Deer antlers, the skull of a boar, the bodies of a wolf, yet with the hind legs of a deer. Such an abomination could not be possible naturally, yet the blueprint of such a creature was laid out in front of Carmen and Kagriss on the ground in the form of pale white bones.
Other complete skeletons of equally unnatural creatures were laid out right beside it, created from countless others. Boar tusks, more antlers, claws…such accessories were placed haphazardly where they shouldn’t be.
There was no doubt that the undead that would result from these creations would be worthless for fighting, with several different body parts fighting for dominance instead of working together seamlessly like an undead made from the corpse of a single animal.
However, the way they lurch and stagger will surely strike fear into the hearts of any onlookers, if not because of their appearance then because of the sheer unnaturalness of their existence.
With the most difficult part of the job done, Carmen sat back on her feet and looked over at Kagriss next to her. “Are you sure you can do this?” she asked.
Logically, undead chimeras were possible. However, what was theoretically possible and what was actually possible were two different things, as Arvel often told her.
She had never seen an undead chimera before.
Kagriss nodded. “I can do it.”
She took one last sweeping look at the skeleton arranged on the ground before her and closed her eyes. She clasped her hands and brought them up to her heart, almost as if she was praying.
Did the undead have their own gods that they worshipped? Carmen didn’t know, but she’d never seen or heard of any evidence that suggested they did, aside from some hearsay and the foolish activities of some cults.
A spell began to take from in front of those clasped hands, and Carmen realized that Kagriss wasn’t praying. Instead, she was merely casting a spell and adopted that pose in order to focus on her spell better. Despite having a head, the true center of an undead is in the center of their chest, like right behind Kagriss’s clasped hands.
With her hands over her center, Kagriss experienced the greatest connection to her magic.
The images within her mind bonded and resonated with her magic, and the construction of the spell proceeded separately.
Carmen had never seen such a complex Raise Undead spell before. Was it because of the difficulties involved in creating a functioning chimera, or because Kagriss was raising an animal rather than a human, or because they were both equally challenging?
Either way, Kagriss was dedicating all of her concentration on the spell. The spell construction was like a house of cards, ready to collapse at the slightest breeze. Carmen held her breath in order to minimize her presence, and in doing so realized for the first time in a long time that she didn’t actually have to breathe.
Naturally, for an undead like her, sitting completely still without moving a muscle anywhere in her body was as easy as breathing—or not. It was like she had become a statue of flesh.
Finally, with a click that Carmen knew she imagined, the last puzzle pieces in the spell construction slid into place. Undead mana poured into the fragile spell, the flow slow and controlled.
Four dark wisps drifted out from the spell. They dove into the bone frames lying on the ground, each spreading to engulf the entire skeletons of the abominations and claiming a body for themselves.
Spent and finished with its job, the construction collapsed, but the spell itself had not run its course yet.
The black mists that engulfed the skeletons seeped into the bones. Black liquid poured from the joints of the bones, connecting together. With scarcely a clack of bone hitting bone, the skeletons shook and stood up on wobbling feet, some adjusting to their balance faster than others.
Purple glows flared to life in each of their eyes until four pairs of lights stared blankly at their creator, Kagriss. Their frames were varied, but each were huge. Even the smallest was the size of a huge wolf that was as tall at the shoulder as Carmen’s chin.
Even larger were the giant animals that these wolves preyed upon, towering over Carmen and even Kagriss, who was much taller than her.
Despite being only bones, the stature of the animals made them intimidating nonetheless, although the unnatural effect that Carmen looked for didn’t really show, since in the end, bones were bones.
Seeing the disappointment on Carmen’s face, Kagriss once again touched her shoulder hesitantly. “Please do not worry, mistress. There is more to come.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
The animated skeletons began to convulse as more and more dark liquid seeped out of the bones to cover the pale. Mana poured out from Kagriss’s hands, feeding the regeneration of the skeleton as muscles formed over the bones, followed by skin, and then fur.
Mottle browns and greens appeared, but the furs from different animals had different colors and textures, so the newly raised undead looked like patchwork animals. If they weren’t so life-like and obviously of flesh and blood, they could’ve been mistaken for dolls made by a twisted doll maker.
But if that hypothetical doll maker was twisted, then what did that make Carmen and Kagriss?
When the regeneration finally stopped, completing the transformation of the corpse into zombies, four monsters stood before Carmen and Kagriss.
The first was an animal with the heavy, brown head of a boar. Two antlers stuck out of its head, guaranteed to deliver a sharp, cutting impact if the animal decided to ram someone. The whole huge head was mounted on the front body of a deer, and the rump and hind legs of a wolf. Talons of an eagle were casted like spurs to knees of the deer, curved cruelly downwards to tear into flesh if the monster ever decided to rear onto its hind legs.
