The Corpse Empire

chapter 8 New Technology?

"Fall Back!" Bernard yelled as he jumped out of the corpses range before it exploded. More rained down after it, causing more explosions and the earth to quake.

Bernard skidded to a halt, and steadied his pickaxe. He watched as corpses dressed in mixed clothing of citizens and soldiers jumped down from the cliff in large numbers and began to swarm them.

"Heh, its been a long time since I amused them." Bernard chuckled, his pickaxe raised and ready to attack. Two corpses collapsed after a gun was fired; Nikolai shot two corpses and began to reload. Nikolai, Joseph, and Friday were farther from the swarm, but it began to progress towards them.

"Go away, please" Nikolai requested to Joseph as he ran into battle with his newly loaded gun. Joseph didn't heed Nikolai's words, and pulled out a gun for himself. "Friday, get the gun out", Joseph commanded the corpse as he prepared to run into the mess of corpses.

Bernard took a swing at a couple of corpses with ease. He then noticed a figure approaching very fast towards him. Cloaked in a dark blue cape, brown turban, black trousers, and a mask . The figure groaned a war cry as he leapt into the air and took a swing at Bernard's face. Bernard barely escaped having his face torn to shreds. A cry of frustration fell from its mouth as Bernard kept dodging its attacks. Its weapons were unusual; they were brown gloves with claw like swords sticking out (its like wolverine but are gloves). Bernard felt his back hit a boulder as he was cornered by the figure. It took one more swing, and Bernard dodged it by ducking and rammed the blunt end of his pickaxe into the corpses stomach. It let out a grunt of pain as it flew a distance away from Bernard, with the pickaxe sticking up. As Bernard approached it, it was still moving. Its ribcage had to be shattered from where the axe hit, and blood was oozing out fast. Its red eyes looked at Bernard slowly, Bernard would guess if this figure wasn't a corpse it be looking at him with hatred. Yes, the figure that attacked him was a corpse, but how could a corpse move so swiftly and with agility. It was as fast as a human with years of training in combat.

"I can't believe it", Bernard said more to himself as he began to yank the pickaxe out of the corpses body. "Even they anticipate movement, yet he's just a corpse?"

Joseph wasn't doing well on his end with Friday. The swarm started to spread towards them rapidly, so Joseph aimed at a cloaked corpse and fired. It did hit a corpse, but not the one he aimed for. That one dodged it.

"He dodged?" Joseph said with a shocked tone. The corpse took his shock as an advantage to strike and lunged forward; his hood fell revealing blonde messy hair pushed back by a brown bandanna. It ran at great speed, and leapt or Joseph with his claw like gloves . But before it could land any damage, a shot was heard. A distance away was Nikolai, who climbed onto a small ledge to get some leverage from the chaos and a clear shot of the corpses down below.

"As I said, the future is now", Nikolai said as he began to reload. "Doctor Watson! Zahkar has developed a Necro-unit"

Joseph struggled to push the dead corpse off of him and Friday. 'Necro-unit?' Joseph pondered where he has heard of that. Friday, still crushed under the dead corpse still carried out the command he was given, and began reloading the gun.

"Its the ability for greater exertion at each joint, to be able to choose the most optimal strategy." Nikolai began to explain, "This is not how previous corpses were, they only have one thing left; the desire to kill

Bernard was fighting corpses left and right, more like the first one was harder to kill. Joseph was more on guard, firing at any corpse near and in all directions. Joseph got Friday up fast and ran to regroup with Bernard who was able to shake the damn corpse off for now. Friday, Joseph and Bernard came to a rise on the uneven ground.

'Our aim-all is for these Osvaldo technologies' Joseph thought as more approached; the necro-unit corpses, more rapidly. Farther off, corpses began to climb the small cliff Nikolai was perched at. " They simply don't end!" Nikolai cried in frustration, reloading his gun again. The ground began to rumble, something big was approaching. The group was shocked to witness a brown carriage descend from around the corner of the mountain and incoming at full speed towards them. 

The Driver wore all black suit, sunglasses and a hat. At the top of the carriage a small door was flipped open and emerged a woman dressed in a white summer dress with sheer sleeves and grey veil shawl. White gloves with a gold trim at the top, and a white hat decorated with white roses and gold feathers. Completely different fashion from the usual gowns the women wear in England, more scandalous and revealing. Despite her outfit she was an elegant and beautiful woman. But what horrified Joseph the most was the large blow torch in her hands. As she cranked it up and pulled the trigger to unleash a wave of flames amongst all the corpses that were still coming.

The carriage circle around and and passed Joseph, Bernard, and Friday. A look of shock was plastered on Josephs face as he watched the corpses begin to slow down and fall as they burned. He caught a glimpse of the woman more closely, and there was something familiar about her. Her chest was very busty, her blonde hair that flew out of the hat flowed elegantly in the hot wind of the flames; it almost felt like he was watching her in slow motion. The carriage then took off and escaped when the horde died down. Their job was done, but what worried the group was if they were friends or foes. Joseph stared off where the carriage rode with wide eyes of shock. He then noticed a white rose that fell off the woman's hat flew gently through the air posing as a reminder that what happened was real. It floated towards Joseph and he inspected with with a questioning stare.

He was broken out of his shocked state by Bernard's burly voice." Watson! Hurry up" Joseph looked over to see Bernard having Friday thrown over his shoulder preparing to flee the ever growing flames. They ran to the edge of the cliff and threw a rope down to lower each down to safety.

 "What are you waiting for?"

"N-nothing!", Joseph tripped over his words as he ran to Bernard, Nikolai rolled his eyes and began to lower himself down like it was a second nature. Joseph took a glance over the edge of the cliff. A gust of wind hit him as he saw the distance down.

"Only this... is there no other way?" Joseph said with an uneasy tone looking at the very, very, very steep distance down.

"It's either this or take your chances with the blaze school boy" Bernard said with an uninterested tone, Joseph gulped. "These corpses are just wasted", Bernard said as he watched any surviving corpses attempt to follow with their bodies on fire. Joseph noticed one was still moving better than the others, it was one of the necro-unit ones.

" Bernard"

"What is it?"

"Can I take a corpse as a trophy?"

what the hell does Joseph have planned for these new corpses? find out more in the next chapter.

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