moved with incredible speed as I used my footwork technique Silence of the Grave. Despite my increase in speed Crowley had no problems keeping up with me. My fists began to glow black as I ran towards Bob and the silver furred werewolf that had captured him. I didn’t realize how large the werewolf was until I was right in front of him. He had to be at least eight feet tall and his muscles had muscles. For a very brief second I wondered how difficult it would be to find a new best friend.
Despite its size, two quick jabs with my Withering Fist technique was more than enough to kill it. Its silver fur darkened as it gradually died, eventually turning pitch black. Bob’s weight became too much for it, causing it to drop Bob. Then the werewolf began to shrink in size, its muscles withering because of my attack. It eventually collapsed to the ground and died, the influx of so much death qi finally killing it. Soon nothing was left behind besides its hide and bones.
Witches and werewolves were dying left and right. An entire field of corpses. It was paradise for a necromancer. Every dead body meant another fighter for me. I decided to put my own twist on what I had learned in class. I reached out with the death qi inside of me and brought every corpse back to life. Their soulless bodies rose as one, werewolves and witches alike. This was the reason necromancers were feared. This was the reason necromancers were so powerful. In seconds I had created a small army that would obey my silent commands.
They weren’t like normal zombies whose flesh had been soaked in special chemicals and herbs. They hadn’t had special spells said over them or powerful rituals performed to raise them. They were quick summoned and they would only last for an hour or maybe two max. That was if they didn’t get destroyed before then. Despite all of that, they were strong and would last longer than this battle would and that was all I needed. I checked on Bob as my zombie creations attacked the remaining werewolves in the area. He seemed to be ok, he had just fainted.
“Healing Angel Hands,” I spoke the name of my healing technique. I reached down and placed my hands on Bob as they glowed golden and power flowed from my hands into Bob. I wanted to make absolutely sure he was ok. I let out a deep sigh as I realized that Bob was my damsel in distress. I realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere in my life.
Bob regained consciousness, looked around, and immediately hid behind me in terror because we were surrounded by zombies. He did his best to use me as a meat shield. From the way the living werewolves were tearing through my zombies it appeared that my creations wouldn’t last for much longer. A zombie werewolf may not feel pain, but it also doesn’t have a werewolf’s natural super healing nor its incredibly fast reflexes. For every three of my zombies that fell at least one werewolf would be dragged down with them only to rise again as my dead servant.
Another witch managed to kill one werewolf with a lightning spell only to have a werewolf come up from behind her and rip her throat out. People on both sides continued to die, replenishing my forces as they did.
I didn’t stand back and hide behind my zombies like most necromancers. I was right in the middle of battle with them, doing my best to increase the body count. I noticed Crowley off to the side chewing on a werewolf’s leg bone. He had gnawed it clean.
Another creature stepped through the dimensional tear just in time to see the fight. A large grin appeared on its face. It didn’t appear to be a werewolf, but looked like a normal human. The look in its eyes showed that it was anything but normal. He had long brown hair, average build, and was a little taller than an average human. If it wasn’t for the way all the werewolves avoided him, I would have thought he was just another student. As he started to walk toward us I sensed that this one was especially dangerous.
I turned and grabbed Bob and tossed him away from the fight. Thanks to my enhanced strength he flew several feet into the air and landed outside the summoning grounds turned battlefield. He hit the ground hard and rolled, but he appeared to be ok.
One of my zombies moved between me and the newcomer. With a wide swing of his arm he hit the zombie. It wasn’t very impressive until the force of the blow turned the zombie into meat paste. The stranger suddenly started to run, moving with incredible speed towards me. A werewolf ran between us and without stopping he backhanded the creature, turning the top half of the werewolf into a spray of blood and meat paste in an instant. The only thing left of the werewolf was his waist down. This guy’s strength was beyond my imagination.
I pushed Withering Fist to the max, my entire arms were glowing black. I continued to focus all the death qi within myself and the abundant death qi in the air into my arms. The black flames began to cover my shoulders and eventually my chest. I had a breakthrough in my mastery of the Withering Fist in that moment. The man, no, the monster was wearing a sne
er on his face and watching me as he continued to move in my direction. I reached even harder inside of myself, pulling out as much death qi as I could. Soon the black energy of the Withering Fist was covering my entire body.
