As Slade continued his murderous spree of unaliving all the not alive yet not dead beings roaming the ruins, his footsteps carried him along the side of old roads.
Eyeing his surroundings, he felt tense.
And honestly, with the surrounding atmosphere it was a given.
Old, worn down buildings of stone and wood, only the wooden frame having been left behind in the destruction of the stone walls, and even then it was hard to call it a frame.
As it was barely holding on by a thread, Slade continued on.
Thick white smog covered the entire ruins as large misshapen house frames seemed to stare from the darkness, like gigantic wandering beasts ready to ambush whatever being laid they laid their eyes upon.
And even if he went near them and got rid of the small fear that the buildings weren't monsters but were merely the remains of one, the houses seemed to be a house of horrors.
The fact that actual monsters sort of lived here was a very negatively perceived bonus.
Shoes thudding against the worn stone pavement, his eyes darted from building to building as he held his sword aloft.
The gentle flame emanating from it casting an orange glow on the surroundings.
It served the purpose of lighting the area ahead while also serving to help keep his sanity together.
It was not an enviable experience to roam about abandoned ruins where at any point enemies could pop out from their hiding places.
If anything, Slade actually preferred his past life.
Even if his enemies were more dangerous in the fact that they were intelligent human beings that knew how to both use guns and to set traps.
They were at least beings that he was incredibly acquainted with.
And although the monsters from his memory provided him a sort of familiarity to fighting them, he was still unnerved at the thought of the undead.
It wasn't a matter of physical health more was it one of mental health.
Shaking his head, Slade continued onwards while holding his sword aloft.
If anything, he was actually lucky he had friends to bear the same mental stress as him.
Now by himself, he had to constantly stay alert for danger all around him.
Of course, time just passed like that time continued to pass as his axe sunk into the flesh of his enemies and the Shield Glare blinded any that laid their undead eyes upon it.
It was honestly aggravating how they seemed to be unending in number.
Of course they were literal undead people, people who have died and have thus risen again, and over the course of history it was inconceivable that there were no deaths at all.
So the undead had an unending supply of troops.
But that didn't remove how annoying it had become to just endlessly cleave through the undead.
But all of his annoyances paid off as he finally ventured far enough into the ruins of old tristam to the point he found the main objective.
The entire reason that he was there in the ruins in the first place and had been hanging at the side of his vision alongside the completed subobjective underneath it.
The Wretched Queen.
Name dyed in a blaringly obvious purple at the top of his vision while being paired alongside her health like some sort of perfunctory boss health bar.
Underneath the red health bar of life, the Wretched Queen's designation stated.
[The first Handmaiden of the Queen]
She looked much like the other undead which roamed the roads of the fallen city.
Pale skin devoid of any life and blood, gaunt features due to a lack of flesh to feed on, and incredibly dull pale grey dead eyes that stared straight to the soul.
But unlike the other undead, but similar to the Wretched Mothers, the Wretched Queen had a few key defining features.
A few of them included a grey hood that covered their face and provided an eery tone to their face, like the Wretched mothers.
A series of dark satanic looking black marks which seemed to have been forcibly carved onto the back of the Wretched Queen were starkly prominent against the pale skin as the dress made of flesh lightly fluttered underneath their movements.
It was a blessing the Wretched Queen wasn't surrounded by a small horde of undead, otherwise he would need to spend another hour setting up several pitfalls and minor obstacles to block the hordes way.
God knew that it took a while to do that.
But nevertheless, he had a job to do, and Slade wasn't the type to shy from hardship.
Holding his axe tightly in his right hand, Slade flexed his muscles and loosened his stiff joints with a brief stretch and rushed forwards.
Almost instantly, alerted by the distinct noise of feet slapping against the ground, the undead turned towards the source of the noise only to be met with the cold taste of furious steel.
Hacking straight through bone, the skull split apart underneath the blow.
