"Report."
The reaper's voice echoed from my lips, sending a deathly tone reverberating in the air like ripples on water while a stream of abyssal death siphoned in and around the corpse. Like an inversed smoke stack of umbral clouds, my sorcerous arcana billowed around fresh meat, silver blood, and yellowed bone to amass in the shadow beneath it.
From a shaded patch of grass to a tenebrous pit of illogical proportions, the darkness darkened and coalesced and condensed until a necrotic shockwave signaled the breakage of its tension.
In a powerful thrust. A glowing, blue-green cloven hoof broke through its window to the Material Plane. Whipping around, it found purchase on a piece of leg and pulled.
It clawed its way up as it dragged itself down. A leg of ink-gray fur appeared as the desiccated flesh was clawed and bitten and stomped into the pool of darkness below it.
And with a final leap, the reborn unicorn slammed down on its corpse. Sending what remained of its flesh to the Under in place of its soul.
An equal exchange.
Like Grandpa Lich's undead, he appeared to be made of both physical and shadow flesh. His fur held the same sheen and luster, only in a night-black that was leagues better than it'd been before. The fur that'd been around his neck, hooves, and tail had changed to take on the likeness of an ashen gray smoke that lingered in the air around it. And the eyes- like the hooves, glowed in the same blue-green brilliance as the arcana within my Well.
And so too was his horn.
However.
"I have no intention of riding you, was that your choice?" I nodded to the umbral saddle, bit, and bridle and felt a sudden moment of relief in the same instance. Immediately after, I saw myself through his eyes.
I was as I'd been in my past life, for the most part. 1.75 meters tall with an athletic build. Long locs, currently tied in a loose ponytail that hung to my lower back. The only difference in visible light was the pointed ears. But through the eyes of this undead unicorn, I saw something that probed my mind into recalling one thing again and again.
Through a vision much like mine, I saw a vortex of mana settling to a stillness around a black body. A body of humanoid shape. Albeit one devoid of light. It was only made visible through the pale brilliance of… something posed behind me. Like an accretion disk falling around an event horizon, it was the brilliance and deadliness of nature in its purest form.
A black hole.
'So that's what you meant?'
'It is.' The unicorn lowered its horn in sync with its resonant voice humming in my head. 'You are duality personified. That was my first interpretation. Though, perhaps that is not true. You may be the line between opposing things. I am still unsure. However, I am sure you possess both Wickedness and Divinity in you. So, perhaps… neutrality?'
'I prefer freedom. But feel free to standby and think about it for as long as you like, Carbury.'
'I shall cherish the name.' He bowed. And with a single step, dissipated into an umbral stream to cascade into my shadow.
"Now then."
With a sigh, I accessed Peek Pocket and looked through my memory withdraw and organize my kills in chronological order.
All 180 of them.
From there, I separated the 114 soulless ones before I split them into thirds. Minus my first kill.
He was a withered corpse that became my first ever Burning Soul. Unbeknownst to me at the time, both his body and weapon had been preserved for me to raise later down the line. That went for my second kill and every other person I killed under Corvus Tower.
After setting him aside, I gathered two-thirds of the remaining soulless bodies and sent death mana into my voice to shout. "Decay."
The familiar ashen smoke spread from my fingers like snakes lashing out at their prey to burn away the skin, dissolve the flesh, and disintegrate the sinew of 75 corpses before I gathered more mana into my throat.
"Report."
More so than last time, a wave of death bloomed from my Well.
As it flowed into the skeletons, it created a symphony of chattering bones as they began to rise one by one. Driven by my arcane necromantic sorcery, the skeletons jumped to their feet in a near-instant to turn their empty eyes to me and raise their hands in a unified salute.
'Close but no cigar.' I mentally sighed. "Twenty of you will be my labor crew. My Bob's." I pointed to my side. Then paused to watch them immediately divide themselves. "Twenty-five of you will be close-quarters fighters. Fifteen of you will be ranged fighters- either archers, spear throwers, or crossbowmen. Ten of you will be scouts. And the remaining five of you will serve alongside me.
Before I could finish the last word, the skeletons scattered into their groups. An easy feat, considering they retained no memories, skills, or abilities from their past lives. They were all blank slates essentially. Through time, and through absorbing life energy from those they killed, they could gain sentience. But that was a long road.
Unless I just flooded their bodies with more death mana.
