Chapter 110: Chapter One Hundred Ten

At the very least it wasn't too long of a trip to the necropolis.  Jessie hadn't been ranging out that far, so it only ended up being ten  or twenty miles. Given the enhanced physiques and stamina of the people  involved in the trip it didn't take long, not even moving as slow as the  H rankers. It was actually really nice to bolt through the woods,  dodging trees and swinging off branches. The kind of speed we were  reaching even without going all out was absurd.

It needs  to be understood that the fastest mortal in the world can sprint just  below thirty miles per hour. This can be considered a single point of  Might, much like a thousand pounds of lifting force can be considered  the same. At more than fifty Might that put my top running speed at over  fifteen hundred miles per hour. Now, allowances needed to be made for  my much lower Vitality, I couldn't keep up that level of sprinting for  particularly long, but it was irrelevant since the others were with us.

We  kept it to a brisk jog, ten points or so, and three hundred miles per  hour was more than fast enough to make that trip in a few minutes, even  with time shaved off for tree dodging. It felt amazing to really let  loose with my power in a controlled activity, even a non combat one. I  decided I would run more often. It wasn't practical in the city, but  while we were out here it was a fun and easy way to get around. We made  it out of the forest without much trouble, and slowed down as we  approached the city of the dead.

It was, as stated, a  relatively small crypt in the center of a giant ass field of black  grass. Despite the accurate description though, it wasn't nearly enough  to do it justice. The entire landscape looked like something out of a  nightmare. Black twisted trees clawed their way up from jagged hills  that jutted up between the tufts of ebony grass. It was hard to spot  them in the dark, but I could make it shambling, creeping forms in the  shadows between the hillocks, presumably the undead we'd been warned  about.

Benny, who was staring hard out at the dark  landscape tilted his head back and whistled. "Anyone else notice that?  Because I'll be honest, I didn't even think to question why it got dark  so suddenly at first, and now I kind of wish I hadn't looked." We all  looked up and winced as we saw what he was talking about. A swirling  vortex of black clouds, shot through with icy blue light that diffused  out over the area just enough to make things vaguely visible without  letting us see too well. He turned to Sarah. "Don't suppose they covered  this in your church classes?"

She sighed and nodded.  "It's called an Omen Star. It's a meteorological manifestation of a  massive concentration of necromantic energy. It's not an actual star  obviously, it's just named based on the placement, but if there's one  here...we might have to fight a Lich. I imagine if there's one here it's  only going to be a Beginner Lich at worst, the Academy wouldn't have  left it here if it was any stronger, but still, they are...problematic  to deal with. I'm not even sure how one would have ended up on a planet  like this, much less have established a presence strong enough to form  an Omen Star."

That sounded unpleasant to say the least.  "So Liches are like...undead magic users? You mentioned they were one of  the races of undead you can transform into, which makes them part of  the devil faction I take it?" I knew the devils were a faction of  monstrous cultivators with a racial trait, similar to the fae, but I  didn't know too much about them in general. "What's the difference  between devils and the fae exactly? Sorry if the question offends  Celine." I gave the elf girl a nod of acknowledgement.

Luckily  for me she didn't seem upset, just shaking her head. "It's...somewhat  arbitrary in all honesty. The devil factions split from the Faerieland  for one reason or another. They're basically a mishmash of cultivators  that aren't technically fae. They gathered under the actual devils,  which ARE a race of their own, and declared their independence. For  simplicity most people call the devil factions as a whole fiends,  because devils are a specific subset of the fiends as well as the  leaders of the faction, regardless, yes Liches are fiends, and dangerous  ones at that."

Sarah's worried frown testified to that.  "They're magic users, which isn't something you see often in the  Conglomerate, part of the Job system and not ability based cultivators.  Liches are unpredictable and difficult to defeat because they rarely  have the same Skills. The only real consistent skill set it necromancy.  Regardless, if we're lucky we can avoid the Lich altogether. They're  best given a wide berth." She turned to Callie. "So, what's our plan of  attack Nightstrike? I assume you have a specific method of approach in  mind?"

Callie nodded. "I was thinking I could cloak us in  shadow. I wasn't sure if the undead have a way to pierce that kind of  concealment. This seems like a good environment to use my ability  though." She gestured out at the faintly lit ebony landscape, and I  could see her point. Her shadow embodiment should get us to the crypt  itself easily enough if they couldn't see. "Based on stories I've read  about necropoli, chances are pretty good there's a series of catacombs  under that crypt, so the closer we get before being discovered the  better our chance to get in without a fight."

