Dezen have been a mage for a few months, and his quality of life highly increased. However, he still lacked a better bathroom. Luckily, thanks to the Church of Alen he found out, that in the closest city there is a firm producing something similar to our bathrooms, aimed for rich people. Although Dezen wasn't really rich, since he didn't need money, but inside currency of Church of Alen - work points, he could still afford it, using the points that he was saving for mind magic enchanted item, that he currently doesn't need. He would just have exchange the points for money.
That was the first reason he will go to the city named Aren. The second, much more important, was existence of emotion magics. The difference between them and regular magics was, that to create them one needs to feel some emotion strongly during the whole process of creating spell, and they have to be made from almost complete zero.
Dezen knew about their existence for a long time, but he had other important things to do, and the Church of Alen offered him a lot of work points, for testing if necromancy can affect creation of emotion magics. Tempted by it, Dezen agreed and waited.
Overall, Dezen was a really hateful person, but in the past months he learnt how to control himself quite good. He even feared that his hate got a little full. Thus, he decided to go to Aren and see and remind himself how nobles and the kingdom treat its people. This way, he wanted to excite his hate.
Dezen didn't travel via Church of Alen teleportation network, since it would be too expensive. Instead, he traveled using a horse. It was a normal one, not undead, since the Church wanted him to keep existence of the necromancy as a secret.
3 hours passed, and he could behold the city. Over 6 metres tall walls, all covered with a blue barrier, that was also protecting the sky above Aren. From where he was standing, Dezen could see 12 gates, 10 open, which normal people were using, and 2 closed for nobles, Churchs member, and so on.
Dezen was considered by the Church of Alen as someone special, so he was given a special badge, which main purpose was to tell other organisations with who he is associated. It also lests Dezen used closed gates, skipping the checkouts , what he did. And after receiving his new bathroom, he focused meeting his acquaintances from the army, to remind himself the pain he felt there, and what hate it created.
Since it was autumn, it soon got dark. Because of it, and that he felt enough hate, Dezen decided to head back to his home, creating the spell on his way.
While going towards the gates, he saw 5 guards rushing somewhere. Normally he would ignore it, but when he saw Church of Alen mage also going where they went, Dezen wanted to know what is happening.
Following them, he saw dead body of some woman, and a man with blue armour, resting agains a crakced wall, covered with blood, and holding something in his hand.
Dezen didn't know who he is, or who the woman was. He also didn't want to disturb them, so he waited patiently, until they ended examining the place. Thanks to it, he perfectly heard the man blue armour, who told what happened, after a short rest.
- Something entered Aren. I have never heard about such a creature, but it can enter human bodies, and wear them like some clothes. It doesn't use magic, but is still strong enough to fight with mages. There could be more than one, so search the city. I found out something is wrong with that woman, because she was avoiding everyone talking to her. It made me think she is some weak spy, so I approached her and started questioning. She couldn't even tell name of this city, and soon the fight started. I saw it in her insides. - He raised his hand, which held some grey mass resembling a ball. - It should be its real body. Tell about what happened to the others, and if you find more of them, inform the mages. Even if you have enchanted items to fight with, you will die. It will be better if you just try to escape. - The man continued giving orders, and Dezen stopped listening.
He already heard enough, and didn't need to know more, like who is that man. Instead, he once again focused on creating hate magic spell, and became wary that there are more of such creatures in the Aren. This made him leave the city faster than before.
After going through the gate, Dezen quickly activated movement spells, and rushed back to his village.
There, he told what happened to the Church mages, so they won't let random people enter the village. Then, he went to his house and focused on ending the hate magic spell.
The process was mostly easy for Dezen, like it always is for the hate magic creators. The only real difficulty he had to face, was making it possible for this spell to be affected by his hate. It was a feature of every emotion magic, and mages could rely only on their instinct, while creating them. However, that instinct wasn't too detailed.
When Dezen ended, he didn't spend any time to appreciate his work. He knew, that skinwalker could be roaming the forest his undead are patrolling. He wanted to tell them about it, so they would inform Dezen, if they meet the creature. He also wanted to supervise one of his undead, and look for it himself. Such creatures are dangerous, so he wanted to deliver one as an undead to the Church of Alen, and let them find a way to detect them. Besides this, Dezem wanted to examine the skinwalker, since it would benefit him.
