We raced to the table with the gear Noctarus had taken from Burns and his team. They snatched it up just before the double doors to the outer hallway burst open. Grumpy led a squad of a dozen zombies inside, energy rifles already firing.

I rushed Grumpy, my Titanbreaker hammer appearing in my hand. Drawing deep from my enhanced Agility, I jumped, twisted, and rolled around deadly bolts of energy, crossing the 30 yards in a flash. After a final epic diving barrel roll with a half twist, I rolled back to my feet right in front of a scowling Grumpy and slammed Titanbreaker into his face.

My Strength was already boosted to insane levels from my Alpha title, then doubled again by Titanbreaker. Grumpy exploded into bloody mist, as did the 2 zombies to either side of him also caught by the mighty swing.

Burns and his team of elites moved fast too. A blast of lightning from Burns splattered a zombie off his feet. Jerry appeared in the middle of the zombie squad, punched 2 undead off their feet, then blinked away again, dropping a strange, white grenade. It detonated a second later in a blinding flash of pure white light. The others turned away just as it went off, but no one thought to warn me. Luckily, my goggles kept me from getting blinded.

The white light splashed across the zombies like paint and they screamed, dead skin melting. Nice! I had to get my hands on a few of those.

Hector rushed in behind me, twin longswords carving a couple more zombies apart in the blink of an eye. Sally Rogers hit the group from the left, throwing a weird round weapon that looked like that thing Xena Warrior Princess used in the TV series. It bounced between 4 of the distracted zombies, mostly-severing their heads. They stumbled and collapsed, twitching.

Then Robin arrived. The stocky, brown-haired woman soared up to the ceiling and unleashed a pair of flaming missiles from her hands. They detonated in the right flank of the group, covering several zombies in liquid fire like napalm.

We mopped up the remainder in a matter of seconds. As I triggered Loot and Soul Feed out of habit, I grinned at Hector, who was wiping one of his blades on a piece of fabric.

"Dude! You guys rock."

"You're not the only one doing a lot of fighting," Sally said with a wink that totally shocked me. She'd disliked me from day one. I guess springing her from sure death and killing a bunch of zombies together helped her see the world in a more positive light.

I led the way back to the stairs at a run. Just as we started scampering up, a deep bestial roar echoed up from the dark levels below. It sounded like godzilla swallowed a really good bass speaker.

"Go go go!" Burns shouted from the rear.

Scores of marching feet started clomping on the steps in the darkness below, urging us on. We sprinted up the steps and back to the entrance courtyard. I really wanted to stop in Noctarus's office and loot everything, but we lacked time. A lot of somethings were pursuing.

Shouts and explosions and a terrifying roar greeted us as we exited the castle. My team had descended from the platform like judgment from the heavens and were just wrapping up killing the zombie squad guarding the gate.

Nigel leaped 40 feet across the courtyard, shrunk to his murder kitty size, and landed on my shoulder. He nuzzled me once, then sighed. "Zombies do not taste good."

"I bet. Good job." I petted his head as I scanned the group. They were all there and looked unharmed.

Everyone gathered up and Burns demanded, "Status?"

Tomas said, "We're clear here. Tony is leading a squad of 40 fighters from town. Should reach the lake in 10 minutes. Lake Town has been alerted and are mobilizing all defenses."

"Good," Burns said.

"What about those six-legged monsters that were guarding the crystal?"

Steve chuckled. "When you detonated that bomb, it blew them all to shrapnel."

That was a relief. Those things looked terrifying. I scanned the messages I'd ignored earlier. Sure enough, I got credit for killing those things. Nice.

Jane cocked her head, listening to the sounds of marching footsteps echoing from inside. "Do we hold them here or retreat?"

"Stopping them in the hallway would create a bottleneck and a great kill zone."

"Good idea," Burns said.

Before we could implement the plan, another enormous roar sounded from inside, and the entire back half of the castle exploded in a rain of stone debris that spewed high into the air. Probably sprayed out over a hundred yards. If we'd been on that side, it could have smashed us pretty badly.

"Never mind," I said.

"Outside," Burns added, and we all booked it for the portcullis. We could deal with zombies, but that monster sounded dangerous and if they could detonate other walls of the castle, we'd be in trouble.

