Chapter 104: Hidden in the Woods (2)

~Crap,~ Lucius thought to himself, sensing that a large hoard of creatures were slowly approaching the area. He quickly grabbed Hannibal and Alpha with his tail, before scaling up a nearby tree.

"Keep quiet," he ordered, before making sure that he was properly hidden behind the decayed tree's yellowed leaves.

After a few moments, the sound of hundreds of tiny footsteps could be heard just a small distance away. It was quite dark since the moonlight just barely made its way to the forest floor, however, Lucius could still make out the several dozen figures that he had sensed.

~What are they?~ he thought to himself, watching as something like a hundred creatures from different species, dragged what looked like corpses toward the soup.

Leading them was a decayed creature, just a little big bigger than Lucius. It stood at 1.5 meters tall, with a hunched back making it look like a little old man. It had purple glowing eyes, and rotting black skin that seemed to be peeling off. In fact, Lucius could make out what looked like a woody bone structure at a part of its face.

"Drop them in the soup," the creature ordered, speaking in the same strange dialect that the shrooms used.

Lucius squinted his eyes and just barely made out the odd object hanging from its head, the decayed remains of what looked like a shroom cap. However, it looked more like a tuft of sagging skin than a cap at this point.

~It's a shroom? But how did it get that big?~ he wondered to himself, as the hoard of creatures began dropping the corpses they were dragging into the soup one by one.

He noted that their movements were odd, like they were heavily injured and drowsy at the same time. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but they didn't seem natural.

Besides, there was no way that these creatures were in their right mind. What arachnid would stand alongside a boar, and what boar would stand alongside a leafling?

A whole army of creatures that were very unlikely to stand next to each other without fighting were obediently following this creature's orders.

"Go back to the Dark Forest and collect more fuel for the hoard. Prioritize bigger creatures this time, I do not want anything smaller than a boar in my collection," the creature ordered, and the hoard began marching away.

~Fuel? Hoard?~ Lucius thought, an eery sensation creeping up his back.

A moment later, a purple orb emerged from the creature, about the size of Lucius's head. At first glance Lucius could tell that it was a crux, it would seem the creature knew magic.

"Arise," the creature whispered, and a dozen wisps shot out from the crux and made their way into the soup. A moment later, the soup began stirring, as if coming to life.

~No,~ Lucius thought, in total shock at what was happening.

The body parts floating within the soup began coming together, reforming the creatures they had once been a part of. Shrooms, boars, arachnids, frog-beings, creatures that looked like bats, a few large metal-shelled centipedes, and even a few dozen shrooms began emerging from the soup.

~He's bringing them back from the dead. Then that hoard he sent out...~ Lucius realized.

"Half of you start digging another pit. Go west of here and you will see the others working already, you can build yours right next to the latest one," the creature ordered, using a hand gesture to divide the hoard into two.

"The rest of you go into the Dark Forest and collect more fuel for the hoard," it said, before sniffing the air. After a moment of hesitation, it looked up directly at where Lucius was.

"But first, kill those creatures," it ordered, pointing towards Lucius.

~Did it sense me?~ Lucius wondered, already launching himself toward an adjacent tree.

Though there seemed to be quite a number of creatures in the hoard, their movements were hindered, perhaps a side effect of being reanimated. The leader itself stood still, Lucius guessed that it couldn't run without his body falling apart.

Unfortunately for them, Lucius was insanely fast. Especially with his tail helping to catch on to branches, allowing him to swing from tree to tree like a monkey.

Within a few minutes, he had lost sight of the hoard. However, he could still sense them approaching him.

~Relentless,~ he thought to himself, deciding to increase his speed in a direction away from the camp.

He had to run for 30 minutes non-stop before the hoard stopped chasing him. And even then he was sure it was just because their leader could not sense him anymore.

"Captain, what was that?" Alpha asked as Lucius let him and Hannibal on the ground.

"I don't know, some sort of... what did they call it, necolancer? He brings things back from the dead, I'm guessing it's what its crux specializes in," Lucius replied, still monitoring his earth sense to make sure they weren't being followed.

"Lucius, did you notice it?" Hannibal asked, his body shaking.

"It grew ever so slightly after it brought those creatures back from the dead," Lucius answered after a moment of thought. He had hoped that his brain had been playing tricks on him.

"We should go back and kill it. We can't let a monster that controls that many creatures so close to that camp," Alpha said, gripping his spear tightly.

"No," Lucius replied, his head already hurting from all the fail-safes he would have to create because of this thing.

"How will we kill it? What about its army? I'm sure I can take down a few dozen of its minions, but we don't know how many there are. We don't even know if that thing can die," he continued.

"Bu-"

"Look, Alpha. I am not a god, we need to be careful before strange unknown enemies like these," Lucius replied.

~Who knows, it might be a creature owned by the 'furry-folk'?~ he thought to himself.

"Besides, its crux was visibly larger than mine, so it's safe to say that it's probably stronger than me as well," he continued, running through all the possible scenarios where he might win.

Perhaps if this had been before his encounter with the 'furry-folk' he might've thought he had a chance. But he had learned that spells didn't always work on every creature, and he was uncertain whether the creature couldn't just bring itself back to life.

"So what do we do? That thing clearly wants to drag every living thing into its little army," Alpha replied, angry at his own uselessness.

"We do nothing... for now. We need more information on it, why it's here, what it wants, why it's gathering an army," Lucius replied, thoughtfully.

"But what are the odds that it's at the exact same spot our attackers used to camp? And the fact it's a shroom..." Hannibal said, breaking his silence.

Lucius did not respond to that. There was no use making that assumption out loud. But the thought had also crossed his mind.

What if that was the shrooms' leader?