223 The Origin of the Haze

The night was starting to creep over the camp outside Border City. Already, we noticed Skeletons and Zombies lightly and randomly attacking the border of our encampment, starting small, inconsequential but annoying fights. The Warriors took it as no problem and enjoyed toying with the zombies mainly, but the instinctual fear that people felt being near them did not suddenly disappear.

The front lines were, therefore, set up a little farther than normal from the tents for those on rest from first watch. The second watch would soon have to get up and replace those who had not gone to bed yet, and later, the third watch would replace them. It was a pretty standard setup, although not as good as some more modern equivalents.

I was already pushing too many things forward with my Elite Army that I didn't need to push the main Barbarians of the forces. The Elite Army was sleeping with the exception of one group, as I wanted them rested for tomorrow. The Group in question was Sergeant Taylor's as their leader was a very special individual and was now inside the tent with us, looking back at the Elders and the War Chief as they glowered at her.

"Why do we have a Necromancer among our forces?" Elder Lily asked.

"Because I recruited her back when I was returning from the Demon Lands," I replied Tartly, "Another B ranker will never be unwelcome in my opinion. Plus, I have made a deal with Sergeant Taylor, and she is working with me on some projects. She will also be a great person to consult about this Haze!" I snapped back at the elders, who were now glaring at me for a couple of moments.

Silence reigned for a couple of moments before I heard the first sigh. "Fair enough," Elder Leon said, turning to Elder Lily, "Having a Necromancer, despite her oddities around, would not be bad."

"Thank you for your trust," Taylor said, her voice soft and still difficult to tell the gender of. "I will say something of this matter, though. I was on a boat witnessing the spell that hit this City when it happened." Her sudden confession made even me turn to her in surprise. "At the time, I was with an associate I am Unwilling to talk about who saved my life. Previously, I had been in a group called the Necromancer Guild and realized things were going south at the last moment and joined this associate to exit the Empire."

My eyes had narrowed, and I could not help but ask, "Is this associate part of the Empire?" I asked.

"From the amount of Empire Soldiers and commanders she killed in our escape?" Taylor replied, "No, I don't believe she is. Although I wonder if her associates would still be around," Taylor seemed to think. "I might be able to help you contact them, although I am unsure what has been happening with them since I dropped out of contact with the associate a while ago. Still, The group I was a part of is who I think you are more interested in?" Taylor ended up making it sound like a question, and the Elders and the War Chief nodded.

"Well, I have no idea what the final plan was, but our leader was an A-ranked Necromancer who had been hiding in the Empire for a while. I do not know their identity, but they had a grand scheme coming up," Taylor paused and sighed, "Unfortunately, I am a Unique necromancer," Taylor said, getting raised eyebrows from everyone but me. "I am a Life Necromancer and not one that studies Necromancy by the will of the dead. I look at it from a completely different perspective, so I was shunned from most of our community and was never in the Inner Circle despite being a B ranker at the time and a Lich, which would have greater standing in the Necromancer Guild. That being said, I watched the spell being made over Border City." Taylor finished for a moment, licking her purple lips.

"Well, Not knowing the purpose of the spell is an issue, but the consequences are looking like someone almost wanted to turn this into a dead city," Queen Mira said softly.

"I don't know about that, as the living has to have a place to live in order to create the dead," Taylor said, "Necromancy is about death after living. Even Necromancers know that there has to be life first before there can be Undeath. Therefore, I think the Dark haze is only to turn those who die and have remains left over to rise again in undeath, making a City for Necromancers. When the Necromancer was making the spell, though he was just about dead with two of the City's A rankers pinning him down, he brought the spell up a certain degree, and even a large distance away from the city, we felt the Mana building and when the Necromancer Guild leader died the Mana never went away with an incomplete spell." Taylor finished.

I frowned as I thought about it and could see the other elders also thinking about it along with Queen Mira. It seemed like such a bad spell to cast at the end unless your objective was to annoy the Empire for a couple of years. "Maybe the Spell was supposed to bring the entire Skeleton population to him? Or Resurrect everyone who dies?" I said, unsure, "So when they killed him, the Necromancer Leader would just rise once again?" I said my conjecture, completely lacking any evidence.

"Conjecture without evidence will mean nothing. We are not even sure of the true extent of the haze and what is happening inside the City!" Elder Leon suddenly roared.

Everyone could not help but nod, and I leaned back, as did several others, as we stood in the tent looking over nothing but a map of the Border City that spies gathered. I looked at it and looked over the layout of the City and noticed the inner walls, and I realized that we were going to have to fight a lot.

"Fine, The Undead are the undead," I said, gathering attention again.

"Our warriors will not fear the Undead," The War chief said in agreement. "I am more worried about what will happen after we win the fight and take the city when it comes to the undead," The War chief said, mirroring my own thoughts.

"That is my worry," I replied, and the Elders looked at us, "We will have to occupy the City and keep the Civilians working without the same resources. We will then have to keep the Undead in check and make sure that the people we have control over are safe. We need to keep this city moving under the Marshall law of the Beast-kin nation, and we do not have the forces to do so and continue attacking the Empire!"

That made everyone turn grim, "Wait!" The War chief exclaimed, "That means we would lose our opportunity to attack deeper!" She exclaimed, and I rolled my eyes. I had talked to her about this, but I think she never fully believed that we would get this far this easily and was hoping to move a little deeper into the empire.

The problem was that Border City sat in the Empire was a perfect chokehold. It was the end of the line for Empire Logistics, and they could easily transport supplies up to this point. But if we wanted to attack past border City, then we needed to control it, or they could easily attack our supply lines.

"Supreme Commander Chelsea, I know this might be a stupid question, and we have talked about it in the past," The War Chief began, and I already knew the question, "But can we bypass Border City and attack deeper into the Empire?"

"No, No, No," I said three times, "We absolutely cannot, In any way, shape or form, avoid Border City. We cannot attack past it without taking it. We must take it or leave our backs vulnerable. We still have fortresses behind us that we need to take care of, too. We all know this! We cannot, Absolutely cannot, leave Border City behind us. Honestly," I said, pausing, "I don't think we can go much farther than Border City and the surrounding area without leaving ourselves open to the Kingdom of Arlin attacking us. Attacking deeper will bring our forces too damn far away from the Nation!"

My outburst seemed to finally get some thoughts moving in their heads, and serious expressions returned. "Okay," The War chief said, "On that basis, I must agree. I want to take more of the Empire, but I also cannot disagree with your assessment. We need to take Border City, though, and I think-"

The War Chief's words were suddenly cut off as suddenly we heard sounds coming from the front.

"ATTACK! THE EMPIRE IS ATTACKING! NIGHT RAID!" Someone suddenly shouted with mana-enhanced lungs, and The tent exploded as Elder Leon and Lily flew out to cover the encampment; all the tents outside had warriors pouring out into Chaos.

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