Sylver Seeker

Undead, as a species, were not creatures the vast majority of people would describe as “fast.”

Which was absolutely fair, even undead without physical bodies were usually limited to a somewhat slow speed, let alone zombies and skeletons.

Shades were the worst of both worlds in that sense of the word, they were weak, and they weren’t even that fast to make up for it. The speed at which they moved through shadows was only a little faster than the speed at which they could run. Normal shades couldn’t even do that, they had to “swim” through shadows to move around.

Sylver’s shades were fast but comparing Sylver’s shades to natural-born shades was like comparing a cheetah to a house cat. Sure, the general shape may appear similar, but the internal mechanisms were as different as night and day.

And yes, vampires can be fast, but they were an exception because, despite public opinion, those bloodsuckers were closer to being “alive” than “dead.”

The main point was that the undead weren’t built for speed. They didn’t have the right parts for it, their bodies couldn’t move the heat created by friction away from their joints, their muscles didn’t have the proper flexibility, and more often than not, they were either bloated, or dried up, and it was rare that an undead managed to stay somewhere in between.

Assuming they had flesh of course, but undead without any meat on them could only move as fast as their magic allowed them, and unless the undead in question was capable of manipulating this aforementioned magic directly, they were pretty fucking slow.

They made up for their lack of speed, and in many cases, strength, with unparalleled persistence.

The living might be fast, their wounds might heal without them having to stitch them closed, and they might be able to overpower the undead using small bursts of strength, but may all the gods in the world help you if you’re up against an undead you can’t immediately kill.

Such as a lich, for example.

Liches loved defeating someone by plain and simple wearing them down.

It was one of those things he had little control over due to becoming a lich. He had gotten pretty good at not hoarding valuable items for the sake of hoarding them, but he was helpless when it came to whittling down someone significantly bigger and stronger than him.

It wasn’t malicious, it was completely instinctual, Sylver got a rush out of it the same way a dog got a rush out of chasing something.

Sadly, he couldn’t just give in to his base instincts because it came into conflict with his desire not to cause undue harm to people. Even if they did something awful, Sylver wasn’t going to prolong their suffering more than absolutely necessary, just because a small part of him got a kick out of it.

It would be a lie to say he had never been tempted.

And it took a significant amount of effort to resist the urge to pull back his army just a little bit to give the other side time to recover, but so far, Sylver had never given in to it.

Even now, a small part of Sylver was enjoying the fact that they were all stronger than him, and that he was chasing after them, but as much as he wanted to just keep riding Ulvic until they eventually ran out of stamina and had no choice but to stop, he knew he would feel awful about it.

He’d feel bad about wasting his limited time on something so stupid, and then he would feel bad for making them spend so long running around afraid.

On the bright side, these cultivators were very fast, and even when he empowered Ulvic to the point that Sylver’s skin was starting to melt off his hands, they weren’t even close to catching up to them.

Sylver was almost upset with himself when he figured out a way to slow them down, but now that the idea had entered his head, it would be wrong to ignore it.

Aleri, the 6-winged chimera Sylver had been given by Bruno, appeared next to him and kept pace with Ulvic without breaking a sweat. The wolf shade was disheartened by this revelation, but Sylver just patted the shade on the back and later explained that he shouldn’t compare himself to something that could fly.

“He died for nothing,” Ria said, as Sylver summoned a ball of explosive into his hand, and very gently took the trigger mechanism out of it.

“I’m not going to argue with you Ria, he tried to kill me, and I-”

“No, I know, I understand why you killed him, that’s not the part I don’t get. I can even sort of understand why they tried to kill you specifically. I even get that they couldn’t leave Mora or me alive because we might attack them in revenge. But why didn’t they even try to talk? You could have explained you can’t be killed, we could have killed one of them painlessly, or even found a way forward without killing anyone,” Ria said, as Sylver molded the explosive clay into small balls, and fed them to Aleri.

“There’s a good chance they had planned this from the start. Why else would they allow a complete stranger to accompany them? They knew the sacrifice room was ahead and decided it was better to sacrifice a random guy, than one of their own,” Sylver explained, as Aleri told him that he couldn’t fit any more clay inside, and Sylver started gently wrapping it around the shade’s feet.

“That… I didn’t think of that…” Ria said as Sylver allowed the bird shade to check if the weight was small enough for her to fly.

“On the other hand, it is possible red robe made a split-second decision, and these 3 are completely innocent in regards to the attempted murder,” Sylver explained, as Ria formed a tendril for Aleri to sit on as Sylver took the clay ring off one foot, and spread out what remained so the shade was balanced.

“But why did they run?” Ria asked, as Sylver felt around his shadow and decided how to approach this.

“Because they are unaware that despite being a witch, I am fair and reasonable. One of them attacked me so, of course, I’m going to try to kill all of them in retaliation,” Sylver answered, as he summoned the blue robe heir’s brother’s finger, and melted the flesh away.

