Elemental Cats

Toz and the cats followed the wave of death magic and turned toward the zombies they had killed once when they were alive and once when they were already dead.

The Tribe of Death's death magic quickly made its effects known.

The buffalo's amputated limbs flew together and reattached. The heads rolled across the ground and flew up, landing on the buffalo's necks. The Stone Demon's limbs returned to its body, and the cuts and damage Toz had inflicted on it recovered.

After all limbs were reattached and injuries restored to the state of their original death, the Stone Demon and the buffalos stood up again.

Toz sighed. He had managed to overcome his fear of the supernatural and the undead, at least temporarily, thanks to the death magic. Lucy hadn't overcome his fear, but he realized that Toz's conjecture about the zombies being more like puppets was pretty accurate.

However, not being hindered by their fear wouldn't change much. Toz's mind had cleared up since he hadn't brainwashed himself, but he still didn't see a way to defeat the zombies and the robed figures.

The reticent robed figure had used a significant amount of mana, but only if it wasn't compared to the total amount of mana a ninth level mage had. And that was the baseline for every ninth level mage. If the mage had another attribute, which was unlikely but not impossible, the robed figure would have more than enough mana to cast the same spell over and over again. Not to mention how the figure will probably recover mana between casts.

But even if they only have the death attribute, it is very likely that the robed figure, as a member of the Tribe of Death, will still have a noteworthy amount of mana. As a renowned faction of the Transcendent Realm, its members were bound to be elites incomparable to the people of the mortal realm that Toz was accustomed to and knew.

However, if it was one thing that Toz was confident in, it was his mana pool.

He might still be at the sixth level and with only one of his elements, but he had still refined his body and mana with each of his attributes each time he broke through to the next level. And each time he broke through or refined his mana, he did it to his utmost limit, pushing himself as far as he could.

Toz's mana was already beyond anything he had seen others have. So even if the robed figure had more mana than an ordinary ninth level mage of the mortal realm, Toz was confident he didn't necessarily fall behind, even if he was three levels below.

But the question was if that would be enough to defeat the zombie horde and the robed figures, especially when only one of them had shown their capabilities. And even that might only be a fraction of their true skills.

When he thought about it, Toz got eager to try it out, but he quickly restrained himself.

Defeating and fighting against the robed figures wasn't their objective. If they hadn't been in desperate need of achievements so that they could save Taienra, or if there was another way to gain those achievements, Toz would have liked to go all out against the robed figures from the Tribe of Death. But with the current situation, holding back and letting themselves get captured was the best option for Toz and the cats' future.

The momentary satisfaction of releasing all their power in a battle to the death against the robed figures was tempting, and Toz and the cats were all a little fickle, preferring to follow their whims instead of carefully laid out plans. But since they cared for Taienra and wanted to save her as soon as possible, they couldn't indulge in their desires.

Toz knew it. The cats knew it. But none of them liked it. Yet they still held back and faced off against the zombie horde again. They defeated the zombies without any obvious signs of struggle.

They would have taken all the zombies down in a flash if they weren't holding back, but since they were, it took several moments.

But it didn't even take a fraction of the time it took for them to defeat the zombies for the zombies to regenerate and stand up again, ready to fight Toz and the cats.

The frustration of the seemingly endless battle with the zombies and of having to hold back was quickly building, and Toz could sense the cats' worsening mood. But the only thing he could do was quietly soothe them and convince them to stay calm. Mentioning Taienra helped a little, but it also roused their emotions in another way.

Since continuing to fight wouldn't do, Toz persuaded them to hold out a fourth time since they at least needed to find some kind of weakness in the magic or the zombies.

Having an objective helped them endure the senseless fighting. They also noticed that holding back helped them micromanage their mana control.

After defeating the zombies a third time, Toz and the cats resolved themselves to find out each and every weakness of the zombies during the fourth round before pretending to cave and submit while fighting the zombies a fifth time.

But so far, they only had a single lead. Lucy's magic that prevented the robed figures from using the second buffalo leader's corpse.

Toz and the cats wanted to listen to the story since it would be more exciting, but in their current situation, they didn't have time for that. Unfortunately, Lucy's magic didn't make much sense to the others. The only useful thing they got was that he didn't leave a corpse behind.

It made sense.

The robed figures couldn't reanimate the corpses of the dead if there weren't any corpses.

Since it was the only lead they had, Toz and the cats decided to test it out to see if it worked on the already reanimated corpses.