"Kill... feed... take the bright soul..." the zombie girl hissed, her voice rising to an inhuman shriek.
Behind him, Kael could hear the sound of bare feet slapping against the stone as the undead creature gave chase. But the resurrection was still fresh—the girl's movements, while unnaturally strong, were still adjusting to her new undead state. Her coordination was off.
Kael's enhanced speed carried him through the long corridor, toward the shop's front entrance. His mana-charged legs ate up the distance, and he could feel himself pulling away from his pursuer.
The normal wooden walls of the shop's front room came into view, along with the blessed sight of the door standing open to the night air. Freedom was just steps away.
But as he approached the entrance, Henrik's puppet body suddenly lurched away from the wall.
The shopkeeper's corpse moved with jerky movement and positioned itself directly in the doorway. Its arms spread wide, blocking Kael's escape route completely. The same white, pupilless eyes stared at him from Henrik's slack face.
"No escape," Henrik's puppet mouth moved, though the voice that came out was the man from the chamber. "The boy stays. The boy feeds us."
Kael stopped just feet from the doorway, his heart hammering against his ribs. Behind him, he could hear the zombie girl getting closer, her movements becoming more coordinated with each step.
He was trapped.
But then he remembered something Nyx had told him during their training sessions—mana wasn't just for enhancement. It could be weaponized directly, concentrated and released in controlled bursts.
Kael took a deep breath and channeled every ounce of his mana into his right hand. He could feel the energy building, crackling along his skin like invisible lightning. His hand began to glow with a faint purple light—the same color of his lust energy.
Henrik's puppet tilted its head, confused by the sudden buildup of magical energy.
That confusion lasted exactly one second as Kael drove his mana-charged fist straight into Henrik's chest.
The impact was beyond anything he had expected. The concentrated mana exploded outward on contact, creating a shockwave that lit up the entire shop front. Henrik's body didn't just get knocked aside—it literally disintegrated, flesh and bone scattered like leaves in a hurricane.
The force of the explosion blew out the shop's front window completely, sending glass shards glittering into the night air. The wooden doorframe cracked and splintered. Even the stone walls of the back chamber groaned under the pressure wave.
Kael himself was thrown backward by the recoil, but his reflexes allowed him to roll with the impact and spring back to his feet immediately.
The doorway was clear.
Without hesitation, he sprinted through the opening and out into the blessed coolness of the night air.
"Aren!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, not caring who else might hear. "RUN!"
Across the street, he could see his friend's silhouette pressed against the baker's wall, exactly where he had been told to wait. Aren's eyes were wide with shock at the explosion and the sound of Kael's voice.
But he didn't hesitate. The moment he saw Kael emerge from the shop, Aren pushed off from the wall and began running toward the village square where the celebration was still ongoing.
Behind them, from within the destroyed shop front, came an inhuman roar of rage. The man's voice, amplified by necromantic magic, shook the windows of nearby buildings.
"FIND THEM! BRING ME THE BOY! THE PURPLE SOUL WILL NOT ESCAPE!"
And then, horrifyingly, other voices joined in. Multiple voices, crying out in unison from within the shop. More undead. More victims who had been turned into servants.
How many people had already disappeared? How many of his neighbors and friends were already dead, transformed into these abominations?
Kael didn't look back. He poured every ounce of remaining mana into his legs and raced after Aren.
They had to reach the adults. They had to warn everyone.
But most importantly, they had to expose Arthur's betrayal before he could deliver any more victims to the necromancers' table.
The celebration lights grew brighter ahead of them, warm and welcoming, but Kael knew that safety was still an illusion.
The real horror was just beginning.