Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 191: I Am Death!

The battle did not begin with a subtle acknowledgement by the commanders of each army, nor was there a great crash of forces. Rather, it was a dull and boring affair. After all, Zander wanted to gauge the enemy's strength.

It was abundantly clear that the undead which followed his enemy were unlike any he had ever seen before. They stood in organized formations while wielding weapons and armor of human origin, and it was because of this that he was extremely cautious about who had dared to intrude upon his domain.

But while Zander did not dare make the first move in this game of chess, neither did Zane command his forces to move. At least not at first. He, too, was trying to gauge the Horde King's actions while spying on him from afar. Though Zane stood perfectly still within a field of tall grass, one could not easily see him, for he was invisible to the naked eye.

Yet there he stood, silently, and still. If one were capable of seeing him, he would be a lone man, standing in a field far away from where his troops were stationed. Zane's armor was as black as night, as was the hooded cloak which obscured his facial features other than the lower half of his face.

It was because of this invisibility, which resulted from his high stealth rating, that Zane could stand perfectly still and not be seen by anyone below his own level. As for those at the same level, they would only be able to see him if he was within five meters of their location, and even then they would really have to focus on his exact location.

The enemy seemed to be perching on a building, watching his forces as they slowly wandered towards the front lines that Zane had set in place. Among their ranks, they were almost exclusively Walkers, with only a hand full of Leapers within them.

If they attacked mindlessly and crashed into his shield wall, the enemy would most certainly be destroyed and with limited casualties on Zane's part. Because of this, he silently gave the order to his army via the horde management screen he had, which allowed him to micromanage each unit as if he was playing a real time strategy game.

He quickly dragged the cursor over with his mind and select all units, commanding them to walk towards the enemy horde while standing in formation. Their movement was slow, taking one foot at a time, but this ensured that the phalanx was well intact.

When Zander saw this, he was amused, as it appeared that the human women in command of these units did not seem to give the order. Clearly, the mastermind of this horde was hiding elsewhere. But where?

This angered Zander, who rashly made a decision to just swarm the enemy army of 1,000 Undead with his own forces.

"Go forth and ravage, my minions, this I command you!"

With this order given, Zander's horde rushed towards the shield wall like a mindless army of zombies, which is exactly what Zane wanted as he issued the command to brace for the impact, and form the phalanx.

The Skeletal Hoplites who made up the front line quickly formed ranks and held their spears in front, while bracing behind their large aspis like round shields. As for the archers in the back, under Lily's command, they began to fire their arrows into the horde.

The arrows forged from Stygian Iron fell from the sky, and penetrated the bodies of the Walkers like a storm of bolts. Turning the undead, who were struck into pincushions as they fell to the floor suffering their second death.

At the same time the Skeletal Man-At-Arms which flanked the front line of Hoplites stood firm, slashing their longswords at Walkers, as the Hoplite slowly took a step back, and another, and another, until the large army of Walkers and Leapers slowly but surely became encircled by Zane's forces.

Zander began to panic when he saw this. It was a strategy which he did not know, probably because he wasn't well versed in human history. If he was, he would recognize the strategy as the double envelopment, which was used by Hannibal at Cannae to obliterate up to 80,000 Roman soldiers.

If Zande had Tier III undead at his disposal, he would use the abominations to break through the ranks of the Skeletal Men-At-Arms at the flanks. But he was a meager Tier I Horde King who was weak even among his own kind.

He did not have any abominations. And thus could not use their massive size and strength to create a path to escape. He began to shout orders at his undead, who were being slain by Sword, and Spear, and Arrow, and Spell alike. Desperate to get them to escape the encirclement they had fallen into.

"Focus! Focus your attacks on the rear! Break out of the encirclement"

Unfortunately for him, the next attack was devastating to his horde of 15,000 or so undead, which was rapidly decreasing with each second. A giant bolt of lightning formed in the sky above. It was not the Tier V Lightning that Olivia had been blessed with.

But rather it was the lower Tier IV chain lightning, which struck in the center of the Undead formation, and rapidly spread amongst Zander's horde, turning the undead within its ranks into mere ashes, but not before spreading the chain lightning to its next target.

It was almost as if the entire center of the encirclement had been struck by lightning, all 15,000 or so of Zander's minions being burnt to ash in a matter of seconds. Leaving all who witnessed the attack in complete and utter shock.

Even Olivia was surprised by how effective her attack had been. But it was all thanks to the careful maneuvering that Zane had done to ensure that not only were the enemy all standing next to each other, but that they couldn't escape the effect of the chain lightning.

That and the fact that all of these Undead were below Tier III, meaning that they would instantly be vaporized by the attack, rather than say severely damaged, but still capable of fighting like a Stalker or Juggernaut would be.

Zander was in a state of complete and total shock. His entire horde had been wiped out almost instantaneously. This wasn't a battle! It was a slaughter! How? How did this happen?

While he was still trying to figure just what the hell had occurred, he heard a slight chuckle behind him, followed by a cold tone.

"How does it feel? To see all that which you have worked so hard to achieve turn to ash before your very eyes?"

Zander was stunned when he heard this voice, because it come from directly behind him, like a whisper in his ear. He instantly turned around, as quickly as possible, and launched an attack at whoever had managed to sneak up behind him.

But after doing so, Zane took the slightest step back, barely even an inch, and yet he completely avoided the attack that would have been lethal had it landed on its intended target, which was his neck.

As if pulling two weapons out of thin air, Zane manifested his two sickle swords in his hands and spun them around. There was an almost excited smile on his face as he spoke his thoughts aloud before launching his attack on Zander.

"This is going to be fun!"

Before Zander could even react, Zane was directly in front of him, launching a flurry of hacks and slashes at his body. Though Zane was fast, Zander was roughly his equivalent in terms of speed. And thus he managed to parry, or deflect, Zane's attacks with his own ability to manipulate his blood into weapons.

The weapon that Zander wielded was like blood that had been turned into a crystal which had been shaped like a rapier. He was nimble, and fast as he pierced towards Zane's chest with such precision that it was almost guaranteed to replace its target.

Zane did not bother to dodge, nor block the attack, instead he cut the palm of his hand with one of his sickles, and spread the blood straight towards his chest, forming an extra barrier of armor which deflected the piercing strike which dared to take his heart.

Though the crystalline armor had shattered upon impact, it bought Zane enough time to launch a strike of his own, slashing Zander across the face.

Zander's coagulated blood oozed from his face as he backed up in fear of Zane's own abilities. The moment he saw the man manipulate his blood much in the same way he himself had done, Zander knew Zane wasn't human, and was quick to point this out.

"You…. You're not human! What are you?"

With a wicked sneer on his face, Zane spoke the words which the Horde King he was fighting found to be nothing but blasphemous.

"I am Death!"

Before Zander could even respond, he found himself frozen in time, followed by the thrust of a blade through his back. It was none other than the Stygian Iron Katan which Elena wielded. And it appeared to have pinned the Tier I Horde King entirely in place, all while Elena spoke the final words that Zander would hear.

"Go to hell!"

After saying this, Elean retrieved her blade and used it to hack off Zander's head in a motion so smooth that even Zane with his superior speed felt like it had been nothing but an illusion.

The last words which the once mighty Horde King had spoken were ones filled with disbelief, as he gazed upon Zane, whose figures were shrouded by the cloak that he wore. One that Zander just now realized was deeply familiar to him and all of his siblings.

"How?"