Her call sent a ripple out to the other cadets, and once more the person to her right froze in place, completely unmoving until she shook him.

  “Rory!” she shouted, knowing he’d hear her. “Get some people to hold back the lesser undead, I’ll get the two big ones!”

  Only moments later, she felt the line swell. Those who’d been on break were now focusing all their effort on pushing forward. They would need to give Omia some space to actually kill the two large ones without others getting in the way.

  Admittedly, she’d probably be getting help, but whoever was with her would need space to move. Rapidly, she saw the previously resting cadets rip through the swarm and throw the bodies into a pile behind them, making a clearing for the fight.

  The deer-headed undead led the way, with the giant behind it. The moment she used her Undeath mana, floating it up, the deer-headed one snapped its focus onto her, acknowledging her as its opponent.

  When it began approaching the perimeter, several of the cadets made way, not even trying to stop it. Even if they could fight it, the creature would be easier to kill if it was surrounded. Besides, Omia had the best chance of coming out of the fight alive, so they may as well leave it to her.

  While the mindless undead all focused on attacking those holding the swarm at bay, the deer-headed one walked right by them and towards her, not even glancing at her classmates. It would clearly be open to attack from the sides, but its nonchalance was fairly threatening, and they didn’t have enough bodies to flank it anyway.

  The giant actually remained outside the perimeter, watching from a distance. So they would worry about that one later.

  When Deer-head (as she would refer to it) finally broke past the lesser swarm, it fell onto all fours and launched itself forwards in a gallop. It wasn’t all that far away, so it was upon her immediately as she deflected the swipe from its clawed arms using her claymore.

  Rather than strike back with her sword, she decided to test the waters with her mana. The giant had clearly brought this undead when it saw her mana, so she was cautious about fully committing to attacking it using mana, but she needed to know what she worked with.

  As she sent a small chunk at it, digging into its aura, it swiped at her again, once more causing her to deflect.

  She found that its aura was a bit flexible. As she tried to pull it, stretching in her grip. Before she could focus her efforts in severing the chunk, the deer-headed beast lunged forwards again, forcing her to focus on blocking its claws and stepping back.

  She wouldn’t get the chance to tear its aura away, she’d have to best it in swordplay. It was unnaturally fast, but so was she. As they circled each other, Omia was able to see in her periphery that Rory was preparing to join the fray. The perimeter was stabilizing, so they could afford to give up one securing it to help her out.

  In preparation for Rory, she started to distract Deer-head, pushing it. The swaying motion of her claymore kept it at bay as she pushed it further and further into the camp, but had to stop when she realized the other cadets were getting a bit nervous. Nobody wanted a special undead near their stuff, so instead she continued to circle it and bring swipes down upon it.

  It was nimble, she’d give it that. When it seemed she was open, the creature would launch forward to take advantage of it, forcing her to push her muscles hard in bringing the claymore back up from awkward positions.

  She decided to capitalize on this though. Leaving herself open intentionally, Deer-head launched forward. This time, Omia didn’t even attempt to bring the blade up, dropping it completely instead. Ducking under its claws, she tackled it square in the chest, knocking it to the ground.

  Grabbing both its hands, she pressed them down as she saw Rory heading her way to help. If she could keep it pinned for just a moment, he’d smash its skull.

  He’d only taken one step before the battle changed. The giant was no longer content to stand aside as they executed Deer-head, and she heard the screams of several cadets as they were sent flying when the giant knocked them to the side.

  ‘Other things to focus on, let them handle that’ she thought, realizing that she probably wasn’t getting help with her undead soon enough. When she looked back down to it though, she ran into a problem.

  It’s head was gone.

  Specifically, there was a tendril of white smoke where it used to be. Quickly following it, she saw that the head had floated off the body, and was now coming down on her face to take a bite.

  Rolling off her opponent and picking up her claymore as came back to her feet, she saw that it wasn’t just its head that became more disembodied.

  The creature, as a whole, had fallen apart like a shattered marionette, strings still suspending the different pieces.

  The head and arms floated a distance from its main body, stopping only a moment before its entire form came down upon her.

  Cutting towards her at different angles, she finally took her first real strikes from the undead. Until this point, none of them were able to touch her, but Deer-heads claws tore into her hardened leather, leaving deep gashes that barely spared her skin of damage.