Which, coincidentally brought me to suspend the still-unanimated corpse before me and once again meld death into my voice.
"Report."
He didn't shake. He didn't writhe. He only emitted an airy wail like the dry heaves of an endless last breath before he erected into a midair salute. A salute he maintained, even as I palmed his empty head and still chest.
Only when I channeled necrotic energy into him did he move.
The echoes of cracking bones spread from his back arching forward. A deathly wail escaped his lips, rising into a sorrowful wail as unbridled power overloaded his flesh. At first, preserving it. Then destroying what remained.
With two loud pops, the eyeballs burst from the skulls to make way for umbral smoke trails that rose up into the sky. The skin- already withered into a thin sheet across the bones, retracted further to expose almost stone-like, boned fingers and feet that quickly began to blacken and char.
Seconds passed and the trails of darkness pluming from its eyes began to glow with a blue-green radiance. A sign the undead had evolved passed a supernatural state of undeath and was beginning to develop new, twisted sentience. But I poured death into it still.
At half a minute, the dull radiance in its eyes bloomed into a burning fire of blues and greens that pooled from its eyes, nose, and mouth like the shadows just were.
I cut the flow at once. Then I canceled the gravity spell that left him suspended and watched him seamlessly drop to a knee.
"My undead don't kneel. You're legionnaires. You salute.
"Ahhhhhh." The draugr exhaled as he stood to hold his hand vertically before his sternum. Much like a monk would.
Unprompted, the company of skeletons behind him lowered their collective salutes to hold their hands before their chest in the same manner.
"That works for me." Grinning wide, I reached into the shade of a nearby tree to grasp the club the draugr wielded in life and laid it out flat in my palms. "Your name shall be Zaraxus. Prove your worth to me. And you shall be rewarded with more power and stronger equipment."
"Yes, my Liege." He lowed his flaming skull.
I, on the other hand, turned away from him to send tendrils of death shooting from my fingertips. As Zaraxus had done, the five skeletons I designated to work with me started to writhe and twist about until I finally broke the connection.
"This is your squad." I motioned towards the five skeletons, all leaking trails of darkness through their eyes. "They are Sergeants, capable of leading the lesser undead behind you." I motioned to the other skeletal warriors. Minus the Bob's. "You are their Lieutenant. Take your companies into my shadow and standby. As for you." I turned to the Bob's. "Use the materials in my shadow to make tools and weapons for yourselves."
With a wave of my hand, I sent an umbral wave across them to deposit the saluting skeletons and their draugr lieutenant in my pocket domain. Then turned to the remaining 38 soulless corpses.
"Report."
Again, a wave of arcane death spread from me after saying the word. The corpses shuddered in unison before they erupted in a cacophony of airy gasps and raspy moans. And one by one, they shambled to their feet to stand in an arrangement of lazy poses that simply wouldn't do. I needed sprinters, not shamblers. So I spread a Death Cloud and let the leech off of it until their postures straightened and their dying groans subsided.
"You all are the shock troops," I said to them. "The front line. The fodder. If you fall, I will raise you again and again until your flesh and bones are ash and dust. But if you keep standing. If you keep killing those I tell you to kill. You will grow. And maybe you'll become a draugr or something." I mumbled, then sent them away with a wave.
With them out of the way, the only things left were the 66 bodies suspended above and the dozens of animal corpses contained below.
After deciding against picking and choosing which animals to raise, I decided to raise only the Menagerie, should they die. Unless of course, a particularly interesting and powerful beast comes across my way. A few of them were contained in my shadow- a steel-horned deer and pygmy boars to name a few. But they were reserved for another time.
Instead, I turned my attention to the other corpse I had set aside before my reanimation spree.
She- my second kill, was a burly woman who had low-cut hair when she was alive. What could be seen of it now was uneven on the top and sides, implying the sides had been kept shaven before her imprisonment. What remained of her face was a web of deep lacerations paired on the backside with a nape smashed purple and blue.
"Alright." I pulled her and the other 65 corpses closer. "Report."
Unlike the prior two times, little-to-no mana was leeched from my body. Instead, like the first time, the necrotic energy came from the wickedness of my voice, still lingering in the air. Beckoning 66 umbral hands to shoot forth from pools of darkness and drag their flesh to the depths below.
