Chapter 18-467: Grading the Curve (1/2)

Twenty minutes, to reach the packed mass that was the edge of the Deadzone just past where the dragon’s teeth formation extended.

This area was utterly packed with undead, literally millions of them jammed tight and not given any viable orders to move in any specific direction. Since the Melees hadn’t thinned them out, they just rammed into the edge of the Deadzone, their compulsion vanished, and the only thing the frantic Congregants could do was tell them to keep moving as they stacked up on top of one another ceaselessly.

There were a lot more survivors of my Pyroclasms now, because there were tons more Congregants and other enhanced undead.

I changed tactics to compensate. The first Arcane Fusion became Twinned Widened Pyroclasm, combined with Widened Pyroclasm.

Three sets of hammering Pyroclasms and all those Kickers was enough to wipe out all the chaff, and seriously injure most stuff below the status of Dark Clergy. Plus, there was so much more packed stuff that my Chainshards could reach almost everywhere.

If they couldn’t, the second Arcane Fusion was Twinned Lightning Cloud combined with Dimension Door to move me along, and more Chainshards to reach out and touch the undead left behind by the Angels, or further to my east if there were enough spare Shards.

It cut my speed in half, but I still annihilated everything, which was the main condition here.

The Shroud needed chaff to support the greatness of its Shroudlord and empower its Congregants. It needed Congregants to channel its power and direct the mindless, obedient minion undead.

The slaughter of so many of them was shrinking the Shroudcloud at unprecedented speed, and I was going to keep it up with these areas so packed with undead that didn’t know what to do with themselves.

Legion and Shvaughn had likewise hit the outside boundary zone, and simply ignited their own Walls of Fire directly around themselves to deter any thoughts of extra attacks, keeping on with their Firewall Sweep and the destruction of maybe a thousand chaff undead a second.

Those behind us couldn’t keep up in the first place, having too many fat and wounded targets left behind to deal with, but that was fine. Wiping Congregants and incorps was exactly what they were supposed to be doing, not trying to prove who had the higher killcount.

Fellowship and Alliance Karma was fair, and just because you killed the most didn’t mean you got all that Karma.

Sama and Briggs kept everybody on point and on task, clearing out a huge chunk of area of any Construct defenses, while the undead who might return to populate it were slaughtered, which would open it up further in the days ahead.

On the far sides of the Shroud, watching eyes noted the blackness of the Hellcloud was rolling backwards, and with it the Deadzone, and the undead manning the defenses and doing the fighting there.

Gradually, inexorably, the undead were being forced to pull back from any fighting and retreat to the next wall... which might not be that easy to do if they hadn’t opened up pathways or were in numbers large enough to get over one. If that ended up the case, the undead just milled around at the base of the wall and were ripe pickings for the Purgers sweeping in to get rid of them.

Slaughter on the far side of the Shroudzone affected the fighting and made it easier all around. Those left off the main fighting laughed and took their gifts where they could find them, cheering on the main teams as they harvested hapless undead who couldn’t retreat in time, and the disjointed commanders trying to adjust to the situation hundreds of miles away affecting them and get commands from those above them.

Independent thinkers, Shrouded undead were not.

----------

Dawn arrived, and with it, the Curse of the Sun.

The Salute to Aru followed the arrival of the dawn as the world turned, and wan sunlight pierced through the haze. Uncountable numbers of undead flared and burned down to ash and less, along with all they held, and left the living alone and staggering as they vanished.

They would be back, thrust forth from the earth itself come dusk, restored by the Shroud to unlife and ready to fight once more.

But for many of them, that rebirth spot would now be moved, because the Shroud and its Deadzone had been pushed back, and they would respawn at the limit of their Shroudlord’s influence, and no farther.

The arc we’d cut through the Shroud was about a hundred and sixty miles long. Its Deadzone worked out to about a hundred miles long, while our dragon’s-tooth fighting line had been a straight line fifty miles across.

The DT line had outright massacred dozens of miles of undead making their way back to the destroyed Deadzone. The line of combat was stained white for fifty miles across two Wallzones, the fighters pulling back slowly all night to let the burning vivus help with the killing.

Casters with Walls of Flame had extended out from the ends of this line, and sat there in full Concentration mode all night, keeping the Walls burning and the undead dying as they moved through them, the tougher things becoming the victims of the elites who’d swept up to back the Casters up, and the many, many shooters ready to harvest them.