  The blade of her sword failed to really cut it either, as it would just disassemble itself to avoid her weapon.

  ‘I need a way to cut its mana, not a mundane blade.’

  The thought reminded her of something- one of Torei’s spells.

  He struggled harshly to actually perceive any mana, so he made up for it in binding his mana to certain things. He would bind it to water, then manipulate the water so he could see his mana with his actual eyes.

  At one point, he’d bound his mana to a sword, saying that it might be able to deal magical damage. The issue was that nothing really needed magical damage, and that there was no discernable difference between cutting something with his blade and cutting something with his blade plus a bit of mana.

  Now though, she felt it would be useful. She couldn’t use bare mana to tear away its aura, and she could see now that it was because it was an active manipulator of that aura. She’d need something more tangible to help her mana cut.

  Backing off for just a moment, she quickly brought every scrap of Undeath mana to bear as she coated her sword with it, pressing it down into the metal. She couldn’t dig into the iron, but she was able to compress the fog into the blade, squishing it flat.

  With how much she was compressing the mana, she actually noticed a slight ethereal glow emanate from her claymore when she used her naked eyes. Putting no more thought into it, she threw herself forward once more and cut into the white smog holding Deer-heads left arm together.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  While it didn’t sever the connection completely, the beast did rear back as she felt it shred, only weakening the link between arm and body. Still, if she only dealt a little damage, that would be enough.

  Instantly, the creature put itself back together, more willing to face her on a physical playing field now that its magical advantage disappeared. In her periphery, she saw Rory facing off against the giant, desperately dodging its strikes and trying to delay it, but the giant started to simply ignore him, stomping its way over to her.

  Deer-head didn’t let her divide her attention, continuing to attack her but hesitating every time she swung her claymore.

  She almost missed it, but realized that she wasn’t just cutting its body- her claymore was now physically assaulting its aura.

  ‘I couldn’t effect its aura before, but if my blade acts as the anchor for my magic…?’

  She commanded the mana atop her claymore to grab onto its aura, and she swung it violently, expecting for a large chunk of the aura to come off so she could consume its power.

  Nope.

  The entire beast was flung to the side, launched hundreds of feet outside the perimeter as it hung comically mid-air, her claymore slipping away from its aura with how quickly it went as she accidentally threw it using magic.

  Just in time as well, because the giant was now upon her. Ducking low, she dodged under its fist and stabbed into its stomach using her now-glowing claymore.

  It let out a rattling, empty shout in response, taking a step back. She saw that the Undeath mana swirling around the giant didn’t immediately fill in the space, and realized her strikes were now harder for the undead to repair.

  If it was swatting Rory away like a fly before, it completely ignored him now as it lunged towards her. She tried taking another step back, but barely had time to register shock as she felt the back of another cadet behind her.

  The perimeter wasn’t that big, and now she’d run out of room to retreat.

  Holding her claymore at the ready, preparing to stop its momentum with everything she had as she realized the person behind her might die if she failed- either from the strike or getting knocked down into a swarm of undead- when she got an unexpected save.

  Jamei leapt high from somewhere far away and, right as the giant lowered its body to reach for her, he landed straight on its back, plunging his blade square through the back of its skull.

  ‘Fuck yea, Jamei!’

  Against all odds though, the giant did not stop. Even with its brain pierced, it stood straight up and started shouting as it swung to and fro, reaching back behind it to try and grasp whatever opponent was stuck to it.

  She wanted to groan as she thought undead were supposed to immediately drop without their brains, not this one she supposed.

  Jamei’s blade went in through the back of its skull and out through its forehead, so it could sadly still see, but it was distracted. Circling it slightly, she saw her friend's panicked face as he held on for dear life, dodging its grasp one after the other.

  Omia struck low, cutting into the back of its legs, causing it to tilt precariously.

  Throwing her whole body into it, she tried pushing it away from their defensive line, causing it to finally fall. Stabbing into its back and out through its chest, the monster could only squirm as Jamei kept forcing its head down, keeping it off balance as she put holes into it and Rory dismembered it, limb by limb.

