The desert became a slaughterhouse.

Lilith stood at the heart of the chaos, her crimson robe billowing in the hot wind, her bastard sword dripping with black blood. Around her, two hundred shadow undeads moved like a single, coordinated organism—smoky bodies flowing, blue-flame eyes burning, phantom weapons rising and falling in perfect unison.

They were extensions of her will.

The giant sand desert scorpions struck first.

Their massive pincers snapped forward, each one capable of shearing through steel. Their venomous tails arced overhead, stingers gleaming with deadly fluid. They charged in a wedge formation, their chitinous shells grinding against each other, creating a sound like breaking bones.

Lilith did not flinch.

She raised her sword and pointed.

Twenty shadow undeads broke from the main formation, moving in perfect synchronization. They did not charge head-on—they flowed, splitting into two groups that flanked the scorpions from left and right. Their phantom axes and swords rose and fell.

CHOP.

A scorpion’s stinger was severed, black ichor spraying.

CRUNCH.

Another scorpion’s pincer was shattered, the shadow undeads swarming over it like ants.

The scorpions retaliated. A massive claw closed around one shadow undead, crushing it into a cloud of dissipating smoke. Another stinger pierced a second shadow, and the creature’s body dissolved into wisps.

But Lilith merely glanced at the fallen.

Her mana flowed. A pulse of darkness rippled through the sand, and the fallen shadows rose again—their smoky bodies reforming, their blue-flame eyes relighting, their weapons rematerializing.

"Did you think it would be that easy?" Lilith murmured, a smile playing on her lips.

The scorpions hesitated. Their primitive minds could not comprehend what they were seeing. The enemy would not stay dead.

That hesitation cost them.

The shadow undeads surged forward, overwhelming the scorpions with numbers and ferocity. Within minutes, the last of the giant arachnids lay torn apart, their chitinous shells scattered across the sand like broken armor.

The ground trembled.

Beneath the desert, massive shapes moved—Sand Worms, their segmented bodies burrowing through the earth with terrifying speed. They erupted without warning, their circular maws gaping wide, rows of grinding teeth spinning like saw blades.

WHOOSH!

A worm burst directly beneath a cluster of ten shadow undeads. The smoky creatures were swallowed whole, dragged into the worm’s gullet before they could react. The worm’s body glowed briefly—the shadows inside struggling—then went dark.

But Lilith had already anticipated this.

She stomped her foot.

Darkness erupted from the ground beneath the worm. The creature convulsed, its body splitting open from the inside as the swallowed shadow undeads carved their way out. They emerged covered in black ichor, their blue eyes blazing brighter than ever.

"Swallow them, and they eat you from within," Lilith said, laughing softly.

The remaining worms hesitated. But hesitation meant nothing to creatures of instinct. They burrowed, surfaced, attacked—and each time, the shadow undeads adapted. They learned. They remembered. They hunted.

Within minutes, the sand was littered with worm corpses—massive, segmented tubes of flesh that steamed in the artificial sunlight.

Then the hyenas came next.

They were fast—lean, vicious, their fur the color of dried blood, smelling awfully. They moved in packs, circling the shadow army, looking for weaknesses. Their yellow eyes gleamed with predatory cunning.

Behind them, the salamanders slithered forward, their bodies glowing with internal heat. They left trails of molten sand in their wake, and the air around them shimmered with rising temperature.

The hyenas struck first as they were the vanguard.

They darted in, snapping at shadow legs, tearing at smoky arms. Their teeth passed through the undead bodies, but they were physical creatures—they could be bitten, chewed, destroyed.

A hyena leaped at Lilith.

She did not move.

A shadow undead intercepted the attack, its phantom body taking the brunt of the hyena’s jaws. The shadow’s form rippled but held. Its blue eyes flared, and its axe came down—once, twice, three times—until the hyena lay in pieces.

Meanwhile, the salamanders attacked from the rear.

Their heat was intense enough to melt sand, and shadow undeads were not immune. Three of Lilith’s soldiers dissolved as salamanders slithered through their ranks, their glowing bodies turning shadows to vapor.

Lilith’s brow furrowed.

She extended her hand and unleashed her own flames—Hellfire, black and hungry.

SCREECH!

The salamanders screeched as the black fire consumed them, their own heat useless against the primordial inferno.

The hyenas, leaderless now, broke and ran.

Lilith did not let them escape.

"Pursue," she commanded. "Leave none alive."

Fifty shadow undeads gave chase, running down the fleeing hyenas across the dunes. Their axes fell. The hyenas screamed. The sand drank their blood.

Then finally they came, the ground shook again.

But this time, it was not worms.

Drakes emerged from the distant dunes—smaller cousins of true dragons, but no less deadly. Their copper scales shimmered in the artificial light. Their wings unfurled, wide and leathery. Their throats glowed with the promise of flame.

There were dozens of them.

They did not charge. They advanced—slowly, deliberately, like an army of elite soldiers. The drakes had intelligence. They had seen what happened to the scorpions, the worms, the hyenas, the salamanders. They would not make the same mistakes.

Lilith’s eyes gleamed.

Finally, she thought. A challenge.

She raised her sword.

The shadow undeads formed a shield wall—their smoky bodies interlocking, their phantom shields raised. Behind them, Lilith gathered her mana. Purple lightning crackled around her blade. Hellfire coiled around her free hand.

"Advance," she ordered.

The shadow army marched forward.

The drakes breathed fire.

A wall of orange and red rolled across the desert, crashing into the shadow shield wall. The front rank of undead dissolved—a dozen, then twenty, then thirty—their smoky bodies unable to withstand the concentrated heat.

But Lilith’s mana flowed.

The fallen rose again, reforming behind the second rank, stepping forward to take the place of their destroyed comrades. The shield wall held. The army advanced.

Lilith herself leaped over the front lines, her sword raised high. She landed in the midst of the drakes, and the sky turned purple.

CRACK!

Lightning exploded outward, cooking three drakes where they stood. Their copper scales blackened, their wings caught fire, and they collapsed into smoking heaps.

BOOM!

Hellfire erupted from her palm, consuming two more drakes, their screams swallowed by the black flames.

But the drakes did not flee. They pressed forward, their claws slashing, their tails whipping, their teeth snapping but space twisting around her to kill them grotesquely.

Quickly, the desert was littered with corpses.

Scorpions, worms, hyenas, salamanders, drakes—their bodies piled in heaps, their blood turning the sand black. The artificial sun blazed down, indifferent to the carnage.

Lilith stood in the center of it all, her crimson robe untouched, her silver hair flowing. Her bastard sword rested on her shoulder, still crackling with fading lightning, space twisting around her.

Around her, her shadow undeads who had grown stood behind her.

325.

A new record, like usual some of her shadow undeads collected the valuable monster’s part which was automatically stored into the independent space their master created. At the same time, in the sky the battle had ended.