Vipers were powerful Demons we had fought before, probably right below the control of the Necromancer who were still alive. Until now we have been fighting mostly Zombies made out of Imps body parts and other monsters, but this was the first time we encountered a group of over thirty Vipers, all of them Zombies.
Their eyes were dropping out of their sockets, and their scales were falling off their bodies as well. Some parts of their bodies were modified as well, as their large amount of arms was restructured into different monster arms, some in the shape of giant crab claws, another in the paws of a bear, some had arms that were long scythe-shaped bones.
And a few others had bony arms with many blades. Some even had arms with the heads of Gray Wolves and other Demons, imbued with a variety of Demonic Eyes ready for picking! However, the dangerousness of their presences was obvious, whatever demonic eyes they had, they were not going to be something we would be able to get rid of easily. I might even have to just crush them before they get closer.
Who knows if there's some dangerous demon eye with them? It is better to be safe than sorry.
Suddenly, a group of Zombie Vipers who had hands stitched with magic wands and spirit orbs suddenly began to channel large quantities of Mana and Demonic Energy together, something that Demons shouldn't be able to do, but Undead could as they were modified through the usage of Mana.
Suddenly, an enormous magic circle emerged before the Undead Wall, suddenly summoning a spiraling storm of purple flames… these were Poisonous Flames!
The flames barely affected Undead, who were immune to status effects, however my Undead Walls began to burn quite easily. The power of this magic was quite formidable. Several of my Black Skeletons were also caught into the fire, burning and turning into bubbles of light alongside the Ax they held, it was total chaos.
However, despite my army getting completely destroyed, I couldn't help but smile due to the thrill of such an interesting battle. Especially when my own army didn't just include Familiar Spirits.
Chris immediately jumped into the fight, roaring like a furious berserk despite being a magician. He jumped into the battle and began beating down the Zombies getting closer, while his Fire Fox Spirit suddenly gained an enormous size encompassing itself on flames and then letting him mount over it!
The Fox roared like a wolf, biting, and burning the Skeleton Knights making a wall with their bodies in front of the burning Undead Walls, crushing them and turning them into ashes. Seconds after, Chris swung his staff, as a spiraling attack of fire hit the Undead around him, burning them and throwing them away.
The Zombie Vipers immediately tried to attack him, as they charged straight towards him while he constantly unleashed flames around his surroundings. The power of his level ups had not gone in vain, he had become admirably powerful.
…However, he wasn't strong enough to boldly jump into danger for more than a few seconds.
His MP was decreasing a lot, and his flames became weaker as a result of not using as much Mana. The Vipers attacked, trying to slash him with their bone weapons or poison him by firing balls of slimy venom from their mouths. Chris' spirit quickly created flame walls to protect him, but without Mana the Fire Fox Spirit turned smaller, quickly weakening.
A Viper rushed towards him, pointing a sharp bone as he intercepted it with his staff, thrown into the floor. Suddenly, he realized dozens of zombies and skeletons were getting closer, and closer…
However, a spear imbued with Blood Aura fell right in front of him. The enormous shockwave it unleashed brought down countless Undead to the floor. The monsters slowly tried to stand back up, but a graceful and beautiful figure moved swifter than them, meddling with the shadows and slashing them apart by the dozens with a single horizontal slash using her spear.
Countless bones and pieces of flesh exploded against her Bloody Slashes, as she unleashed several techniques, not only infusing my own Mana, but her own Aether to save off as much Mana to not make me overuse it.
Of course, it was Eleanora, the strongest Spirit we had with us, and my strongest subordinate.
"Shadow Trap! Blood Threads!"
Eleanora merged Shadow Trap with Blood Threads, as she had already set them up in the floor, using [Illusion] to make them partially invisible amidst the darkness of these corridors, and quickly moving her blood threads to activate them all in quick succession, as hundreds of shadow tentacles emerged from the floor, catching more and more Undead and crushing them into pieces.
"Come! Don't get too ahead of yourself!" Eleanora quickly saved Chris, bringing him back to us.
She swiftly rejoined battle, only with her loyal Blood who had gained the Shadow Step Skill recently and easily merged within her shadows, jumping around, and catching the Undead by manipulating tendrils of darkness, pulling down the undead into his darkness and then tearing them apart with his sharp fangs and claws.
"Damn it, she's too good… Sorry, I got ahead of myself." Chris sighed, quickly getting up.
"Don't worry, you did your best." I said, rather forgiving of my friend, mostly because he bought us a lot of time so we could recover our MP. Thankfully as we drank the Magic Juice produced by Apul, our Mana recovered at thrice their original speed.
And I also absorbed the Spirit Orbs we had acquired before. As the only one capable of absorbing them directly by just touching them, I was able to refill my MP quite quickly, each F Rank Spirit Orb recovered roughly from 40 to 60 MP, it wasn't as good as Mana Potions which could restore as much as 500 MP in one drink, but they were certainly cheaper to get.
"I am ready…" I said with a smile, as I heard the footsteps of something even more terrifying getting closer, a chimeric zombie made of many stitched pieces, larger and stronger than mere Rotting Giants.