The undead Dezen chose, was a creature called knan - maybe half a metre high, with long snout, filled with long, but narrow teeth, moving on 4 legs with knees pointed backwards, which were covered with fur, unlike the rest of their bodies, protected by armour made from their bones.
The creature was running on its own, speeded up by magic. At the same time, Dezen was using spells, to look for any animal acting oddly. To make the chances of finding the skinwalker bigger, he ordered his undead to move towards Aren.
In the next 2 hours, he found nothing. He was sure that the Church of Alen are also looking for it right now, so he started wondering if he should join them. With them, his chances would be higher, and even he fails, Dezen would get paid.
After thinking about for a while, he left most of his undead to continue, and went to the Church, to ask about it.
***
As it turned out, the next Replacement happened, being the 8th in the Alerih Kingdom, in which Dezen lives. It happened the same day Dezen went to the Aren, and what made the Church wary, was that it was 60 kilometres from Aren, setting the record of creatures from Replacements spreading.
The area close to the Aren was already searched, so his undead were sent further, while Dezen himself was safely sitting in one of the Church fortresses. He took with him one of his human undead, to help him supervise the other ones, and not reach limits of his soul too quickly.
Jumping between his undead, and using different searching spells, he found skinwalker, after around 13 minutes. Observing him from over a kilometre, Dezen could see the grey mass leaving one deer, to enter the second one. To his surprise, it stood up, making Dezen wonder if the skinwalker can control multiple bodies.
Dezen informed the other mages about it, but there was still the problem of giving them the exact location of his undead. Therefore, he had to keep the skinwalker in this place, until they arrive.
The undead who Dezen was currently supervising was vanker. Dezen made it fly at the skinwalker, and when it was close, he used the vanker to summon his other undead.
Due to summoning, skin on the vanker's body bulged in a few places. Then, in a split of a second, it teared, and Dezen's undead jumped out of it, then the skin healed.
What appeared there, were vankers, knans, 1 human undead and 1 humanoid wolf. Unluckily, Dezen haven't yet succeded at giving his undead higher intelligence, so only he and the human undead could cast spells.
The skinwalker got first attacked with telekinezis, which lifted its body into the air, and started crushing it.
The creature seemed surprised, but not helpless. To Dezen's shock, both of the deers raised one of their legs, on which the grey mass appeared. It cut them off, to shoot at human undead with the strength of an bullet.
The human undead didn't have time to dogde it, but it wasn't important, since he quickly regenerated.
Before the skinwalker could properly react, Dezen used his new hate magic spell. Black fog appeared and surrounded the 2 bodies, blocking their sights and cutting them, like countless small baldes. The attack was enough to only destroy the deers, not grey mass, which was barley damaged.
Dezen knew it wasn't enough, so he and his human undead created 2 spheres of water, imprisoning and crushing the creature, at the same time, like telekinezis.
The skinwalker also had incredible regeneration abilities, so he wasn't really threatened by Dezen's spells. With relatively calm mind, it tried to cut off part of its body, and shoot it out of his "cage". As Dezen suspected, the skinwalker can control multiple bodies. These 2 deers weren't his only vessels, but he wanted to act like they were. This way, in his opinion, if he doesn't manage to escape, the mage would think he killed it, and he could develop in peace. However, to make it believable, it had to act desperately.
Screaming, the skinwalker cut off multiple part of its real body, and shoot them in different directions, like he hoped at least one of them will escape. Dezen wouldn't let it happen, so he ordered his other undead to catch them. Due to the consistency of the grey mass, it wasn't possible for them, especially that some of it was "sacrificing" itslef, to protect that grey mass, which had bigger chances to escape.
Overall, the undead could only slow down some of them, but to this time, Church of Alen mages arrived, "killing it". In fact, they wanted to catch the creature, but the spells they used caused some damage, so the skinwalker took the opportunity and made his real body turn into liquid - sign of the death of his kind. To make it more convincing, he did the same to his other vessels in the forest, and 1 that was yet not found in the Aren.