Walking unseen, unheard through a forest was an art form. Specialised classes like Scouts and Rangers could slap a deer on its hindquarters before the animal would even realise it wasn't alone.

  Seventh wasn't as subtle. His released horde skittered all around him, spooking rabbits out of their burrows, stomped around, snapped twigs, and chased deer before Seventh revised his commands and ordered his undead not to chase everything that moved, and for the love of all the saints, stop walking over every single branch and twig.

  Following Yselle's instructions, Seventh arrived at the lodging site. He was expecting an active operation; freshly cut stumps, piles of lumber waiting for transport, and maybe a tent or two for temporary lodging. Judging from the two-finger-thick saplings growing on rotting stumps, the operation had commenced years ago.

  The site was somewhere around three hundred feet deep and a half-mile-long stretch of land, and Seventh crossed the more open terrain quickly. On the other side, the change of trees was noticeable. Where the village side of the Whispering Delta had trees you could hug and wrap your arms around, these trees were ancient, moss-covered behemoths hogging all the sunlight and casting the undergrowth into the shadows. Thickets of smaller trees were growing where the canopy bled light to the ground, giving the younger trees a chance to grow.

  Ordering his horde not to cross the treeline, Seventh briskly crossed the site to investigate the other side. He wanted to try to find something indicating where the bear had gone.

  On the moss was a thin layer of dead needles and fresh cones, pushed apart by humongous paws and covered by a thinning bloodtrail. Seventh measured the paw-print by placing his hand on top of it. His palm was an inch smaller than the print.

  Damn, that is one big bear. Or... is it a small one? Middle-sized? Just enough?

  Kneeling next to the tracks, Seventh scratched his cheek in annoyance and followed the trail with his eyes until it disappeared between the smaller trees. He could see where the trees had been recently bent, but that's where his middling wilderness skills ended. He could barely follow the displaced needles and cones.

  He really should have returned to the village and ask around if a local wanted to show him around, maybe even track the bear, but that ship had sailed when Seventh stormed into the unknown alone.

  He really should stop doing that. Maybe he should consider fining a partymember? Maybe someone with a modicum of common sense and impeccable tracking skills?

  Dejectedly, he let out a quick sigh, almost half a raspberry as he rose up. “At least the air is better than in the sewers, eh?” he asked Fang.

  Not too surprisingly, the ratkin shrugged as he too kept an eye on the wall of trees. After his initial shock of seeing a tree, Fang had moved and acted normally, but Seventh was a little worried about how his minion would fare on open ground— more than he worried about himself. There was a lot of space for manoeuvring, but Fang's Class, Tunnel Fighter, was almost custom-made for dungeon and sewer work.

  Well, no matter. We're doing this to get some variety for the horde. Speaking of which...

  With a word, the horde snapped itself back into its place, forcibly surveying the darkening forest one hundred feet in front of Seventh. Just to be a little bit more careful, Seventh cast his Wandering Eye before starting to move, and made one final check all around the lodging site, not seeing anything worth mentioning.

  His Eye in front and the horde in place, Seventh walked deeper into the forest. After walking almost half a mile, he stopped to look around, furrowing his brow.

  There was something different in this side of the forest, but Seventh couldn't put his finger on what exactly had been wrong. Now, when he had noticed it...

  The forest was silent.

  The wind wasn't moving the treetops, animals weren't running away from him in terror, and even his steps were muffled by the soft moss. Not even crickets.

  Goosebumps ran down on Seventh's spine, and he took a long sidestep to hide behind a tree. Peeking behind it, he didn't see anything different. Just green, brown, and more green.

  “It's nothing. Just something between your ears, Seventh. Open ground is better than the tight passages of underground. There isn't always sounds to warn you from lurking dangers.”

  Not believing his own words, Seventh ordered his rats and veltids to a tighter perimeter of fifty feet around him and slung his Wandering Eye to check the deepest of shadows around him.

  “What's your take on this?” Seventh asked Fang when the ratkin appeared next to him.

  Flicking his whiskers, Fang pointed at his slowly twitching ears and made a slicing motion.

  “Yeah, I noticed that too. Stay close.”

  Moving forward, Seventh leapfrogged from tree to tree, looking around with his own eyes and the magical one. The view from the Eye was grainier in the bright sunlight, but the trees provided ample shadows for Seventh to check in case of lurking bears.

