Beneath the Red Dragon

The cold, windy chill sweeping across the vast land of barren sand seemed to awaken the endless white bones buried beneath the earth. One by one, fragmented and missing skeletons broke free from the constraints of death and wobbled to their feet.

Boom,

A giant bony claw burst through the surface, its menacing talons lined with long bone spurs dug into the ground. Then, three pairs of enormous bone wings unfurled from beneath the sands, revealing a skull partially split in half, cradled within these wings.

With a thunderous noise, the desert sands exploded upward as a colossal figure with a horned skull emerged, seated atop the sand. In its grasp, a long blade, rusted and fragmented by time, was raised high.

The gaping hole in its chest was nearly the size of a human head, but on this White Bone Giant, it was simply a cavity left when its heart was pierced and broken.

At that moment, an almost immeasurable, countless throng of White Bone Undead rose from their silent resting places, each stepping from death’s shadow wielding fractured, rusty weapons.

There were innumerable human-shaped bones, as well as countless bizarre and unimagined forms of White Bone Undead.

Just before these White Bone Undead emerged from the desert sand, they appeared as insensate and inert as their exterior suggested, lifeless objects devoid of souls.

The next moment, the frigid wind, sweeping from the deepest parts of the desert in an almost solid black vapor, injected these soulless bones with its own essence.

Fwoosh,

In an instant, ghostly fires ignited in the hollow eye sockets of these bones, and within the sighing wind came the echoing calls for souls to return, ringing in these White Bones’ ears.

A voice, as if directly resonating within the soul, echoed with a piercing, mad laughter, ”Awaken, awaken! My warriors, my servants.”

”Go and carve out the hearts of those lives you hate and desire, drink their warm blood, offer their skeletons as a sacrifice, and I will grant you eternal liberation!”

In that instant, countless cries arose from the earth, the souls that had perished in battle leaped out from every corner of the land to enter their lifeless bone forms.

The hollow eye sockets of all the bones flared with a chilling green ghostly fire, and then, endless White Bones collectively turned to stare directly at the only place on this land where life existed.

”Woof, woof, woof,” the urgent barking of dogman soldiers echoed through the quiet camp at night. It had noticed the odd movements of the bones and cried out hoarsely, ”Enemies, undead, bones are attacking!”

The kobold’s shriek snapped the camp from its slumber, and suddenly, in the shadowed side of the dune-backed camp, pairs of eyes flashed with strange lights. The jackal-wolf men and kobolds awakened.

A pair of eyes, akin to red lanterns, also opened. Karon slowly stood up and gazed out at the vast world beyond.

The squinting Mage Hughes and those High Tier Mages unaccustomed to sleeping on sand were abruptly awakened.

Shush shush shush,

The next moment, countless White Bone Undead wielding rusty, broken weapons charged silently, those nearest to the camp slamming into the Magic Barrier, concealed in the air, exuding invisible ripples.

Bam, bam, bam,

The collision of these White Bone Undead with the Magic Barrier stirred up transparent ripples, which were the waves caused by the barrier’s activation.

The first wave of White Bone Undead that rushed forward shattered upon impact with the Magic Barrier, their fragile bodies scattering bones in every direction.

The undead that followed halted before the barrier, and those with weapons swung them, striking the thin, transparent Magic Barrier, causing waves to ripple.

The weaponless White Bone Undead picked up bones scattered earlier, throwing them at the Magic Barrier. Some clawed at it with their bony talons, producing a sound akin to nails scraping on iron.

Even the White Bone Undead whose bodies had shattered, now reduced to just skulls, rolled themselves towards the Magic Barrier under the direction of the cold ghostly fires in their hollow eye sockets.

Within this brief period, the entire camp was heavily surrounded by a sea of White Bone Undead. These skeletons strained to the utmost to deplete the Magic Barrier.

”How long can the Barrier last, Hughes?” Red Dragon asked, its gaze on the approaching squinting mage, in a voice steady and calm, unaffected by the encirclement.

The squinting mage’s expression was one of considerable gravity. Although the mages could easily shatter the White Bone Undead before them, using magic would deplete their magic power.

The mages’ magic power was finite, and the bones before them, at least for now, seemed unlimited. Even though mages could replenish their depleted power with Magic Crystals, excessive depletion could potentially lead to a situation where replenishment couldn’t keep pace with consumption.

”If the Magic Barrier isn’t instantly breached by immense force, then the duration of the barrier’s endurance depends solely on how quickly the magic gemstones in the array are consumed,” Hughes replied, squinting as he looked out at the sky-overwhelmed, land-filling White Bone Undead that crowded the visible space.