Rise of the Undead Legion

"You came offering your head I see." Leonard swatted Kurukuru’s blade claw away and took a few steps back.

Dave hastily stood up and backed away from the two. It was nice and all that Kurukuru decided to help, but this didn’t make him an ally, they only had a common enemy.

"You honor-less filth, never want to fight and prove your singular strength, always relying on the power of many," Leonard said, but he didn’t sound inconvenienced. For this battle freak, the more he fought, the more excited he became.

"You don’t get to talk about honor, you attacked me from stealth," Dave retorted. Dave readied up for the fight, with Kurukuru’s help, taking down Leonard shouldn’t be a problem.

Kurukuru blurred in speed as he raced toward Leonard. Dave had a hard time keeping track of the giant praying mantis.

’Damn, it’s much faster than before," Dave commented. Leonard, on the other hand, was not finding it the least bit difficult to keep track of Kurukuru. His golden eyes tracked Kurukure’s every move.

Kurukuru swung with his claws at Leonard, making him take a step back to evade. The lion-man lunged in with his own sword aimed at Kurukuru’s belly, but Dave wasn’t going to standby as he already used [Immortal Apparition] that just came off cooldown and slammed his gauntlet into the sword, curving it away from Kurukuru. The praying mantis took the opportunity and delivered a sneaky blow to Leonard’s left eye ripping it out from place.

Dave punched Leonard in the stomach and followed with a dragon kick, sending the danger- kitty sprawling on the ground.

When Leonard regained his posture, he grunted "Curses upon you. No matter how long, how far and how deep you hid, I shall find you and I shall kill you!" The lion-man turned invisible and disappeared from sight.

Suddenly all of Dave’s troops regained their mobility and rushed toward him, they made a protective circle around Dave, in case any of the humans tried to act against their lord.

Dave waited for a few seconds waiting to see if Leonard did actually escape. After confirming the werelion’s disappearance Dave took in a deep breath.

"Guess that ended better than I expected," Dave mumbled.

"What are we going to do about that?" Singund pointed at the praying mantis that was eyeing the player with, let’ say a hungry gaze.

Dave moved toward Kurukuru who instantly turned toward him, claws raised up in warning.

Dave held both his arms up saying, "Chill bro, I mean you no harm. Thanks for saving me though," Dave said.

The praying mantis looked at Dave in wonder, it understood his words but didn’t know how to answer back.

"Warlord, should we try and kill that?" Satan-Slayer said, he wore a warrior’s outfit made of steel and leather. This man was one of the high rankers of the guild, he was also a big-shot in the IRL world. One of the heads of IGU-Electronics which is one of the leading companies in the technological advancement of the current age.

Warlord shook his head, "No, Demetri is right. That’ll just cause us a lot of unwanted trouble."

Kurukuru became bored, then decided that it was time for it to leave. He moved rapidly through the players and disappeared into the Wilds.

He probably thought it would be a better idea to find isolated prey than fight here against this many players.

When the area was clear Warlord approached Dave and said, "So, Skelly, if you’re not helping us, what brought you all the way here? You see you aren’t friends with many people here."

"That’s where you are wrong," Dave smiled, "Where’s Blaster?" Dave looked behind Warlord trying to find his friend Ralph.

"Hey there, I know Blaster and if you want, I could take you to him," A player wearing red knight armor came toward Dave.

"And who’re you?" Dave asked.

"My name is Ruinsmith, I am a friend of Blaster."

Dave frowned, this name reminded him of something, he thought it was unimportant but then remembered that Ralph never mentioned having any friends in the game. Thinking a bit harder, Dave suddenly had the urge to lurch. This guy was Anna’s Fiancee, she was Dave’s Ex!

"Hold, is Blaster a swordsman in black?" Demetri asked.

"Yes, that’s the man."

"I know him, he said he was a friend of yours," Demetri then called over the party chat, "Bring the leader of the A-20 unit here."

When Douche-Guy understood that Demetri knew Blaster, he panicked, not to try and make a scene Ruinsmith tried to leave the perimeter.

But Dave wasn’t about to let him. He understood what Ruinsmith wanted from him. He wanted to use Ralph’s name to make a ’relationship’ with Skeletal. This was obvious to anyone with half a brain. Ruinsmith wanted to ride on Dave’s wave to increase his company’s power and influence.

"Wait a moment, Ruinsmith," Dave said in a draugr smile. He himself didn’t realize that he was rubbing his beard.

"Someone’s gonna be in trouble," Mercy muttered.

Tess was next to her and heard Mercy’s words so she asked, "Why is that?"

"Whenever you see that guy stroking his beard, nothing good ever comes out from it, mostly for the other concerned party," Mercy said.

Ralph showed up between the players, "Yeah Demetri, what’s up?" Turning around Ralph saw Dave looking at him with a wide draugr smile.

"Supp, Skelly!" Ralph said. "What the hell happened in here?" he added.

He just noticed the craters in the ground and the destruction in the field.

"Long story, Blaster. Now tell me, I just met this ’Friend’ of yours." Dave said pointing at Ruinsmith.

"That guy? Never seen him before in my life," Ralph instantly picked on Dave’s words and what he meant.

"Really now, why lie Ruinsmith then? I know Blaster and know all of his friends. Do you think I raid with someone I don’t trust?"

"B-but, wait, no we are friends, he is just pulling a prank man. See we met in my fiancée’s Highschool gathering, even Mercy was there and that Lone Arrow." Ruinsmith added.