Sarah pursed  her lips, staring out into the dark to try to identify exactly what we  would be facing. "I can't say for sure honestly. It depends on which  undead we come across. Some of them see with senses beyond those of  mortal eyes." That was actually an interesting thing to know. I wondered  how Perception interacted with that difference in sight. Regardless,  that meant as usual we had nothing to go on really.

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Callie  knew it too, so we could only go with the obvious plan. "Then I guess  we just have to check and see. We'll try to breach the borders and check  if they notice us. If they do we run and hopefully only the closest  undead will come after us. We can mop up the few that try for us and  then try another plan of entry, or barring that just run back to the  hatchery and use it as a fortified position. Either way, our best move  here is to test the waters." She glanced around inquisitively. "Unless  someone else has a better plan? I'm always open to suggestions."

I  had to give it to Callie. Aside from being open to new ideas from  teammates, her timing was always good too. She made sure to give us all  input at times when it wouldn't affect the flow of battle. Whether we  took her up on it or not we all felt heard, and it didn't screw with our  operational efficiency. Besides, her plans were usually pretty solid,  which was why we picked her as leader to start with. As usual, no one  had any big problems with her strategy so we all just indicated that we  were ready to go.

Callie  raised her hands, eyes closing in concentration, and the shadows surged  beneath our feet. They wrapped around us, and I felt them shift  slightly as Callie synergized her stealth skill with her ability in a  monumental feat of power I was pretty sure I couldn't have managed. Even  if I had the tools like she did the amount of shadow she was perceiving  and the traces she had to suppress were mindblowing. It took her a few  minutes to even get the whole thing in place, and we all just waited and  watched.

I'd  done plenty of tricky operations with my Skills, but I hadn't used my  ability much, it wasn't really functional in a combat situation. Still, I  knew very well how much it could wear on a person to make changes to  the world around them like she was doing now. I had enough trouble  effecting my own individual skills or even pushing them to one person.  Cloaking an entire group in stealth was enough to reinforce my already  heavy respect for my girlfriend and her capabilities.

When  her eyes opened she began to walk, slow and steady, trusting us to  follow. Which we did obviously. The second she stepped out onto the  black grass though she froze. We all stood stock still behind her,  waiting for the shoe to drop. Despite the tension though she just stood  there in silence for a beat and then started walking forward again  slowly. We followed again and again she stopped. It finally occurred to  me what she was actually doing. She was trying to process the sounds and  traces the rest of us were making and erase them, and it was talking a  bit to manage.

I  held up a finger to my lips to show them they should try to be quieter  and then slowly started to step after her, doing my best to creep across  the grass without disturbing it too much. The others clearly understood  my intent because they began to do the same, trying to make Callie's  job of hiding our presence easier. The effort brought our speed down in a  pretty dramatic way, but it was worth it. We slowly crossed the field  of death, avoiding trees and sharp hills and any undead we noticed.

Of  which there were A LOT. Seriously, skeletons were pretty common like  we'd seen, but more prevalent were a sort of creeping undead that  scurried across the ground on four legs called wights. Sarah had been  able to give us a hushed explanation of the things once the first one we  saw was out of earshot, and we saw plenty more of them over the next  hour or so of careful creeping.

We  also learned something new. The crypt was MUCH bigger than it looked.  It turned out that the whole tiny mausoleum thing was a trick of  perspective, the massive marble edifice was actually the size of a  pretty decent house. Even the raven hadn't been able to spot that  because it was so fucking FAR into the field. Jessie had stayed on the  outskirts of the black field to avoid drawing attention from the undead  and because of that hadn't had the perspective to notice the size  difference.

Still,  in the end that didn't matter, we took things one step at a time, and  the actual distance was pretty much irrelevant to the journey beyond  making things harder on Callie. We had to stop multiple times on the way  to lighten the burden, but eventually we got within sight of the huge  marble crypt. Once we could see it we stopped again as we noticed the  place was guarded by more than just skeletons. A quartet of massive  undead, black skeletal knights in plate armor, stood two to a side in  front of the crypt, attended on either side by smaller bone constructs.

Unlike  the others these skeletal knights didn't seem to have any trouble with  Callie's stealth, and turned to glare right at us as we approached. I  wasn't sure if Callie was tired, they could see better, or the fact that  they were G rank made up the difference, but in the end it hardly  mattered. Callie dropped the stealth field and slumped against me. I  held her up before passing her to Jessie for a pick me up and turning to  Cark and Benny. "Well, looks like we're fighting our way in after all.  So, who gets to fight two of them?"

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