Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

She could only remember the warm voice hazily, but it had promised her power and now she felt it surging through her body. Hot, seething fire was flowing in her veins and burst outward, blowing apart the melting lump of steel that was pressing down on them.

"Jess!" James wheezed, with the pressure suddenly lifted from his shield.

He could feel her fire flow through him, but this time it was slightly different. He was not just healing thanks to the trait he gained through the ring. The knight felt his body become stronger and faster. He remembered what he agreed to when his mind was on the edge of blanking out. His body was also filled with power and it kept becoming stronger in her presence.

In the light of her fire, the loose dirt they stood on started burning, and, the surrounding were illuminated by the expanding fire. Through the curtain of fire and smoke, he saw massive white pillars in the distance appearing from the darkness.

No, not pillars. They were the bones of two gigantic legs that vanished into the darkness above them. Jess's legs were shaky and James had to support her after the massive outburst of power. Looking at her, she was covered in an aura of fire, as if her body itself had turned into fire. Weirdly enough, her fire did not burn him. He could only feel strength continuously seeping into his body.

"Are you okay, Jess?" he asked worried

"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just a little overwhelmed. D-Did I do that?"

She looked around them. The whole plain surrounding them was covered in a carpet of flames giving off a golden shine. A shuffling and rumbling reminded them that they were far from safe. The passive bone pillars were moving again.

They heard the whoosh of something massive creating a storm above their head before dark winds descended on them and the fire. It was a murky, sticky aura mixed with the wind and it seemed into the ground while suppressing the flames.

"This isn't good..." James mumbled when he saw the floor starting to move.

All around them, the loose dirt started squirming and thing surfaces from the ground. Appearing all across the burning field were the remnants of pests and adventurers that had fallen down here, and turned into undead.

Hollow shells of giants bugs and spiders, humanoid corpses in various states of decay, but also skeletons of monsters, some complete, some an amalgamation of bones that did not fit together at all. The golden flames tinged in the holy aura of Lohe happily licked along the unholy creatures that were unlucky enough to come in contact with them.

Weaker ones were directly turned to ashes, others withstood the flames with their murky aura. They all ranged in the late lv.90s. It was a horrifying sight, but the eyes of the couple were affixed to the one that had revived these things with a way of his broken sword.

After coming closer, the shine of the fire could breach through the weird darkness that even blocked the night vision effects. Standing in front of the niche between the last staircase and the wall, the place the two had fallen, stood a colossal skeleton.

Its rotten bones were covered in a rusty mail shirt. There was a helmet on its head and the rest of a shield hanging from its left arm. The niche was too narrow for it to come in, so only its right arm holding a sword was reaching for them. At the very top of the sword, they could see that the tip had broken off. It was still glowing a dim red.

The skeleton colossus tried to enter the niche, waving its sword, but it was its toxic breath alone that had revived all these undead, that were just minuscule pawns compared to the giant monster. The two looked each other in the eyes and came to a decision without talking about it.

Jess jumped on his back, while Jame started running towards the back of the niche. They ignored the undead awakening from their slumber for now. The main objective was to get away from the skeleton's reach.

The smoke and fire didn't faze either of them, as the knight tried to stay in the areas of the fire where the undead couldn't touch them for now. He did that until they reached the further end of the fire field towards the wall in the back of the niche.

"What now?" Jess asked out loud when they stood with their backs against the wall.

The shambling undead that look like a mix of dead insects and kitchen scraps that had fallen down here, were closing in on them. They realized that both had finally gotten their chance and had been chosen by a couple of benevolent gods, but it didn't change that they were already fatigued.

James stepped in front of Jess.

"Of course, we will defend ourselves here until they run out of corpses," he answered her confidently, but they both knew that they would probably run out of fuel first. They held little hope, facing the growing hordes of beasts.

"That's a great idea. Afterward, we will hit the big guy stuck in the gap."

Surprised they looked up, to see Lydia descending towards them like an angel. Gracefully she was lowered with a rope. It would have been a great entrance when the wind of the waving sword had not suddenly smacked her against the wall, after which she fell down in the dirt beside them.

"This mother- " Lydia cursed. She was mostly unheard, only her pride had taken a fatal hit. Her cool entrance was ruined by the flailing skeleton soldier the size of a skyscraper.

With a quick look, Lydia judged the situation. Although they were holding on, Jess and James were not in a situation to defend themselves. She pulled out The Bat, as tough steel-blue fur broke through her skin.

"You two stay behind me, the others will come down soon," she ordered them, as she turned into an over two-meter-tall lycanthrope. Since James didn't seem overly reliable in his current state, Lydia decided to take over the melee combat instead of using the bow.

Lydia's tall slender figure blurred in front of their eyes as the closest undead got bashed their head in by her holy club. Even when the undead were in their late lv.90s, they were not even elite-tear mobs. They stood no chance to the power of Wepwawet's Chosen.

<Gravity Bat> allowed her to wield her bat with incredible speed, force, and precision. Half her hits carried a death attribute aura, which contra-intuitively worked just as well against them, as the divine aura of the bat.

Seeing Lydia go wild on the army of the undead James and Jess slowly started to relax. A glint of hope had finally taken a seat in their mind. Maybe they could really get out of there. Maybe they would actually get a chance to experience being the chosen of gods.

"I wanted to try this for a while now..." they heard her mumble after some time,

She held the bat up vertically in front of her face and spoke with a smirk.

"Vibrant Scape of a Thousand Violent Bonks!" she shouted and in a storm of bright red light hundreds of bats materialized around her.

She was surrounded by them for a moment before all of them gained a conscious of themselves and started attacking the undead on their own. Even with just 70% power, there was no visible difference in damage between Lydia wielding the bat, or the copies decimating the undead remnants.

"Oh, wow..." Faenys exclaimed when she and Duhu arrived as the first ones of the party.

They came at just the right moment to see the mass of clubs return the army of undead to the dust and ashes they came from. The rest of the party arrived to find that their presence had already become useless, for now.

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