Dave turned to Mercy who answered, "Yeah I think I remember this guy. Can’t remember his name though, a good friend of mine used to call him Douche-Guy. Yeah, I think he is the one." Mercy said in a smile that was frighteningly similar to Dave’s.

"You’re doing it," Tess said,

"Doing what?" Mercy asked.

"The draugr smile. Man, Skelly has a bad influence on you all," Tess shook her head.

"Douche-guy? Yeah, he’s the fucker that called my friend a thief." Ralph added to the oil.

"Thief now? I remember something, Dave was also in the reunion wasn’t he," Dave said.

Ralph had no idea what Dave was going for, so he just nodded.

"Could it be that the one who was called a thief was my good friend Dave?" Dave asked.

Ralph was starting to get confused, why was he calling himself in the third person. Then it dawned on him. Dave was trying to extract his IRL personality from Skeletal. It was risky but looked like it was working.

"Yep," Mercy said. "He called Dave a thief, he said he stole the jacket he wore from somewhere. It made Dave a bit sad because I saw the jacket and asked around, he made it at Armani’s. And it’s genuine."

Tess sent Mercy a private message saying, ’You are drowning the guy."

’Serves him right," Mercy shrugged.

"Is that true?" Demetri asked.

"N-no, it’s all lies!" Ruinsmith said.

"I have Lone on the phone, she can tell you everything that went on." Mercy said and put Lone Arrow on speaker.

Tess shook her head and drew a cross over her body, praying for the lost soul of Ruinsmith.

"Holla Mercy, how are you?!" Lone’s cheerful voice sounded through the loudspeaker for all to hear.

Mercy then gave Lone the gist of things and Lone began recounting the events while adding a bit of ’spicy’ details to make the story more in favor for Dave.

As everyone was listening to the conversation, frowns and angry glares pointed at Ruinsmith. The man was in a tight spot, shaming Mr. Skeletal’s ’Good friend?’ that was nothing short of social suicide.

"So, you came to me, after insulting my friends and wanted to be a friend of mine? I don’t need friends like you Ruinsmith, hell, I despise people like you. Who do you think you are? Flaunting fleeting fame and what meager power you have to oppress people of lesser social background. You are a shame to anyone playing this game. Get away from my sight!" Dave shouted.

Ruinsmith was enraged, he couldn’t take the number of insults and the glares coming his way so he shouted, "Who the fuck you think you are to tell me to get away? Just because you got lucky with that legacy quest of yours you think you can come here and insult me all you want? I tried to be respectful to you but you don’t deserve it."

Dave smiled, "I think you need a wake-up call," Dave drew his sword.

"We don’t want to fight you, Skeletal," Demetri said.

"I’ll fight him, you don’t need your help, Demetri, I have my own soldiers!" Ruinsmith shouted calling upon a few hundred players to his aid. They were his company goons. They worked for him and were obliged to aid him even if it meant fighting against skeletal.

The players arrived and stood near Ruinsmith, they were apprehensive as the look on their eyes meant that they didn’t want to fight but their ’boss’ ordered them to.

"Now, what’re you gonna do about this? Now is the day that all will know I destroyed Skeletal!" Ruinsmith laughed.

Normally he wouldn’t have challenged Dave, because he knew from his previous videos that he had a thousand strong. But seeing just a couple hundred undead with him made him have more confidence in winning.

Ruinsmith wanted to use this situation to flip the tide and make himself the victor against Skelly. This will undoubtedly boost his company’s fame even more than being just Skeletall’s friend.

"Ruinsmith! Back down! You don’t know what you’re dealing with!" Mercy advised.

"Like hell I would, he needs to die today." Ruinsmith pulled out his sword and aimed at Dave.

"Ruinsmith! If you don’t pull your hand, I’ll have you kicked out of the Devastators!" Valentine shouted. The last thing he wanted was to make of Skeletal his enemy, especially after he promised them access to the underworld.

"I don’t need your guild!" Ruinsmith snorted.

"Skelly," Valentine looked at Dave with a regretful eye then sent Mercy a private message.

"You aren’t talking anymore Skelly? What, the cat’s got your tongue?" Ruinsmith said, he noticed that Dave was still looking at him, dumbfoundedly.

’Is this guy an idiot?’

Dave received a message from Mercy, saying "Valentine told me to tell you that if you need any help destroying Ruinsmith he will order the devastators to aid you. You just need to nod,"

Dave shook his head, signaling Valentine to stand down.

"Guess you need a wakeup call." Dave grabbed tiny from his side bag and threw him to the air.

"Show them the might of the undead," Dave said in a low tone.

Tiny transformed in mid-air and summoned hundreds of sarcophagi that floated in the sky.

Ruinsmith took a step back, he didn’t know what that was until the sarcophagi opened. Tens, hundreds, then thousands of undead dropped from the coffins. Rising and standing behind Dave like an immortal army of death, the undead released an aura and a pressure that made the 100,000 Player army shake in their boots.

Eight loud thuds sounded behind Dave, they were the manticores. Standing tall and high.

Dave added more to the scene by activating [Blot the Sun], covering the sky above Ashkar’s Tomb by black clouds.

"You said you wanted to teach me a lesson now? Let me see you try!"

The undead behind Dave all shouted at once,

"NEVER HUNGER!

NEVER TIRE!

NEVER FEAR!"