When the Ripper turned on itself to purge out what remained of the Weaver, Zadok felt loss. It was almost as if he was losing the Weaver all over again. Whatever being had taken the Weaver's place clearly no longer answered to the name of Weaver, and had no intention of changing that. Much like the Keepers, it seems that the Ripper seeks destruction and power as rewards in themselves. Then Zadok was rocked by the massive surge of power which the Carver sent at the Ripper, and the explosion which resulted. Had he not been safely cocooned inside the Carver that might have ended quite badly for him.

When he heard the Carver speak to him, he nodded in response. They could not allow the Ripper to survive and devour everything. While Zadok would not be able to unleash a pulse as powerful as before, as he had not spent as much time soaking up the Source's magic, he would still be able to deliver a strong blow. He stretched out his right arm and it glowed a brilliant white for a moment before a blinding white beam of holy light shot forth from the arm. On hitting the core the light scattered, dispersing the rays out in a wide flash which should weaken the Ripper.

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Calvartem's hoard had grown in number. As he marched through the streets, walkers had broken off and entered the houses, slaying any occupants they found. Calvartem would then raise those killed as walkers to join his hoard and bolster his numbers. When the soldiers of the town attempted to confront his hoard Calvartem would break their strong formation and leave them vulnerable to being overrun by the walkers. As they approached the keep, Calvartem's hoard consisted of a mix of skeletons, civilian corpses and zombified armed guards. But they would not be enough to breach the walls surrounding the keep. Much of the town had taken shelter behind those tall walls, and most of the army was also assembled behind them, as well as on top of them.

Amongst the archers and mages stood a red-robed priest. "Stand firm, soldiers," he announced, "Caldor shall give us the strength to strike down this unholy being and its false fire! Do not let your faith waiver!"

Calvartem scoffed. They thought whatever god they had could save them from him. As his hoard approached the gate and were fired upon by arrows and fireballs, Calvartem realised that he would need more than just zombies to penetrate the gate. So he raised his staff and commanded, "Breaker, rise!" The shadows engulfing the fleshy orb embedded into the staff dispersed, and moments later twenty walkers or the bodies of those walkers which had fallen slid and rolled across the ground until they merged in front of the castle's gate. Flesh and bone twisted and warped until an extremely muscular 4-metre tall zombie stood at the head of the hoard. Arrows and fireballs were shot at Breaker, but the arrows did nothing to disturb the beast as they poked out of its flesh and the fireballs did nothing but burn its skin. Breaker's fists fell upon the gate, causing it to buckle. The living battering ram continued, ignoring the projectiles raining upon it. After just a few blows the gate had been suitably deformed for Breaker to grab hold of it with its meaty fingers and pry the gate open. The steel reinforcing the gate buckled and bent under the unrelenting strain. Finally the gate was torn open, its hinges shattered. With the way open, the hoard poured inside.

The army had prepared for the attack, but they had not prepared for a one-and-a-half tonne zombie which ignored all their attacks. A squad of musketeers had been on the ready, and all of them fired upon Breaker, but the little balls of lead did nothing to slow it down and the squad was scattered by the charge. As Calvartem watched from the back of the hoard, he saw that Breaker's high resistance to damage made him brutally effective at scattering enemy formations. Calvartem was not passive in this battle, despite the chaos unfolding as the Breaker roamed around and the walkers threw themselves at the soldiers and swarmed around them and up the stairs and on to the walls as well. Calvartem fired bolts of black fire at any spell-casters which seemed to pose any threat, as well as at any tight groups of soldiers, and in doing this he crushed what hopes of resistance the town had while secure behind a hoard of walkers and atop a horse that was blacker than night. He was also sure to raise what soldiers and walkers which fell back up as walkers so they would add to his number.

With-in an hour the town had been sacked of all the living by the hoard of walkers. Despite the victory, Calvartem felt drained, for he had summoned and resummoned hundreds of walkers during the attack as well as the spells he had used to fight directly. Calvartem dismounted from Shadowmane and stood on the cobblestone plaza inside the castle walls, where he struck the ground with his staff. Countless small tendrils of black flame snaked from across the town and merged into Calvartem as all the walkers in the town found a suitable resting place and collapsed, their spirit returned to their master. Then, with a wave of his staff, Breaker's essence left its colossal body and returned to its orb on the Necromancer's staff. While returning his army to death restored him some of his energy, he was still far from full strength.

Calvartem struck the ground again and twenty ghostly imps materialised. "Build me a Death Spire," he commanded simply, and the imps went off to obey without a word, not that they could speak. As the imps got to work, the sky was filled with a flash of light, and a prismatic aurora wove across the sky for a few moments before it faded again. That was a strange sight, and he was not sure what caused it. But it had passed now, so it was no longer of concern to him.

While the imps worked, Calvartem had one thing he could do. One of his ribs had been shot off in the battle. While this was an insignificant injury, Calvartem decided that it should be repaired nonetheless. Walking up to one of the corpses laying on the ground, he outstretched his hand towards it and the corpse's flesh twisted and bulged. Then, tearing through the muscle and skin, emerged a rib bone. It floated out of the corpse and in underneath Calvartem's robes. There was the sound of shuffling bone, and it was done. His hand brushed along his side, feeling the rib which had been replaced, and he was satisfied with the repair job he had done. With no more to do than wait, Calvartem watched his imps as they took apart houses to build the Death Spire.