Following that, disregarding the amount of damage the bone would do to the blade, Slade did away with the most optimal way of fighting and focused his entire being on ending the Wretched Queen.
It was mostly due to the fact that so far, all he had faced was nothing but hardship against the constraints of the game dwelling on his mind.
So taking into account that the Golden enemy in the house revealed a new skill and the Wretched mother ammassed a small army by the time he arrived near it.
It was unavoidable that Slade did away with his slightly conservative approach.
The fact that several weapons of similar quality were resting in his inventory, waiting to be used when the one in his hands broke definitely played a part in it however.
Having those thoughts in his head, Slade's legs moved.
Stomping downwards to abruptly stop his charge, a tangible shield of light burst forth with Punish and pushed back every enemy in his way.
Using the remaining of his undispersed momentum, Slade leaned forwards and moved his shield back, cleaving downwards in a slash that left a trail of flame blazing towards the skull of another enemy.
Following that, Slade instead of using his weapons to deal the most damage to the enemy and incapacitating them instantly, turned around on the butt of his foot and lifted his other leg into the air.
Spin kicking the other undead in the forehead, with a devastating crunch, the undead's head twisted into a strange angle.
Pushing his blade through the gut of a Risen and igniting the insides of the undead.
Just like that, the undead horde of six were instantly dispersed.
Oh wait.
Slade slammed the butt of his buckler which really was just his fist into the head of the disoriented undead into the ground, eliciting a satisfying crack of the bone.
'Now it's six'
Dusting his hands off at the violent approach as if it wasn't a big deal since it really wasn't.
The Wretched Queen belatedly screamed at the sight and commanded its troops to attack.
The problem was that there were no troops left.
So left by itself, the Wretched Queen could only do a few things under the overwhelming display of power.
Run.
Staring dumbfoundedly at the sight of the Wretched Queen covered in a series of black satanic runes on their back and looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
Slade was left dumbfounded.
But to the eyes of the Wretched Queen that retained a modicum of its slipping sanity mixed with the morals of the dead now alive.
It was only a given that they run from the monster that just dispatched six risen undead which were enhanced from death in a matter of seconds.
If one saw someone defeat six warriors that have been enhanced past the limits of their living shells which meant they were more powerful than usual.
The first reaction someone would have is usually to be awed by the powerful act, that was if they were on the same side that is.
To her though... it was a nightmare.
So it was an absolute reality that she ran.
A reality that Slade belatedly accepted when two seconds passed.
"Wait a god damned minute!" Cursing belatedly, Slade recovered quickly and ran forwards.
"Come back here you Dead Hag!"
---
"Captain Rumford?"
"Captain Rumford?"
"Captaaain Rumffooord?"
"Hmm?" Captain Rumford jolted as he heard his name be spoken by a soldier that was lingering besides him.
"Yes guardsman?"
Shaking his head, Rumford stared at the guard who finally caught his attention and thus saluted to the man wearing an iron helmet.
A rarity in the outskirts.
"The undead have been collected in various wheel barrows sir, do we proceed with burning?"
"Have the ones in the inn been collected as well?"
"Yes sir."
"Then you may proceed, we can't have the dead rising again in our town."
Dismissively waving at the soldier, the soldier nodded and hurried along to the other side of the small town and started to dump a body into the bonfire burning besides the entrance of the town.
Leaving behind the captain in his own thoughts.
'I wonder...'
Captain Rumford thought about the various occurrences that had happened this week.
From the star falling from the sky and landing in the cathedral of New tristam which attracted a Crusader of the Zakarum faith.
It had been a hectic day.
So besides wondering about the star which had fallen on old tristam's only church and had taken the life of the old man present, his thoughts lingered on the crusader.
'I wonder how he's doing right now?'
Standing atop the battlements overlooking the dark forest, the man couldn't help but have those thoughts.
Of course, the man he was thinking about was currently having a wild goose chase all over the ruins of Old Tristam trying to catch up to the Wretched Queen, but he didn't need to know that.
+++
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