Chapter 739 739 Unclean
Ella had Wolfe stop over the centre of the massed undead army, and began to collect items from her pouch to assemble a cleansing charm. That was proper witch magic, and from what Wolfe remembered, they usually looked like little nets, with feathers or beads dangling from them.
They were supposed to ward away bad spirits and cleanse an area, but most of the ones he had seen as a kid in the Fortress City had been fakes made by the residents of the lower levels in the hopes that they would work a little bit anyhow.
It wasn’t like the services of a witch were that easy to come by.
The charm only took a few minutes for her to weave, with a constant flow of mana borrowed through Wolfe to feed the creation, and then Ella was ready to activate the spell. The effect felt a lot like Mana Purification, but in a more physical sense, and Wolfe watched carefully as it spread through the undead below them.
There was no visible change at first, but with [Detect Hidden] turned up, Wolfe noticed that a few spots free of corruption were forming on the undead below, before being overtaken again by the undead curse.
“It’s no good. If I did them one at a time, this would be easy, but I am not going to be able to cast a cleansing powerful enough to purify these undead as a group.” Ella sighed.
“I guess we should have expected that. If it were that easy, the Saints would have done it at some point in the past.” Wolfe reluctantly agreed.
They had let the undead hordes continue to exist for centuries, despite the fact that some of them were still clearly wearing the remnants of witch robes, so they had to be from the armies that had come to wipe out the Magi.
Well, they might have been created more recently, but these looked like they were truly ancient, with almost all the clothing and equipment on them rotted away, and even the few magical items that they were still wearing had rusted. That shouldn’t happen in less than a century, thanks to the effects of the spell on the item itself.
“If it’s not viable on a large scale, we can to talk to the Fae and see if they have a solution that might work. I suspect that there won’t be one, but they will want to talk to us about repelling this Undead Tide anyhow.” He added.
Wolfe flew them over to where the cargo airplane had landed, and had been unloaded. The strongest of the Fae and Demons in the area were already there, waiting for Wolfe to arrive so that the official meeting could start.
He landed next to the last assistants and his bodyguards, then stepped forward to shake the hand of the Dryad man who seemed to be in charge here.
“Greetings, my apologies for the delayed arrival, we stopped to deliver relief supplies along the way.” Wolfe greeted him.
“Not a problem at all, and I thank you for your assistance. You may call me Jericho, and I am currently overseeing the Free Covens region, as they do not care to have a central government. My role is mostly ornamental, but in events like this, I serve as a relay between towns to pass messages and help them work together for the common good.” The Dryad explained, shaking his head and making the branches of his hair sway and the leaves rustle.
“There are some special weapons here for your elite troops, with much more powerful spells on them than the average rifles. I would suggest that they are reserved for the most loyal of units, or personal bodyguards, as they won’t betray their oath. It would become a political nightmare later if Rank Six and Seven spells were used to assassinate leaders.” Wolfe explained.
“That won’t be an issue. We have already picked out the troops who will be using them and patrolling the front lines, looking for the most dangerous of targets. In exchange, we also have a gift for you. The Fae here in the Free Covens have created massive gardens, enough to feed the entire continent, and with the help of your logistics department, we would like to make a donation to the efforts to prevent starvation in the east.”
That was excellent news. The human nations were barely habitable to begin with, and they were rapidly running out of natural resources and becoming over populated, which was the cause of the Grand Dutchies’ attacks on the Covens last year, so having an area as large as the Free Covens helping with food supplies should take some of the pressure from the eastern nations.
It was also a political olive branch, as many of those nations were now under the control of the Demons. That alone was enough that many hadn’t expected the Dryad to make the offer, but it appeared that he was a big picture sort of person, who was more interested in making sure everything ran smoothly than in faction politics.
“Excellent, we can discuss the logistics of that later, and perhaps I can have the witches here send some potential pilots down for training as we make additional planes to keep up with the demand. The influence of Forest Grove has been growing so fast that our logistics department is still quite strained, and the development of magical aircraft is still in its infancy.” Wolfe explained.
All the elite Demons and Fae turned to look at the cargo aircraft that Wolfe had arrived with. That didn’t seem to be in the infancy of anything to them, but they didn’t know much about human technology, or even how this aircraft worked, so perhaps it wasn’t as refined as the exterior design suggested.
“I will talk to the city leadership, as we have the longest runway. It would make the most sense to base the shipments from here, and have the food brought to us.” The Dryad agreed, already making plans for after the current issue was solved.
“Now tell me, is there any hope of purifying the horde?” He finished.