  Using the Eye before his horde also protected the bearly visible tracks they were following. The blood trail had stopped, and paw-prints started to sway, becoming more and more erratic just before disappearing entirely into the thickening moss.

  Seventh swore as he flew around with his Wandering Eye, erratically trying to find something to follow.

  The trees were growing thicker, more obstructive. It was becoming harder and harder to look around and scout. Looking at the last faint marks on the forest floor indicating the bear’s heading, Seventh couldn't decide where they should go.

  A Hunter could probably just pick up a twig and be like, “The stick is green, they left three days ago,” Seventh thought as he looked at a fresh stick he had picked up for examination. It was indeed a little green.

  ”Have you smelled anything?” he asked Fang while tossing the stick deeper into the thicket. Usually, the advanced undead couldn't use most of their skills or knowledge from their former life, but Fang had a penchant for surprising Seventh positively.

  His hopes and dreams were squashed with a short sniff and a shake of a head.

  “Have you even tried?”

  Fang nodded, but also pointed at his sniffing nose and spread his arms wide while looking around.

  Seventh nodded understandably. It wasn't neither of their favourite terrain. Fang was probably overwhelmed by new and weird smells. “Okay. If you smell anything out of the ordinary— erh, out of ordinary in here, tell me about it, okay? I'll give you a nice, big chunk of cheese if you find the bear before me.”

  Fang’s whiskers and ears twitched in unified determination, and the ratkin gave Seventh a quick salute before diving nose-first into the moss and skittering around like a dog.

  Just where did he pick up that gesture?

  Even having cheese-motivated bloodhound— bloodratkin?— on the loose, Seventh decided they should start heading back soon. The sun had reached its zenith hours ago, and Seventh didn't want to stumble around in the dark, unknown terrain. Especially one with possible umbrefels.

  Seventh shuddered, thinking what a pack of those things would do to a prey. Having one around would be bad enough.

  When they had circled about half a mile back, Fang appeared from the bushes with a pleased, toothy grin. He tapped his nose and made a wavy gesture that Seventh imagined meant either water or blood— maybe a liquid. A second gesture was easier to identify: thumb sliding over the ratkin's throat and a lulling tongue.

  Seventh ordered his other minions to follow behind. He trusted Fang's expertise in death, but in a world of magic and magical beasts, you couldn't be too careful, and Seventh didn't want to make the bear know they were coming— if it was alive.

  It was disappointing to hear that their quarry could already be dead. That would be a no to some Skill grinding through combat.

  That's life, I suppose, Seventh thought as he followed Fang through the bushes. Hopefully, it makes a decent undead even after being dead for a while. How fast did corpses rot again? Usable even after a week?

  A day or so in a relatively warm summer's day wouldn't leave corpses smelling of roses, but maybe he could deal with some olfactory discomfort now and then again. To Seventh's immense disappointment, he hadn't cultivated any tolerance for undead stink. Reanimated corpses retained their state of decomposition at their raising, and since all of Seventh's minions were fresh, they didn't stink. Garth had also mentioned some invisible little things living on corpses and causing the smell, but the explanation had gone over Seventh's head.

  People complaining of the undead stench was just good old discomfort manifesting as a physical reaction. Or plain old racism— or whatever the correct term was to dislike creatures and people of a different state of being alive.

  Common sense? No, that would mean I have uncommon sense... well, I am trying to find a rotting bear to reanimate. Most would think that as unusual, I think?

  Fang had stopped to sniff the air and looked around. When Seventh walked next to him, the ratkin pointed at a deep shadow at the roots of an ancient spruce, a small cave entrance. The tree was growing on a small rising hill and was thick, easily fifteen feet wide. Seventh couldn't even reach the lowest branches on his tiptoes.

  The mighty spruce had hogged all the sun to itself, leaving only scraps to the surrounding area, creating a thicket of smaller trees and bushes around it. It was almost like a small meadow hidden under the tree's branches.

  “Good job, buddy. I should have just made you pick up a trail from the start.” Seventh patted Fang on the head, receiving a knife-waving with a side serving of retching.

