After leaving the arena, I wasted no time in migrating to my usual spot to dive into my shadow.
Like a meteor, I blew past my material goods and the Menagerie to arrive in my domain of death. Where I paused in objective surprise.
To put it simply, my subspace in the Underworld had evolved. No doubt as a result of Carbury being the first undead being to occupy it.
It was a vast jungle filled with trees that made the blackwood trees of Deapou look like lawn weeds. They were Bodhi Tree size. And everywhere. Spaced apart like intermittent city blocks arranged in an illogical pattern.
As I descended, I saw that the Aegis and Burning souls that had been sentinels before my throne were now white and red wisps that orbited it low a halo above it. The throne itself was unchanged- a surprisingly comfortable seat that mirrored my magical mark to the 'T.'
The space ahead of it, however, was a perfect example of ecological harmony.
Carbury made his 'home' to the right of my throne. A comparatively thick patch of moss denoted his bed. Which had been placed auspiciously close to a still pond in which he intently stared.
Simion sat across from him, and much closer to me. Poised atop a plush pillow, which itself sat atop a Corinthian-style pillar that rose from my throne's dais, he looked upon the space with as much wonder as I did. Despite his firsthand account of its creation.
Carbury's Lake. Or rather, Carbury Lake, was like a 'front yard beach' for my Necro Throne. In a way, it was similar to the lake outside the Cove. Only in much larger dimensions.
The land between my dais and lake held a 20 meters wide road that connected Carbury's bed with the great bridge that loomed ahead of me. Like towering gatehouses, twin keeps lined either side of the bridge.
On the left was Lana's house. A proper castle that served as the barracks for my first 66 shadows. Naturally, the left Zaraxus to take up the keep on the right with his five minions. Together, they were both the gatekeepers and the wardens of the towering structure at the far end of the bridge.
Even now, as I orbited with my wisps. Shadows, skeletons, and zombies alike trailed to and from the palace to either prepare for their next generations or train.
Meanwhile, those without orders were scattered about in camps along the shores of Carbury Lake. Always in groups of at least five, they could be seen far and wide sharpening sticks into impromptu spears, clubs, or crude bows.
"Glad to see everyone's settled in nicely," I said after falling into my throne with a needless grunt.
"I did not expect you to be fond of jesters, my Liege," Carbury commented with a glare towards Simion.
"I'm not." I eyed the fire-eyed skull out of the corner of my eye. "He can be quite annoying. But he has information about the sixth century. Information I find valuable. As do you."
"Apologies, my Liege." Carbury swayed his horn. "I was never one to meddle in civilized affairs."
"That may be so, but your knowledge of the natural world is just as valuable," I assured him. "You have knowledge of many creatures, both magical and natural. Do you not?"
"Correct, my Liege."
"Then your knowledge will prove to be invaluable. Now." I split my focus to summon the start of my legions before me. And in a sudden wave of deathly smoke, they were arranged before me in a neat formation.
With but a squint of my eyes, I sent an order out to Lana and the company of shadows behind and watched them shuffle in a similar display of waving clouds.
Like Zaraxus and his squad, Lana was standing before the twenty-best shadows out of the 66. Half-fighters and half-mages. Which wound up being all the mages, seeing as not even a tenth of them had an affinity. And the ones that did were mostly of the basic elemental variety.
One of them, my third kill, was a comparatively young man with an affinity for Blast Magic. As the name implied, his fire was as intense as a blast furnace. But he was sent flying into a rock while I was raging all the same. As a result, he now had fat blots of glowing 'skin' that glowed behind his light leather armor. Naturally, the same feature applied to his hair and five-o'clock shadow, both of which were an autumnal red in life and now glowed in the same blue-green brilliance as his teeth, nails, eyes, and tongue.
As the first of my shadows to possess a magical affinity, he was named Caleb and was temporarily 'promoted' to the sergeant of the mage squad. In charge of nine other individuals who possessed variations of the other three basic elements. Plus Granite, Wire, Glass, Mud, Cyclone, and Spark Magics.
Their counterpart was a squad of four fighters and five archers, led by a hulking man of a fighter I named Bruce. He was one of the bandits who loved torturing Hill Base. And after torturing him in kind and letting his body sit in my under for months, he was reborn as a shadow with a glowing wedge-shaped scar on his sternum that'd been haphazardly covered by armor that had been mismatched in life. But was now a sleek set of black pauldrons and greaves.
"Now then." I turned to either side with a sigh. "Carbury, Simion, there are a few individuals I want you to meet."
"Hmm?" Simion raised himself off his pillow and began looking around at once. "There are more of us?"
