The Occupation

[Reclamation forces are inbound]

Outposts B and C turned out to be the strongholds to our immediate east and west in the encirclement around the manor. From my position in the air above 'Outpost A' I could already see the reclamation forces as they climbed over the walls surrounding their outposts. From either side came around five hundred undead abominations and behind the undead were a few hundred demons.

The demons this time were a mix of the stronger and faster Taurians as well as about a hundred kobold-looking phantoms from either side. The overall numbers were below two thousand but we were not even two hundred anymore and would have to further divide ourselves between a pincer unless we wanted to fight within the outpost.

Just to do that, though, would require allowing the pincer to close on us. The others probably had all of their own thoughts on the subject as the leadership groups reconvened in the boss area after the notification, but I had a fairly simple plan of my own as I dropped to the ground.

The others were already discussing whether or not to make an impromptu high ground in the boss area like I had been doing but for everybody to fight from in the middle or if they should divide to meet the pincers. When I landed roughly on the ground nearby, though, the discussion briefly stopped. "I have a plan," I announce cheerfully.

"You want to sneak around the reclamation troops and attack their outposts while they're missing manpower and unsuspecting," Little Thirteen states in a deadpan tone of voice as if I were the most predictable person ever.

"That's good, but not possible," I reply with a quick shrug of my shoulders. "Nope, You guys and my familiars are going to go deal with the west and I'll keep the east busy for you. I don't think I can clear them all faster than you guys and my acolytes without my sword, but I can keep 'em busy easily enough."

"That works," Donna says with a brief glance at my nearby demigods before turning her attention to Thirteen.

Shrugging with a defeated sigh, Little Thirteen says, "Fine, take the XP, but leave some loot behind. I've seen your work and you either eat everything whole or make sashimi out of the enemy."

"Oh ye of little faith," I say with a sad shake of my head. "Let this grandfather of yours show you how how to buy many lives' worth of time, there'll be plenty of fish left for you to clean. Just make sure you kids don't mess up on your end since my familiars still have buffs for everyone."

"They still…" Mr. Thirteen starts to ask while giving my divine evolved imp priestess and redcap mage an incredulous look. "What the hell are these things? All I get are the names 'Plagued Cweeper' and 'Plagued Hermes'. Not even levels."

Can he not see the word 'Demigod' in their names? Interesting. Does that mean he could only see 'Zekrom the Undying' as well?

"If you can only see a tenth of their names, you obviously only need to know their names," I reply smoothly while giving my Divine Acolytes a smiling nod. This, though, made me wonder if the others could only see those parts of their names as well. "Just know they can kill you and currently have orders to keep you alive. What else matters?"

"You paint the perfect picture for the word 'unreliable'," Little Thirteen says with a tired sigh, knowing he will rarely get a serious response from me. "Fine, let's get this over with. Just do your best to preserve the bodies."

Knowing I would have gotten my way eventually, I crouch and jump straight up into the air for well over ten feet before flapping my wings to carry me twice as high into the air. Turning about face to find the east side enemies of Outpost C, I swiftly fly out into the ruined city.

Half a mile was the general distance between points A and B or A and C and the demons so the demons had only gotten a hundred or so yards from their outpost when I dove down to the ground fifty yards away from them. Channeling the same spell three times into the staff I still clasped behind my back, I simply nod a greeting to the demons who had momentarily stopped their advance before outright charging forward.

Hoping the layered spell would count ad different hits, I spend three thousand mana overall while whipping my staff around and overhead to spin once just for show before slamming down on the ground ahead of me. Dark light flashed from my staff on cratering contact. All light within a hundred yards of me was dimmed as three different field skill sized Quick Quakes unleash their effects through my chaos soul weapon.

The first quake carried the enhanced darkness knockback effect, cratering the broken ground deeper than usual and into a fine gravel. Because of the material of the ground, the gravel was able to support the demons and undead. Until the second and third quakes rippled out in quick succession.

Both quakes carried acidic shadows among the gravel that lurched and churned with the widening of the field and grinding of the gravel, swallowing up large demonic bodies while eating away their defenses. Almost a thousand demons who had been running full tilt just a second ago now found themselves tossed about and buried all around the ground.

Except for the phantoms, they remained unaffected by the quakes because they never touched the ground and a lack of a physical body meant they had no PDEF to begin with. Even the knockback of the initial quake that staggered everything else in prep for the other quakes merely pushed them up into the air. These guys really were kind of tricky.

Looking around to see that I had trapped pretty much the entire reclamation force, I hurriedly Splash out immense waves of water worth a few hundred mana apiece while crushing a mana potion still in my arm. The gravel that had been quaked twice had been refined into a pebbly dust, making for a crude granite concrete mixture. After a couple thousand gallons of water had soaked the field, the upper wet layer of the quaked field became sodden and heavy.

Despite my hopes, though, it did not appear to be a quick drying cement. Following the same tactic as before while the phantoms slowly close the distance while still drifting back down to the ground, I fuse Quick Quake and Frostbite together with only a little more than a thousand mana through my staff. The following quake spread out like a wave of ice through the field.

