"Someone, anyone... Please! Help us, Save us! We're sorry we abandoned the collective. We were wrong, just please save us! Please!"

"Will you put that damn thing down and pull yourself together?"

Ophelia tugged at the arm of the hysterical girl, who was kneeling on the ground like she was offering prayers. Her head was lowered, a stream of tears and snot cascading down her face as she blubbered and wept in a true, full blown ugly cry. The girls hands were clutched to her chest, holding a device that didn't look too different from a mobile phone, although those devices were long defunct. It was the form her 'Communication Gift' had taken, and which she was currently using to broadcast their location to anyone and everyone nearby. Including those they were trying to escape from.

Ophelia's efforts were unsuccessful, the girl refusing to shift from her position and continued to cry into the device. She briefly considered smashing the device, or even going so far as to kill the girl, so that she would stop acting as a beacon for unwanted attention, but she cast the thought aside.

It was too late now, even if she did do it, the beacon was already lit. Their location was exposed and any further action towards the girl wasn't going to solve it. Plus, she had much more pressing matters to deal with.

AAAUUUGGGGHHHH!

She whipped her head around towards the source of the ear-splitting scream, only to be greeted with the sight of one of her escape companions being toward apart by a fetid beast. A truck sized lion had one of her companions pinned down, its claws piercing through his shoulders and using its weight to bear down on him.

This lion, however, was actively rotting. Chunks of its body was missing, given a clear view at the bones hidden underneath, and what was left was held together with stringy sinew and putrid green flesh. Half of it's skull was on display, with one eye being a simple empty eye socket, while the remaining one was dull and cloudy.

Yet even still, it had found its prey.

Putrid and blackened teeth tore into his flesh without mercy or respite, his blood spilling across the grass. His eyes bulged out in pain and horror, silently asking a question his lungs were too busy screaming to ask. The only question that anyone asked when it was their turn to die. 'Why me?'

The rest of her companions were busy trying to fend off the rest of their attackers, other assortments of undead that had ambushed them all of a sudden, a mix of beasts and humanoids. Some had clawed their way out of the ground, while others had appeared out of god knows where, to quickly surround their group. A feat easily done, since there seemed to be hundreds of these undead, compared to the half dozen members of their ragtag group. It almost seemed impossible to hide so many bodies.

They didn't have much time to think about the logistics of it before they were beset on all sides, only made worse by the trembling and utterly terrified girl that was weeping in the middle.

Gritting her teeth, Ophelia charged forward towards the undead beast, which turned its attention to her and snarled. Chunks of fresh meat hanging from its lips as its blackened teeth were stained red with blood.

As she advanced, although she wore a basic set of leather armour, she carried no weapon nor did she summon one as she charged forth. Instead, a pale light arose from the centre of her chest, piercing through the armour as if it wasn't there.

The snarling, undead beast leapt forward. It's viscera soaked jaws opening wide, ready to devour another morsel, as its claws were outstretched. Yet even unarmed, Ophelia kept a stoic and resolved expression.

"Come forth, Hildr."

The pale light in her chest rapidly engulfed her entire body, until every inch of her was glowing with the same eery light, before it separated. A ghostly faced, identical to her own, pushed its way out of Ophelia and was quickly followed by the rest of a body.

A spectral figure, clad in a ring mail armour mixed with the leather decorators of a Viking, manifested out of Ophelia's body. The spectre, an identical clone of her, rapidly grew in size as it rushed forward to meet the beast.

A helmet, adored with wings, manifested itself on the spectres head. Feathered wings were mounted on her back, folded together so that they appeared like a feathered cloak. Just before she met the beast, a round wooden shield with a metallic centre appeared in one hand, while a spear manifested itself in the other hand.

The spectral shield slammed into the side of the zombified beasts head, the wicked back hand sending the beast smashing into the ground, digging a rut in the dirt as it skidded to an unceremonious halt.

Hildr, the spectral clone, was immediately on the beast. Not giving it a second to regain its senses, she lunged forwards, carried by a flap of her ethereal wings, and plunged the spear down, straight through the empty eye socket of the Lion's skull. The beast shuddered as it's brain was skewered, before flopping down as dead as its body appeared to be.

