the battle took nearly an hour, however, it wasn't a waste as he managed to get a few more of those pebbles allowing him to add more to his arsenal of summonable creatures.
All of them came from the goat men, while still holding a grudge for her actions, Walter demanded the map so that he could be on his way to which Flavie was more than happy to give him as she hummed while collecting her side of the spoils.
Upon entering the cold plains, Walter quickly understood why they called it that, and no it wasn't related to the weather, it was because of the atmosphere it had brought a bone-chilling feeling that could make anyone's skin crawl, even if they were a hardened veteran.
after reaching a good enough distance from the rogue, He summoned his monsters to act as his helper/guard/scouts the cleansed rogues looked mature angels as their armor was pretty conservative as they barely had any skin showing other than their hands and the lower part of their face as they were covered from head to toe only their weapons were different from each other, as the archer had a reinforced curved bow, while the other hand a long sword, with a whip.
they both gave him a nod before taking their position near him.
He then checked out his new shaman as this guy, unlike the regular shamans that had a staff and a kris, had a book strapped to his waist while holding a large staff as he knelt towards Walter.
He decided to give them names, he called the archer yin, and the other yang, then called the shaman Hairy for copyright's sake~
Quinn took its usual spot on his head while Jekyll was clattering its teeth while staring towards a certain location.
Curious about this, Walter decided to check the map and discovered something interesting, his clattering undead was staring towards the direction of the burial ground if he was reading the map properly!
excited about this prospect, he decided to let it lead the way~
this decision was something that he quickly came to regret as Jekyll was EXTREMELY aggressive, so any monsters that they could've avoided ended up having to fight against, his throwing knives helped quite a bit but he lost quite a bit of them thanks to how much stronger they were than the monsters he had faced, they were quite skilled too, so thanks to that, Jekyll nearly got unsummoned numerous times, as the rest of us except Quinn were pretty banged up!
That blood hawk went about spamming that blood draining skill thus it was in tip-top shape!
But at least there was some good progress as Jekyll had reached level 8 while Quinn had reached level 16, as for the yin, yang, and Hairy they all evened out at level 4.
the feeling of them growing stronger was always a welcome change as Walter sensed that something within himself was growing making him more perceptive while he wanted to explore what it could be... time wasn't on his side as the closer they were getting to the burial grounds more undead they had to fight against.
So the longer they wait the harder it will be for them, another interesting discovery was Hairy, as long as he could handle the constant mana cost and the strain on his psyche this shaman could summon other dead monsters to do his bidding, however, he was limited to Fallen minions... for now.
Walter welcomed this with open arms as he needs the numbers to increase their survival!
So another two hours of this constant struggle went on of reducing their numbers as Jekyll had gained another skill, which happened to be Club Mastery, thanks to it smashing its enemies with ripped off limbs of the undead it had killed.
making its killing speed increase by a certain degree, as its 'weapons' lasted longer and delivered more damage, yin and yang ensured his safety as they worked together with one restraining the enemy and the other finishes it off or vice versa.
Hairy was currently in a meditative pose while being carried by three fallen minions beside Walter while controlling 40 monsters that formed a perimeter around them preventing any of the other monsters from getting close to them, as Walter supported Quinn with his quill shot that morphed his fingers into something like a gun, it felt uncomfortable to have the insides of his fingers and hands shift to accommodate the quills the moved from his backhand unlike before where it was pretty painful, but he still needed to use some of his health to continuously use this skill.
but the price was worth it, as 30 quills for ten hp for both hands that had the power akin to bullets worked rather well against the undead~
throughout the time he tried different ways to use the skill only to result in a failure as one attempt made him shoot a quill into his own leg and foot as he tried to set the point of exit of the quills his palm.
it was quite a prick in the hand when he first used the skill after his change as all four fingers and his thumb had fired at the same time making him waste most of the quills at first.
Now after using up 500 hp he was a bit better with the skill practicing his headshot accuracy as they got closer to their destination with some good loot and chipped sapphire which he had no idea how to use so he'll have to ask Charsi about it later as his loot also included a few hundred gold~.
Upon reaching the rusty gate to the burial grounds, Walter's skin crawled from the malicious gaze that he received, making a look around hurriedly hoping to spot the person or whatever it was that was giving him such a gaze.
Sadly he wasn't able to find the culprit, but he did notice a large Mausoleum that had glowing red markings on it, obviously made from blood, a large tree with hundreds of bodies dangling from ropes none of them were complete, as even from a distance the scent of blood reached his nose letting him have a whiff of that foul stench.
upon passing the gate began another nightmare, as a hand either rooting or completely skeleton had emerged from the ground, letting him know that the culprit had been waiting for them.
As a feminine mixed with a raspy voice echoed out!
"Join my army of the dead!"
The person who said that was a rogue that wore a goat's skull on her head as a helmet, clad in red and white clothes that exposed quite a bit of skin to lessen her restrictions in battle, as she fired a flaming arrow into the air!
Walter had remembered a certain ability that Silvia used thus he immediately ordered his summons to gather up and had hairy make the Minions raise their shields to protect them as the arrow that his current enemy had fired had split into ten, then those into ten, then once more into ten!
Resulting in a rain of a thousand arrows, all while Walter cursed out...
"FUCKING HELL!!!" (A/N which is kinda funny as the difficulty is akin to that except for the health of the enemies~)