  None of them saw when Deer-head flew over their defensive line by breaking itself apart and throwing its own body up into the air. Not until Omia was sent flying, claws digging into her back as it penetrated past her leather armor. She twisted mid-air, coating her hand in Undeath mana and grabbing it by the skull right as both of them landed amongst the tents, far away from both the perimeter, far from help.

  When the tent she landed on groaned, she glanced down, realizing not only that they’d hit a Cadet who was standing off to the side for some reason, but that she recognized him.

  ‘This was the one that’s been freezing up any time anything major happens. The coward, I remember him. What is he doing in the camp? Did he wuss out and decide to hide, realizing that he was probably going to be too unfocused and get himself killed?’

  Omia and Deer-head, tangled with one another, briefly paused their fight to glance at the one they’d landed upon.

  He saw them, eyes widening marginally as his mouth opened to let out a scream. Her mind accelerated and her heart began beating wildly as she saw the mana around them begin to writhe. Smoke rapidly began to billow from the ground, but it was not the Wiltwood coming up to meet her, no, it was something else. Something primal and ancient reverberated through her body as she was forced to continue staring at the expression of rising horror.

  ‘What’s happening? Why can’t I move? Why is everything happening so slowly?’

  She saw no answer, but a flicker in the cadets eyes gave her a hint. Previously brown, she felt at once as the primal, savage mana rising from the forest floor began to converge on the cadet, pushing into him, penetrating into his skin and digging into his flesh.

  The brown in his eyes flickered, like a dying candlelight. Instead of dimming though, they began to glow with alabaster white.

  With Undeath.

  The entire sequence, from landing on the cadet, up to the Undeath mana converging on the poor kid had taken only two seconds, but they felt stretched into eternity.

  Omia barely had time to register that the cadet was forming a Glimpse when the much-delayed scream finally ripped from his throat.

  A call of pure agony and fear rang her ears like a bell, forcing her to let go of Deer-head and roll away, clutching the sides of her head in an attempt to blot out the noise and failing utterly. It was not true noise, but infused with mana that tore away at her psyche.

  Absently, she registered that Deer-head was flung a half-distance away, clutching alternating between clutching its own head and tearing at its own body, ripping chunks of flesh away.

  Something popped, and all noise other than the scream disappeared. Bringing her shaking hand away from her ear, she absently noted that it was covered in blood as she felt intense vertigo, struggling against all her weight to remain standing as her eardrum ruptured completely.

  Despite that, she could still hear it. The bloodcurdling scream.

  Her vision swam as she looked down upon the boy and, with nothing better to do, she fell to one knee, punching him square in the nose as hard as she could.

  Blessed silence graced her once more, and she faced away from the unconscious cadet to throw up over someone's tent. Pushing herself to her feet, she breathed heavily but heard none of it. The all-encompassing silence remained as she limply marched towards the writhing undead creature she’d been grappling with only moments before.

  She saw that its aura was shredded, more harshly than anything she possibly could have done. Whatever the boy did, it luckily dealt more magical damage than physical, even if it still tore away at her.

  When she tried taking her second step, she fell to her knees. Her balance was gone, she couldn’t hold herself upright.

  Drawing upon every scrap of her Undeath mana she had left, that which wasn’t shredded, she flung it towards Deer-head, digging into the cracks in its aura and commanding it to consume.

  Past that, she no longer needed to direct it at all. Her mana knew exactly what to do, and she felt an ocean of Undeath mana strengthen her Glimpse as the beast was hollowed out, her mana ruthlessly eating away at its energy by focusing on the core of its aura and working its way towards the rubbery shell of it.

  If she wasn’t so disoriented, it might’ve been considered a quite brutal way to go as the creature could do nothing but feel itself weakened as mana ate away at its every function, slowly shutting down until there was nothing left, making it fall apart.

  From her kneeling position, she looked over to the fight with the giant, seeing that Rory, Jamei, and the giant itself were also not spared from the screams onslaught. None of the cadets were, as most had fallen where they stood. Surprisingly, it was actually the undead who’d faced the brunt of it though- as every single one was completely drained of mana. They were all fully dead, not a single one moving other than the giant, just barely hanging on to the last threads of its bodily control.

  Same as she did with Deer-head, she sent her mana into its aura, commanding it to consume. Seconds later, the monster went limp.

  It was over.