The town square of Barktown was beautiful:
A bunch of restaurants, inns, smithies and the like decorated the streets and made the area feel alive.
There is a reason these words could be used in past tense. You see, the town square now, was being raided for everyone, every pound of flesh to add to the hivemind, or puppet show.
Many of the guards stopped hiding their undead features and simply attacked, some most looked like zombies, shifting in unsettling ways as they attacked every civilian in sight.
But it wasn't all bad, a vast majority of the guard was still normal. And seeing what happened at their own base, the men patrolling as the men who came from where they were stationed joined in in defending the common people.
A guardsman was fighting in the chaos, as he swung his blade, another zombie looking creature seemed to meet its end, falling dead. But in his peripheral he saw it slowly start to reassemble itself, its flesh bubbling as it rebuilt itself.
This was the problem, Daryl was facing.
How does one stop an enemy that keeps getting back up? He couldn't even stay on topic, as another Creature came, eager to be dropped by his blade.
Civilians were scattering behind the guardmen.
While they had the advantage in numbers, those monsters keps getting back up. 'The only saving grace is that these stupid things have no formation.' He thought to himself as he looked around the town square.
While those nasty creatures were stronger than the average guardsmen, they just mindlessly charged. The moment one of the guards was weak he was quickly sent back, swinging with a man who was ready to fight the next.
He even saw some rank one brawler mages, imbuing their bodies with a bit of mana, they cleaved through the average monster without much effort. "Lucky bastards"
He spat on the ground before quickly ducking under a clawed hand. His sword flashed upwards, slicing through the arm at the elbow. Dark, tar-like blood splattered across his face, its metallic tang mixing with the stench of rotting flesh. He didn't have time to wipe it off—another creature lunged, jaws snapping inches from his throat. Daryl pivoted, driving his knee into its ribs. The satisfying crunch of bone was drowned by the creature's guttural screech.
Behind him, someone screamed. A civilian—too slow, too panicked. The sound cut off abruptly, replaced by wet tearing. Daryl clenched his teeth and pressed forward. The brawler mages carved a brutal path ahead, their movements fluid, fists wreathed in faint blue energy. One of them—a woman with a scarred lip—punched clean through a monster's skull, her knuckles erupting from the back of its head like a grotesque trophy. She flicked the gore off with a smirk before plunging back into the fray.
At first that gave daryl some spirit, but looking around, all he saw were civilians trying to keep up with trained guardsmen as their lives depended on it, and said guardsmen getting more and more tired by the second.
'We need to move. Whatever part of the enemy formation is weak, we need a spearhead to push out in that direction.'
Daryl thought to himself as he blocked another swipe from a rotting corpse, its blackened nails scraping against his blade. His arms burned—too many parries, not enough killing blows. He risked a glance toward the brawler mages again. Their advance was slowing, their breathing ragged. Even mana-infused strength had limits, and the creatures just kept coming.
'We have the advantage in numbers but it wont last for long.' Daryl began looking for someone reputable.
In the middst of civians and men fighting monsters,
A man stood tall. Sir hendrickson, One of 3 long range mages in the guard, and in the top 5 most powerful members. He was on the verge of breaking into rank 2. His purple slickback hair with hints of blue made him stand out.
He was weilding a wooden staff with a giant blue gem in the middle, unlike most weapons handed out by the government, he allegedly got his from a passing old man.
He was currently casting all sorts of wind blades,
Cutting the enemy apart before using (Gust) To blow them away, just a massive blast of mana infused wind.
'THATS the guy im looking for, how did i not notice him?'
Daryl thought to himself as he saw Sir Hendrickson's spell carve through a cluster of shambling corpses. The wind blade didn't just slice—it *unmade* them, flesh peeling away in ribbons before the gust scattered the remains like discarded trash. The man's gem pulsed with each spell, casting eerie blue reflections across his sharp features. Even from this distance, Daryl could feel the pressure of his mana—a buzzing weight pressing against his skin.