  Keeping his distance and staying safe, Seventh closed his left eye and searched the cave with his magical eye. It was more like a recess between two half-buried boulders, maybe twenty to thirty feet deep with a heavily slanted floor. Just enough space for a huge bear to lie in and sleep.

  Or to die peacelessly.

  The corpse was lying in a dried pool of blood, snarling towards the cave opening. Its eyes were still open and glimmered dully in the soft green glow. Two punctures and a long dash were easily seen on the bear's side and belly. It was a testament to the animal's tenacity and endurance that it had gotten this far with such wounds.

  It would become a great minion for Seventh.

  In a moment's lapse of judgment, Seventh rose up from the thicket he and Fang were kneeling behind and made a step forward.

  “Oh, heyy-o there, stranger!” Yet another voice today greeted Seventh from out of nowhere. The Necromancer cursed under his breath. Hopefully this isn't becoming a habit.

  Unlike Yselle's talking, this voice had a direction, and Seventh turned his head slowly to meet two men emerging from the surrounding thicket, pushing the branches of smaller trees out of their way. Both had weapons drawn.

  Mace and axe dual-wielded by a burly flat-nosed man dressed in pelts, and a classical sword and shield combo on a bearded man with dirty chainmail. Both looked like they had been living rough for a while. Dirty clothes and skin, weapons were maintained, but a sprinkling of rust here and there lowered the weapons from decent to poor.

  The Swordsman had a wide smile, but Seventh instinctively didn't trust them. Maybe it was the careful steps keeping their postures close to fighting stances. Maybe it was the cold eyes and a smile that didn't radiate warmth or any emotion at all.

  “Well, hello back,” Seventh said, mimicking the smile and slowly turning to meet the men. His feet slowly moved to a wide stance, and the halberd pointed down in his left hand. “I wasn't expecting to meet anybody else this deep into the forest.”

  The duo stopped thirty feet away from Seventh. The dual wielder took a couple of circling steps, inching closer towards the thicket from which Seventh had appeared, keeping his eyes on it.

  “Neither did we. Say, you got a pal in there? I could swear I heard talking.”

  Seventh resisted the overwhelming urge to turn or look over his shoulder. Instead, he lied, “Nah. Just muttering out how long it took to find a bloodtrail and the cave.”

  The cold smile lowered a fraction on the Swordsman's face. “This doesn't go well if you just lie from the get-go. Let's try again. Who is in the bush?”

  “Right back at you.”

  It was a simple deduction.

  Yselle had been confident that the bear had been an animal companion. The most common Classes using them were Rangers and Beastmasters, and neither of these men screamed “outdoorsman” to Seventh.

  The one with mace and axe could be a melee-focused Ranger, but his form and weapon choices leaned more towards a Fighter or basic Warrior— maybe even a Berserker.

  That meant somebody was in the bushes, readying an ambush. Almost certainly with a bow or crossbow.

  Seventh hoped he was wrong, but still channelled his mana for an empowered combat-opening spell. Neither of the men seemed to notice, and the bush didn't start attacking either. That meant there weren’t any spellcasters hiding in the bush— not a competent one anyway.

  The swordsman tsked as his face relaxed, replacing the fake smile with cruel calculation. “I see. Well, that's too bad. We were ready to let you go after you left your equipment and valuables, but if you're gonna be like that... we just might have to rough you up a bit.”

  Slowly rotating his halberd for a better angle, Seventh weighed the words. “We can still just back up, disappear to the forest and never meet again. I was here for a bearhunt. It's dead. I have no qualms with you or your companions.”

  “Tempting,” the swordsman said while raising his head, sneering down his nose. “But you have now seen our faces. We can't just let you leave to find a poster of us and blabber around where we were.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The mace-axe-man grunted and glared at the Swordsman and growled, “Fucking idiot.”

  “What?” the Swordsman asked, irritated.

  “How you're going to rob me and let me go without me blabbering around about you?” Seventh pointed at the flawed logic.

  “Well, you see... Umm... We...” The Swordsman worked his mouth silently, failing to come up with a decent lie. The bandits looked at each other and nodded.

  “Eh, fuck it.”

  They moved their weight fast, preparing for attack, but Seventh was faster. He had to only point with his hand and yell, ”FIREBALL!” as he dodged down and to the left.