After clawing and fighting their way up, they saluted as one much like the skeletons did. The difference, however, was that their faces were as I remembered them. Albeit made of a nightly black skin that ranged in every shade of gray imaginable. Their armor and weapons had been copied out of the darkness like Carbury's bit and bridle while their fingernails, eyes, palms, teeth, tongues, and other hard or fleshy parts of their body glowed with blue-green light.
The burly woman was no different. The cloth wrapping that functioned as a breast band was like a pale white compared to the inky flesh of her skin. The fur pauldrons were a stage in between, with umbral hair that left linger trails flowing in the gentle breeze. The stitching within her armor and clothes glowed with the same brilliance as my arcana too.
As did the web of scars strewn about her face and the fat bruise that wrapped around the side of her neck. But still, she smiled.
Wider than anyone could ever think possible, she and the undead behind her smiled with unbridled gratitude. I could feel it. Much in the same way, I felt Carbury's awe, I could feel their gratification, pride, and eagerness.
Or perhaps mine.
"Welcome, my first company of undead shadows." I spread my arms wide. "As of now, you are immature. Incapable of speech and slightly weaker than you were when you died. Through war, through killing, you will grow stronger. Then, you will regain your capacity to speak and grow stronger than you could ever be in life.
"You, will forever serve by my side." I pointed to the second- Lana, I decided. "That leaves sixty-five of you to prove yourselves." I turned to the rest of them. "The best of you will one day find yourselves commanding one of my twenty Legions. The rest of you will be below them, or her." I gestured to Lana, though she wouldn't be officially named just yet. "Before that, you all need to use this mental link we have to train the mindless ones in there." I pointed to my shadow. "Teach them how to build. Teach them how to fight smart. Teach them how to keep up to my standard. You're dismissed."
After a salute, they all lunged forth to form a thick stream of darkness that funneled into my shadow. Leaving me alone once again in an unremarkable patch of forest.
"Whelp." I reached into my Pocket with a sigh. And behind my blunt came a dark-skinned hand.
"Does this mean I don't have to roll these anymore?" My Doppelganger grinned.
"That it does, Old Friend." I grinned. "That it does."
***
As I somewhat expected, I returned to see Doyle standing on the precipice of our territory like a disgruntled mom. Hand on the hips, foot-tapping, brows furrowed tightly. He stared and even yelled as I flew overhead, acting as if I didn't see him.
I knew either he or my peers would question me upon my return. Most likely both. But for whatever reason, I chose the latter. thankfully, Carbury led me far outside the range of most of my classmates. Only Winston, Zakira, Urshure, and Doyle seemed to have sensed anything. And Scarlett was as enthusiastic as she was when I'd left.
I told them a partial truth. That a beast attacked me and I killed it. Though I openly denied sharing about what it was on accounts of maintaining the creature's wishes to remain out of sight in life. An excuse Scarlett seemed willing to accept.
With their inquiries done, the class dispersed and went back to their business. I, on the other hand, took a bowl from the hearth and ate to gather my thoughts for the future. Then beckoned the squad leaders into the meeting room when Doyle returned.
"Alright." I sighed. "I'm sure you've all noticed. But a lot of us are getting bored. So, I want to plan a raid in the upcoming weeks to torment one of the classes and rack up some points."
"Oh?" Doyle pried himself off the wall.
"Essentially, my goal is to lure someone in Alpha or Baker Party out of their hole and kidnap them. To do that, we can use Zakira's ability to charm people. Or." I cleared my throat to assume Doyle's voice. "I can mimic one of their voices."
"W- what?" Doyle stammered forth.
"A racial ability." I grinned. Which was indeed true, but was also something I had in my past life as well. Albeit to a much lesser degree. Still, it was an ability that perfectly synergized with the Eternal Eye and something I rarely made use of.
"Instead of tasking one of the teams with scouting around for hundreds of kilometers, I'll use my summons to scout out a path in our absence. If that's allowed." I turned to Doyle.
"Well, it's not against the rules." He shrugged. "After all, returning to find your base to be overrun by monsters is a real occurrence. If they can get past the enchantments that keep them out, that's more merit to you as a summoner."
"All you had to say was yes," I muttered as I turned back to my squad leaders. An ever-regal Duke, a dimly bored Samson, and an ever-eager Slate. "Very well. They'll scout their locations and forge a path to their bases. Then we'll mount a surprise attack. It'll be a proper blitz like last time. In the chaos, we'll capture a few of theirs and retreat. What do you think?"
"I think it sounds awesome!" Samson beamed.
