Capítulo 280: 280
"These zombies have incredibly hard bodies, so be cautious not to let your sword get stuck," Wayne warned his companions as he hacked into the horde.
After cleaving through the zombies, Wayne's two-handed sword didn't pause, swiftly beheading two more in rapid succession. Observing closely, he noticed something unusual. The first zombie he struck down, though cut through, continued to crawl, its upper body still clutching a weapon and dragging itself forward as if to pursue him. However, the beheaded zombies ceased all movement, returning to lifeless corpses.
Realizing the significance, Wayne shouted back to Letho and the others, "Heads off! Piercing attacks are ineffective—they need to be decapitated to stop them."
His experience and insight in the vanguard quickly paid off, as he grasped the basic characteristics of the enemy within the first engagement. This prevented his team from wasting effort on ineffective methods or facing unforeseen dangers.
While Wayne and the other Witchers held the front line, using their precise swordsmanship to push back the undead horde, Margarita and Keira, positioned behind them, readied their spells.
Margarita, ever calm and calculated, cast a large-scale fire spell aimed at the rear of the zombie horde, testing their resistance to intense heat. Flames burst forth, igniting the corpses' clothes, scorching their hair, and transforming the horde into moving torches. Though this did little to slow the zombies, Wayne guessed that the intense fire would dry out their bodies, eventually reducing their rigidity and making them easier to cut through.
Keira, more adept at indirect methods, opted to use dispersal magic, a spell specifically designed by sorcerers for combating undead and spirits. This magic tapped into chaos magic to expel the animating force from the undead, causing the targeted zombie to collapse instantly, its soul seemingly forced out by the spell.
The results of the two spells varied widely. The fire magic seared and softened the zombies' bodies but left their movements relatively unimpeded. On the other hand, Keira's dispersal spell worked immediately; each zombie struck by her white light fell lifeless to the ground as though its animating spirit had been stripped away. This confirmed that their movement was driven by their souls, twisted by dark magic.
Unfortunately, Keira's dispersal magic was single-target only, as a group spell of that kind hadn't yet been developed. Her casting speed, limited to individual targets, was slower than the Witchers wielding their swords.
After Letho and the others regrouped with Wayne, they had upgraded all their equipment. While their new weapons weren't enchanted, they were certainly high-quality and well-crafted, enabling the Witchers to decapitate the zombies with ease.
As the battle progressed and the undead horde was reduced by nearly a quarter, the "fallen demons" hiding among the corpses finally sprang into action. Emerging from gaps in the ranks of the undead, some of these small, fiendish creatures charged toward the Witchers, hurling stones, daggers, and hatchets to disrupt their movements from a distance rather than engaging directly. Another group of fallen demons tried to slip past the Witchers at the front line, aiming to attack the two sorceresses positioned behind.
Sensing the danger, Wayne called to the three Witchers of the Viper School, "You handle those. Leave these undead to me—I have a plan."
Without hesitation, Letho and the others fell back to guard the two sorceresses. Their trust in Wayne's skills was evident, and they confidently left the undead to him.
Wayne, meanwhile, reached into his pouch and pulled out three Northern Wind bombs. He tossed them strategically into different sections of the undead horde.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions of icy wind erupted, sending shards of ice scattering through the air. As expected, the cold had an immediate effect on the zombies. Already stiff like frozen cadavers, they quickly became encrusted in frost, slowing to a crawl before freezing solid in place. The chilling blast proved far more effective against them than fire, and the Northern Wind bombs once again showed their worth in such situations.
Meanwhile, Letho and the others, adept with their swords, moved swiftly. Though fighting through the thick-skinned zombies had required effort, their skills shone against the quick, small-bodied fallen demons. With precise strikes, they struck vital points with ease, swiftly dispatching each fallen demon that attempted to threaten the sorceresses.
The Viper School Witchers, like those of the Cat School, were particularly skilled in combat against agile foes. Dealing with these lesser demons proved almost effortless, underscoring their prowess in battle.