  As a bright fist-sized red ball of light zipped next to them, the men reacted instinctively.

  The Swordsman moved his round shield unnaturally quickly to block the spell, and stone erupted from his skin, covering the man with a sheet of jagged brown rock. The axe and mace-wielding maniac just... stared at the erupting light while roaring his lungs out and sending spit everywhere. The air shimmered around him, and an overpowering stench of blood emanated from him.

  Definitely a Berserker.

  The ball of red exploded between the two men, briefly bathing the shady forest with crimson light. It wasn't a real Fireball, just a channelled Light spell with a delayed trigger. Seventh was positively surprised that his gobbled together spell even worked properly.

  Seventh's quick try for a dodge failed as he heard a telltale swoosh of an arrow and felt a piercing pain in his lower chest. Snarling at the pain, he yelled, “SWARM THEM!”

  The woods behind Seventh stirred as his unleashed horde of undead surged forward to their enemies. The rats hissed while scurrying between the larger veltids, and the bugs themselves snapped their mandibles together in an anticipation of rending flesh.

  The men yelped in surprise. It wasn't every day they would see a swarm of cat-sized rats storming in with a side serving of veltids. Seventh didn't see Fang or the other ratkin, but they were probably doing some underhanded knify-hidy tactics.

  Seventh quickly assessed his wound as the men were briefly stunned. The shot had come from behind the bandits, straight ahead and a little bit to the right.

  Aimed at the heart. If I hadn't moved to the left...

  Not having time for anything fancy, Seventh just snapped the wood, leaving the arrowhead in. He would deal with it later.

  One of the rats was pierced with an arrow before another clung off from angled carapace of the leading veltid. Following the trajectory, the archer had moved. Seventh needed to be on his toes for that, seek for cover in the glorious mess of melee.

  Surging forward with his horde, Seventh closed the distance and used his polearm for its characteristic advantage: reach and leverage.

  Stone-covered bandit was already turning to defend himself by raising his round shield to block, but it had been guesswork at best, and Seventh's Cleave from left instead of right made a clean hit on the stone-covered midriff.

  The strike didn't do any damage. The rock was too dense and thick for the halberd's axe blade to penetrate.

  Sidestepping to keep the mystery archer behind the bandits he saw, Seventh raised his hand and quickly chanted, ”Shadowbolt!”

  “Projectile Reflect!” The shield almost twisted from the Swordsman's hand as it moved to meet Seventh’s shadowy magic to deflect it to the canopy.

  It wasn't the only surprise. Immediately as Seventh completed his cast, a head-splitting pain slammed into his temples, draining a portion of his health, and leaving bright spots in his vision.

  Stumbling with his footwork, Seventh blinked and saw a foreboding collection of icons in his HUD.

  Three effects with one shot?!? That's... bullshit!

  It shouldn't be too surprising that professional bandits and killers had a working plan for an ambush. They probably had heard him and Fang far away, seen where they were heading, and prepared.

  And Seventh had been an idiot and walked straight into the trap.

  Gritting his teeth, Seventh tightened his grip and readied for a second trike, a Thrust this time that was easily parried with a shield.

  The stoneskin had preserved most of the Swordsman's facial gestures, and a familiar cold smile rose to his lips. It reached his cruel eyes.

  “Earth Shattering Stomp!”

  Quickly lifting his leg up and slamming it to the ground, the sword-wielding bandit made the forest floor ripple and rise up. The earth cracked underneath Seventh's feet, making him almost lose his footing.

  The ground roiled and boiled like an overdue kettle, moss disappearing underneath waves of sand and rocks. Feet-deep cracks marred the battlefield, crumbling on the sides and making moving around an ankle-snapping endeavour.

  Seventh stood on an unstable plot of tilled land, pebbles and sand under his boots. Testing his foothold by sliding his feet to a more defensive stance, he was surprised by how well his boots stuck to the unstable ground.

  The bandit didn't have such problems. As he charged forwards, the sand and stones formed under his feet, creating stable footholds he used to accelerate for a fast slice towards Seventh, ignoring all the undead.

  “MINE.” The bandit's voice had an earthy timbre behind his stone mask.

  Seventh backstepped and gently parried the blow, trying to stay upright while manoeuvring around the bandit and keeping an eye on the Berserker.

