After about three days, ship finally reached it's destination. Over the horizon, the Island of the Damned could be seen. It was a most horrific site. The island was soaked blood red. Above the island were dark, evil clouds. It was certain that this was the place.
Luna started to shake. "Alex, It looks so, evil. The very site of it frightens my inner soul." The only response Alex gave to her was a solemn nod, his gaze transfixed on the hellish site ahead.
Nash walked up to the bow and said, "It is indeed an island of death. Not even the sun will go near it." The entire party would never had dreamt that such an evil actually existed. Reluctantly, they sailed closer to the Island.
The ship soon landed on the blood-soaked shores of the island. The stench of death filled the Air.
Alex jumped off the boat, and onto the land. When he landed, his feet sunk an inch into the ground. The floor was not very stable. "This is a very foul place," Alex said as he helped Luna down.
"It certainly smells foul," Kyle added as he got off.
Nash started to look around the island. Finally he said, "It doesn't look as if a soul has been here in years."
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the air, "Oh, that's where your wrong little wizard. There's been souls here all right, thousands of damned souls that is! All forced to do my bidding!" The voice echoed around with an insane laugh.
"Animaxus!" Nash shouted into the air.
"That's my name little one," the voice responded, "though you will soon learn to call me master!"
"The only thing I will ever call you is dead man!" Kyle shouted as he unsheathed his sword, as if to challenge an invisible foe.
"Dead man? Dead man?" Animaxus sounded half puzzled, half entertained. "No, I prefer the name, Master of Death! Now if you want to challenge me go right ahead, reach the island's summit. It's not gonna be easy though with an infinite number of undead soldiers at my command though. Like it or not, soon your souls will be mine! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" The malevolent voice echoed, then faded away into the stench-filled skies.
Alex turned to face to face the rest of his comrades and said, "Well, it shouldn't be that hard to reach the top of this thing." Unfortunately Alex was wrong, dead wrong.
Suddenly Mia's face turned pale. She pointed behind Alex's shoulder and said, "Alex, l..look!"
Everyone turned around and looked to where Mia was pointing to. To there amazement, and utter disgust, the ground started to come alive. Bodies, no, corpses raised up from the ground and started heading towards them.
Kyle could think of only one thing to say: "Oh crap." Kyle took his sword out of his scabbard, "Looks like I'm gonna get some exercise today after all!" Kyle held up his sword and charged at the zombies. With a few brisk strokes he cut all seven of the decaying corpses in two. He looked back at his fallen foes and laughed, "See, I told you it would be easy."
His laughter was cut short when a decaying hand grabbed his foot and dragged him to the ground. "What the!"
"Kyle hold on!" Nash hollered to him, now being dragged into a pit of dismembered, but animated, body parts.
"To what!" Kyle hollered back.
Nash quickly chanted a spell, "Thunder Thrust!" A bolt of lightning struck the hand only a few inches from Kyle's foot. Kyle quickly got to his feet and ran back to the rest of the group.
"It's a good thing you have good aim." Kyle told Nash as he tried to catch his breath.
No one realized but at that same moment, Mia was also chanting a spell. "Flameria!" Mia shouted as a wall of fire engulfed a horde of zombies twelve strong, that were sneaking up behind them.
As soon as they saw this, Alex shouted a command. "Everyone stand back to back!" The group followed. "Make sure we can see all directions all the time. There are too many zombies that can sneak up behind us." Alex led the group, all watching each other's backs, the only way he could think of, up.
Slowly but steadily, the group made their way up the summit. Animated corpses were everywhere. They couldn't go for ten seconds without being attacked again. They were really starting to get discouraged. They were all already tired, and they still had a ways to go.
Then again, as if by an unwritten schedule, they were attacked yet again. This time the force was larger than any other they had encountered so far. "I don't know how much longer we can keep this up, I'm getting tired." Kyle panted, trying not to sound as tired as he really was.
"Yes, and their ferocity has increased ten fold." Nash added in between spell incantations.
Then, as if by luck, or some other force, an idea sprouted in Luna's mind. "Jessica, heal the zombies!"
"What!?" Jessica was surprised and puzzled by the notion of healing her attackers. Luna was soon to explain.
"They are not really evil, but poor damned souls. Try to heal them, purify their souls."
Jessica, now with a little bit more of understanding, cast the spell. "Althena's Litany!" she shouted as a white light enveloped the zombies. The light embraced them and forced a baneful, black energy out of the corpses as they fell, lifeless, to the ground.
Now with an effective way of dealing with zombies, the group was filled with courage once more. Onward they moved, this time going much faster. The summit will soon be at hand, and with that, the end of Animaxus, and Terranox.