Chapter 0148- To Battle the Dead

Pieces of scattered soldiers littered the ground, zombie, esper, human, qilinkin, dragonkin, elemental.. People were dying, and then rising back to fight their comrades. The battle had been going for half an hour. The Emperor had barely begun to advance his forces to the remains of the city walls.

The capital was a vast honeycomb of rooms and alleys stacked around a wheel like planning. Most of the city was directed toward a central square, on its eastern edge, a sign atop the building made the Emperor think about his childhood for a moment while he threw lightning from his hands and destroyed the Spectres in front of him. It was the sign of his Mother's old Tea Shop. He was sure it had burned. Wu Hai flickered and stood by the sign to get a look at the battlefield, he stole the sign from the building's doorway. Flickering back, he felt a rumble beneath his feet.

The Land was displaced, the road split and flew upward quickly. Great blackened bones rose with a brown gas swirling into its body. Someone cried out, "WYRM!" Everyone dissipated their attacks, stopped on the battlefield and focused on the enormous figure rising from the underbelly of the Capital.

Its scales and flesh hung like cut meat from its bones, a great predator before its death. The unnatural landscape was a direct result of its dying throes during its final battle. Hidden by Wang Wei, it was his secret fortune of treasures. Dragon parts were worth entire fortunes and he had a Wyrm. It festered, rot and absorbed the corruption of the City for hundreds of years.

A food source for the Miasma, the lingering curse that killed the Great being. A claw hung from its heart, black and transparent, ethereal.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!" Guzhe cursed and rushed away from the frontlines, the Stealth Corp followed closely as the front claws of the Wyrm came crashing down as big as houses. They flickered with their movement techniques and regrouped.

The Emperor was just ahead, he had a strange look. The swords of light from his hands grew larger and turned like mantis sickles. He leapt and clung to the right claw of the Wyrm as it swept forward with its movement. Jiao Jiao rushed in from the outside of the battleground firing his golden beam directly at the neck of the Wyrm. Although it damaged it, the bones re-fused with the miasma, warping its neck a little but keeping its head in tact.

A breath attack was building up, particles of energy were gathering inside the exposed ribcage of the Wyrm. Wu Hai slashed at its neck, tearing scales away and exposing the black dragon skin beneath them. There was a moment during the process that he nearly lost his grip and the green spot shot out and into the body of the black wyrm. It clogged the throat of the Wyrm when it expanded. As the charged beam fired from its throat, it met with the green spot and exploded.

The head of the Wyrm hung to its side, clinging like the rest of the severed meat. The Brown Miasma swirled and collected when the insides of the Wyrm corpse was exposed, it drove itself into the neck of the Wyrm, disfigured its body further and fused the neck to the base of the wyrms backbone, bringing it upright again. The Wyrm struggled to get back to its feet, brittle green flake-like dust started to cover its head. The rot of the body, it had advanced. The Green spot had given its life during the battle, but its remains were extremely toxic to the Undead after being in such close proximity and mixing with the White Spot.

It bellowed and rampaged. Tearing at soldiers in a fit of fury, the Berserk Wyrm was crushing its allies, rolling in the city walls and leaving pieces of itself everywhere its corpse would land. Jiao Jiao fired again, aiming at the chest. A rib broke free, crashing through the old bookstore. Green toxins flowed all over the floundering Wyrm, the Miasma was being purified at the same time.

With each howl came another change, another strike of the poison entering its body. The Wing's of the Wyrm were tattered and collapsed in on themselves, twisted remnants of a prideful life. Three of the Onmyoji joined with Kuzunoha, each possessing their own enchanted scroll. They circled in a formation and were then encircled by the mage corp.

The Purification Formation ritual had started, incense caught fire, extinguished and hung in the air. '$^! #$(_)*G<>"O#&$G!&)##$!" A strange tone came from each of them, their chanting and mantras had begun. The Scrolls unraveled and flew around the body of the Wyrm, it was just too large. They settled for one of the hind legs and pinned its position. It was trapped, unable to move from its location. Then, their chanting got louder, faster, and more powerful.

With each syllable the bones began to decay, disintegrating in the light under the scrolls.

Flesh and bone dripped from its being, whenever the scrolls would finish with a section, they'd wiggle slightly into a better position. The ongoing purification of the miasma in the corpse was taking longer than they hoped but it was still to be expected. A White light came streaking down from the sky, Wu Hai had set a drilling motion with his sickles and bored at the back of the Wyrm.

It came crashing down, shattering houses and buildings below into rubble. The Onmyoji were forced to reposition themselves, the Wyrm broke free from its restraints and started to charge its energies. The buildup was growing and intensifying by the millisecond, everyone on the battlefield grew nervous. Mike tore the right eye from the Wyrms body and threw it to the dirt and dove inside.

Inside of the Wyrm's Dragon Skull, he began to hammer. It choked, a great conflagration of black dragons breath belched out like vomit. The body of the giant dragon twisted with each strike from Mike's hammer.

The Emperor started brightening his light, stronger than before, he poured a massive amount of his energy into the channeling. With his creators crusher in hand, Wu Hai slammed the socketed hammer slab down like a hatchet against the Wyrms back. Bones cracked and shattered, the giant black dragon was pushed further down into the soil. Broken wings fell lifeless.

The Brown Miasma churned, bubbled and escaped the corpse of the Wyrm. Swirling above the battleground it began casting pieces of itself away that were under the process of purification, then it dove into the corpse of the Orcish female Bicosaur rider. Only having fallen to her death, fixing her corpse enough to operate was easy. It cackled with a strange and otherworldly voice. "KWAHAHAHAHAT, Pity."

The words escaped its mouth and it disappeared, reappearing next to the bulk of the Onmyoji forces. She started slashing randomly, in the blink of an eye more than twenty new purifiers were slain.

Ho brought out a red flower when he saw the falling bodies of the Onmyoji and had a change of plans. The Steinemann Lotus was his trump card, a gift for his brother on his future wedding day. Kuzunoha wouldn't be happy if the Onmyoji were gone. He flickered and caught the arm of the Orcish woman, throwing her up into the air by her jaw. When she passed over him, he slammed the orchid into her chest and hoped his barrier would last during the explosion. Rolling flames began consuming the body, the miasma was unable to escape, it burned too hot.

Mike crawled out of the Wyrms's skull holding a black bead the size of a poolball, there were some similarities with it and the Wyrm they had just fought but it was not giving off a sinister feeling. Mike put it away and looked down the road, more spectres and some of the fallen had started to rise out of the rubble after the Wyrm toppled over.

The fighting had recommenced.

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