  He was burring his axe repeatedly on the first veltid while vigorously smacking the rats away with his mace. Clearly, his tactic was to crush the undead first before joining the Swordsman to finish off Seventh.

  The Necromancer could easily keep the Swordsman away and blast both of them with spells if there wasn't that Wizard-Killing Arrow debuff. Using mana was straight out of the equation, making Seventh grunt with displeasure as he blocked another swordstrike. He countered with a fast jab past the shield, but even when the hit connected, all he did was scrape the stone.

  He couldn't pierce it with normal thrusting or cleaving techniques, but he did have an armour-piercing spike opposing the axe head of his halberd. All Seventh needed was one good strike.

  Two arrows ricocheted from an insect's carapace before a high-pitched scream emerged from the archer's position and a wooden snap echoed in the forest. The ratkin had found the archer, and Seventh smiled widely towards the noise.

  Seventh's minion-based elation was cut short.

  ”Shield Bash!”

  A rocky humanoid slammed into him, throwing him a good ten feet before hitting the ground, rolling around on the sharp stones. The arrow still buried in Seventh's ribs sank deeper and hurt more than the slam.

  Writhing in pain on the ground, he saw the bandit moving closer, and upon looking up, Seventh saw a gleaming blade descending towards his head.

  Even when the magic hurt and sapped away his health, a sword to the brain had a similar effect. Seventh lifted his hand and cast a narrow Bone Wall into being. It didn't cover him completely, none at all in fact, but the Swordsman's strike halted as he slammed his wrist on the surprise obstacle.

  Small fragments of stone rained down as the man cursed and flicked his wrist to test the damage. Seventh doubled down on magic.

  “Shadowbolt!”

  The attack struck true, hitting the bandit straight on his face. Maybe Seventh was lucky, and magic actually worked best against the stone armour, or maybe it was thinner on the face. It didn't matter which one was correct, and the man howled in pain like a wounded beast.

  He blindly swung his sword and shield, keeping Seventh away and giving the Necromancer time to rise on wobbly feet. His vision was filled with bursting motes of light, and darkness was creeping in.

  Seventh almost drank a potion before remembering the Potion Toxicity debuff the arrow had given him. Quickly looking over the icons, they lied to him that the fight had under half a minute.

  He could have sworn it had been hours.

  An enraged snarl and an emission of bloodstench slapped some adrenaline in Seventh, making him snap his head towards the Berserker. He had almost forgotten the duel between his horde and the dual-wielder.

  The horde had been thinned out substantially, and only one of the veltids was operational, the others lay on the ground with split-open chitin, yellow guts and blood lazily leaking out.

  There was no way to count how many rats had been killed. The ground was littered with them, and the Berserker added one to the pile with a swift kick, sending a screeching undead to the thicket with a cracked spine. Two of the rats were riding on top of the man, scratching his neck and armour in vain.

  Seventh's minions hadn't died in vain, however. The Berserker's armour was torn, and his left hand, wielding the mace, hung limply. Vivid blood drained from his wound in rivers. His heavy, labouring breath might have been a side effect of his Skills— or somebody had his lungs punctured.

  Seventh could relate to the feeling. The arrowhead had moved inside of him, tearing new damage, and now the Necromancer fought against the rising need to cough blood out of his lungs.

  He'd have to end this soon.

  Focusing on the rats on top of the Berserker, Seventh yelled a command, “Burrow. Bite into him!”

  The effect was immediate as the unfortunate bandit's eyes widened in horror and pain, doubling his battle cries.

  “Oh, ya focking dead diddling little shite. WHIRLWIND SLASH!”

  Thanking all the gods and everything that was holy, Seventh dodged the magically charged slash. If the Swordsman didn't yell his Skills, there wouldn't have been enough time to react. He had concentrated one second too long on the other bandit, giving the Swordsman too much time to recover.

  A woosh of sharpened air flew past Seventh's head, slamming into the trees behind him and slicing the youngest ones cleanly in half.

  The bandit's face glowed with residual Death Mana after the Shadowbolt. The magic was slowly eating away his skin and muscles from the cheek— a row of yellowed teeth poked through— making his wide smile much more menacing.

  “Stone Spike!”

