As the Alpha of the Silverstar Pack, Rex held complete authority—over the bond connecting him to his pack mbers. With a re thought—he could greatly undermine the connection one-sidedly, leaving them unable to sense his emotions or discern his location.
It was not possible before but he could do it now.
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He couldn't rember when exactly but he reckoned it was after the coronation.
Now that he knew, he constantly used it to not worry the others.
Only the connection to Flunra was intact, he didn't undermine their connection.
Since he was the oldest and, therefore, the wisest—he would not make a fuss whenever Rex was feeling in a typical way. Other than that—keeping the connection with Flunra would also be a thod of communication in case of an ergency.
Rex's clone willed his connection with Gistella back to normal.
He closed his eyes to focus solely on the connection.
Imdiately after he did that, he could feel an invisible string knotting their minds together.
The Demon Moon was influencing Gistella hard right now, she wouldn't be able to control her body and restrained herself from doing sothing rash. Because of that, Rex's clone thought that she was having a fiercer nightmare right now.
But he was wrong, that wasn't even remotely the case.
'Strong beings... hidden'
Rex's clone frowned, listening to the voice inside of Gistella's head.
'A lot of them... Forgiveness is in sight!'
'I can sll them... I can sense them... Death energy! I'll kill them all!'
Upon hearing her last thoughts, Rex's clone's eyelids yanked open suddenly.
Shock could be seen plastered on his face.
"Death energy...? Not death mana?" He mused in puzzlent, the entire forest—should reek, with death mana that was slowly dissipating. But it was only then that he ca to realize the insight behind Gistella's mind. "When?! Since when they are here?!"
Gritting his teeth, Rex rushed to where Gistella was heading.
"Mavok! Gather your forces and follow my trail!"
"Your Highness, what's wrong?!"
"Undead!! It's the Undead!"
...
Several miles from where Rex's clone was, on a secluded section of the Verdantveil Forest.
A house-size tombstone taking the shape of a pointy black spire could be seen, glowing with greenish energy of the dead, pulsating with subtle rings that seed to be an energy station that reached a couple hundred ters.
Surrounding this tombstone was an army of elite and powerful Undead.
An army of the demand that eerily stood motionlessly, they were completely still like statues, capable of tricking—even if there were a spectator. Their ranks are a scary mosaic of morbid soldiers, skeletal beasts, and ghostly apparitions.
Each one of them radiated with combat power and pure death energy.
Judging from the ancient air around them, these Undeads were without a doubt, very old.
Undead of the early generations.
Compared to the latter generations, these Undeads were all Death Knights.
All of them were able to draw power from the Netherworld—that could extinguish the light of the Nirvanaworld. At the center of this army were three high-ranking Undeads—one of them, a massive armored skeleton with a horned skull head had its hand piercing the ground.
Upon closer inspection, its hands weren't piercing the ground but a portal instead.
It controlled a massive amount of pure death energy to create this portal.
Several ters behind this Undead was another portal, and coming out of this portal—was a stream of sparkling, black marbles. One by one, they floated out of the portal, and went over to the tombstone, and rged into it.
Judging from the intense death mana radiating from these marbles, they were order stones.
To be exact, they were the Death Order Stones across the entire Verdantveil Forest.
"How much longer, Zal'Karn?"
"We have no ti. Shadow has been handled. They are coming soon"
"Minutes... I need more minutes... My children, they are late..."
Zal'karn continued to focus on the portal, making the tombstone behind him taller and taller with each Death Order Stone—he managed to seize. He was making great progress, almost the entire forest had been exhausted of its Death Order Stones.
Only a handful was left before he finished exhausting the forest of its resources.
Just then, the Undead on his right—an ethereal green ghost glanced in a direction.
It seed to sense sothing.
"Screeching beads. Scream. Mvask, they are coming." She said.
Even though the other Undead couldn't hear anything, this green ghost could hear screams, and wails, coming from the direction she was looking. All of these high-pitched noises ca from the Screeching Beads she scattered earlier, to warn her of unwanted company.
Nodding his head, the other Undead in confirmation.
Unlike Zal'karn, this Undead, Mvask didn't entirely don a skeletal appearance.
Most of his body was covered in black skin—other than his face, which was only a skull with fangs, donning a crown with five tall spikes that also covered his eye sockets. Turning to the side, a small circular shape mark glowed on its forehead.
"Go, buy us ti..." He commanded, pointing his dagger long, greenish dagger ahead.
