Undead Beast Master: Living Solely for My Desires

It was safe to say that after being forced to sacrifice her arm, Solara became enraged; just the mere fact that she had been pushed to such an extent baffled her to no end.

"Just die!" she shouted in pure rage, her eyes glowing menacingly. In an instant, the entire area erupted in raging flames.

Zaroth squinted his eyes due to the abrupt change in lighting.

"Not good," he muttered. The fire began to release deadly smoke that began to seep into his lungs.

His vision began to blur slightly due to the toxins that entered his body.

'If I could have just a bit better control over fire!' he thought, running towards Solara.

Though he possessed the skill of fire control, it was clear that Solara's blessing allowed her to wield the flames far more expertly. Trying to waste mana to stop the inferno or weaken it would be pointless—it simply wouldn't work. So, he didn't even try.

"Fuck," he cursed, slipping into his shadow. While in this state, he was unaffected by the material world and briefly escaped the choking smoke. This form came at a cost.

The mana he expended every second in this state was staggering, and he knew he had to conserve every drop for Luna, who was still locked in battle. He couldn't afford to linger in his shadow for long.

With a swift movement he appeared next to Solara and slashed; however, she seemed to have gotten used to his fighting pattern and counterattacked with no difficulty.

'God dammit!' Zaroth thought, being forced a few steps backwards. His skill Darkgaze didn't help him see past the smoke. He had to conserve as much mana as he could, so he couldn't use skill after skill—even if he wanted to.

His position was getting worse and worse as time went on.

Solara realized that she had gained the upper hand; raising her right hand, lances of raging fire began to form around her.

She began firing them toward Zaroth—not all at once, but one by one.

This forced Zaroth to stay outside of his shadow; if he were to enter it, he would just waste mana, while she could simply wait to send the other lances once he went out.

'Nightshade!'

As a last resort he summoned his panther behind his foe with the hope that she could tilt the scales in his favor.

Fortunately, it seems that his plan worked. Solara only realized she was being attacked from the rear a second before the beast's fangs reaching her neck.

Yet she remained unfazed, using the fire around her she blasted the panther to the side.

But she wasn't done there; the flame wrapped around her body and took the form of wings which gave her the ability to rise high in the sky.

Zaroth's eyes darkened; he had a pretty good guess what was happening. Solara knew that the magma serpent was still fighting against his dragon, so she stopped controlling the magma in its veins.

In other words, she was now at full power.

More and more lances began to form high in the sky only to rain a second later.

'Hellweaver!'

Zaroth summoned the giant spider above him, its massive body blocking the deadly rain.

"Are you just going to hide there?!" Solara shouted, fury in her voice despite her lost arm, relentlessly attacking the spider's shell.

Slowly its exoskeleton began to crack under the attacks, yet the spider didn't move nor did Zaroth come out of his hidden spot.

"So in the end, you're just going to hide," Solara shook her head in disappointment. Lowering her body, she willed a giant firesword to appear in her hand.

A heartbeat later she slashed vertically, splitting Hellweaver and the ground below the beast.

Yet Zaroth's body was nowhere to be found.

"Crap!" Solara's eyes widened, realizing her mistake, but it was too late.

At that moment Zaroth came out of his shadow and shot towards her figure. The flames that were wrapped around the princess's body began to burn his skin, yet he showed no hesitation.

Turning to face him, she met Zaroth only a meter away.

"Halt," Zaroth commanded, a crimson ring appearing in his eyes. He was testing his luck with Midnight's influence skill. Sadly, it seems that Solara's mind was too strong and remained unaffected.

She was about to rise higher in the sky until Zaroth opened his jaw.

Letting out a devastating howl was his last hope—and thankfully, it worked. Solara was stunned momentarily; the flames around her shifted aside under the power of Zaroth's howl.

Moving his body by instinct he stabbed with all his might, piercing her abdomen.

'Let's see you try and cut this part of you too!' he taunted in his mind as both of them crashed to the ground.

Solara coughed blood, she felt her strength leaving her. The flames around them began to disappear since she wasn't able to control them anymore.

"This is for Althea!" Zaroth shouted as he stabbed Solara in her heart, killing her the same way she had killed Althea.

'This nobody dares to—' were the last thoughts she had before death claimed her.

Watching the light in her eyes disappear, Zaroth felt bliss that he had never felt before. A great pressure of his mind had been lifted.

Not waiting for Solara to rest in peace, he opened his mouth and scorched her with fire breath.

He stopped only when her body was gone, now all that was left looked like charcoal.

"Some say that revenge doesn't bring salvation," Zaroth chuckled, gazing at his palms, "These people must be idiots! I have never felt better!" he proclaimed.

But his relief was short-lived; an earthquake brought him back to reality.

"Shit," he muttered as he saw how Luna was still in the middle of fighting the magma serpent.

What was worse, it seems each time she managed to wound the beast it would just go back into the magma in the volcano and heal itself!

'Now that Solara is dead, this thing will run wild unless somebody stops it,' he realized.

While he had evolved his mana core to the Epic-tier, increased his mana reserves, and maybe even opened up more than one space for him to tame a beast, his mana wasn't going to last long enough for Luna to win the fight.

He tightened his grip on his idachi, trying to think of a way to fix the situation, but nothing came to mind. If he ran, the magma serpent would destroy the capital—that much was certain. While he didn't really care about that, the question remained: where would it strike next?

What if it went to the Draconian Empire?

"Zaroth!" A familiar voice broke him from his thoughts.

"Midnight!" he exclaimed.

'True, I can rely on my friends! I don't have to face this mythical beast alone!' he realized.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped by her next words.

"We have a problem!" she warned.

For some reason Zaroth got a terrible sense of déjà vu.

"What do you mean?" he asked, raising his guard.

"It will be faster to show you," she spoke, gripping his hand.

Before he could respond she summoned her wings and both of them flew high in the sky.

"What is it—" he was about to retort but stopped mid-sentence, his gaze going past the wall of the capital.

For there in the distance there was a massive army composed of zombies, skeletons, and all kinds of undead creatures.

A lump began to form in Zaroth's throat as he tried to count them but failed miserably; they were probably close to a million!

"The Graveborn empire?" after a few seconds he muttered softly.

He didn't know why they were using their undead creatures to attack the Crimson Sun Empire's territory. Weren't they united against the Draconian Empire?

"Wait…" his pupils widened as he watched the undead army begin attacking the Crimson Sun troops. Slowly, the people they had killed rose to their feet and joined the undead ranks.

'They're using so many undead creatures at once—and their numbers keep growing… Could their goal be more than just conquering land? Maybe they want to turn the entire continent into an army of undead,'

Suddenly, Zaroth found himself caught between a monstrous undead army and a mythical beast capable of matching Luna's strength.

"Fuck," he cursed, realizing just how royally screwed he really was.