  Unfair. He can spam spells all he likes, Seventh thought bitterly as a pillar of sharp stone sprang up from the ground, tearing his left arm open. It wasn't a bad wound, but every bit of health was precious now.

  Seventh didn't even need to check his bars. He felt he was running low on time. The wound on his arm gushed blood at an unnatural rate. It was the Bleed effect at work.

  Assessing the situation with his cold eyes, the sword-wielding man looked over his companion writhing in ground trying to get the rats off him. He scoffed and lifted his shield up.

  The stance he was using was new to the fight. Balling behind the shield, sword aimed at Seventh from the brim, the bandit was covering most of his body.

  The Tortoise method. Wait and wait until your opponent dies of his wounds.

  Seventh tightened his grip and pointed his weapon at the man. He slowly rotated the armour-piercing spike end of his weapon at the front.

  He couldn't just wait and see what would happen. The Berserker was on the ground, but his horde was cut into barely alive scraps that Seventh could feel at the back of his mind. Fang was alive, but killing the archer had taken too long. Something was wrong in the thicket behind the Swordsman.

  A rhythmic thudding draws Seventh's full attention back to his opponent. He was slamming the back of his sword against his shield, taunting Seventh.

  The bandits had a good plan, Seventh had to give them that, but they had been clearly surprised by the Necromancer. If Seventh had been alone, his body would already have been looted, and they would be on their way, looking for another victim.

  Even now, they were winning. All they needed was to wait for Seventh to bleed out or knock himself unconscious by his own spell use. Seventh could probably cast one or two more spells, maybe one if the staring contest continued.

  If I had a party...

  Breaking the stalemate, Seventh aimed at the man's legs, making a sweeping Cleave. Not too surprisingly, the Swordsman lowered his shield for a block, but the expected collision didn't happen. Instead, Seventh pulled his polearm back at the last moment and aimed with his right hand.

  Straight at the weakest spot in the man's defence. The face.

  “Shadowbolt!”

  The bandit's sword arm moved again in a blur, raising the weapon to protect his already struck face.

  But the spell didn't come.

  Feint in place, Seventh grabbed the halberd with both of his hands and spun it in a ridiculously long arc, spike in point, straight into the Swordsman's right side.

  The hit connected in his armpit, and the man shuddered. A puzzled look appeared on his face before he looked down to see a halberd sunk deep through his Stone Skin.

  Trying to get the lodged weapon off, the pierced bandit took a panicked step back, shrugging his wounded side.

  Seventh didn't follow. He pulled.

  The forest echoes in the man's pained screams as his upper chest is ripped open from the inside. Bloodied chunks of the stone armour rained down as the man tried to swing his sword, but most of the arm's strength had gone.

  Doubling down, Seventh pushed his weapon deeper.

  The bandit croaked wetly as his sword arm slumped down. With his shield, he slammed the halberd's shaft, wincing every time his wooden improvised weapon connected.

  Wooden crack split the air as Seventh's weapon was broken in half, the blade still lodged deep in the dying bandit, who slumped down on his knees. The shield dropped from his weakening fingers as the bandit examined the wound with shaking fingers.

  Lifting his tiring eyes from the defeated man, Seventh looked at the Berserker. He had been quiet for a while, and the air wasn't filled with rage and bloodlust.

  To Seventh's surprise, he saw the man lying down on the ground, unmoving, and a rat's tail wiggling from a large, burrowed wound on his back.

  His Death Mana was dark green with oily black and brown spots.

  “We... we were going to let you go... honest...” A quiet plea came down from the beaten Swordsman.

  Seventh looked down at the man. Slowly, he raised his hand and opened his voidspace. A fresh halberd dropped into his hand.

  “Truly?” he asked.

  A wet chuckle escaped from the bandit. “Nah, man. I'd fucking kill you in a heartbeat, fucking death didlin—”

  He didn't finish his sentence before Seventh's fresh weapon moved, and his head rolled on the forest floor. His mana was equally tainted. Red with white veins, ruined with black and brown.

  Only the pure adrenaline was now keeping Seventh up. Grunting in pain, he tentatively investigated the arrow wound with his fingers. There was still a good amount of shaft left so he could pull the arrowhead out, but the blood was deeply red, bordering on black.

  Liverhit. If you don't finish the archer fast, they will win.