Even if the concrete mix had dried, it would have become lighter from the loss of water. After having its liquids frozen to replace the drying process the upper layer of earth would be both heavier and a little more resilient. As if to prove this, the demons who had been mounding up from the muck were suddenly caught in place as more than six feet of depth was frozen solid.

The phantoms who had joined together on the ground only twenty or so yards away seemed to pick up speed as they reached ground level, flowing forward like a smooth wind while maintaining running poses. They never touched the ground or stepped forward, but they actually flew forward in the position of placing one foot down the entire time with their hands up as if to grab at me. It was honestly both cheesy and creepy at the same time.

"BEGONE, THOTS!" I exclaim loudly, channeling Spirit Wave and all of my current mana through my staff while stepping forward into a broad forward sweep of the fore end of my staff. From the end of my staff bloomed an expansive wave of darkened spiritual energy, looking like a growing wave of murky water that crashed over the hundred phantoms swarming me from in front.

While my attack never touched the ground as it whipped through the phantom bodies and upward away, there were the distinct glassy sounds of cracking ice and stone coming from all over the field. Despite the increased range and damage of my attack, the phantoms were currently only brought down to around half of their overall health bars.

I needed a surefire move and I needed one quickly, turning my attention to the spectral aspects of these enemies.

I had the Medium title and matching abilities which allowed me to interact with and control some forms of undead. As a Plaguedman and the first-slash-strongest among them, wild undead naturally deferred to me. These demons were basically ghosts and there were only one hundred of them.

They were weakened heavily with a single attack and I had witnessed Zekrom assuming control of hundreds of undead at once. If he could do it, why not I? There was no reason not to try, if I succeeded I could use them and if I failed I could just wipe them out with a crossed electric-fire attack.

So, relying on their ghostly aspects and the affinity of my staff, I crush another mana potion in my arm to swiftly regenerate several hundred health at once that I immediate pour into my staff.

The mana was then released as a darkened pulse of spiritual energy that spread out in all directions for fifty yards. The phantoms caught by the pulse were stopped in their tracks after recovering from the Spirit Wave. Probably more confused than anything else by my Channeling skill.

However, when the next regen patched in and then flowed out through my staff, their poses slackened into standing positions. My Channeling seemed to be having the effect of disarming them similar to how Zekrom stalled a thousand undead, at least. With a few more pulses, I might actually control a few of them.

As each regen effect from my potion kicked in, not only did the phantoms begin to relax but the ominous cracking in the ground became louder and more numerous. Just as the first phantoms were beginning to lighten in color to a pale gray to show their alignment and affinity change, the visible mounds throughout the area began to split and shift apart.

I would have cursed if not for the concentration I needed to apply to Channeling and the consumption of my replenishing mana while maintaining a certain bottom line thankfully, it still took several seconds before the first bodies were even exposed. I still had a little less than ten seconds before I was down to the last second.

Within two more Channeling pulses, most of the phantoms had lightened and all of them were eyeing one another warily as if considering fighting. The lightened phantoms no longer belonged to the same side but I could only hope they belonged to me. After six seconds from the first exposure, all one hundred phantoms were a pale gray in color.

Wary of giving them a direct order that went against their previous objectives, instead of saying 'kill them' I simply point my staff out over the field and declare, "Assist me!"

Sure, that was pretty much the opposite of their previous objectives all the same. However, I was not directly telling them to kill their previous comrades. I did not know about the relations between different demon species and all that, but the geckos were always dispatched in hand with the phantoms despite the heavy vanguard of undead and rat-taurs.

Looking to me with emotionless and transparent ghost faces, the phantom creatures look from me to the hundreds of enemies slowly freeing themselves from my impromptu field controlling skills. Moving forward with their usual slowness rather than the windy 'haste' they had approached me with, the phantoms disperse out among the field.

Moving from one partially freed demon or undead to another, they simply reach out and touch the enemies who briefly arc with static-like black electricity before becoming visibly weaker and slower. It seemed like they were going around simply cursing the demons and undead, applying a vague darkness and restricting energy that inhibited their movements.

I had yet to use it but I was already fairly sure that this skill was more effective than my Curse of Weakness. If I could learn from their skills, though, my life would become much easier when learning dark magics. Having a hundred of these are play things was useful, but I had no way of knowing how long they would last for.

[They were permanently neutralized]

"Neutralized?" I ask curiously after Melpomene's sudden and brief explanation, quickly checking to make sure the phantoms were still… alive? Well, at least they were not ectoplasm. Yet.

[They are neutral NPC more than monsters, now. Their AI drive for attacking players is no longer in effect and their sentience has some restrictions removed. They can choose for themselves, now, but they naturally have a certain… tolerance… for the person who 'awakened' them. Make use of this and treat them well]

I just got handed some insider information that could change games, especially when dealing with undead creatures.

[Proper undead will be temporarily taken over and then will die out without some form of permanent bonding. The numbers of which you cannot sustain unless you find a way to give them life. Beings such as these Wraith Fiends have transcended the status of undead to be chaos entities closely related to demons. Otherwise, such plans are doomed to fail]

*