Seeing that his ambush was discovered, Aleric sneered and rose from his cover. At the same time, his zombies (all but one) ran out toward his enemies, along with the zombie that had played bait earlier.
All of them wore white clothing of Church templars, but the one who shouted also had an unusual tower-like hat with a holy symbol of Light—a round star—on it. He also made Aleric's skin itch.
This person was emanating a weak Light aura. From Spine Staff's explanations earlier, Aleric knew that it meant he was regularly practicing Light magic to the point where it permeated his being.
He was a cleric—a Light mage!
While his comrades were raising swords and vials of holy water, the cleric pointed a holy star symbol at the nearest zombie and chanted a spell.
"Palang hand civit yun di xang manya!"
A ray of light shot from the holy symbol, illuminating the surroundings and hitting the zombie in the chest. It scorched the zombie's clothing and flesh, but worse, it dissolved the Dark magic inside of it, leaving only small bits that weren't enough to animate the corpse.
The zombie fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
But Aleric wasn't simply standing still himself. While the cleric chanted, Aleric aimed his own Pain spell at him.
"Look out, Frank!" a templar shouted, pushing the distracted cleric from the way of the spell with his own body.
The Pain spell hit the templar in the leg. He screamed as the Dark magic spread over his body. Mentally, Aleric counted down one.
"Mondin!" the cleric shouted, putting his hands on the agonized templar. "Hold on—kacad kvam mudid dy palan hensan svang!"
Light came from the cleric's hands, entering the templar's body to fight the Dark of Aleric's spell. The cleric clenched his teeth, struggling against Aleric's potent magic.
'Idiot. He makes a perfect target now!' Aleric thought, preparing another spell.
The way things were going, he would kill all the templars before his zombies even reached them!
Templars realized that, too. They charged forward toward Aleric's zombies.
"The necromancer! Kill him!" one of them shouted. Another nodded and began circling the zombies, clearly trying to get straight at Aleric.
There was probably enough distance between them for Aleric to kill the cleric and then the templar, but Aleric didn't want to risk it. He pointed the staff at the charging templar.
The man jumped to the side, dodging at the last moment. But the movement made him open to Aleric's next shot.
He fell to the ground, screaming in agony, but with his death, the templar won enough time for the cleric to heal Aleric's first victim. The templar stood to his feet and ran to join the fight against the zombies.
The other templars clashed in melee with zombies. Armor only partially protected the undead, and the templars used holy water and their torches to deal damage despite it.
Aleric knew that his zombies wouldn't stay up long like that. Compared to the templars, they were pathetically clumsy and slow! And the cleric was chanting another spell now, aiming for Aleric this time.
Their eyes met. Whoever cast their spell first and hit would win—and the cleric almost finished chanting already.
Aleric smirked.
Good thing he didn't intend to play fair…
At this moment, Aleric's last zombie sprang at the cleric from behind!
All this time, this zombie was circling the battlefield around, invisible to the templars' eyes in the darkness.
The cleric was too distracted by Aleric to notice it in time. He screamed silently when the zombie's hands grabbed his neck in a dead grip.
It took a few seconds for the templars to actually notice the man's death. By then, they were already corpses themselves—they just didn't know it yet.
Aleric dealt with them just as he dealt with the ones before.
"I need to recover my mana again after all this," he said, stretching his neck. All this magic was a bit tiring!
His zombies, old and fresh, didn't react. The sight of them dimmed Aleric's good mood.
The templars really did a number on them. Out of those that Aleric brought with him, only one was in any usable shape—the others missed too many limbs to waste Aleric's magic on them. Fresh ones weren't much better.
In total, Aleric had six usable bodies left. Barely more than what he came with! If things continued like that, he would never have the army he needed to fight the Church.
"Another victory, master! And there are still some death emanations here that will help you recover. The agony of the dying released enough energy so that some of it lingers," the Spine Staff said cheerfully.
Aleric shook his head and closed his eyes, focusing on gathering this energy. Since his mana reserve was still small, it didn't take him long to recover it.
After this, he cast Raise Dead on all his bodies and meditated again. It was a chore, but each time Aleric emptied and refilled his mana reserve, he felt it growing a little.
If at first he could cast ten Pain spells in a row, now he knew he could do eleven.
Aleric focused and called his horse from where it was hiding at a distance. Soon, he mounted it and ordered his tiny army of undead to walk ahead of him. Together, they marched toward the village ahead.
With the templars gone, there was nobody left in Broomwood who could stop Aleric from taking what he wanted.
When he first left for Broomwood, Aleric only wanted more corpses. While he traveled, he also decided that he wanted a bed and a warm meal—luxuries he hadn't had for years.
But after killing these templars, Aleric wanted even more. He wanted the entire village to submit to him, and he would make it happen!