Devil's Downfall

Riken is undead, he's been undead for many years, yet he can still remember his life, his power. Riken never thought he truly perished. Seeing it as an opportunity. Ever the optimist, is the last way you would describe him. His death was slow and painful, and it haunts him every sleepless night.

Many say undead are fearless beasts who charge blindly into battle, well that may be true for lesser undead, proper undead fear just as much as any living. 

The durability of a higher undead makes them truly dreaded. You can stab them, cut off their limbs, and even decapitate them and they will still "live", however this comes with the tradeoff of being weak to fire, deadly weak to fire. Far back in the past a famous fire mage defended a castle against an undead horde of thirty thousand by himself. But that is the past, and finding skilled fire mages is very uncommon. 

So now Riken may not be able to increase in strength, but he still made a name for himself as the undead captain, hence his two comrades, all three are ancient undead. As a dreadknight Qortez is a third tier undead. 

The tiers go like this.

Lesser undead, zombies and skeletons are in this tier. 

Mid undead, low ranking Liches are in this tier.

Higher undead, dread knights are here. 

Undead Lord, undead heroes, Liche kings, and bone dragons are in this tier.

Dread Knights are heavy armed tanks that reinforce themselves with death magic. Nikolai is a Death Guard. A rare undead capable of taking on kings, what he has for skill he lacks with brains. Death Guards are considered Undead Lord rank, although they are on the weaker side of undead lords. Riken however is even more unique a fire mage, he's a Night Witch. Night Witches are Higher Undead. Now why would an Undead Lord follow a Higher Undead? Because as a fire mage Riken could incinerate Nikolai. 

Nikolai didn't speak much, but Qortez couldn't shut up. 

"Sir Riken, why are we scouting again?"

"Because It was an order." Riken gave a straight response.

"No, but I mean really, why are we following him? As Higher Undead don't you think we should kill him, and go on our way?"

Riken couldn't help himself but shiver, even though he had no way to actually shiver. "That man, I mean Boss, scares me. You haven't fought him so you wouldn't understand. But when I stared into those eyes…" He paused in horror. " The—y were the eyes of a true devil, no they were righteous eyes, the eyes of someone who's put it all in on a bad hand."

There was silence for a while, but Qortez broke it with a question. "Do you miss being alive?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I have been thinking about it alot lately. When I was alive I could eat and sleep, and I never had these constant thoughts of killing humans. At least I dont think I had those thoughts, now I'm questioning myself."

"Kill, kill, kill." Nikolai chimed in.

"I understand, but you must fight it. It's what keeps us different from those mindless undead." Riken advised.