"My, my!" The cold, femme voice called out from the necrotic darkness before the substance converged in the form of the Raven Reaper's body, towering over Carbury like an old crone from a horrific tale. "A unicorn as your first undead?"
"It is as they say," Azrael came forth next. "Patience is a virtue."
"A creature of legend!" Henry appeared next, grinning wide. "I've met many legendary creatures in my day. But never a unicorn."
"Hah!" Telman arrived with a mad cackle. "I can practically hear Everandus' frustrations from here! Well done, Amun!"
While they surrounded and shrouded Carbury with praise and gleaming eyes, Simion helplessly bobbed and bounced around their perimeter in a desperate attempt to introduce himself.
After watching him try and try again, I called him to my side through our link and gave my ancestors a few moments to finish cooing Carbury before I called out for their collective attention.
"I must say." Corvus turned to me with a fanged grin. "I'm veritably impressed, Amun."
"Oh?" I amiably snorted. "I've graduated from 'boy' to my proper name it seems."
"Still as impudent as ever." She playfully harrumphed. "Regardless, you are now an official Shadow Necromancer. Congratulations."
I accepted her regal bow with one of my own and was surprised to see her standing straight with a new life in her eyes. "If Shade brings fear, Death brings horror. That is your first lesson, Amun." She bit at the words, then paused to let them sink in. "As one born from the Void, your potential far exceeds any of ours." She gestured to her descendants standing down her left side before turning her cold, dead eyes back to me. "While your useless great-grandfather will teach you how to make the most of your necro army, it wouldn't hurt for you to tell me of how you wield death magic in its raw form."
"I Usurp Life and Strength to counter my physical weakness as a Drow," I said. "Other than that, I've been experimenting with souls and curses to prepare myself for the Artificer Class. I made a cursed weapon. But-"
"How did you make a cursed weapon?" Telman interjected with the widely intent eyes of a scientist.
"I fused these to make a Gray Soul." I pointed to the wisps around me. "Or a soul with a neutral disposition. I used a cursed technique to imbue a weapon with power and put the soul into it."
"That is not a cursed weapon then." Telman knowingly chuckled. "It is a Sentient Weapon. But a remarkable achievement all the same."
"Thank you."
"And tell me of your undead," Corvus demanded with a regal wave behind her.
"I have thirty-eight zombies, seventy-five skeletons, sixty-six shadows, and one draugr. Five of the skeletons have been promoted to what my Grandpa Lich would call a Captain."
"And what do you call them?" She turned back to me.
"Sergeants." I paused to point to the partially mummified corpse saluting before his platoon. "And he is their Lieutenant. His name is Zaraxus. Other than them, I have three vampires on the outside that are obsessed with me."
"That is natural. You are a Sovereign of Shadow and Death. Even a lich will prostrate in your presence, Amun. Unless they come from our family, of course." Corvus added with a prideful grin.
"Which, in turn, makes for powerful allies." I grinned myself before splaying my hands out to my sides. "This is Carbury. Though he's the first creature I raised, he won't be a mount. Nor will he be used to fight. Primarily, he'll be a healer. Secondarily, he'll be my nature adviser.
"Contrarily." I turned my gaze to the bobbing skull. "His counterpart is my sixth-century historical adviser. His name is Simion Lumbarde, a scholar and wizard of the Tempest Guild, but a gentleman first."
"Oh!" Simion snapped to me with equal parts gratitude towards me remembering his introduction and frustration at me for stealing his thunder. "It is my pleasure to meet you!" He bobbed before each of my ancestors and even Carbury for some reason to give them a sort of handshake. "I and all from my time have heard tales of places such as this- such as yourselves. How fortunate it is to find myself in this domain, before all of you! How pleasurable indeed!"
"Yes." I snorted. "Now, with this growing vault of information before me, I'd like to you all- particularly you." I squinted at the skull. "What do you know about the Nox?"
"Well, that's you." Simion chuckled in nervous disbelief. "That's the name of your Clan, isn't it? That's what everyone called you in my day."
"That's because our name was changed during the Guild Wars," Corvus stated.
"Ah!" Simion rocked. "That started just after I was born, it did."
"And it didn't end until the latter half of the ninth century," Corvus added with a wave down the line. "About a hundred years before Henry was born."
"That's right!" The man himself leaned back in the pridefully nostalgic way that he did, grinning wide all the while. "All the peace made pirating one of the most lucrative professions out there!"
"As things went, we were blamed for the spoiled state of Ulai," Corvus explained. "Until eventually, we were blamed for the ruined state of Maru. Our ancestor from the fourteenth generation, Cole of the Nox, was responsible for our salvation. In the later centuries of the war, we were under the threat of annihilation. Our enemies possessed weapons with antimagic properties. Our members were dying one after the other. It was Cole who moved us to Phaegrath. Where he constructed the Cole Crypt to shelter us in plain sight."
