HOTREDD

As the dream began, I was a fighter pilot over the ocean already in battle. I knew I’d have less sleep this night so I went straight into the challenge instead of letting this regular dream play out first. My plane exploded away and I teleported away. It was unclear if the plane was destroyed from the teleportation or from being hit in battle. Rather than instantly appearing, my body traveled through dimensions at extreme speeds causing my entire body to light on fire from the friction. Landing in what would become the challenge’s PR, the flames turned black and blue and covered a crowd of bodies surrounding me.

I was in a large room of a stone fortress, and even though messy flesh was covering the floor I could tell there were summoning magic circles etched into the entire floor. Some of the summoned people were running out a wide opening on one of the sides of the room, and I ran along with them. There were constantly more people appearing from the mass of magic circles even as I ran out. Once outside the flames went out and only my bones were left. I saw others appeared either as skeletons or zombie-like based on how much of their bodies they had left.

Outside the sky was red and there was a massive army of undead on my side and extremely armored humans on the other side. The humans were clearing out our army easily but the constant generation of undead balanced it out. I charged straight for the nearest people, which was a group of two. Most of the undead were slow and getting killed to simple swings, so my first hit was easily able to get through with its speed. They were still alive thanks to their armor, so I had to get in an unfair fight between my punches and their swordplay. Whenever their sword came close I could feel its magical energy, likely an enchantment that made each hit against the undead army a one hit kill.

I began controlling the other undead around me to surround the enemy with a now very skilled army. Increasing the power of each undead’s hits, the armor of the humans started to bend and snap at its weak points. Slowly gaining control over more of the army, I had some go back to analyze the spell that summoned us in. Others climbed for higher ground to get a better idea of the area and some humans were starting to fall back. Not wanting their armor to get too damaged, I got some of the army to grapple the enemy so their armor could be taken off. Pulling the armor from my first opponent, I started putting it on myself as they were still held down.

Some zombies came up with a scroll that had a partial copy of the summoning circles. Placing it on the person, they were burnt and turned into one of the undead. The spell only kept the parts of the original circle that turned people into undead and controlled the undead to be part of the army. With the spell now fully understood, the rest of the army began copying the spell using empty scrolls and torn pages from grimoires taken from defeated opponents.

The part of the army that was scouting the land found a stable and shelter that the alliance used to head into the battle. Having collected a grimoire for myself, I used the part of the spell that teleported us into this world to teleport to the stable. Taking a horse from the battlefield, I head into the stable. There were humans and elves there, but they could not identify me due to the armor completely covering my body. They greeted me, and I went into the shelter by the stable. There was a space to eat and rooms to sleep in the back, with a few other people in the eating area.

I first sat there to listen in on information but one of the people came up to talk with me as we ate. The conversation went well and I was able to get the exact information I wanted much quicker through my own conversation. The average soldier in the alliance saw the undead as mindless and that was reasonable from their perspective but I knew they were still in a way living people from other dimensions. They saw all monsters of the horde that way, either a mindless creation or with the mind of an animal. The war has been going on for thousands of years but it has picked up in the last couple years with humans trying to expand their kingdoms into the horde’s land.

As we talked he was then told to come outside, and as he went out I realized everyone else had left. First going to the back to see if there were people there, I then went to the front where I saw the outside was completely covered in snow and ice. All the people were far away except for the one casting the freezing spell, and I saw all the horses still at the stable were frozen to death. Instead of stepping outside I waited for the person to approach me. They identified me as an intelligent undead. With my identity known, I pulled my helmet off not worrying for a disguise anymore. Using a fire spell from my grimoire, I heated up my sword to cut easily through the door which was frozen shut.

They pulled out a sword with an ice enchantment and we fought in the snow. My sword lost heat quickly each time our blades hit, and the temperature difference made it snap. Despite seeming like a disadvantage, the sword snapping also made the tip of it unexpectedly fly into my opponent’s helmet. The tip was still heated, so it went straight through the front and welded itself in place. I took the opportunity to take their sword and freeze them in place. I then put their sword into my sheathe and kept the broken sword to study its enchantment later. I rejoined with the undead and the dream ended.