Rise of the Supreme Necromancer-Chapter 48: Hopes and Prayers

"Danit Arstain had already accepted me as his new liege," Aleric said. "But he is too busy to tell you that in person."

Even now, Lodimar didn’t stop praying; only moved to another page.

"Listen not to the witch, for only poison and lies fall from her tongue! Don’t let her charms cloud your eyes, for she will steal the minds and souls of weak men. Let your heart be open only to the holy prayer. With words of this prayer, let the Light deliver us. Let the Light send us a righteous hand to protect us. Let the Light’s blessed servants come and save us! This is The Word, this is the Truth!"

Lodimar could only pray and believe. He had sent letters, many letters, and even got some responses. A respected inquisitor, Garron Redain, has even agreed that the necromancer was a terrible threat. Surely, at least someone was coming to help Oakdale?

Lodimar didn’t know that the same Garron decided that the nearby forces weren’t powerful enough to attack Aleric at this point.

"No ’blessed servants’ will come soon enough for you, Chaplain," Aleric said. "But I had enough of your droning. Soldiers, arrest him."

Four soldiers nodded and walked forward, right through the rows of parishioners. At their approach, people moved away, none of them brave enough to protest.

Even when he was grabbed by the undead and pulled outside, Lodimar continued to pray.

Then, Aleric looked at the other people.

"I am pleasantly surprised by your obedience. Now, listen. If you want to do some actual good for your city, then go outside and help put out the fires that were started by your own countess. Otherwise, you are free to live just like you lived before. You can even keep praying to Light."

Many pairs of eyes widened with surprise, both among the living and among the undead.

"But probably with a different chaplain," Aleric concluded.

After this, he turned and left, taking Lodimar with him and leaving many confused and terrified people behind him.

"Leave a few people to watch this place, just in case," Aleric said to Samuel when they were outside. "But I doubt there will be. The spirits of these people were broken even before I came over."

Samuel nodded.

"Yes, master. Should we arrest other priests? Above the count and the king, they are sworn to serve the Church first and foremost."

"Not anymore. Later, when there is more time, I will make sure to explain it to them very thoroughly." Aleric smirked, glancing at Lodimar. "The temple’s chaplain will be of huge help. And you will deal with whatever is left of the local templars."

"Only servants in the Chapter house, Master Fenn—if Lodimar didn’t close it because there were no templars to serve at the moment."

Aleric nodded.

"Of course. Otherwise, they would’ve attacked us much earlier."

He turned toward the castle and walked down the street.

"Come, soldiers. The night is still young, and there’s a lot of work to do."

Although Aleric was starting to feel a bit tired from all the excitement, he had to hurry. Many souls had to be captured before they were too far gone for reanimation. Many bodies had to be reanimated before they started to rot.

’My shitty apprentices better pull at least some weight tonight... Would it take forever for them to learn actually useful spells?’

***

’I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.’

A cart full of bodies entered the gates of the Castle Arstain, pulled by a zombie horse and escorted by several skeleton warriors and a single zombie. The cart stopped near a wall, and its undead escort began to throw the bodies to a pile that was already gathered nearby.

When Rita Leshmann saw how many new bodies were added to it, she wanted to pull on her hair.

"I hate my life! How did so many people even died tonight?!" she said, hitting her leg with a fist. "Did Fenn forget that unlike his other underlings, we are actually alive and need to rest sometimes?! Are we going to keep raising undead slaves without breaks until sunrise? Well, that’s gonna be soon!"

All four Leshmann siblings were together as usual, gather near a smaller pile of already sorted corpses. All of these either lacked a limb, were otherwise damaged, or looked extremely poor. Thus, they were material for undead slaves. Two dozen of them were already standing at the side, waiting.

"Hush, sister!" her younger sister Fiona hissed, pulling Rita away from the corpse pile. "What if somebody hears? Just... just let’s get back to work!"

Several zombies were working near the corpse pile, taking the bodies from it and sorting them based on their clothing and physical state. Rita’s outburst made them pause and look at her.

She quickly pulled her mouth shut.

If they thought that Rita was about to betray Aleric Fenn, they would snitch on her faster than Rita could say "fuck". But to her relief, they turned away and went back to work.

"It will all rot at some point... And Master Fenn will tell us to dig up and raise some skeletons," Dreske said, sighing.

"Stop complaining, Rita. When did we have an easy life?" Karl added, shaking his head. "At least no witch-hound will sniff us tomorrow."

"At least you have enough muscle to fight them if push comes to shove," Fiona whined, wringing her hands full of silver and golden rings. "And it still might come! Oh, let’s just get back to work... My mana is almost restored."

Rita sighed and went to the corpses assigned to her. She reached out with a hand that wore a pair of new bejeweled bracelets and read the spell’s incantation.

"Nouse jallen kulkemaan maklan palle..."

Dark energy flew down her arm, stinging Rita’s skin like a pyre’s flames. Even after the years she spent training to manifest and control Dark energy, it still hurt to cast Dark magic. At least, it didn’t actually harm her.

As always, Rita bore the pain with gritted teeth and completed the spell. Her Dark energy infused the body, and the fresh slave zombie began to move.

Next to her, Rita’s siblings were doing the same. Within a few seconds, three other zombies rose from the ground.

"Go stand there," she said tiredly to her new undead slave, waving it off. "Well, I will take a break until my mana recovers..."

At this moment, the Leshmann siblings felt a powerful Dark aura approaching!