"So that's why you all spent your years laying low." I surmised. "But that begs the question-"
"Where are we originally from?" Corvus beamed after seeing the interest of all of us. Minus Carbury. "Where do you think? Ulai."
"So then, it's safe to surmise there's another crypt in Ulai?"
"I do not know." Corvus dejectedly sighed. "Cole never cared to tell me. I'm able to commune with him, as you are now. But he refuses to see me. He has refused to see anyone since he died. But you can enter his tomb." She smiled. "I can't wait until you tell me all about it.
"But for now." She turned to the towering fortress of deathly smoke looming behind them. "Tell me, what is that building over there?"
"Tis the Shade Palace, your excellency." Zaraxus bowed a degree lower upon my command. "Tis where the mindless and their superiors are trained by the Shades. All for the glory of the Legions."
"Legions?" Azrael darted his raised brows between us.
"Yes." I nodded. "After planning a route around the Mortal Plane, I've concluded that I'll need no less than twenty legions."
"Fascinating!" Azrael gasped. "I can't wait to see what you create."
While a sudden rise of agreements rose been the men of my ancestry, Corvus split an inquisitive glare between Carbury and I. After shifting our gaze between us long after an awkward silence ensued, she strode to stand beside the unicorn and leaned forward as if she wanted to whisper into his ear. But stopped halfway to look at me.
"Amun, dear?" She asked, then continued without awaiting my reply. "Do keep in mind that whatever happens in your domain, stays in your domain. We all know the saying about the dead and tales after all. Your secrets are safe with us. Aren't they, boys?" She three daggers for eyes at her descendants. Who each hurriedly sent a wave of nods back in her direction.
"I'll be honest with you if that's what you're asking." I snorted. "You have my word."
"Now then." She turned back to Carbury. "You are a Celestial, yes?"
"Correct." He lowered his horn.
"So then, you have access to spells most unevolved wouldn't, yes?" She amiably waved her hand and frowned as she looked up in faux contemplation. "Cleric abilities. Detect Magic. Detect Good and Evil. Things like that, yes?"
"That is correct." Carbury nodded again.
"Well, you see. We're all in agreement that our descendant here is special." She smiled at me. "Even though he is a Drow, he's far smarter than he should be. He possesses arcana and dreams of an entity who could possibly be our first ancestor. But most importantly." She leaned a bit closer. "There is something inside him. Something I can't quite place. It feels…"
"Warm." Azrael stepped in. "I feel it too."
"It's light," I said before Carbury could.
"W- what?" Corvus shook her head.
"One of my affinity cores is for Electromagnetism. A spectrum of energy which visible light is a small portion of."
"While you are correct. You are also completely wrong, my Liege." Carbury stepped between us, shaking his regal horn. "The magic spurred from what you call an Affinity Core would not be as potent as the darkness in your spirit, but it does illuminate it. Thus is the Moon which I made reference to. A name I garnered from your thoughts while we conversed. You saw my white fur and thought of a pale light that is not of this world. Through that, I saw a glimpse of the word, Moon. To you, the word is synonymous with the pale light I saw within you.
"The Sun is what…" His head turned slightly. "Corvus senses within you. It is not heat, nor light. But a touch of Divinity."
"As in, 'blessed' divinity?" Henry stomped forward. "Who the hell would bless a Devil?"
"Telin."
"Who?" Azrael and Henry turned to me at once.
But it was Carbury who answered, thankfully. Even then, however, his voice was just as airy and full of disbelief as Captain Darkblood's had been. "The Eternal God, Telin, is the creator of this universe."
"That, and the source of magic and the hand behind the portals that opened up so long ago," I added. Then paused to summarize my experience as neatly as I could before I began explaining. "One of my oldest memories was from a dream. One dissimilar to the one of our ancestor. In it, I met a man who called himself Telin. He told me I'd be blessed with knowledge, power, and freedom. That I'd face challenges as his champion. He told me I'd become the Eternal God of this universe. And, depending on how I live, I could join him once this universe comes to an inevitable end.
"But." I sighed. "I don't want to join him. If what he says is true, I'm certain I'll obtain a Prestige Cleric Class that'll evolve me into a living god. And if what we think of our ancestry is true, I think my Sorcery Class will evolve me into a Devil like our ancestor. The God of Devils. Or, as Carbury says, the God of the Moon.
"With that in mind, I decided against joining Telin. Rather than tinker with other universes from the outside, I'll remake this one from within and make it my own."