Joe drifted in the air.
There was no breath to draw. No heartbeat to follow. No pain to anchor him.
And yet—he was aware of his surroundings.
That alone terrified him.
I died, he thought. The idea came easily, strangely without panic. I remember dying.
The dungeon was still there, though unrecognizable now—edges blurred, colors leeched away, the stone reduced to rubble of cold and darkness. He could see the sigils beneath him faintly, his blood long since dried into something dull and meaningless.
Joe tried to swallow.
Nothing happened.
He raised a hand—and watched it pass slightly through the dust in the air, edges unraveling into mist before knitting back together again.
Confusion surged.
I shouldn't be here.
Why am I still here?
A presence pressed against him then, heavy and unavoidable, like standing beneath a collapsing sky.
Joe recoiled instinctively—but could not move.
She hovered before him.
The banshee's form filled the chamber without touching it, white hair drifting as though suspended in deep water. Her eyes—vast, pale, and endless—regarded him with a patience that was worse than cruelty.
Joe understood, suddenly and completely, that he could not disobey her.
That knowledge wasn't spoken.
It was imprinted.
"You persist," the banshee said, her voice layered—Joe's own tone buried somewhere beneath it, stretched and hollow. "Most do not."
Joe tried to speak.
The effort scraped through him like broken glass.
"I—"
Nothing. No sound.
Confusion flickered.
The banshee tilted her head. "Ah. Yes. You have not been shaped yet."
Understanding followed quickly—too quickly. He wasn't finished. He wasn't complete. He was something half-made, held together by will and her influence.
"You called me," she continued calmly. "With blood. With despair. With hatred ripe enough to tear the veil."
Images bloomed in his mind—his body on the stone, the pentagram, the screaming pain.
"You opened the door," she said. "And because of that, Ragla screams."
Her gaze sharpened as if searching something inside him.
"Does that please you?"
Joe didn't hesitate.
The confusion cracked.
And something inside him broke—he laughed.
A soundless, hysterical laughter tore through his thoughts as realization settled fully into place. The village. The people. The hunters. The ones who had watched and done nothing.
They're suffering.
The banshee watched closely, now amused.
She let Joe's awareness expand—upward, outward. He felt it then: distant panic, terror like static, lives snuffed out one by one. Each death sent a faint, delicious tremor through him.
"Yes," Joe thought fervently. Yes, it pleases me.
He bowed—or tried to. His form wavered, instinctive submission overriding pride.
"Thank you," he managed at last, his voice scraping out as a whisper of cold air and malice. "Thank you for letting them understand."
The banshee's smile widened.
"You are suitable, to join us, it seems," she said.
Relief flooded him.
She drifted closer, her presence tightening around him like chains made of will. "Listen well, wraith. What you have begun is small—but useful."
She gestured, and Joe saw.
The village above. The dead rising. The ghouls tearing through flesh. The foundations cracking beneath the weight of death mana pooling like a tide.
"This place will become a foothold," she said. "A wound that does not close. From here, I will call more of my kind."
Her voice lowered.
"And when enough souls have been harvested—when despair has fermented properly—my master will answer."
The word master struck Joe like a brand. How could such a supreme being have a master? he thought.
"What… are they?" he asked.
"A lich," she replied simply. "An architect of endings. A sovereign of unlife."
Joe trembled—not in fear.
In awe.
"To serve such a being," she continued, "one must prove valuable."
Her eyes locked onto his. "Tell me, wraith. What do you desire now?"
The answer spilled out of him, raw and eager.
"Let me join them," he pleaded. "Let me kill them. There are faces I want to see break. Names I want to end."
His thoughts spiraled, hungry. "I will serve. I will obey. I'll give you loyalty that will never vanish."
Silence stretched.
Then the banshee laughed—softly, approving.
"So eager," she murmured. "I'm going to give you a chance."
She reached into the darkness beside her, and a body fell.
It hit the stone with a wet thud—a villager, broken and pale, eyes glassy with recent death. The banshee gestured, and the corpse rose, jerking upright like a puppet hauled by invisible strings.
"This will suffice," she said. "You will wear it."
Joe recoiled instinctively—then leaned forward.
The body was pulled toward him, flesh unraveling as his essence was forced inside. Cold slammed into him. Weight. Shape. Limbs locking into place.
Then the flesh began its transformation.
The body lengthened, stretching thin and wrong.
Like the banshee, his bones elongated, his skin stretching, becoming hard and old like leather.
His hair started rising upward, whitening itself.
His eyes lost their color and were pure white now.
