*Grrkkk~
The continuous sound of the gate caught everyone's attention.
The small bits of sands that were stuck between feel above the walking undead, who were being led by their eventual lieges.
"Everyone prepare!" Sasha yelled to the stunned and scared people.
Looking at Marco who was trying to bring the people under control and then back at the sword-wielding necromancer, she clenched her staff much harder than before.
"I won´t let you hurt anyone!" She yelled at Danzel.
Looking at her, Danzel raised and pointed his sand-created weapon to them.
"Go."
"Gweaaagh!"
"Gweagh!"
"Gwea-"
...
Skull Claw and the remaining of his own undead imminently rushed towards the living with oozing killing intent.
Even though the wraiths didn´t obey his orders, they too rushed upon Nersan´rah´s command.
Sarah who saw didn´t wait much longer to command her own sand soldiers to face the undead while the few villagers picked up a weapon and started to prepare to fight for their life. Among them, the few who run away were the fastest to reach with their bows.
Releasing their bowstring and letting tens of arrows fly loose, the villagers wanted almost to celebrate when they saw that they hit one of the zombies. Unfortunately, the undead who were hit by the bows didn´t slow them in the slightest.
Instead in the eyes of the villagers, they looked like they were going faster upon hitting them.
That undead though the first to fall from the spears of the sand soldiers piercing their skulls. The only exception was Skull Claw who simply eat the sand soldiers whole. As for her species being able to open their mouth extremely wide and Skull Claw being a much bigger size than her species, the Sand walkers, which were called Skull wolves by Danzel.
Since they had lots of time to talk those past days, Nersan´rah told what kind of beast Skull Claw was.
`A beast brought from the outside of the desert and then evolved itself to best suit the desert´ Danzel thought as he watched Skull Claw destroying and getting hit by the sand soldiers.
Nersan´rah explained that their undead-like appearance with their skulls expose was a forced evolution step point made by his father so that the sand walkers don´t get hurt from the sand that might have gone in their eyes and cause an infection or worse of all make the sand walker blind.
"I better move before we lose too many of them..." Danzel mumbled as he guided his mana into his body.
Kicking the ground, using the skill [Swift Movements] he moved extremely fast towards the sand soldiers and kept destroying them with ease.
Thanks to the [Swift Movements] skill being one with high duration time, Danzel could move at top speed for a large amount of time before he abused his mana.
Though some of the wraiths were getting destroyed and flying back into Nersan´rah´s crystal because of the number difference, the rate that Danzel destroyed the sand soldiers was much faster than the undead fell.
Though in his opinion it would have been much easier to just rush the magic caster controlling them, that decision would compromise with what he had to do.
"So annoying..." Danzel said as he crashed another sand soldier.
Remembering the strategy that Nersan told him, it was quite annoying.
`Listen Danzel, that girl is much inferior in magic compared to me. I guess that she would try to beat us with numbers, so all you have to do is..."
"Deblete her mana, huh?" Danzel mumbled as he watched at the magic caster's heavy breathing.
Since magic casters were only useful when they had the mana to cast their spell, once they are out they were practically helpless.
And Sasha who stared at her sand soldiers getting destroyed realized what the sword-wielding necromancer was trying to do.
Raising her staff, multiple missiles made out of sand flew towards Danzel, who was similarly destroyed by the sand flying like a whip or a tentacle.
"If this continues one, then everyone..."
Although she knew what the necromancer was trying to do, she could only follow the man's attention and continuously summon sand soldier after sand soldier to deprive him of all of his undead.
`As long as my mana last until the undead minions are destroyed, then I can overwhelm him with numbers.´ She thought to herself.
But sadly for her, she didn´t know that she was fighting against two 3rd-tiered undead.
"What!?" Sarah yelled in surprise as she watched something that deprived her of all hopes she had on her plan working out.
With the crystal glowing in a dark golden light, the sands of the destroyed sand soldiers soon reformed into a similar and yet different sand humanoid.
Much larger and way more detail in their armor that she would have difficulty creating.
The said sand soldiers holden voulges and had their faces covered in a hood made out of the sand. The amount of those soldiers was only 15.