When he came within punching range, I punched him straight in the face. When I drew back my fist, instead of a dead man he stood there completely fine. He still had that sneer on his face. So I hit him an additional sixteen times in his face to be on the safe side. When I stopped he was still wearing that sneer, and he wasn’t even scratched. He had even stuck out his neck to make it easier for me to punch him in the face.
I punched again, throwing all my strength and weight behind the punch.
Once again he appeared to be unhurt.
The punch didn’t even rock him backwards. It was like hitting a brick wall. He looked me in the eyes and his sneer grew even wider. At that moment I noticed his eyes were solid black.
“You’re a lot stronger than the other young ones. I think I’ll take you back as a trophy.”
I immediately jumped backwards and summoned my skeleton mage. The ring shot from my finger as it transformed. Standing in front of me was my protector, my skeleton mage I had worked so hard to create. The gem on its forehead was glowing bright blue. It raised its hands and shot several jets of water at my attacker. Each blast was compressed and shot with extremely high force. Each blast traveled faster than most bullets. Each blast was useless.
A piece of the monster’s arm was blown off, along with part of his face, chest, and leg. He looked surprised for about a millisecond, then a small smiled crawled across his face. The hole in his chest was the size of a softball and it healed in less than three seconds.
The stone on the skeleton mage glowed again. It raised its arms and rapid fired ice spikes, impaling the monster. He stood there unconcerned as he slowly reached for the spikes. One at a time he pulled them out and tossed each one on the ground, his wounds healing instantly. He took his time removing all of the ice spikes, with that ever present sneer never leaving his face.
“You can’t hurt a Rask,” he said as he took a step forwards.
I had one more trump card. I sent the mental signal to my skeleton mage to activate the diamond I had embedded in its head. Black energy rushed out from its skull, dying its bones black. Its entire body was black except for the gold lines running through its body and the blue glowing gem on its head. Death qi radiated from every inch of my skeleton. The blue gem doubled in brightness. The charge of death qi would only last a moment and the blue gem was working at 200% capacity. I could already see cracks running through the gem.
The skeleton mage dashed forward with insane speed. It was standing still one second and in front of the Rask the next. Although it looked as if the skeleton mage had used teleportation, it was pure speed. It grabbed the Rask in a bear hug, the force of its incredibly strong grip causing its own arms to crack. My skeleton mage was running far beyond its normal capabilities, fueled by the death qi I had used to help create it.
The blue gem on its forehead began to grow brighter and brighter until it exploded. The entire school glowed blue for a second as a blast of pure blue energy evaporated the Rasks head and most of its body. What little remained of it turned into a black goo that puddled on the ground.
Cracks began to show all over the skeletons body. Its bones turned back to white and then it crumbled into dust. I said a silent prayer for my little skeleton mage. Though its life was short it had served me well. I turned and began to walk away when I heard a voice behind me.
“Impressive. I want you as a trophy even more now than before.”
The black puddle swirled and slowly began moving upwards and becoming humanoid shaped.
The last thing I saw was his fist flying towards my face and then I tasted my own blood.
Chapter 15
(Edward, Young Lord of the Rask Family)
I had the servants take my new human trophy to a spare room. He was placed on the bed and the guards were notified of his presence. He awoke soon after arriving, and seemed rather concerned about the golden collar around his neck. It was to prevent him from ever escaping. It was impossible for anyone but myself to remove it.
I sat in a nearby chair, watching. He was my finest trophy.
“You watching me like that… It’s creepy as hell,” said the human with a glare.
“It’s the only way I could be sure no one would eat you. You’re in a land of monsters now,” I replied with a smirk. It was not an empty threat.
“What happened?” It was a nice open-ended question that he seemed to think would encourage the sharing of information.
“Manners make the monster, my dear young captive. I am Edward of the Rask family. How might I address you?”
“Tarous.”
“Well Tarous, our world has devoured almost all of its delicious human cattle,” I paused to lick my lips. My actions seemed to greatly disturb him which brought me great joy. I am a monster after all.
