Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“…Now, watch in despair-” her monologue was cut off.

Suddenly the broadcast cut off. The broadcasting screens turned black.

Leana’s heart dropped.

“We have to go to the palace immediately!” she exclaimed to the ladies.

That the broadcast was cut off could only mean two things to her. Either their side was losing, or something happened to the recorder on the other side. Both were bad news.

The Princess, Elza, Mina, and Fin pushed their way through the confused crowd and hurried back to the palace. No guards dared to stop the rushing princess or the people in her company. They charged into the censorship department, where the material was sighted before being broadcasted.

“Y-Your highness! What-” one of the censors jumped up in shock, as the four ladies dashed in.

“Where is Hardwig? What happened? Why did you break off the broadcast?”

“The signal of the two recorders that were observing the situation was lost. His highness Hardwig is preparing a teleport formation to send a team of elite reinforcements.” the censor quickly answered her question.

Following his directions, Leana brought the girls to meet with Hardwig. They found the prince in a courtyard, surrounded by court wizards. The other Princess involved

“Brother, how is it?” she asked out of breath.

“Leana? What are you doing here?” he asked confused.

“The broadcast just cut of, so we hurried here to find out what was going on.” she explained.

Hardwig nodded and explained the situation.

“We still have the coordinates of three of the recorders. Once the formation is ready, we can send reinforcement.”

“Who are we sending?”

“Father agreed to send Uncle Andre and a group of the Imperial Order,” he told her seriously.

She let out a gasp of relief, before finding the other three looking at her in confusion. Uncle Andre was actually the brother of their grandfather who reached the status of a Legend, while the Imperial Order was the elites under the direct order of the imperial family.

“They only have to endure until the formation was ready. As long as the reinforcements arrived in time, there was no need to worry about something like a zombie dragon, or even the undead army.

“Why are you suddenly so relaxed? That only counts if they make it in time. In the meantime, a lot of people could die.” Mina argued.

“I can assure you we are doing our best. I am sure they are still doing fine.” Hardwig tried to lift the mood.

— Keväti Kuinen —

“You asked for this.” the bard interrupted her.

The worm swung a spear, and a sudden sandstorm covered the battlefield, taking her sight. Natina reacted quickly and used the talisman formation to dispel the wide-area magic.

Whom! She heard the sound of impact from far within the storm.

It took just a moment for her to regain sight, but at this moment a group of knights had appeared beside the insect monster and drew her attention.

All of them were big and wore imposing armor. With heights ranging between three to eight meters, they seemed short compared to the surrounded undead. Despite the size difference, she watched her army get cut down!

Whom! Again, she heard the impact, and this time she also heard the bone dragon’s wails.

Among the knights in the encirclement of undead was Nidhog still struggling with the centipede, but there was one more person standing on its head. When had the bard gotten there? What is going on? She was thinking when the man suddenly raised a hammer. She could see the light of souls swirling around it.

In panic, she hurried the undead to rush in, but they couldn’t get closer to help. The wall of shields and weapons decimated any beats that got too close. She saw the bard attack, a practiced motion without superfluous movements.

Whom! The hammer struck the bone dragon’s skull and smashed it.

A sudden void spread within her. She felt an unknown emptiness.

“NOo!” she screamed in shock when a nightmare became true. She felt her connection to Nidhog being cut. The creature had died before, but like with all of them, their souls usually returned to her. It was unthinkable but the connection with Nidhog’s soul was cut. Her pet was gone.

The hammer had crushed the bone dragon’s skull and the man had climbed on the insect’s back, as Nidhog’s body turned into a pile of bones. A crazy fire burned in the bard’s eyes as he turned back to her with a sardonic grin.

“Oh, did you see that? You dispelled the sandstorm quicker than expected. Did you notice something?” he spread his arms as if gesturing around him.

Quicker and Quicker, the big knights in shining armor cut down the undead. It didn’t matter whether they were amalgamations, hell knights, or other high-ranking undead. She noticed it. Despite so many dying, none of their souls returned to her. The cycle was broken.