After deploying several Northern Wind bombs, approximately twenty zombies were completely frozen. Wayne refrained from using additional bombs, instead channeling his magic power through his left hand to cast an Aard Sign. The powerful blast struck the frozen zombies, shattering them into pieces. The effect was as impactful as in the games, leaving no trace of the undead menace.
Inspired by Wayne's approach, Margarita shifted her tactics. Chanting a complex spell, she harnessed chaotic magic, conjuring dozens of icy, spear-like shards in the air behind the zombies. These frozen projectiles launched forward with deadly accuracy, impaling the undead at the back of the horde and freezing them solid.
With the tide of battle turning, the rest became a matter of routine. Before the frozen zombies could regain mobility, the Witchers moved in, either using the Aard Sign to shatter the corpses or swiftly decapitating them with their silver blades.
In about twenty minutes, Wayne and his allies had cleared out the horde, totaling around 150 monsters. However, despite the Northern Wind bombs and the magic exerted, these corpses offered little in the way of loot. Aside from a few coins left from their previous lives, there was nothing of value.
Wayne felt slightly disappointed—not over the money but because it confirmed that hunting monsters here wouldn't yield any useful artifacts or potions, as one might find in the world of Diablo. In reality, monsters don't carry equipment or valuables, and neither Wayne nor the sorceresses felt inclined to search the grim remains. Even Letho and the other Witchers, who might have considered a search, held back on Wayne's instruction.
In a show of appreciation, Wayne assured his companions that upon completing the mission, each of them would be rewarded with two thousand orens. This gesture left the Viper School Witchers, who were unaccustomed to such generosity, visibly stunned.
Considering that, in the original tale, Geralt risked his life saving King Foltest's daughter for a mere 3,000 orens, Wayne's offer was substantial. His current lifestyle—a residence in Vizima's wealthiest district for only a few thousand orens—added further weight to the reward's significance.
After handling the first wave of monsters, the group took a brief rest before pressing onward, undeterred and focused on the task ahead.
However, what Wayne and his companions didn't know was that only four or five minutes after they left, a new group of creatures emerged from the shadows nearby, returning to the site of the battle.
These creatures resembled ordinary fallen demons but were larger and more robust. Clad in ornate robes, their devilish horns were more pronounced, marking them as distinct from their lesser counterparts. Each held a skeletal staff of unknown material, and as they moved, they communicated in an unsettling language filled with guttural, eerie syllables.
The elite fallen demons, known as "fallen magi," gathered around the intact corpses, wielding their staffs and chanting spells in their otherworldly tongue. Slowly, through the dark magic coursing from their staffs, the more complete corpses began to reassemble, piecing themselves back together and rising once again as the undead.
Even the fallen demons that Wayne's group had previously killed were revived, though each bore twisted, fragmented scars as evidence of their earlier destruction. These grotesque figures had been felled once but were reanimated by the powerful hellish magic of the fallen magi.
These elite fallen magi were skilled practitioners of hell's dark arts, and they deftly wielded their sinister magic to resurrect the fallen. Once their grim ritual was complete, the group of monsters, previously vanquished by Wayne and his team, had grown to nearly a hundred again. Now, under the command of these magi, the reanimated horde resumed their wandering through the mists.
Had Wayne not used the Aard Sign to shatter many of the zombies into fragments, these hellish mages might have been able to reanimate even more. If mercenaries armed solely with swords had fought these undead, leaving more intact corpses behind, these magi could have revived not only their own kind but also any fallen foes, swelling their ranks with every battle.
It is due to the presence of these cunning and powerful fallen magi that the number of creatures in the mist has swelled over recent months. Their mastery over hellish magic has deepened the corruption of the land, allowing the influence of the dark world to spread more intensely with each passing day.
Even if Wayne were fortunate enough to track down and destroy this particular group of hidden fallen magi, as long as any of them survived in the mist and there remained corpses to reanimate, they would continue to raise new undead minions and fortify their ghastly ranks.
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