As opposed to the army moving, several massive and heavy Undeads stepped forward.
Stomp!
Stomp!
Each step these Undeads took shook the ground, their massive bellies wiggled as they made their way to the very front. All ten of them stepped forward, and instead of going on ahead, a weird sight unfolded.
All of them bent down and went to their knees slowly.
Once in position, their cavernous belly convulsed in rhythmic spasms.
Every grotesque ripple in its swollen form seed to echo with sothing trapped within.
Just then, with a deep, wet retch, the creature's maw opened unnaturally wide, and from its depths erged a stream of gaunt, pale-skinned Orcs. From their ashen flesh alone, shining with dark ichor as they spilled out one after another—it was clear that they were already far from alive.
It kept going and the massive Undead's bellies deflated and showed their natural form.
All of them were slender but the Undead Orcs inside them made them way bigger.
Upon escaping from the darkness, the Undead Orcs stood up.
Following that, Mvask pointed his dagger at them and miraculously, their skin returned to its original color when it was alive, deep brown. Once that was done—the Orc Undeads, moved and sprinted ahead.
Disappearing into the distance.
Once they were gone, Mvask turned to the green ghost.
"It's ti, we should start our hunt"
"Yes."
In the next second, the two high-ranking Undead seeped into the ground and disappeared.
Zal'karn was the only one left behind, continuing to gather the Death Order Stones.
anwhile, Rex's clone galloped ahead, eating up land with each step.
Along the way, he glanced to his right, and saw nurous portals appearing, and coming out of them was a skeletal hand that grabbed the Death Order Stones scattered around. It was a clear indication that he was dealing with the Undead.
How did they get here? How did they get past the Elven sentries? When?!
Countless questions appeared inside his mind.
Now that he knew the Undead was the one responsible for taking the Death Order Stones, he also understood—how they were able to do that. Since they were dealing with Shadow, their attention was focused on it.
On top of that, the death mana in the forest masked their presence perfectly.
It was a strategy so potent that it could bypass the senses of the Werewolves in the forest.
Rex's clone, Flunra, Gistella, Adhara, and even the Alpha Pris didn't sense anything.
Using the short ti it took for Rex's clone, and the others to lure Shadow to the valley—the Undead made their move and took the entire Death Order Stones for themselves. Of course, Queen Shanaela's forces that encircled the forest should detect them.
But once the location of Shadow was identified, the encirclent broke.
Most of the Elves went to see Rex's clone and the others took down Shadow for good.
A perfect chance for the Undead to sweep the forest's resources in one go.
They got us... I wouldn't be able to expect this.
No, I should've. If there's a Lightning Order Beast around, I'll take it down or at least infiltrate its dominion to take Lightning Order Stones. So why wouldn't the Undead co here to take the resources they need and want?
Damn it, I thought my mind was clear but the Demon Moon still made it foggy.
Rex's clone shook his head in annoyance, it was fortunate that Gistella was here with them.
Since Shadow was out of the way, Gistella's senses rang the first.
The Demon Moon drew her to her next strongest opponent and with the forest losing the quantity of its death mana—with Shadow not being here anymore, she was finally able to sense the Undeads that were hiding.
Had it not for that, Rex's clone and the others wouldn't know what happened.
So the big question was since when the Undead camped here?
A mont later, Rex's clone neared Gistella and saw a battle going on ahead.
He dashed closer and saw an Orc fighting another Orc.
"Stop! What is going on here?!" Rex's clone thundered—his voice bood with authority.
Upon hearing this, one Orc stopped moving and went stiff but the other kept going.
Seeing this, Rex's clone closed in the gap, grabbed the Orc by the neck, and threw him away.
"Your Majesty..."
"What is wrong with him? What makes him this feral?"
"I don't know, Your Majesty. I was following Lady Gistella and I encountered more of us ahead—so I approached them to regroup. But once I got close—I was attacked, I almost lost my life because of that"
Rex's clone in reflex—scanned the struggling Orc ters away from him.
Soon, he read the entire stats window and found it was normal until he landed on a section.
He saw the status section showing sothing odd.
"Dead...?" Rex's clone frowned at this.
Concluding that this Orc might be a corpse—that was influenced by the Undead's power—he scanned the Orc with the System once again, this ti searching for abnormalities. But Rex's clone caught the Orc first as it tried to attack again before scanning.
A second later, a notification appeared.
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