“Your shitty undead can’t change anything. I made you watch as I mutilated your precious pet.” he mocked her.

Her own words cut deep into her heart. Burning rage grew in her chest. Again and again, this bitch kept insulting her dignity. She was the champion of the goddess of death and destruction. She was destined to become the mightiest necromancer in history.

She started burning the souls of the sparks to absorb their skills and further strengthen her undead.

“No matter how good your golems are! You will not leave this place alive!” she swore and the undead jumped at the golem knights, like rats into the deep frier. The only ones they struggled to dispatch were the scattered Sparks that locked with the knight in duels.

It didn’t matter how many she lost; she had the advantage in numbers there was no way she-

She was interrupted as if her thought were read.

“I bet you are thinking “I have the advantage in numbers!”, right? It’s true. Never fight a necromancer in numbers. Then what if I fight you with quality?” he asked a weird question.

Her eyes widened when the man waved his hand and an almost 40-meter-tall giant knight appeared. It was really a giant. A giant clad in leather, chain mail, and parts of plate armor. At his waist, he had a more than twenty meters long sword.

But the giant did not use the sword. In his hands was a giant scythe. Before she could question why it carried a farming tool, it started reaping the undead like tall grass! What kind of wicked being would come up with the idea to arm a giant with a scythe?!

Severed limbs and torsos flew through the air as the giant drew bloody circles on the battlefield. Compared to Kalzemir this would have been like a human facing a mammoth. But the dragon wasn’t here. Even when she tried to call it back, it didn’t listen. There was nothing on her side, that could size up against the giant golem.

The only relief was, that the dead from the scythe still returned to her. She should be able to do something with this.

…

~Puffles, let’s get out of here quickly. Things will go down soon. ~ Seth warned the ivicer.

~Alright and… thanks. ~ Puffles said a little embarrassed. He had underestimated the fully buffed bone dragon.

~ What is there to thank? We are a team. There is no way I would let you suffer. ~

While Natina was distracted by the giant, Seth quickly returned his golem knights to his inventory and boarded Puffles.

The blacksmith looked at his teammates who were just floating in place and staring at the giant farmer harvesting life, the same way Natina did.

“What are you staring at! Don’t just stay in the air! Retreat! hurry” Seth called out to his comrades and took the lead on Puffles to return to their defensive line.

They didn’t have much time the run. Although he had bragged a lot, the giant could only operate for a short while, because of the huge energy consumption. Seth had lacked the materials to turn the giant into anything more than a huge distraction.

He was sure Natina was already planning something. Seth didn’t want to be there when things went downhill. Literally.

Back behind their defensive line at the edge of the ruins, he called out for the demon Misto who materialized beside him shortly after.

“Plan C won’t work. She has a permanent shield erected around her. You won’t be able to approach her undetected, even with the Helm.” Seth said with a sigh and held his hand open.

“I see, here.” The demon agreed and returned the Whimsical Curse to him.

Assassinating Natina with the Whimsical Curse had been another backup plan, but the arrow shot had shown that this plan would not work.

“You had something like this and kept it hidden until now?” the hero scolded when Misto and Seth joined the others.

“Because I would have preferred not to use an unfinished prototype. Look,” he said and pointed at the battlefield where the giant started faltering.

Time was up and energy started running out. The big zombies started climbing and attacking the sluggish golem, like malevolent toddlers. Things got worse. Zombies’ corpses on the battlefield started withering and their loose bones collected on the other side of the battlefield.

Necromancer Girl was far from done. It seemed that Natina was going to summon something big, and a giant pile of bones piled up beside her.

“She’s summoning a new bone dragon.” Megan the archeologist analyzed as if she had seen the process before.

“What are we going to do? Phase Four failed.” Brock lamented

“Then, we should charge her and fight valiantly to the death. Maybe we can kill her in a quick skirmish” Harker suggested.

“You really want to kill us…” Seth was speechless.

“Dear Hero, please let Mr. Smith speak. I believe his preparation has merit. Please share your plans with us.” the fortuneteller suddenly backed him up.

“Okay. We run.” he agreed and started explaining what was soon going to happen.