  ”FANG! REPORT!”

  An indignant screech came from the bushes.

  Thank the gods, he's still alive! ”I'm coming, buddy!”

  Stumbling through towards Fang's voice, Seventh found the first undead ratkin. A killshot straight through the head.

  The second was halfway out of the bush, a knife handle sticking out of his jaw.

  Fang and the third ratkin were standing in the middle of the forest, thick roots twisted around their legs, rooting them in place. Both of them were whittling themselves free, but the wood was too thick.

  A frightened scream told Seventh where the last bandit was. Seeing first a broken bow, he followed a bloodied, crawling trail to a young woman. She could be a younger sister of Yselle. The build was the same, thin and tall, and their clothes were almost identical, minus the mossy cloak Yselle wore.

  Even when Seventh was walking towards her, she tried to squirm away. Her legs didn't seem to work, and a familiar knife was lodged in her lower back.

  “Please, please, wait!”

  Seventh calmly followed her struggling crawl, gaining on her quickly.

  “I don't tell anybody! We can just go! Separate ways, as you said! Please!”

  She stopped when Seventh was standing above her. Looking up, her watery eyes met the cold stare of a Necromancer.

  Pleading face melted away for a snarl. She lunged at him, dagger slicing through the air, but was blocked by an axehead. With a fast turn and stab, the spearhead was buried in her neck. Her eyes narrowed in confusion as her trembling fingers reached the cold steel buried in her flesh.

  Pulling the weapon loose, Seventh watched as the bandit tried to stem the bleeding. Her body bucked in agony, legs staying unmoved, hands clawing the wound.

  He kicked the dagger away.

  A quiet whisper rose from the bloodied gurgle, ”Nonono... please, no... I don't wanna... be... monster...”

  Seventh aimed with his weapon. It wavered for a moment. “I'll return your body properly. No raising undeads. I promise.”

  Spearhead punched through her sternum, piercing the heart and ending her suffering.

  As her movement stopped and her eyes stared wide towards the dark canopy of the forest, a soft glow of mana emanated inside. Her Death Mana was cleaner, just a tiny bit of black on calm blue.

  Seeing the mana and realizing the fight was over, Seventh's legs decided they had enough, and he crumbled down. It was a bewildering change of perspective for Seventh, and it took a while for him to understand what had happened.

  His healthbar had turned from bright green to yellow during the fight, and now it was an alarming shade of red. And it was still going down.

  I probably should have used Mantle of Decay. Why didn't I do that? Stupid...

  Seventh didn't have any more time to rebuke himself. He pushed his right hand fingers inside his wounds and pulled.

  The arrowhead came out with an alarming spurt of blood, and Seventh hurriedly jammed his fingers back. Following the flowing blood, he found a small, worm-like part of flesh that was squirming around with his every heartbeat.

  A slowing heartbeat.

  Squeezing the worm, a cut blood vessel— possibly, hopefully not, an artery— he fumbled with his equipment belt and dropped half of his healing kit on the ground. While he was cursing, a furry pair of hands met with his, and a small pouch of coagulant and bandages was slapped on his hand.

  ”Thanks, Fang,” Seventh tried to say, but only a wheeze came out.

  After ripping the pouch open with his teeth, Seventh poured the white powder straight into his wound without releasing the bleeding vein. It wouldn't coagulate, the medicine was for the smaller veins.

  Now, to the painful part.

  Taking in two sharp breaths, Seventh started jamming bandages in his wound. As much as he could, as fast as he could.

  The bleeding icon blinked between grey and red. Its timer slowly ticked down from sixteen minutes and change. Wizard-Killing Arrow debuff had disappeared, but the Potion Toxicity was still on.

  Twenty Seconds before I can take potions.

  Seventh's health trickled down, one percent at a time.

  What happens when I die? Do I just... die-die or can I float to a next body? Seventh thought as he weakly turned his head towards the dead woman.

  No way in Hells he would go again into someone he had personally killed. He had enough twisting dreams.

  Ten seconds.

  It will be... close....

  Weakness spread around Seventh, making him almost lose his grip and the pressure on the wound.

  “Fang.... come here, knee here. Yes, push. That's good. Now. I'm gonna..... gonna..... give me potion in five..... four....... thr