A claw grazed his shoulder, snapping his attention back. He twisted, driving his sword through the creature's ribs, but instead of pulling free, he *shoved*—forcing the blade deeper until the hilt jammed against its sternum. With a grunt, he kicked the twitching body off his weapon, already scanning for a path toward Hendrickson. The square was a mess of broken cobblestones and trampled bodies—friend and foe alike—but the mage was holding a pocket of space near the old fountain, his back to the cracked stone basin.
Daryl lunged between two guardsmen locked in a desperate grapple with a shambling horror, his boots slipping on blood-slicked stone. "Hendrickson!" he shouted, but the wind mage didn't turn. Another gust tore through the crowd, flinging a cluster of monsters into the air like ragdolls. Their limbs snapped against the ground, but already, the severed flesh was bubbling, tendons knitting back together. *Shit*.
A hand clamped onto Daryl's wrist—a civilian, wild-eyed, her fingers trembling. "Please, my daughter—" she gasped, but Daryl barely heard her. Over her shoulder, a creature with half its jaw missing staggered forward, its remaining teeth gnashing. He wrenched free and drove his sword through its eye socket. The body crumpled, but the woman was already gone, swallowed by the panicked tide.
Hendrickson's staff glowed brighter now, the gem's blue light pulsing like a heartbeat. Daryl ducked under a flying limb—*someone's* limb—and sprinted toward him. The mage's lips moved silently, his free hand tracing intricate patterns in the air. Then, without warning, he slammed his staff into the ground. A shockwave of wind erupted, sending Daryl skidding backward. His knees hit the cobblestones hard enough to bruise.
"Stay down, you idiot!" Hendrickson barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. The wind around him howled, lifting his hair like a living thing. "Unless you want to be minced with them!"
Daryl barely had time to roll aside before a razor-thin crescent of compressed air sliced past his ear, shearing through three reanimating corpses mid-rise. Their torsos toppled sideways, ichor spraying in jagged arcs. The stench of rot thickened—copper, spoiled meat, and something sour, like milk left in the sun. He gagged, pressing his forearm to his nose.
"Shaking his head, he took a breath before responding, I need you to help clear a path, we cant stay here forever!"
"And why should I listen to you?" Hendrickson was surrounded by all sorts of chaos, yet a small smile stayed on his face. It seemed to be even slightly powerful in this world, your way of thinking changed.
Daryl opened his mouth to respond when a clawed hand burst through the chest of a guard beside them, fingers twitching like dying spiders. The man crumpled without a sound, and the creature—a skeletal thing with skin stretched too tight over its bones—let out a wet, clicking laugh. Hendrickson didn't even turn. He flicked his wrist, and the monster's head spun clean off, rolling toward Daryl's boots.
"Because," Daryl spat, kicking the head aside, "you're wasting mana blowing apart corpses that just *reassemble*. Cut a path *east*—the granary's got thick walls and one damn door. We bottleneck them there." He ducked as a wind blade shrieked overhead, shearing through a cluster of civilians-turned-monsters mid-lunge. Their legs kept running for three steps before the torsos slid apart.
"You do have a point. This has to come to an end."
Hendrickson turned east began launching attacks at anything blocking the path.
Daryl watched as the man launched wind blades faster than arrows, slicing through the enemy formation like a scythe through wheat. The mage's staff pulsed with each spell, casting eerie blue reflections across the cobblestones—now slick with blood and something darker, thicker, that clung to Daryl's boots like tar. The stench of rot intensified with every step forward, a suffocating miasma of decay and iron.
He stayed close to Hendrickson's flank, cutting down any creature that slipped past the mage's onslaught. A gaunt, sinewy horror lunged from the shadows of a shattered market stall, its elongated fingers brushing Daryl's throat before his sword cleaved through its collarbone. The thing didn't scream—just gurgled, black bile frothing between its teeth as it collapsed.
Slowly everyone else began catching on as well, less monsters began showing up, because hendrickson would remove them, thus everyone stayed behind him, with remaining guardmen staying at the flank to surround civilians.
'Were getting somewhere' Daryl thought to himself as he saw the granary just ahead.