"The potential for danger is high." Duke stroked his feathered fingers across his beak- a habit he'd picked up as of late. "But so is the prospect of experience."
"I accept the challenge." Slate grinned wider than he'd been grinning already.
"Then it's settled." I clapped in resolution. "Go spread the news."
While they left in various stages of excitement, Doyle crossed the now-empty space with a few strides to settle in the seat before me with a deep sigh.
Leaning to his side, he pulled out a cigarette and offered me one. An offering. A gesture meant to build rapport. To probe me into being truthful with him for once instead of acting as fickle and dishonest as Everandus Cole.
Knowing that, I took it anyway. I locked my eyes onto him as I lit the smoke, inhaled deeply, and blew out a thick cloud that lingered in the air between us.
Knowing that, I decided to be honest. If only just to see where it'd take me.
"What happened out there?"
"I killed a unicorn."
"Killed-" he chuckled dryly. Looked away. Puffed his cigarette and pulled his eyes back to me with the glaze of fear spread over his eyes. "Unicorn's a guardian of the forest." He laughed again. "They keep too many dangerous creatures from entering."
"Well, maybe there'll finally be a challenge for me in these woods." I snorted.
"Yeah… well, I doubt you care." He grimly whispered. " But they say killing a unicorn has dire consequences. It angers the gods. Puts you on their shit-list. Curses you."
"It shouldn't have attacked me if it didn't want to die." I returned his warning with a grim smirk. "And you're right. I don't care about how the gods feel. I'm a Devil. They'll never care for me. And they can never curse me."
"Yeah." Doyle cackled. "What'd you do with the body?"
"I butchered it."
He seemed taken aback but still kept his cool. "So then, the corpse is still out there?"
"No." I shook my head. "Nothing of it remains. Not even dust."
"Alright." Doyle sighed. "Enough with the word games, tell me exactly what happened out there!"
I sighed and decided that actions would explain everything so I summoned Carbury.
The pool of darkness spreading behind me captured Doyle's attention at once. Giving him a proverbial front row seat to watch the undead unicorn take a few graceful steps into the light.
"What my Liege says is true." I heard Carbury tell Doyle telepathically. "I beckoned him to speak and determined he should be eliminated. I failed. I know not what happened between then and him calling out for my soul. But now I am here."
"And now you serve him?" Doyle commented. "How does that make you feel?"
"Gratified," Carbury replied before Doyle could even finish. "The gods would not have claimed my soul. To be tormented by devilkin for all eternity in the Underworld, or to be given a second life in service to the Sun and Moon. What would you choose?"
"I suppose you have a point," Doyle commented to himself as his gaze trailed off and lingered in obvious thought. "This is unbelievable."
'No more talk of the sun and moon.' I told Carbury through our link. 'They are unaware that I possess that power. And they don't even know what a moon is'
'Yes, my Liege.' He mentally bowed.
I returned him to my shadow and turned back to Doyle. "Yeah. Try not to tell anyone, would you?"
"Yeah." Doyle chuckled maniacally to himself as he stood to his feet and pulled out a cigarette. Then walked towards the door shaking his head.
With Doyle gone, I returned to my quarters- a simple room with naught but a pillow and desk inside, and pulled out the skull.
"Simion Lumbarde, Report."
At the sound of the order, the necrotic energy pulsed within his skull. Forming into smoke trails of darkness that plumed from his eye sockets until they were illuminated by the blue-green embers embedded within the pits of his eyes.
And then he ripped himself from my hand to float about me.
Unlike Carbury, Simion had the exact same appearance as before. The only difference was the cloud of darkness that surrounded him like a hood. That, and the limited sense of connection that he shared with Zaraxus. But besides that, he was unremarkable.
As my first floating skull and historical adviser, he needed much more than that. Gilded teeth. Inlaid metals in the cracks in his skull. Jeweled eyes. Simion Lumbarde would look like the gentleman he was in life. But like many things, that would come in time. So I stuffed him into my shadow before he could begin blabbering on or screaming.
"Welcome to the team."
Not through our link, but through the umbral soup of my Pocket, I felt him wander off into my underworld and begin forming himself a lair much like the Menagerie above them. Leaving me in silence where my mind trailed on the words Carbury said before.
My Liege.
'I suppose I truly am a sovereign of the dead now.' I snorted to myself. 'I wonder how Corvus will react.'