I paused just long enough to wedge a lava grenade in the controls of the portcullis before rushing through. When the grenade detonated, the intense lava melted the controls and the portcullis slammed down.

"Why?" Jerry the Flicker Brute asked.

I shrugged. "No need to make things easy for them."

"They have energy rifles. They can shoot through the bars," Tomas said.

"Sure, but it sounds like there are a lot of them. This way they can't swarm us as fast."

Outside, we paused in the thick fog. "We can head south across the floating causeway back for the forest, circle the castle and run past the ships toward Lake Town, or head for the docks and grab a boat," I suggested.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Let's link up with Lake Town," Burns said.

That was probably the best idea. We were in for a full-scale battle, so getting organized made sense. The zombies couldn't swim in the poisoned waters of the lake, so Lake Town would make a strong point to strike from.

We sprinted through the fog for the lake, using the shadowy wall of the castle to orient on. Behind us, a flood of zombies made a racket as they started pouring out of the castle into the open courtyard. A few fired wild shots into the fog, but missed. They couldn't see us, and within seconds we left the castle behind.

I mentally reached out to the werewolf pack. They shone in my mind like a bright beacon, all 45 of them massed together in the center of the forest. With a quick mental command, I ordered them all north to the edge of the marshes at top speed. Within moments, we'd have another powerful army to hit the zombies with from behind.

Even better, it was an army that I was way more willing to sacrifice than other people. We'd have to kill them eventually anyway, and this way they could do some good before dying. Losing my huge stat boosts would suck, but that was a temporary gift I'd known wouldn't last.

The docks, lake shore, and line of long rowboats materialized like hazy ghosts ahead. At the lead of our group, Sally charged onto the wooden dock just as the entire lake blazed with a sinister green light. She stumbled, staggered, and collapsed to the dock in a heap.

"Sally!" Burns shouted as we all skidded to a stop at the edge of the shore.

"I'll get her." Jerry teleported onto the dock beside Sally, crouched to snatch her up, but swayed. He managed to look over at us and wheeze, "Sleep spell."

Then he collapsed next to Sally and snored very loudly.

"Kraken!" Burns swore.

"Move," Ruby shouted, pushing to the front of the group. Two golden chains shot out, wrapped the sleeping pair, and dragged them back to shore. As soon as they reached us, Burns and Hector hefted them and we retreated a few steps.

Ruby checked them but frowned. "They're not hurt at all."

"Just sleeping," Tomas said.

Thankfully, they started to revive almost immediately, but as I glanced out at the lake, a terrible realization made me start swearing a long list of random composer names.

"What?" Jane asked.

Burns's eyes widened in horror after following my gaze. "The entire lake is glowing, so that sleep spell might be covering everything."

"Lake Town!" Robin exclaimed.

"That devious undead Bach!" Jane cursed.

Brilliant, but so very evil. He'd had days to prepare the trap. Noctarus had been the one to suggest the lake for our protection, but the entire thing had been a setup. Why fight us and lose more zombies or werewolves when he could just put us all to sleep and harvest every last one of us to swell their armies?

I could totally hear him saying, "I did the maths. This way is far more efficient."

The glowing green light of the sleep spell seemed to dissipate some of the fog. When I looked back at the castle, the fog was thinning there too. No way that spell should have had such a widespread effect. Was Cyrus messing with the area to make it easier for the zombies to find us, and to force a final battle?

Steve held up a hand to interrupt the argument already brewing between Burns and Robin. She wanted to fly to Lake Town, but he worried she'd get caught in the spell even in the air and just fall and drown.

"I can confirm most of the people in Lake Town are sleeping, but a few have managed to withstand the spell and are activating town defenses."

"How?" Burns asked.

"I have a source."

Few knew of Steve's clones. I didn't blame him for wanting to keep them secret, but he might have to reveal the truth if things got bad enough.

"Can your, ah, sources help?"

He nodded. "I've got 2 there. They're already activating defensive arrays."

Distant shouting echoed through the fog from the direction of the ships.

"That sounds like a lot of zombies," Burns said.