Hildr wasted no time in moving on, her empty and uncaring eyes locking on to her next target, a zombified woman, and lunged towards them. A blank expression remaining on the spectres face, or should that be Ophelia's face, as it pummelled its next victim in this unrelenting horde.

Ophelia, the real Ophelia, sighed as she watched the spectral Valkyrie join the fray. This was the ability she had gained when she first awakened, her [Warrior's Spirit].

She was about to step in her herself, when a hand latched around her ankle, nearly tripping her. She whipped around, seeing the half devoured face of her former companion snarling up at her with cloudy eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat, stumbling back only to be anchored in place by the iron grip of the newly resurrected undead as a silver streak shot through the air, blowing a hole in the zombies head. The zombie slumped forward, dead after only seconds of being resurrected. At the same time, a tiny mote of light manifested itself from the zombie before disappearing into Ophelia's chest, in the same location that had glowed previously when summoning Hildr.

Ophelia blinked dumbly, looking at the scene in utter befuddlement, until her eyes landed on the instrument of death that had inadvertently saved her life. Stuck in the ground a few feet away from the zombie was a silver arrow made of pure steel, or what appeared like it.

However it wasn't buried there for long as, on its own, the arrow plucked itself from the ground and shot off into the air, turning into a silver streak once more that shot through the heads of zombies. Culling the undead like it was the most simple task in the world.

Cracks of thunder assaulted her ears as bolts of lightning crashed down from the sky, like the wrath of the heavens themselves. At the same time, a bright column of azure flames descended upon another section of the battlefield, the roar of the flames only being out down by the drums of thunder, as the heat of the inferno raced over her even from this distance.

In another section, the opposite was happening, as the undead were drowned by an endless flood of the purest water while an unseen force cut them into shreds faster than she could blink. In other sections, there were even more horrifying monsters destroying the undead. A giant of pure stone and a blob of viscous slime decimated the seemingly endless horde of shuffling corpses as if they were nothing but insects under their boot. For the giant, that was undoubtedly literal.

Ophelia, and the rest of her companions, stood in utter confusion and awe as they watched these monsters and the wrath of nature annihilate the undead horde that they had thought was going to be their end. An unsurmountable, endless force, was being reaped like they were crops in a field.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this shocked Lea."

"I don't think I have been, but this is-"

Ophelia replied on instinct at the familiar voice that came from behind, but her voice caught in her throat when her brain finally caught up. It knew the voice was familiar, but it took a few seconds for it to finally realise why it was familiar, and who it actually belonged to.

Her body stiffed, her heart skipping a beat, as she stood there. She turned slowly, as if terrified that she would see nothing and that her minds was playing tricks on her, yet when her eyes locked on the face that belonged to the voice, she immediately relaxed.

She leapt forwards, wrapping her arms around the figure and buried her face into his neck, squeezing him so tight that it seemed like she had no plans to ever let him go again, and part of her truly wanted that.

Tears of unrestrained joy that poured out of her, and endless flood of bottled up emotions bursting forth as the dam had finally been broken. As everything came out at once, this time it was her turn to ugly cry.

Seth wrapped his arms around his sister, stroking her hair softly and simply letting her ball her eyes out into his shoulder, almost sad that her squeezing bare hug was simply too weak to put pressure on his body now. But that ultimately didn't matter, he would just have to get her stronger and keep her safe, until she could hug him properly once more.

Yes... that sounded perfect.

***

Bestial figures receded into the distance, Seth's party becoming specks of shadows on the horizon as they rode off, their numbers larger than they had when they had arrived. All that was left of the undead horde were mounds of bodies and an environment of absolute destruction.

Nothing was left standing. Nothing... but one man, standing tall amongst the countless bodies. Bodies that were steadily disappearing into nothingness, as the man watched the party disappear into the distance.

He clicked his tongue, looking down at the raised dirt that was a makeshift grave for those that perished in the ambush.

"Tch, Lightbringer won't be happy about this. That's what I get for playing with my food. Oh well... there's always next time."

The man muttered to himself before laughing softly. He turned on his heels, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and sauntered off without a care in the world. The area behind him destroyed and ruined, without a single body in sight. Just a lonely graves amidst the destruction.