Nightmare Realm Summoner

The Night King's warriors may have been made out of shadows, but the weapons that materialized within their hands were solid, glistening obsidian. Distant light caught off their pitch black swords and long, barbed spears. They came from every direction like a tsunami of crashing ink. Their charge was completely devoid of sound. It was a wall of darkness that held death within its rushing waves.

Derek charged into their ranks with a roar, swinging his axe like a madman. The weapon ripped through the dark soldiers even as their own pierced into his own body. His blood splattered across the ground and he was quickly surrounded by a horde of the monsters, blocked from the others' view.

Alex called Glint back to him with a thought, turning left and right as he tried to figure out where the monsters would come from first. It was impossible to tell. They were surrounded. Claire dashed along the ranks of the soldiers, barely keeping ahead of them as she tried to cut them down one at a time.

It was pointless. For every monster she killed, another one rose in its place. The Night King seemed to have an endless source of monsters to call upon — and worse, it wasn't content to just sit back and watch its men fight them.

The black-armored skeleton lumbered forward, its shattered sword repaired by the shadows that animated the army around them, and headed straight for Alex, its molten green eyes locked on his.

Eerie silence consumed the room. None of the shadow soldiers cried out as they were cut or died. The only sound was the scuff of human feet against the ground and the thud of weapons as they slammed home, occasionally joined by the ring of metal on metal and the heavy footfalls of the Night King.

A soldier lunged for Alex. He dodged back, leaving a shadow behind him, but Glint was faster. The Glasmir was like a shimmer of moonlight. His glistening silver cloak followed behind him in a blur as he spun around Alex, carving through the ranks of the soldiers before any of them could get within range.

Their attempts to stab him met nothing but failure. He was too fast, his rippling sword-whip too sharp. The Night King's summons were no match for Glint. Unfortunately, the Night King himself was an entirely different matter.

Glint couldn't take out the skeleton on his own.

Alex's mind spun at a mile a minute as he tried to think of a way they could turn the tides of the battle in their favor. There didn't seem to be any limit to the Night King's powers — and if there was, he suspected they would run out of energy long before it did.

The monster was at the Adept stage. He had no idea how good the foundations of its Mind Palace were — if monsters even had Mind Palaces — so it was hard to guess how large the gap between their strength really was. It would have been stupid to bet on having more magical energy than it did.

I don't think it's got a domain, though. It definitely would have used it before it lost its arm if it did.

More monsters died all around Alex. Shadows splattered and spun across the throne room, forming into new soldiers even as the other ones were cut down. Everyone was fighting as hard as they could.

Claire was still at a huge disadvantage since she had no blood to work with. Orchid had no staff and stood with her back to the wall, flinging small balls of magma at any monsters that grew close to her. Derek was buried under a pile of shadows, but the muted roars and the thuds of a swinging axe coming from his direction showed he had still far from fallen.

All of them were occupied. Nobody was available to turn and try to stop the Night King's advance — which meant it was left to Alex.

Fortunately, Alex was never alone.

Energy prickled against his skin. It spun in the air all around him like tiny, invisible specks of falling ash. With every soldier that Glint cut down, he could feel more of it gather. He could almost smell old earth and dying flowers in the distance.

Almost instinctively, he could tell the nature of the growing magic around him.

It was death. Every single life that had been snuffed out at Glint's hands left a tiny fragment of what it had been behind, lingering in wait for him to harvest it. The pieces were tiny, but their number was great.

Alex suspected that the amount of power each of the shadowy monsters was far lower than it would have been from a truly living being. Calling the Night King's army alive would have been a stretch — but they were certainly something more than dead, and that was enough.

He called on the magic and it responded without reservation. Pallid gray tones painted over the world as Alex reached forward, beckoning to the nothingness like he was calling back a lost child.

Power built within him. It gripped his throat like the skeletal hand of the reaper itself.

He felt Exhume activate.