Although a joke compared to the sand soldiers of Sasha´s, their power was much stronger.
Joining forces with the undead, the tides of the battle turned against the living.
"Haah~Haah~Haah~"
Falling into one of her knees, Sasha couldn´t control her breathing while sweat was coming all over her body from the abuse of her mana.
The sweat was mostly of the heat of the abuse of mana together with the pain that it bough upon her body.
Though they were only about 5 wraiths and 2 sand soldiers together with Skull Claw and their respective lieges.
Seeing the magic casters state, Danzel switches his target.
"Now..."
Dashing towards her, the villagers tried to shoot him, but the arrows simply bounced against his armor that was plated with his mana.
"Sasha! Stand up! We must go away!" Marco said as he rushed and looked at Sasha with worry.
"Haah~Marco...run away." Sasha managed to say as she pointed her staff towards Danzel.
The sand´s shifted and started to create a humanoid figure in front of her.
The man used of creating that sand soldiers though was much greater than the others from before.
"[Sand Arbiter]." She said as sand soldiers twice the size of Nersan´rah sand soldiers appeared with parts of his armor and spear being that of metal.
"Hmm?" Looking at the sand soldiers who hadn´t legs and were essentially rooted in place, Danzel was as surprised by this thing piercing his spear at him with incredible speed and power as he was disappointed by it.
"You might have been a challenge if you could even create such soldiers." Danzel mumbled as he dodge the second piercing attack of the Sand Arbiter.
Moving into his range, Danzel swiftly cut through the sand arbiter's hand twice before swinging his sword diagonally to his face.
*Fssuuuh~
The huge sand arbiter fell to the ground as a mass of sand.
"N-no way, it was a 3rd-tiered one..." Sasha said in between her breathings in shock.
The [Sand Arbiter] was indeed a summon of the 3rd-tier, but it being in an incomplete state-led it to only have the strength of someone who just joined the 3rd-tier rank.
For Danzel who was near peak the 3rd-tier, the [Sand Arbiter] didn´t have much of a chance. Making her last line of defense keeping Danzel away from her to crumple into the floor.
Dashing forward, Danzel soon reached in front of her.
"Sasha!" The man who was by her side quickly stepped forward and pushed his dagger towards the necromancer.
"..."
And before Sarah´s sight, she saw how the necromancer cut Marcos's head with a swift swing.
From the swing, some amount of blood flowed towards her shocked face, as she couldn´t process what was happening.
When she did though, she scream out of grief.
"Nooooo! Marco!"
She quickly moved and gripped Marcos falling body into her hands.
Seeing no reaction of the body, tears flow and mixed with the blood of Marcos.
Grasping her staff in anger, she wanted to imminently use all her remaining mana to kill the one who killed Marco, but upon raising her head, she only saw masses of sands gripping her body and forming a wicked cross like a prison that to her surprise started to suck her remaining mana out of her.
"I will go finish the rest." The sword-wielding Necromancer said something that she didn´t understand what he meant.
But she soon did.
Before her eyes, the crystal that he was holding the whole time started to float and gather sand to form a humanoid figure.
But unlike any other sand soldier, the humanoid figure had actually colors in the sand itself which made it lifelike. Only using the lifelike word would be wrong as the sand figure had a skull as his face.
"Do that, I will begin the body possession." Nersan´rah said as his ethereal dark golden glowed much bright for a second.
Serah who was confused and exhausted, finally understand what he meant.
"No! Don´t kill them!"
With her vails as background music, Danzel went around and killed the villagers mercilessly.
"Nooo!"
"Help!"
"I-I will do anything! let me live- Ahhh!"
While that was happening, Sasha felt a strong headache coming in her head as a skeletar sand figure touched her face.
"Let me bring out your body's true potential."
As pain and whispers of the dead started to ring in her head, minutes passed.
And though the countless ethereal pain.
She felt an ancient being trying to steal her body for itself.
Though all that pain, she struggled to keep her sanity.
Which of course you lead the pain to forever one continue.
"Ahhhhh!"
