Might as Well

The moment Sam saw the first hand break through the ground, he raised his foot and slammed hard down, injecting his own mana and sending shockwaves through it, hoping to break at least part of the disgusting spell.

However, the only result of his actions was even more hands breaking through the earth and the demonic witch beginning to cackle.

“Nyahahahahah! Won’t be easy, my scrumptious-looking deary!” the witch called out with a horrifying grin on her face as she continued tapping on the ground with her cane – or rather magical focus – as more and more mana began to stir taking up the disgusting aspect of the living dead. “I have seen many young boys with such skills! Yes, I have! Nyahahaha! Cute but not smart! Nyahahaha!”

More and more dead bodies began to emerge, the soil tumbling down from their body as they rose from the ground, all with empty stares, stitched-together bodies, clothes that were in various states of decay – indicating the time of their owners’ death – and all staring at Sam in a rather disconcerting manner.

“Rise! Rise my precious! Rise my darlings!” proclaimed the witch as the mana hanging in the air with its cloying death-like nature began cloying Sam’s senses.

Knowing that if he had let the mana suffuse everything that would only provide an advantage to the demonic witch, he took a good chunk of his own mana and began spreading it in the air, in the ground, and everything that was near him, countering the foul mana emanating from the witch and her victims.

Unsurprisingly, her ‘pet’ was still conked out, only she switched her attention from the grass to the clouds above them, staring dazedly as they went by. Sam had to frown at that as he knew Anor’s Blessing didn’t have this strong effect on people. It was mostly like devil’s lettuce from the real world, with some fantasy-like elements. The status of the being that ‘kidnapped’ him meant that either the sample he was given was an entirely different substance, the ‘woman’ was specifically weak against it, or there was something sinister done to her.

He shook his head a little and refocused on the grinning witch, knowing she was the bigger threat while continuing to use his own mana to counter hers.

In times like these, he wished he had spent more time on fire magic, as it was (as always) super effective against the undead. Though, he suspected the witch, old as she was, had some counter to someone just showing up with a flamethrower and enthusiastic attitude.

“My, my… very talented, little boy…” she commented while licking her lips as she stared at Sam with a hungry look in her eyes. “Won’t you become mine, sugarplum? I just put a fresh batch of… cookies in the oven.”

For some unfathomable reason, Sam did not believe the witch.

With a small wave of his hand, he launched a focused blade of air at the nearest dead body that was almost done wrenching itself from the ground, but it barely scratched the skin on the monster.

“Oh no, little boy! No, no! No ruining my toys, you hear me?” the witch called out in a scolding voice as she wagged her unnaturally long finger at Sam. As she spoke, dozens of the zombies managed to free themselves from Gaia’s embrace and stood with arms ready, waiting for the witch’s commands. Behind them, Sam could see dozens more struggling with the dry earth, indicative of how many people the demonic witch had killed. “Why don’t you play with them, honeybunch? I’m sure you will ENJOY IT!” she yelled, screeching the last part and pointing her gnarled finger at him as the mana surged from her into the zombies.

The undead monsters as one shivered once, then relaxed and with the same movement, arms ready to tear him apart, rushed at Sam at incredible speeds.

Knowing what he knew about the situation, Sam simply unsheathed his sword and met the claws of the first zombie with it, causing an honest-to-god shower of sparks to appear as claws and metal met.

With every ounce of his speed, he moved forward, stepping carefully to avoid the fumbling zombies, as they did everything to grab him with their deadly claws.

He had to fight for every step as he blocked claws and bites with his sword and well-placed shields. Then before he could fire off the blade storm he had been building up, one of the zombies behind the throng that was trying to tear him apart, leaned forward, opened their maw, and began vomiting a green cloud that instead of rising upwards as gases would, began to move forward exactly at Sam.

Not wanting to test his own regeneration and seeing several other zombies starting to open their mouths, he released his spell, unleashing a tremendous barrage of wind blades at the surrounding zombies, and used the air movement generated by the spell to destroy the approaching cloud of death as Sam was pretty sure it wasn’t unicorn fart mixed with some light perfume.

Then another zombie began spewing fire at him so that the wind generated by his spell was in a perfect place to fuel to even greater heights. The fire instantly rushed at him, enveloping the surrounding undead and him in a deadly conflagration.

However, Sam simply used Shadow Transformation to avoid the damage and launched himself upward while several clones launched themselves out of the conflagration. Naturally, several were destroyed by swipes from the zombies and sparks of flame from the breath attacks. One was even taken down by a zombie launching itself and jumping on the clone, taking it to the ground, ready to devour it.

And meanwhile, the witch was still cackling dementedly in her spot as she directed the horde to devour – or do worse things to – Sam.

“Aren’t you precious, little dumpling? Ready to fight like a big boy, aren’t you?”

Sam refused to respond. Instead, he took measure of the situation.

Earth magic was out, as his meager skills with the art weren’t enough to disrupt the demonic witch’s control of the area. No doubt the horrible monster spent decades impregnating the area with her own magic, not to mention the multitude of rituals she must have used.

Air…was marginally better, but with the attack he unleashed, he managed to get only a zombie – one of the fresher ones by the look of it – and the rest only had gashes on them, oozing greenish-black pus.

