Chapter B5: Advance or Die

Chapter B5: Advance or Die

There were two new options for Tyron to select from, and he examined them carefully. Every advancement he made in his main Class was a treasure to be treated with care, since progressing and gaining levels was such a difficult process. Truth be told, he was shocked that he’d managed to gain two levels since coming to the Realm of the Dead. The creatures who lived here were dangerous and difficult to kill, far more deadly than the average kin, but he didn’t think that he would be rewarded to this extent for killing them.

Imperator of the Endless Horde had provided Tyron with a number of powerful support options, making him a general capable of leading a massive army of Undead. It suited him in many ways, letting him make the most of his enormous reservoir of magick and command of advanced undead.

The ritual he had been granted along with the Class, Undead Emperator, forced him to become immoble, an issue he’d resolved by creating his spider-like platform construct, but it allowed him to extend his power across his entire horde far more effectively.

While the ritual was active, his minions could draw deeper on his power, reinforcing the conduits between them and causing all his undead to grow stronger at the cost of higher magick consumption. It also enabled the use of other abilities he had been granted through the Class.

Boundless Eye of the Imperator allowed him to see through the eyes of his horde, not just a single minion, even from a great distance. Paired with the Endless Imperator skill he had earned, he was able to interact with his horde from a considerable distance so long as the ritual was active. Wave of Power was another ability only available to him while the ritual was active, allowing him to send a dense burst of Death Magick around him which his minions could drink in, invigorating and strengthening them.

All of which were valuable abilities, but Tyron wanted something more, something he could put his mind to. He was exceptional when it came to casting spells, he knew that much, and so far his Gold Ranked Class hadn’t given him a challenge he could really sink his teeth into.

He could cast spells through his undead, which was exceptionally difficult, but the magick itself wasn’t hard. Rather, the challenge came from the demands and limitations the technique placed on his control. As he considered his new options, he hoped one of them would provide the stimulation he craved.

Fortunately, both, it seemed, would deliver.

Screaming Skull - Work with your minions to launch this siege spell.

Now these were interesting.

Tyron’s eyes lit up as he saw the classifications of the spells. Finally the Unseen was giving him something he could work with. As someone who had long dreamed of being an Archmage, Tyron had memorised the descriptions of every major spell, along with the different classifications they were placed into.

A siege-class spell was not something he had ever expected to see coming out of this Class, but thinking on the matter a little more, it made perfect sense.

These spells were enormously powerful, indiscriminate weapons of mass warfare. Firestorm. Meteor Fall. Glacier. Thorn Eruption. Pillar of the End. Cyclone. All were classified as siege-class magick, and they all had one thing in common: they could not be cast by a single individual.

Spells of this level required multiple mages, all with access and knowledge of the magick, working in harmony to be cast properly. Yet Tyron didn’t need to cooperate with anyone else, he could manipulate his minions to perform the supporting roles while he did the bulk of the work himself. The spell description itself told him as much. The Unseen fully intended for an Imperator to use magickally enabled undead to become an individual capable of casting this most devastating type of spell.

It would be insanely difficult. He would need to manipulate perhaps as many as ten minions while simultaneously casting a high-level, extremely demanding spell himself.

The description was, as always, sadly lacking as to the effect the spell would have, but Tyron was getting used to that. The Screaming Skull, whatever it was, would be, at its absolute peak, a devastating, wide-area spell capable of destroying armies and smashing cities. Of that he was certain.

Pool of Nightmares. A battlefield class spell. Tyron wouldn’t need to work through his minions to cast it, but it was a significant piece of magick nevertheless, with a wide area and powerful effects. These were the kinds of spells high-ranked mages would throw against the endless hordes of kin when beyond the rift.

What intrigued him most about it was the description. Shake the souls of your foes?

Tyron had been putting a lot of work into unlocking the secrets of the soul, and this spell tantalised him. Would the Unseen give him a few crumbs, a handful of morsels that might enable him to reverse engineer the whole cake? If he chose this spell and was provided with a little knowledge, perhaps a sigil or two, then who could say what he might be able to use them for?

Perhaps he would be able to divine an entire new branch of magick, unlock the secrets of soul-aligned arcane energy in its entirety?

No, he couldn’t let himself be swayed so easily. There was no guarantee he would get anything at all. Just because he was currently obsessed with unlocking the secrets of Soul Magick didn’t mean he should favour this spell over the other.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

If he looked at it objectively, the spell appeared to almost be a curse, something that would sweep across a battlefield, causing fear to rattle the souls of his enemies. Effectively some sort of debuff? Weakening the resolve of his opponents?

With the possibility of facing an entire army of the Golden Legion in his near future, Tyron was sorely tempted. If he had a method to make them weaker, he would happily take it. After all, they weren’t likely to stand still long enough for him to launch a siege spell at them.