The Night King thundered toward him, shifting from a stride to a jog. Each of its steps shook the ground as it accelerated, lifting its huge sword and preparing to bring it down horizontally across Alex's chest to cut him in half.

"Princess," Alex ordered. His words bore a physical weight to them, each one driving into the silence like a hammer strike. "Return to me."

A puddle of darkness stretched out from his shadow.

Alex held the Night King's gaze.

It swung its sword.

Wind howled — and a huge arm made of black sludge shot up from the darkness, driving up into the flat of Night King's blade and sending it whistling harmlessly over Alex's head.

Princess ripped herself free from the darkness and flung her considerable bulk into the skeleton while it was off balance, sending both of them crashing to the ground with a resounding bang.

At the same time, Alex felt the power that come from Princess' prior death leave him. Evidently, he couldn't keep his monsters' abilities when they'd been properly back to life.

The Night King slammed its shoulder into Princess, flipping the Drudge and slamming her to the ground with such force that it shook like there had been an earthquake. Sludge splattered everywhere and she yanked her mask into her inky form, protecting it from the impact.

Glint peeled away from the Night King's shadows and turned, sprinting toward the skeleton as it rose.

It swept its huge blade through the air and Glint nimbly danced out of the way. He darted forward again, but instead of trying to pull the strike back and readjust, the skeleton maintained its momentum. It spun in a full circle and brought the sword hurtling back toward Glint at a blinding speed.

Princess lurched forward in attempt to knock the blow awry.

She wasn't fast enough.

Glass shattered. Glint exploded into motes of shimmering mirrors, his body ripped clean in half by the dark shadows at the edge of the boss monster's sword. Energy raced into Alex and he felt the Glasmir's abilities make themselves available to him.

Princess slammed into the Night King's back and sent them both crashing to the ground for a second time. She rained blows down on the large monster, each one sending a tremor through the room.

The back of Alex's neck prickled. He dodged to the side just as a spear punched through the air where his heart had been a moment before. Alex called on Glint's powers — and a silver, bladed wing burst out from his right shoulder.

It slashed through the shadow warrior before he'd even realized what had happened. The monster exploded into motes of black mist, and another one took its place. The soldier lunged and swung a sword at his neck. Alex instinctively brought the wing before himself.

A loud clang echoed out as obsidian struck the wing's mirrored surface and rebounded off harmlessly. Alex's wing twitched and its serrated edge sliced clean through the monster's neck, killing it on the spot.

The new appendage responded to his thoughts almost as if he'd always had it. Unfortunately, he didn't have any time to appreciate the newfound power that Glint had gifted him with.

A whistle split through the air behind him.

Alex threw himself to the side and brought his wing around, wrapping himself within it defensively, but the Night King was faster than he thought. Its huge sword slammed into the wing.

The force of the blow shattered the glass that made up the mirrored wing and sent Alex hurtling back. He bounced on the ground, bowled straight through a shadow soldier, and slammed into the throne room's wall.

Alex wheezed as the air was knocked from his lungs in a rush. Stars danced before his eyes. He staggered to his feet, not letting himself stop moving, and stumbled out of the way of a spear strike.

A rush of energy entered his body, and his teeth gritted.

He hadn't even seen what had happened, but Princess had died.

The Night King strode toward him and readied its sword for another blow.

Alex could feel more death energy lingering in the air. He could summon Princess, Spark, or Glint back right now if he wanted to… but he needed more than just one monster back if he wanted to take out the powerful monster advancing toward him.

He bared his teeth in a smile.

"Claire!" Alex yelled. "I'm making an opening!"

The Night King closed the gap. It swung its sword — and Alex swapped places with the shadow that he'd placed earlier.

He reappeared behind the large skeleton, but it wasn't tricked. It turned toward him almost immediately and burst back into motion. It charged, leveling its sword to run Alex through, but it would take at least a second to close the distance between them.

And a second was more than enough for a single word.

"Encore."