There were no dark claws or sharp teeth, however.
As the process finished and his spirit possessed the body, he gasped—actually gasped—as unlife settled fully into him.
Joe stood.
Lanky. Pale. Familiar in silhouette to the banshee, yet not complete.
For now.
The banshee regarded him once more and commanded, "Go."
And Joe smiled.
Talmir, meanwhile, finished the retreat with clenched teeth and bloodied hands.
The wounded were moving now—staggering, carried, half-dragged beyond the gates under the cover of torchlight. He left a handful of able-bodied men behind for protection. They would buy time. Some of them would die doing it, but the escape of the villagers had started.
He did not look back.
Instead, he turned toward the barricade inside.
Only then did he truly take in the battlefield.
Too many corpses.
Too many still moving.
Zombies pressed forward in a slow, unending tide—arms outstretched, legs dragging, bodies already broken and re-broken. They were relentless and innumerable. But the ghouls—
Talmir's jaw tightened.
Only half a dozen lay dead.
And that was the problem.
The ghouls did not charge blindly. They darted, tested, withdrew. They circled the torchlight like wolves, eyes gleaming with hunger. They waited for mistakes. They struck when backs were turned, when formations broke, when someone panicked.
They can think, Talmir realized grimly.
That made them far more dangerous.
Zombies could be managed.
Immobilized.
As his eyes tracked the battlefield, his mind shifted into the cold, efficient rhythm of a hunter.
Legs and arms first. Head only if necessary.
A zombie without legs was no threat. A zombie without arms was manageable. Decapitation was harder to pull off.
He turned sharply to the two young hunters who had followed him, their faces pale beneath smeared blood and ash.
"You," he snapped. "Flanks." He pointed to where the guards held their ground.
They stiffened.
"You stay together. You listen to the guards. Don't chase, and don't swing wildly. That's how you survive."
They nodded quickly and ran, relief and fear warring in their eyes as they took positions beside seasoned guards.
Talmir didn't watch them go.
His attention was already fixed on the front line.
Thomas.
Tonka.
Irven.
They were barely holding.
Thomas stood at the center like a living bulwark, coat torn, armor dented, blood streaking his face—some of it not his own. He wielded two swords now, blades flashing in wide arcs as the dead surged toward him.
A corpse lunged from the right.
Another from the left.
Thomas crossed his arms behind his back, blades sweeping outward in a brutal diagonal slash. Steel bit deep—two heads spun free, bodies collapsing into the snow at his feet.
For a heartbeat, the line held.
Then a ghoul suddenly struck.
It launched itself from the edge of the torchlight, low and fast, jaws spread wide, claws reaching for Thomas's throat.
Thomas turned—too slow.
This is it, I guess, he thought.
But behind him—wind gathered.
The world blurred.
Talmir vanished.
And reappeared.
His blade already drawn and aimed at its throat. The creature's eyes widened—intelligent enough to understand what had happened, just barely.
Then the head came free.
The body hit the ground a heartbeat later.
Silence—a brief one.
Thomas was stunned, and then he laughed.
A raw, barking sound torn from his chest as he shoved another zombie back with a boot and hacked it down.
"Well, I'll be damned," he grinned, eyes alight like a warrior reborn. "Welcome to the front line, boy."
Talmir didn't smile.
He raised his blade and stepped into formation.
"Let's hold it," he said.
The undead didn't wait.
Strange, Joe thought.
I can feel everything—and nothing at the same time.
No pain.
No smell.
No touch.
His awareness existed without sensation, like thought untethered from flesh. He drifted through the stone floor as if it weren't there, experimenting at first—phasing through walls, through shattered pillars, through packed earth itself. Each movement came easier than the last, instinct settling in quickly.
When the banshee gave the order, Joe did not hesitate.
He ascended.
Straight through the dungeon ceiling.
The night opened around him, cold and vast, snow drifting through his incorporeal form. He hovered high above Ragla, weightless, free. Flight came naturally—levitation responding to thought alone.
Below him—
Beauty.
A battlefield bathed in fire and blood.
Bodies littered the streets—torn apart, crushed, half-devoured. Children who had mocked him once lay broken in the snow, their laughter long silenced. Elders who had scowled at his mere presence stared skyward with hollow eyes, heads severed, throats ruined.
Villagers staggered even in death—rotting corpses still moving, faces caved in, stomachs split open and empty, flesh sloughing from bone as they obeyed a will no longer their own.
Joe watched it all.
A grotesque smile spread across his face.
"Ah… what a beautiful sight," he whispered.
Then his smile widened.
