[b]"Oi! Bah! You didn't have to banish him, he could've fought on his own too you know!"[/b] Marchosias was mildly annoyed that this guy wasted time and spellslots to dismiss his horse. He didn't even realize it was due to Stitch's own nature as a divine being; to him even if you couldn't utilize the mount as intended, he could have at least improvised. If nothing else, the fear aura from the Nightmare kept the bulk of the garef warriors away, leaving them only to need to deal with the undead. No matter, these guys were going down easily enough. It was just a bit of a chore to chew through them.

Fortunately enough the guy had a plan. He used some sort of spell or magic that created an area-of-effect attack that cleared out nearly all the undead that were in this cave. Marchosias knew it was an anti-undead effect due to how it affected him; a slight shiver down his spine. Now the only thing between them were the regular garef warriors, most of whom where running away due to the fear aura from the Nightmare. They should still be running for the next minute or so, so it was fairly clear from here. Marchosias wished he could summon his Nightmare again, but he needed to wait a few minutes before the cooldown was over; in that time the garef warriors would shake off the fear aura and it'd just be a waste of time. [b]"Forward then."[/b]

Marchosias charged forward, cutting down garef warriors who were still capable of fighting back. He largely ignored the ones who were cowering or still running away from him; he simply didn't care enough to cut them down even if he knew he could kill them easily. He needed to see what was on the other side of this tunnel. Further ahead was some sort of large, black armored being with two huge horns, somewhat similar to the garef. Machosias assumed this was the leader of the Garef considering his size, equipment, and horns, so Marchosias choose to attack the monster quickly from behind in case he was a real threat. He put his shield away, grasping his cleaver with both hands as he focused his furious energies into a single slash. Thanks to the effect of the Executioner Cleaver, the first strike will do massive amounts of damage, exponentially increasing the damage from the Furious Focus power attack.

Marchosias leapt into the air and cleaved through the hulking warrior, cleaving him from head to groin, emerging out from the other side in a single movement. Much to Marcosias's surprise however, he found himself standing in the center of some sort of necromancer circle. There were more undead garef ahead of him, plus a few death worms (One of which was dead), and a pixie flying around. Marchosias would ask questions but he imagined that he was still in some sort of danger, so the first thing he did was activate his Warcry. [b]"WAAAAAAARGH!"[/b] With everyone's attention onto him, cutting down any garef he could reach. And thanks to his speed buff, reaching them was quite easy.

[hr]

The undead berserkers, death worms, and necromancers were having a much harder time than the garef realized. The undead berserkers, said to be stronger than even an elite knight thanks to the garef's superior physical strength and their undead fortitude, were being cut down like blades of grass. Even the death worms, catastrophes of their own, were killed with startling ease. The hide of a death worm was so thick that only magic swords could withstand chipping away at their hides; even weapons made of metals like mithril would fail to pierce without skilled precision, and only the strongest spellcasters could hope to have their magic do much as scratch their skin. And thus it was all the more telling that Xavier, who was using nothing more than his own fists, were punching fist-shaped holes clean through the death worm's hides. The beasts screamed in pain and agony as it fell onto the ground, flailing in pain and crushing everything near it. But even as it did so, it's fate was sealed; shortly after the barrage of blows from Xavier, the worm would die.

The Necromancers themselves were the most surprised. They were expecting resistance. They weren't expecting to be beaten back so badly. They could see their warriors dying in drove and one of their death worms being slain almost immediately after it appeared, and the other Deathworm wasn't doing any better. As the acolytes were debating about retreating, a small pixie arrived and taunted them. They readied their staffs to sling spells at her, only to see her take control of their own undead, siccing them onto the necromancers. Of course it was an illusion and that wasn't actually happening, but none of them realized this. With their own undead attacking them, a few necromancers tried to slay them with magic missiles and burning hands, knowing that their stronger spells had no effect on the zombie warriors; poison clouds or negative energy blasts would do no harm against the undead, intentionally so. Normally the necromancers would cast such spells even with their zombies in the radius so they wouldn't have to worry about friendly fire. They could have never expected that someone would use zombies against them, least of all their own.

The leader of the necromancers and the garef as a whole was both furious and afraid. To see so many years of hard work gathering his warriors, training the acolytes, and taming those death worms, and on the day of their first battle they were taking such horrible losses! But not all was lost. There was still a single ace in the hole that the Necromancer had. It was risky, because even he hasn't fully mastered his control over this mighty beast, but now was the only time he could rely on it to turn the tides. The leader took out a ceremonial knife and stabbed one of his acolytes, using him as a sacrifice to summon his strongest undead. [b]"These people are strong... But not as strong as the DEATH KNIGHT!"[/b]

The body of the dead acolyte quivered and warped as the leader caused it to rise up and grow, it's bones growing armor and shadows condensing into weapons. The body grew two meters tall as it was clad in armor made of blood and shadows, with a gleaming greatsword with a serrated edge. In it's other hand, a massive shield that could easily cover it's entire body, and when it fully formed, the death knight's eyes glowed a searing bright red, so bright that even those at the entrance of the tunnel could see it. And once it was fully formed, the Death Knight split open, spitting out a smaller, but no less fearsome warrior. He was only slightly taller than the garef themselves, but he wielded a massive cleaver taller than him stained the blood of hundreds before him. He barely looked around before releasing a blood curdling yell that got the attention of the necromancers and undead alike as he began to rampage through the ranks. The Garef leader, uncertain of what just happened, considers using this moment to escape. While his acolytes fought for their lives he broke a leaf shaped charm on his mantle which caused him to turn invisible, where he proceeded to sneak away before anyone could kill him.

[@Rune_Alchemist][@Tim][@Zelosse]