The Witcher - As Uchiha Madara! - Chapter 127 - Sodden's Hills 07.

[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]
Third Person POV

Northern kingdoms.

...

...

Madara, seeing that everyone was dead, returned to where Geralt was. The witcher was trying to stand up, with some difficulty, as he seemed a bit hurt.

“You massacred them so easily.” For the first time, Geralt had seen Madara in action, and it was nothing short of terrifying for the witcher. He had simply appeared and killed those mages with throwing blades, then unleashed about ten fire blasts upon them, leaving the mages without a chance.

“You took out more than half of them, judging by the bodies I saw before you burned the area,” Madara scoffed.

“...” Geralt couldn’t disagree with his assessment and stayed silent.

“Anyway, step back.” Madara requested, and Geralt took a few steps back as Madara burned the bodies of the Nilfgaardian mages.

“Why did you burn them?” Geralt didn’t understand; after all, Madara seemed in a hurry to do it.

“So they don’t rise again,” Madara said in a neutral tone, and before Geralt could ask what he meant, he continued, “Everything that dies here is rising. There’s a necromancer in this region. My original is facing all kinds of gathered monsters at a distance, as you can see…” Madara spoke, looking toward the side where flames still illuminated the mountain forest.

“So you’re just a clone…” Geralt murmured before cursing him quietly, unable to believe someone could send a clone to kill twelve mages so quickly.

“Don’t worry about that now… I need to know what’s happening here. This doesn’t seem like the work of the Nilfgaardians. I passed through the camps I had cleared out; there were no bodies left… which means this necromancer took them as well,” Madara said seriously.

“How many undead are we talking about?” Geralt asked, frowning.

“Hundreds of them. Maybe even over a thousand, if my estimate is correct…” Madara replied, raising his eyebrow, almost in disbelief.

Madara understood his thoughts and continued, “I know… it doesn’t seem real, but no human could do this… Do you know any creature capable of such a thing?” he asked.

“I don’t know of any creature that uses necromancy at this level, though there are some that can revive one or two to fight at their side…” Geralt said, and Madara nodded.

“Alright… let’s head back to the mages’ camp. I want to see if they know anything,” Madara said, and Geralt nodded, grabbing a potion and drinking it, hoping it would ease his pain. He began to limp slightly as he followed Madara to the camp.

Of the fourteen mages who had come on this mission, only half seemed to be standing there, many visibly injured, in a destroyed area, as they tried to tend to the wounded.

Some cautiously watched the forest, scanning for any remaining enemy. Their vigilance intensified upon seeing Geralt and Madara approach, though they sighed with a bit of relief that it was them and not Nilfgaardian mages. However, they kept a wary gaze, ready to cast a spell, still not entirely trusting Madara.

They had endured a heavy attack in the last assault by the Nilfgaardians and noticed that they were no longer under siege. Geralt had presumably been among the Nilfgaardians, distracting them, which allowed him to kill them at that moment. Despite Geralt’s presence, the attack had been launched, and they were aware.

In the next moment, everyone saw the dragon-shaped explosions appear in the forest, destroying the entire area where the mages were. Madara and Geralt had to navigate around the site to avoid the flames, and now they stood here.

“Did you succeed, witcher?” A mage with the face of someone around fifty years old approached, keeping his gaze on Madara as well, realizing he was responsible for the flames in the forest. “Did you cause that explosion?” he asked, still surprised by the firepower this young man possessed.

“Yes, but the witcher killed most of them,” Madara responded calmly, casting a grateful glance at Geralt.

“How many are injured?” Geralt asked, waiting for an answer as he looked around for Triss, fearing the worst when he didn’t see her.

“Six of ours are dead. We tried to save one, but he just died after losing so much blood. Triss is still alive, but she’s in bad shape. We’re trying to heal her.” The mage answered as Geralt approached, passing by Madara.

Geralt saw several mages gathered around an area where Keira was the most active of them all.

“Triss, stay with me, please. Take this!” she said desperately, handing a few potions to a fallen woman to drink. But Triss was unconscious, half of her body burned by enemy magic, though all her limbs were intact, which would have been worse if it were otherwise.

Keira turned to the other mages. “Can’t we take her somewhere she can recover?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, but we also can’t transport her through a portal out of here. The Nilfgaardian army would detect us, and they might send reinforcements. Worse, we need every mage we have to complete this mission,” another sorcerer in the group said.

“To hell with the mission! We should help her!” Keira shouted angrily.

“Triss knew the risks. There’s nothing we can do. We should carry on with the mission, and at the very least, give her a quick death so she doesn’t suffer…” another suggested, while most seemed to agree, albeit reluctantly.

“No! You can’t be serious!” Keira stood up, looking at Coral. “Coral, I know you’re a cursed narcissist, but even you understand the value of a Northern sorceress!” she said, full of indignation, seeking support from the other redhead.

But Coral shook her head. “Sorry, Keira, but this mission is more important than Triss’s life. Thousands in the North need us to weaken Nilfgaard’s forces. Triss would decide this herself,” she said with a serious, indifferent tone.

“You… witch!” Keira started to curse, but Geralt intervened at that moment.

