Marcus found himself surrounded by swirling dark grey sand that had taken the form of a double helix.
This was the manifestation of a mummy lord's greatest power called sands of time.
It was an ability that rapidly aged whatever was inside and ultimately turned most things into nothing but dust.
Truly it was a terrifying power that even if you escaped from would leave lasting damage to any living being. However, this was of no concern to Marcus.
As a ghost he was already undead and could not be harmed by the passing of time. Accelerating his age was meaningless to him and the reason that he had allowed himself to be hit with this ability in the first place.
"You were too quick to attack me. If you had been paying more attention you would have realized exactly what I am and that your powers are worthless against me." Marcus said, smirking.
With the Mummy Lord Baluea focused on his attack and believing that it had already granted him victory, Marcus was easily able to take advantage of his target's lapse in caution.
His scythe in hand, Marcus positioned his right arm far behind his back and took a massive swing towards Baluea.
In one fell swoop he carved into what remained of the mummy lord and left his scythe lodged in its chest.
Dark green tendrils then began sprouting out from the core of the scythe and eating away at the mummy lord.
The powerful an old undead monster tried its best to fight back, but it had been completely caught off guard and was unable to resist being eaten by Marcus' scythe which retained some of the powers of the Doomsday Worm, a monster that had been capable of threatening the entire world.
"Whoa, that is enough!"
Soon all that was left of the Mummy Lord Baluea was his magic core and Marcus had to wrench his scythe back in order to prevent it from absorbing it as well. He did have plans for this core after all.
Marcus reached out and plucked the magic core out of the air and tossed it into his item box. With this he had now secured his secondary goal for coming to the Desolate Desert.
"Looks like it is time for me to leave." Marcus said, seeing several of the other strongest undead coming towards him. He did not have any intention of fighting an endless horde and exhausting himself here.
Still, before he left, he used his magic to conjure his iron golem and the like. Leaving the magically created monsters to fight with the undead and slow them down.
After that he reentered his ghost form and began flying off towards where the others were.
They had been fleeing towards the center of the Desolate Desert and it was not long before Marcus caught up with them.
"How did it go; did you get what you wanted?" Mrazivy asked when Marcus reappeared alongside them.
In response, he smiled and took out the core that had once belonged to the mummy lord, an over level eighty powerful undead monster.
"With this I will be able to make something pretty useful. If we had it now, it would help us out a lot, but I need a few more things before I can make what I have in mind." Marcus said.
Mrazivy asked him what he planned on creating, but Marcus kept it to himself. He figured he would make it a surprise when they had a chance to use the magic item in the future.
Having destroyed a fair number of undead and disrupted the regions, Marcus and his group found it easier than normal to traverse the inner area of the Desolate Desert.
The undead that remained had been whipped up into a frenzy, and as Marcus had planned were chasing after Aziz and his group who were still making a disturbance.
He was leading around the undead and causing a disturbance to keep them from reorganizing. At the same time, he was slowly leading them towards the wall encircling the Desolate Desert where a great number of troops from the Sulb Clan were waiting to attack. Or at elast, this was the plan that Marcus had come up with alongside him.
This left the path towards the Font of Death far less populated than it normally would have been and was a great boon to Marcus.
Of course, Aziz was getting a good deal out of their partnership as well. Marcus and his companions had taken out the strongest leaders of the undead and left their command structure ins hambles. Plus, they were using their magic occasionally to throw their autonomous magically created monsters around to cause more chaos within the depths of the Desolate Desert.
Now Aziz was able to lead the massive horde of undead towards the bulk of his clan's forces instead of having to worry about being attacked anywhere along the wall.
"We are close. I can feel it." Marcus said.
The aura of death that permeated the land had gotten much thicker to the point that it almost seemed visible.
Marcus' stats were also up nearly fifty percent from what they normally would be and he could feel certain desires that he rarely experienced attempting to influence him.
Normally he did not have the urge to devour live as most undead did, but being this close to the Font of Death was dragging out this base impulse that he normally had complete control of. It was similar to the time he nearly lost himself to his Soul Devour unique skill, but not quite as intense. He was able to control himself so long as he did not lose focus.
Of course, Marcus was not the only one that was feeling negative effects from being this close to the Font of Death. Mrazivy, Roxene, Blitz, and Inten had to constantly shield themselves with their mana in order to not be eaten away at. This was simply how powerful and dangerous the Font of Death was.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