Not good. The strangely thinning fog area didn't extend that far yet, but the effect seemed to be spreading. I got an idea and started to trigger Shadow Walk, linked to Wolf Sight again. Like last time, the entire area opened to my mind's eye. The roiling fog was still full of shadows, giving me a fantastic panoramic view of everything. Standing at the shore of the lake, my range of vision extended pretty far.

I cursed again. "There has to be hundreds of zombies swarming off the ships. They're heading around the shore, moving for Lake Town."

"How can you see anything?" Steve asked.

"Temporary spell."

Ruby said, "Why do that? They can't get to Lake Town. They can't swim in the lake."

As if in response to her words, a flash of brighter light drew my attention. It took a couple seconds to figure out what was going on as the bright lights wreaked havoc with the shadows. A long section of the submerged square blocks that made up the rune matrix that ran through the lake were rising to the surface. In seconds, they formed a floating bridge connecting the shore to Lake Town.

"This is bad," Tomas growled when I told them what I could see.

I cut off my spell before choosing a destination. As I'd hoped, the partial activation of the spell did not consume one of its uses. That might give us a critical advantage through the fog.

"We have to help the town," Sally cried.

"Can we get around past the ships and hit those zombies from behind?" Jerry asked.

Not a bad idea, but just then, the portcullis and the entire outer curtain wall surrounding the castle exploded. The fog had thinned enough over there to clearly see stones blasted out across the entire island, all the way to the marshes beyond. Thankfully, we were out of the blast zone.

Unfortunately, a horde of zombies charged even as rubble rained down. Behind them, a giant monstrosity shouldered its way out of the castle, smashing most of the ancient ruin in the process.

The eight-legged nightmare was bigger than an elephant, its torso a disgusting mashup of many bodies stitched together. Wolves, humans, and some parts I couldn't identify, all worked into a patchwork of necromantic horror. Each thick leg was capped with a hand the size of a truck tire, with 7 fingers tipped with long claws dripping with black poison.

Two serpentine necks stretched from the huge torso, one at each end, each capped with strangely humanoid skulls, except they had the jaws of werewolves. The horrific nightmare seemed too disgusting to possibly be real. Except it was. Identify kicked in.

"Noctarus. Level 59 unique boss. Deathcoil Leviathan. The ultimate evolution of Noctarus's necromantic path, combined with master rune smithing, this unstoppable titan was designed to push back the armageddon of his world. Shouldn't have much trouble squashing a few humans. Noctarus sacrificed all of his potential and most of his necromantic spells and abilities in exchange for raw power in this dominating battle form."

That . . . Sucked. So, ultimate evolution created for pure battle. At least the description suggested he'd lost a lot of his necromantic powers. That was a positive, at least, but it didn't tell us what he could do in this new form.

I could guess. Poisoned claws probably delivered necrotic poison to melt flesh. Rending claws, overwhelming strength, and a bite that probably ripped out the soul. And the bit about combining rune smithing suggested he'd be protected by another overpowered rune shield.

"What the Hela is that?" Sally whispered.

"Bad news is what that is," Steve said, his bow appearing in his hand.

The zombie army pouring out of the devastated courtyard oriented on us and charged. They spread out too, blocking the path around the castle toward those ships. Laser blasts started piercing the foggy darkness. For now, just few and way off, but in seconds they'd get organized and could unleash a withering barrage to fry us where we stood. We were stuck against the sleep-inducing lake with nowhere to run.

"We're banjaxed," Ruby whispered as she glanced at me, fear visible in her eyes. She looked like she wanted me to tell her I had a plan, but my mind was racing too. Things had gone from bad to banjaxed way too fast. We needed time to formulate a plan. We needed . . .

"Form up!" Burns shouted, shaking himself out of his horrified stupor.

"Wait! Everyone gather round me right now!" I shouted, grasping the only idea I could come up with.

"Lucas—" Burns started, but I didn't have time to explain yet.

"Do it!"

I mentally selected Burns, Sally, Tomas, Ruby, and Steve as the group bunched up around me. Then I triggered one of my Party Time tokens and my 10,000 Movie Experience, selecting Pirates of the Caribbean as the movie.

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