Miraculously, the transition between the different parts from the animal—boar head and deer body, and deer body and wolf rear—were seamless. The colors flowed naturally from one pattern to another, and as the monster tossed its head and skittered almost like a real deer, there didn’t seem to be any disconnect or dissonance in its movements aside from the normal undead lack of coordination. But even that was minimized thanks to the perfect condition the muscles of the body were in.
Now Carmen knew why Kagriss had concentrated so hard on the spell.
The four undead before them were true masterpieces of creation, the result of combining several animals into one not only physically but mentally.
Those dark wisps were souls of undeath that Kagriss created specifically to override the natural instincts of the various bodies and provide instructions on how the new body should work together as a whole.
Now, they beheld the ultimate results—four two-fold abominations of nature, each of them that carried with them a sense of wrongness and dissonance when anyone looked at them, yet the reason would not be immediately clear since the bodies were melded together so perfectly.
And rather than creating weak paper tigers, Kagriss managed to infuse the undead with enough power so that they performed at least on par with undead created from natural animals.
With these monsters, their plan will surely succeed. Carmen shivered as she pictured how these monsters will suddenly attack Fleur and Anne, and what their reactions might be.
A job well done. A smile stretched over her face as she held out a hand toward the zombie monsters that each towered over her.
“As long as an undead was obedient, was not a threat, and provided a benefit to their masters, they were fine…was it?” She echoed the excuses that both Anne and Fleur provided as justification for the mining operations.
Looking at the mindless, golem-like zombies, she could understand why they thought like they did. Even she created, and now planned the destruction of these undeads without qualm.
Only when one of them became sentient would she think differently.
“Well done,” she told Kagriss, who shook her head.
“It’s only expected that I can do this much,” she said. “However, these zombies aren’t very powerful. They merely look intimidating.”
“No, that’s more than enough,” Carmen said. “It’s perfect. You did well. I would never have been able to do this…your skill with undead magic is wonderful.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. The spell, despite being an undead spell, truly was beautiful. She was sure that even Arvel, had he been here, would have said the same.
Not only was the spell beautiful, so were its results.
The primary purpose this time was to scare and not injury. However, the monsters should still be capable of battling to some extent in order to present a credible threat.
What Kagriss had accomplished was perfect.
Faced with Carmen’s compliments, the corners of Kagriss’s mouth turned upwards. Carmen smiled back at her. “Smiling is the way that humans communicate their pleasure and happiness.”
Kagriss blinked at the sudden lesson in human motions, and then her smile grew as if encouraged by Carmen’s words.
The place where they worked was a clearing in the forest where they had plenty of moonlight to see by. Now, the silvery moonlight struck Kagriss, dyeing her skin white until it seemed to glow in a gentle divine light.
Her smile was beautiful too—heavenly, that for a moment, Carmen forgot that she was looking at a lich, but rather a real living woman. Her gaze drifted downwards, tracing down her slim neck and collarbones. The way that they glowed made them look so fragile and precious.
The red cocktail dress was secured by a criss-cross halter, and since Kagriss had casted aside her cloak in order to free up her movements when she helped Carmen pick out and organize the bones of the animal skeletons, her shoulders were bared. Strands of silky black stood out against her skin, split off haphazardly from the rest of her hair that was gathered loosely behind her shoulders.
Finally, her gaze reached Kagriss’s chest. The part of her breasts that the thick straps of the halter pushed against the fabric, indenting where the dress ended. They looked so soft, and Carmen thought that if she touched them, her fingers would just sink in until they were enveloped.
“Mistress?”
“H—huh?” Carmen’s head snapped up at Kagriss’s voice, tearing her gaze away from the woman’s breasts to focus on her face. Her face heated up as she realized what she had been doing. Trying to calm herself, she licked her lips nervously and partially out of guilt. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?” Kagriss asked. “What are you looking at?”
She looked at herself as if trying to find what Carmen had been looking at, and Carmen’s heart pounded harder until she thought it might explode. Yet, she did nothing to stop it. Her blood coursed through her body, faster and faster. Her teeth ached and her eyes throbbed, her vision blurring.
“My breasts… Ah.”
Kagriss’s gaze lingered on her own chest before she looked up again with an epiphany, her violet eyes meeting Carmen’s.
Those eyes that looked as clear as crystal yet as deep as the ocean stared into Carmen’s eyes, and the woman’s hands drifted up to tug slightly on the strap of her halter, only to stop halfway as she sat back, hesitating.
“With your permission, Mistress…I would like to continue my studies.”