“So, you’re trying to catch them to explain that?” Ria asked, and if it weren’t for her completely serious tone, he would have thought she was sarcastic.

“No, I’m going to kill them. If I can, I’ll leave one alive to help me get out of here,” Sylver explained, as Ria cocked her head to the side at this.

“Why are you going to kill them if you think there’s a chance they’re innocent?” Ria asked as Sylver finished loading the tiny finger bone up as much as his mana allowed and gave it to Aleri to hold in his beak.

“Because it doesn’t matter if they had nothing to do with the attempt on my life. I killed one of theirs’, therefore they will eventually try to get revenge. So, it’s better to kill them now, before they tell their sect and inevitably turn this into an even bigger pain in the ass,” Sylver explained, as Aleri flapped his wings, and disappeared.

“I see…” Ria said.

Sylver waited for his mana to regenerate back to full before he gave Aleri the signal to start.

“Personally, I think they planned this from the start. I say that, because I think the brother sacrificed himself, so they wouldn’t have to. Maybe it was prearranged since the moment they came in here, maybe he used up all his strength or something and thought he was useless, but as I said, it doesn’t matter… What about you?” Sylver asked.

“What about me?” Ria asked.

“Do you want to kill them? For the attempt on my life, on Mora’s, and on yours?” Sylver asked.

He heard a shout from up ahead, but no explosion.

There was a pause, during which Sylver heard a swishing sound, followed by a muted explosion.

“I don’t know. I would have defended you if I saw it coming but killing them now, in retaliation…” Ria answered, and Sylver nodded at her, as he waited for his [Advanced Water Manipulation] to connect to the water that had been stored using [Bound Bones] in the finger bone Aleri had been carrying.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Sylver said, as he got close enough and felt his mana core almost shit itself as he forced his mana through one of the shades using [Greater Undead Channeling] and made shards of razor-sharp ice explode out of the water.

He could tell right away this was ineffective, but despite appearances, he wasn’t trying to kill anyone.

He just wanted to get their shoes. Although he wasn’t going to complain if someone got unlucky and lost an eye to Sylver’s ice.

“Why aren’t you angry?” Ria asked as Sylver concentrated on his spell, and Mora clogged up the mechanism in the ceiling and stopped the darts from flying out using a thin sheet of compressed string.

“In regards to the attempt on my life? To be perfectly honest, I’m angrier at the fact that he said “I’m sorry,” before slicing us up. If you’re going to attack someone while they’re off guard, don’t fucking warn them. I mean, what if he was slow enough for me to stop him because of that?” Sylver asked and was nearly thrown off Ulvic as the shade came to a sudden halt.

Once again, they had a choice between 3 different passages. And as he had predicted, the blue arrows on the walls had been scratched out and soaked in enough Ki that Sylver wouldn’t be able to figure out which arrow was the newest by examining the paint.

“Wait, so you don’t care that he tried to kill you?” Ria asked, as Sylver jumped down from the large wolf, and very gently felt around the floor with his mana.

“Not particularly. As I said, it was either an on-the-spot decision, which I can both understand and respect, or it was planned from the start, which I can both understand and respect. If he didn’t say “I’m sorry,” there’s a possibility I wouldn’t have killed him,” Sylver explained, as he channeled his mana through the palm of his hand and smiled a little as dark green footprints appeared on the otherwise perfectly clean floor.

The mossy footprints weren’t as clear as Sylver would have liked, but considering they had literal droplets of water to work with, he couldn’t complain.

Sylver wasn’t sure whose shoes he had successfully marked, but he had a feeling they weren’t going to split up. They had presumably understood that he wasn’t just a simple [Swamp Lord], and were hopefully cautious enough to stick together.

“So, you killed him because he showed remorse for what he did?” Ria asked as Sylver followed the footprints that went through the middle passageway.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as the footprints continued appearing in front of him.

“I just realized… they might have lied about the end being close… They’re faster than us, so unless they stop at some point, we could be chasing them for days. And this footprint thing isn’t going to last forever, there isn’t anywhere near enough moisture in the air to sustain it,” Sylver said, as he jumped back onto Ulvic, and tried to come up with a plan that didn’t involve waiting for them to run into a dead end.

Their options were limited, by the fact that this was essentially a maze. If Sylver tried to veer off course, he doubted he would be able to find them. And while he fumbled around and tried to find the end or a way out, those guys would either leave, or get to the end, and leave.

Once the moss on their shoes ran out of water, that was it. Sylver could track the blue robe heir using the brother’s blood, but it would only point him in the heir’s direction, it wouldn’t help Sylver navigate a maze.

He patted himself down, and as his fingers brushed up against the soft, faintly glowing, pages, he got an idea that he really didn’t like.

He stared at the glowing page, with the word “QUESTION” written on it.

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