"But worry not. Your suffering doesn't end here, you wretched people. My time has come—to wreak havoc and annihilation upon you."
His gaze sharpened.
"And I know exactly where to start."
He spotted him near the rear line—a guard fighting desperately against the press of zombies. The man who had kicked him. Beaten him. Left him bleeding on stone when accusations were thrown and truth meant nothing.
A friend of that same guard.
The one Joe had stabbed to death.
How fitting, he thought.
Joe felt knowledge settle into him—not learned, but given. The banshee's imprint guided his understanding of death. He knew what he was now. What he could do.
He was no front-line butcher.
But a backline caster.
Death magic pulsed within him—bone shaping, weakening curses, spells meant to slow, to stagger, to cripple. And beneath it all, something he never knew existed.
Sound magic.
He descended.
His form sank into the earth like mist into soil, hiding beneath the battlefield itself. Earth mages stood above him, unaware—unable to sense him as he phased through dirt and stone.
Convenient, Joe thought.
He positioned himself directly behind the guards.
Mana gathered.
Then his head emerged from the ground.
And he screamed.
The sound tore free from him—not a voice, but devastation. A layered howl of death and sound entwined, vibrating through flesh and bone alike.
A shockwave exploded outward.
The guards screamed as the force slammed into them from behind—ears rupturing instantly, balance lost, formation shattered. Blood poured from noses and mouths as internal organs burst under the pressure.
Even without the undead, they would not have lived long in that state.
The battlefield shifted.
The push Talmir had forced forward stalled abruptly.
Momentum reversed.
The ghouls noticed immediately.
Their claws tore through broken ranks, fangs found exposed throats. The guards on that flank were ripped apart—and with them, the two young hunters who had only just arrived.
Screams ended in wet sounds.
Less than twenty able-bodied fighters remained now.
Thomas saw it.
And understood.
His jaw tightened as he gave the order—heavy-hearted, final.
"Area magic. Now!"
Flames ignited along his swords, roaring to life as he carved wide arcs through the undead. Zombies burned where they stood; ghouls shrieked as fire consumed flesh and bone alike.
Talmir turned.
Wind gathered along his blade.
He struck.
A slicing gust tore toward Joe's position—
But Joe was already gone.
He sank back into the earth, drifting deeper, relocating further behind the lines.
Stone walls erupted. Water slashes cut through the dead. Spears of flame and stone rained down as wind screamed through the streets.
With that order, any survivors still present in the village would end up dead. Magic did not discriminate between friend or foe.
But they also held because of it.
Joe watched from below, grinning.
Thomas and Talmir knew it too.
Mana was being spent.
And exhaustion would come.
As the battle dragged on for hours.
Exhaustion seeped into everyone's bones—arms heavy, lungs burning, mana stretched thin. Steel rang duller now. Screams grew hoarse. Even the undead seemed slower beneath fire, wind, earth, and water combined.
And then—
It happened again.
Joe hovered unseen above the battlefield, drifting through smoke and ash, watching with cold delight. He studied the flow of the fight, searching for weakness, for the perfect moment to strike. Every corner of the defense was anchored by veterans now—Talmir, Thomas, Irven, Tonka.
Joe's gaze lingered on Talmir.
Then Thomas.
"No."
Not yet.
He knew better than to challenge them directly. He was powerful—but not foolish.
So his attention shifted.
Tonka and Irven.
Irven fought carefully, measured, conserving strength and mana. Always thinking of survival. Always planning an escape.
Typical Irven, Joe thought bitterly.
Tonka, on the other hand, was bleeding.
Slower.
Still fighting like a hero—shield raised for others, body placed between villagers and claws.
Helping them.
That made him predictable.
And easier.
Joe descended again.
Meanwhile, Tonka roared as he swung his mace, caving in skulls and sending bodies flying. Shield in one hand, mace in the other, earth magic reinforcing both armor and allies. He was a wall of flesh and will—a pillar of the defense.
Then a ghoul lunged from his right.
Strange, Tonka thought distantly. Ghouls rarely attacked him alone.
He met it head-on, smashing its jaw apart with a brutal swing, teeth scattering across the snow. The creature reeled—
And then a familiar face suddenly rose from the ground in front of him.
Pale.
Smiling.
A bone dagger phased effortlessly through Tonka's shield and drove straight into his heart.
"Joe?"
The word barely left his lips.
Blood poured from his mouth as his knees buckled. The mace slipped from his grasp. Tonka collapsed into the snow, eyes glassy, breath shuddering once—
Then never again.
The tide shifted again.