Even so, he was inevitably drawn to Screaming Skull. He had always wished to wield magick of that scale, and he had never imagined it would ever be possible for him to do it single-handedly.

Unable to resist the power offered, he placed his mark next to Screaming Skull, took a deep breath, then ended the ritual.

The power of the Unseen flowed into him. Knowledge bloomed in him as information flooded through the connection he shared to the Unseen.

When it was done, he collapsed forward, barely catching himself before his head slammed into the table.

That had been… a lot.

Combined with the crushing fatigue that clawed at his eyes and the lack of nutrition that sapped his strength, having so much arcane knowledge shoved in his head was difficult for Tyron to bear. Yet he endured, because he had to. He didn’t have time to rest, nor would it even help him. Every minute that passed, the oppressive environment of the Realm of the Dead soaked into his body, worsening his condition. Even the protection of the Three hadn’t been enough to hold it off indefinitely, and he knew if he stayed too much longer, it would kill him.

Once he’d steadied, Tyron forced himself to stand up, grasping the suspicious orb he’d crafted as he did so.

He would need time to properly study the orb, time to properly learn the new magick he’d gained access to, but time was exactly what he didn’t have. He would have to study while on the move—it was time to make a play.

Either he would crash and burn here and now or survive long enough to return home with a chance to defeat his enemies.

Gritting his teeth against the dizziness that assailed him, Tyron concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. It didn’t take Dove long to find him.

“Holy shit. Tyron! You look like holy shit! Seriously, only a divine creature could push out the kind of concentrated hell required to make a person look like that.”

“Shut up, Dove,” Tyron groaned.

“What the heck is that orb? Also, where the fuck are you going?”

“I’m going to organise the horde to move out of the safe-zone. And stop looking at my orb.”

“I’ve never seen an orb so smooth is all. And… hey… Tyron… hey!”

“What?!” Tyron growled, turning on the skeletal construct, glaring furiously.

Dove jumped back, holding up both hands.

“Calm down. I think you’re in worse condition than you think you are.”

“I’m fine.”

“No… no you’re not. You haven’t even realised you can martial your horde while sitting on your backside in your tent!”

Tyron blinked.

He could, couldn’t he?

Groaning, he pinched his brow and tried to think for a moment. Once he’d found a little clarity, he sent the mental commands necessary and felt the undead come alive around him.

Dove put a skeletal hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright, kid? I know I said you look like shit, and believe me, you do, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this muddled in the head.”

“I have,” Filetta said as she walked over to them, smirking.

“Now is not the time for bedroom humour!”

The Necromancer blinked. He was out of it. Dove was almost sounding like a reasonable person.

“Is that the first time you’ve ever said that?” Filetta asked the undead summoner, hand on her hip bone.

“It is. I thought I might as well try saying it once in my life.”

“You’re dead, though.”

“Fuck.”

As he fought for focus, Tyron tuned out the bickering undead, his eyes drawn to the orb sitting in his hands. It hadn’t changed, the two differentiated coloured clouds still drifting, curling around each other until they combined in the centre of the sphere, then separated again. The process slowly repeated itself in a seemingly endless cycle, without any sort of change.

Something caught his eye, causing Tyron to blink. He peered at the orb, holding it closer to his face. There was definitely something… he could have sworn…

There it was again! What was that?

Frustrated, he held up his free hand and placed it on the surface of the orb and pushed his mind inside so he could observe the energy more closely. After watching several cycles, he still hadn’t been able to pin down that tiny shift that he was sure he’d seen.

The amount of energy contained inside the sphere was so little that it was difficult to sense any changes at all, but there had to be something. The Death Magick was doing what Death Magick always did. He could sense it exchanging tiny motes of energy with other sources of death nearby, which, considering he was standing in the centre of a thousands strong army of undead, was often. It made sense that the black cloud within the sphere was growing larger, although at an incredulously slow pace.

The Soul Magick also hadn’t changed. It remained as before, rotating, mixing, separating, remaining in perfect balance with the other energy form within the sphere.

Tyron tilted his head, catching that thought. It was in balance? Was it in balance? Observing the inside of the orb once more, he made sure of it. Yes, it was perfectly in balance with the Death Magick.

How was that possible? The Death Magick was increasing. Unless the soul-aligned energy within the orb was also increasing in volume at the exact same pace… what he was seeing shouldn’t be.

Except it was.

Had he really created a source of Soul Magick?

As far as he knew, the only place it could be obtained was by scraping it from captured souls. Dove seemed to think so. What would the Death Lords do if they found out he’d made something like this? If they found out it was even possible?

How the fuck had he made it?!

Tyron swayed on his feet, clutching at his head. Filetta and Dove both stopped yammering and moved to his side, catching him before he fell.

“We’re going out to get everything we can before we have to leave,” he said, leaning into them. “And we have to leave soon.”