By the looks of it, fire would be useless. If they could take their own attack, then only somebody with Dan’s level of skill with fire magic would be enough to do anything.

‘Shadow it is,’ he decided after eliminating all other options. Then he had a brainfart. ‘Or…I could…’

Grinning, he landed with a thud, focused for a moment, and then his sword was enveloped in a nice amount of wind mana as the zombies took a second to reorient themselves after their brief tussle with the clones, he channeled one of his favorite spells into the matrix of mana construct. Then, just to be thorough, he added the Air Purification spell into it. Those noxious fumes being spewed by the horde of the undead looked mighty unhealthy.

The mana types fought each other for a brief moment, causing Sam to worry, but then his iron control clamped down and they merged into one, causing his sword to glow very light blue as the mana construct buzzed around it.

‘Let’s see if this works…’

Not waiting for the first zombie to reach him, he launched himself forward, holding a shield with his left hand, ready to parry any stray bites or claws, and holding the sword in his right hand, aimed at the neck of one of the zombies.

Thanks to being undead puppets of a demonic witch, their reaction time wasn’t the best, thus Sam’s speed allowed him to strike fast and strike hard.

He watched in satisfaction as the zombie’s head flew in a beautiful arc away from the body as the sword, enveloped by his spell, swiftly cleaved through the reanimated flesh. The same wind spell, previously having almost no effect on the same body, now enhanced by his very useful spell, now tore through the magic-bound hide with contemptuous ease.

Sam grinned as the witch began to shriek.

“My precious! My luscious darling! What have you done, you brute?” she wailed as the mana suffusing the area began to thicken even more, causing his countering effects to weaken. Somehow, he knew if he let the foul mana fill the area completely, he would lose instantly.

He stayed silent once again, instead turning his sword toward the other undead and becoming a whirling death (well, second death) dealer with his sword enhanced by the cutting power of the wind and the cleaning power of his Clean spell. He even turned on his Clean Aura, just in case.

“BURN HIM! Drown him in pestilence! Choke him with virulence! Let the venom course through him! Sink him into poison, my darling little boys!” roared the witch as the tapping of her cane became even faster. The undead listening to her commands, began to spew fire, poison, and everything in between at Sam.

He just grinned and began the ever-so-important dance of death.

A few seconds later, Sam was in the middle of the clearing in front of the witch’s hut, breathing hard, surrounded by the cut-and-diced parts of several dozen magically enhanced undead while the witch was gaping at him.

“What have you done, you little sour raisin?” she shrieked in despair. “My precious little collection!”

“I cleaned up after you,” Sam stated with a smirk, pretty proud of himself for coming up with that quip.

Then, as the witch gaped at him for his brilliant comeback, he took a deep breath, made sure his spells were still working, and launched himself toward the demon, intent on removing this stain from the world’s surface.

However, his sword wasn’t met with the dry and old flesh of the witch, but the extremely tough claw of the being that kidnapped him.

She was still out of it, her head angled in a weird way, looking up at the clouds, letting out odd wondering noises while her body was in a martial stance, ready to fight Sam.

Glancing behind her, Sam saw that the tapping stopped and the hand not holding the cane was raised, long-nailed fingers held like a claw, pointing at the super high woman.

With his mana sense, he could ‘see’ the light threads of mana connected the hand to the body, directing it like a marionette. For a brief moment, he sent some of his mana toward the threads, hoping to disrupt them, but while they were moved by the mana, they didn’t snap, rebounding like guitar strings made of stainless steel.

The demonic witch let out a snarl, baring her yellow teeth at Sam.

“Now, now, my darling little sugarplum. Is this the way you treat your new owner?” she asked with enough venom in her voice for Sam to want to get an antidote from his inventory. “Let me show you, my rotten apple pie, what happens when one of my little boys decides to be mischievous!”

The threads connecting the witch to her ‘pet’ thrummed with the same sickly mana that suffused most of the area, and the ‘woman’ began to glow in a sickly grayish-black light.

The controlled being let out a giggle. “Thaaaat looks…hehe…like a frog!”

Then faster than the zombies, it launched herself at Sam, both hands shaped like knives, glowing extra strongly, ready to cleave him into pieces. It was extremely disconcerting to see the body fighting him, while the head was lolling around without a care and giggling about the sky or how that one leaf was making fun of the trout.

Meanwhile, Sam had to use every last ounce of his speed just to parry the knife strikes of the witch, his newly created mana construct was the only thing saving him from being consumed by the magic infused into those strikes.

Watching an entire tree wither and then implode into dust was not something he planned to see that day.

Every time it moved, it left behind a cloud of gray particles that began to wither anything alive they touched, consuming them and converting them into mana which in turn was fed back to the witch.

Soon, the entire clearing and surrounding area of the hut was gray and lifeless, containing nothing but dust and the corpses of unlucky people (and three curious squirrels’).

“That’s cheating…” he murmured under his breath as he once again used his Shadow Transformation to avoid a strike weakened by his Clean and Clean Aura spells.

Then, wanting to get a moment of breathing room, he used his Mirage skill to create a dozen clones that began moving around the live puppet, some even heading directly at the witch.

The momentary break as the demon dealt with the illusions was enough for him to take in the situation and do one thing that he hoped would turn the tide.