“I can take her away,” he said, and everyone looked at him with raised eyebrows as he continued.

“I can carry her along the mountain road, and someone can pick her up at the end. I’m a witcher; I don’t think I can help with what you need to do here,” he said, and they all looked at each other for a moment, finally agreeing with his reasoning. After all, Geralt was there at Yennefer’s request to protect Triss, and the state she was in was worse than he had expected. At the very least, he could save her.

“Alright, take her, if that’s her only chance to survive. You can keep her alive for about ten days with potions, but there’s still the problem of notifying Tissaia to pick her up!” the mage raised the issue.

“But we can’t risk opening a portal!” someone protested. They had already made many sacrifices and didn’t want to throw the mission away at this moment.

“Damn it!” Keira muttered, frustrated.

“If you want Yennefer notified to pick her up, I can inform her,” Madara spoke, and everyone looked at him with mixed feelings.

“Can you really inform her? Can you reach Yennefer?” Keira asked, surprised.

“Yes, I intend to head into the war. I’ll be there in a few days as well,” Madara replied as Keira nodded with a sigh of relief. “Please, then, go to her!” she asked.

“Not yet,” Madara interrupted this time, again drawing everyone’s attention. “First, I need to know a few things. After all, Nilfgaardian mages won’t be the only threat you’ll face on this mountain,” Madara said.

“What do you mean by that?” a middle-aged mage asked, looking at him cautiously.

“I need to know first what you know about necromancy,” he asked.

“Necromancy? Like raising the dead? That’s forbidden magic! No one in the North would dare do such a thing. It meddles with laws established by chaos itself!” one mage said, clearly offended by Madara’s question.

“Then can you explain why there are hundreds of undead corpses headed this way right now?” Madara said, pointing to the forest where a nearby section burned with his flames and, in the distance, still glowed. He used a bit of his chakra, still seeing with his Sharingan the area infested with creatures, humanoid in form, moving toward them.

“What do you mean by that?” The mages looked at each other, confused, but then fell silent at the sight of a man in black armor walking alone. Blood stained his neck and armor — someone Madara had killed earlier that day with a kunai to the neck, but now that thing seemed indifferent to it.

“What is that?” The mages were genuinely shocked as they began to see more and more bodies emerging from the forest.

“Is this what you were talking about?” Geralt murmured, approaching and staring in shock, just like the mages.

“Yes, but these are humans. The worst are the monsters.” Madara spoke, watching as only Nilfgaardian soldiers he had killed were now coming toward them.

“This… what is this thing?” The mages were stunned as more and more dead began to appear, forming a true horde moving slowly but still holding swords and spears.

All the mages watched the scene in horror. A woman among them didn’t even notice when her companion began to rise next to her. Her gaze slowly fell on him, seeing her fellow mage with a body partially destroyed by Nilfgaardian magic.

“This…” she murmured, while another mage raised his hand, starting to cast a spell to kill her at close range.

“AHHHH!!!” She screamed, drawing everyone’s attention. But before he could release the spell, a kunai lodged in his skull, killing him instantly. And it didn’t stop there—other dead mages also began to rise, while Madara, acting swiftly with kunai, eliminated them before they could do anything.

“Every being that dies in this area becomes a zombie, which is why I want to understand what’s happening here,” Madara said with a serious tone, as the mages, dazed, tried to process this, having never seen anything like it. First Nilfgaardians, now undead?

Madara ignored them and looked at the horde, trying to decide what to do next. He could simply vanish and pass the information to his original self, but these people would be at the mercy of the dead.

Meanwhile, another of Madara’s clones, which had split off while the original fought the undead monsters, moved toward a region further south, where the Northern mages intended to reach and strike at the Nilfgaardian army.

He hadn’t scouted this region the first time, as he’d been busy identifying enemy camps. He’d put it aside before, but now he moved quickly, starting to see more and more undead as he passed silently above them, perched in the trees.

Eventually, he stopped at an open area that expanded into a vast space filled with even more undead monsters. But what truly caught his attention was the creature floating a few meters off the ground in the center of them all — something unlike anything he’d ever seen or heard of in this world.

The creature wore a pitch-black, tattered, and patched cloak, standing over 10 meters tall. Its body consisted entirely of bones beneath the cloak, with a massive skull and glowing red eyes. It floated in place, lacking visible legs; only its cloak swayed at the lower end.

It seemed to be staring straight ahead, as Madara, hidden in a tree, analyzed it, trying to understand what it was doing there.

However, before he could react, a dark portal opened in front of him, and suddenly a skeletal hand appeared within it, grabbing him and pulling him through before he could dodge.

The next thing he knew, he was facing the creature, which held him in its bony grasp. Despite the initial surprise, he kept calm, analyzing the situation.

“You’re a Lich, aren’t you? I didn’t think creatures like you existed in this world,” he said, studying it, before being crushed, disappearing in a puff of smoke as the creature destroyed him, leaving nothing but a fading cloud.

The original received these insights in that moment, while he finished off the last undead monsters in the fiery area, contemplating what he should do next: go after the Lich or head to where the mages were, given that a clone had reported an army of undead advancing toward them.