Raising the dead during combat did not allow for fancy preparations. The result was a simple minion. But each fallen enemy reduced their numbers and strengthened our own.

White ibex had armoured heads, deadly horns and a powerful charge. But they were not the best fighters once they stopped running. The limited mobility weakened them a lot. And now that I started raising the fallen they had no chance of winning.

Of course, there was still one problem, something had been chasing them…

My eyes widened when a new creature appeared. It was big. It was the size of an elephant I once saw in the south. But the size was the only thing they shared. The creature looked feline. It had the head of a panther. Its fur was black with white stripes. Its turquoise eyes glowed as it watched the fight.

The new creature sat down and observed. I swallowed nervously as I focused on the battle. I kept raising the dead. My companions kept fighting. Hatsumi added blood bracers to her blood claws to help with blocking the horns. Although she mostly relied on her speed to dodge. It seemed that the battle did not allow her enough time to bite the creatures but she could use the blood from their wounds.

Ivy and Yoru were now sitting on an undead ibex, Yoru was helping defend it while Ivy attacked with her blood abilities. Chariot was still helping Frank.

Nyx had briefly frozen when the giant feline appeared. It allowed an ibex to ram her with its horns. Nyx growled in response but it did bring her focus back to the fight. She retaliated with a necrotic breath right into the ibex' face.

Skadi's blood defences still held. And with every strike of her axe I saw some blood drain from her victims. Her technique was still new but so far it seemed pretty effective.

Cassie was breathing heavily. The joint casting for Skadi's blood armour did exhaust her. But she still had some potions left to throw if needed.

"That thing might be a problem!" Helena shouted while pointing at the giant feline.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I have no idea!" Helena replied, while firing another ice dart at an exposed ibex.

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The new arrival was still observing. A panicking ibex came slightly too close, and the feline struck. With a speed almost too fast to track it bit down. Then it returned to sitting and watching, while chewing its prize.

The remaining battle did not take long. Some of the ibex even jumped down the slope. It was rather steep and there was little chance of survival. I had no idea how big the herd had been but I was in control of seven functioning zombies. There were about eight viable corpses remaining.

Of course, there was a giant feline still sitting there, watching us. We stared at it. And it stared back.

"Does anyone know what this is?" Cassie asked.

Skadi shook her head.

Nyx carefully walked closer. I had no idea what she was doing. "Nyx, be careful!" I warned her.

Nyx nodded, then stepped a bit closer.

The giant feline opened its mouth… "Meow."

I blinked. What?

"Meow." Nyx replied. The giant feline nodded.

One of my undead ibex walked towards the giant creature. It was not me commanding it. Was it Nyx? Then the giant creature started eating my undead.

"Uh… it is eating undead." I stated the obvious.

"It might be undead itself." Hatsumi replied.

"What is Nyx doing?" Helena asked.

I shrugged. "Being a cat."

The whole encounter was bizarre.

"If that is an undead, it has to be tier three, right?" Cassie asked.

"Well, no. You could make a giant powerful creature into a tier two, but it would be a waste of a corpse. It could be a natural undead. Like, a giant cat could have died at a spot with a lot of necrotic mana, or something. But the way it behaves… It probably is a tier three." I reasoned.

"So… is it going to eat us? Keeping the blood armour going is exhausting." Skadi replied, breathing heavily.

Cassie grabbed a potion and ran towards Skadi. "I have got something that might help a bit."

I watched Nyx sitting in front of the giant feline. The giant feline, who was now happily munching on ibex corpses.

"I think we are ok. But maybe we should not loot any corpses. Maybe we should just uh, turn around and go." I suggested.

"Such a shame, those ibex might have been nice mounts." Helena sighed.

The giant creature raised its head again and looked at us. Then it raised a paw and pointed at a relatively intact corpse.

"Uh, does that mean we can have this?" I asked. The giant cat ignored me and continued to eat.

"I think we can grab that." Hatsumi agreed while walking towards the dead ibex. Then she lifted it with a grunt.

"Do you need help?" I asked.

"It's ok for now." She replied.

Nyx turned around and walked back to me. Ivy and Yoru were on Chariot again. I looked at Frank, he would need some healing. His shoulder was a bit torn.

"Everyone ok?" I asked.

"Yeah, just exhausted." Skadi replied, then her blood armour dissolved.

"Ok, I guess we'll just leave now…" Helena said, while eying the feline.

We were ignored.

I noticed that our guards, the mule and Bernd were already gone. They must have retreated further down the mountain already.

"Yeah, let's go." I agreed. I was still rather curious about that creature. But it did not seem to be in the mood to talk. And I had no intention to find out how much interruption it tolerated. So we simply left, while we still could.

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