“We can no longer keep up with the demand of food for our people so we have begun exploring other worlds. We were lucky enough to come across the people of your world. I was the one to make the discovery and the benefits to my family will be immense because of it.”
That was an understatement. People were starving in the streets. There was such a great need for food that we had become insanely wealthy overnight. Not that we weren’t wealthy before. Monsters would pay any amount of gold for human flesh. After all, you can’t eat gold.
“So what am I? Your snack?”
‘More like emergency rations,’ I thought, but instead I replied, “You were rather impressive during our invasion. Besides the older ones of your species, you were the only one to offer any real resistance. I decided to keep you as a trophy and possibly learn more about your world from you.”
‘Or a midnight snack depending on my mood,’ I thought to myself once again.
“Was anyone else besides me caught?”
“A few. The dead have already been processed into food to feed our people and the ones that were caught alive have been sent to be with the other human cattle. It’s good to have fresh blood for breeding purposes.”
Tarous cringed as he realized his status here was on par with that of a hamburger.
He glared at me and began to speak again. “I recognized the werewolves from our legends of the past, but I don’t recognize you. What kind of creature are you?”
Stuff of nightmares.
“What I am? I am royalty among monsters. No one in all the world would dare to cross a member of the Rask family.”
Tarous looked unimpressed. “So now what?”
“Tonight we are having a ball to show off the overwhelming power of the Rask family. Also this is a good opportunity for us to brag to the other noble families about the discovery of your home. A new feeding ground could save our world. The status of the Rask family has risen once again amongst our people.”
It was getting bad, monsters had truly embraced eating other monsters. My family had brought in as many of our weaker allies as possible to shelter them from the cannibalistic storm that had been created. Some did not answer our call though, fearing we were only bringing monsters in as future rations. I would be a liar if I said I hadn’t considered it.
The human rolled his eyes.
“A maid will soon arrive with clothes for you to wear tonight. I suggest you wear them. If you do as I say you will have a comfortable life here, unlike the other human cattle we have captured.”
“Witch, not human, I’m a witch. We are humans plus magic. It shouldn’t be difficult for a member of the great Rask family to remember.”
I raised a single eyebrow, it was a look I had been practicing. I decided to ignore his comment.
“Don’t even think about trying to escape. While you wear that collar I can find you anywhere on this planet or in this dimension. Also you are trapped on a planet of monsters, you have nowhere to go, no allies to turn to. If you try to
run you will either be brought back or the monster that discovers you will eat you. We have a lot of hungry citizens out there.”
A sneer appeared on my face as I thought about the human trying to escape and being eaten in the process.
“Great. Trapped in a world of hungry monsters. Why not the world of cotton candy and fluffy bunnies? Nnnnnooooo, it had to be a world of monsters. I would so fire my travel agent if I had one,” mumbled Tarous to himself, but it was easy for me to hear with my hearing.
“Also, you need to stay in the general area that I’m in. If you get too far away, like if you leave the city and you still wear the collar around your neck, it will detonate and blow off your head.”
I was rather enjoying this conversation. Perhaps a little too much.
My grin grew bigger as I motioned an explosion with my hands. “Kaboom.”
Soon a maid came in with a set of rather fancy white clothing. The shirt was white with ruffled sleeves.
Chapter 16
Up on a balcony made of white marble I stood watching the other monsters below gracefully dancing, each wearing the fanciest of outfits.
A maid walked the witch, Tarous, up the stairs then bowed to me before turning and leaving. I acknowledged her bow with a nod of my head. I turned and look back at the crowd, once again lost in my thoughts. The witch remained quiet and just stood there. I appreciated the quietness.
I looked down below at a monster with the body of a black spider and the upper torso, arms, and head of a woman who wore a rather beautiful dress made of spun golden thread. She stood out even in the parade of monsters below. She had no doubt made the dress herself, as she was a woman renowned for her dress making abilities. She made the dresses for the elite and rich, thus her current popularity and immense wealth warranted her an invite to tonight’s ball.
I turned as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. There was no reason for anyone else to be up here.
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