Karnak, Monarch of Death

On the tenth day of their retreat, Karnak stepped out of the cellar and into the cabin’s backyard. He had made sufficient progress with the analysis and application of the technique. Now it was time to test it in practice.

Seeing him stretch, Varos called out, “Took you long enough.”

“Huh? What did?”

“Deciphering the formula.”

Given Karnak’s knowledge and experience, Varos had assumed Karnak would effortlessly master Detzras’ magic in no time. But surprisingly, he’d spent over five days on it.

“You’re supposed to be the ultimate necromancer, right? Is there still anything left for you to learn?”

“Necromancy? No. I’m the best at that,” Karnak replied smugly.

But the lessons here were in the realm of magical formulas. While Karnak was also an exceptional mage, his mastery didn’t approach the absolute heights he had achieved with necromancy.

“And for the record, this didn’t take that long either. It only took five days for me. If it were anyone else, it would’ve taken months.”

Karnak drew in his mana with a smirk.

”Let’s test this out.”

He methodically wielded the chaos mana and cast a spell.

“Rise, spirit of the earth!”

Boom!

The ground in the backyard rumbled as a mass of earth surged upward, shaping itself into a towering clay figure—a golem.

Varos, watching nearby, lit up with interest, ”Oh, are you going to layer death armor on it now?”

He assumed Karnak was replicating Detzras’ technique, but Karnak shook his head.

“No, that’s not possible.”

The nature of chaotic magic and Detzras’ formula were fundamentally opposed. He couldn’t fuse magic and necromancy to create something like a death armor golem.

“Huh? What did you learn, then?” Varos asked, puzzled.

Karnak grinned and snapped his fingers.

“Something like this.”

Boom!

Another explosion echoed through the yard, but it wasn’t the last.

Thud! Boom! Boom!

Around the yard, more mounds of earth shot up, rapidly forming into towering clay figures.

”What the...?”

”Wait, how...?”

Varos and Serati stared in shock. Before they realized it, 20 golems stood in perfect formation, looming silently.

”How did you—?”

”Since when could you summon this many?”

Karnak answered smugly, ”It’s impossible with just magic.”

By nature, a necromancer’s summoning arts vastly outstripped a mage’s in scope and efficiency. It wasn’t uncommon to see necromancers commanding armies of zombies or skeletons.

But could a mage summon dozens of hundreds of golems? Even the most powerful mages struggled to manage more than three or four at a time.

“Not even archmages can increase the number of golems they control significantly. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because mages have to directly program the control mechanisms into every golem they summon.”

The issue wasn’t a lack of mana but rather limitations in concentration and computational power.

“That’s why mages typically prefer creating a single super golem with the strength of many, rather than summoning several weaker ones.”

It was the complete opposite for necromancers. Zombies and skeletons didn’t require manually programmed control mechanisms.

“The lingering wills in the corpses handle the commands.”

A necromancer only needed to animate them, requiring neither intense focus nor intricate computations. As long as their necrotic energy held out, they could raise hundreds or thousands of undead.

“So, I combined the two methods,” Karnak explained, gesturing at the 20 golems. “With each golem I summon, I embed a lingering will into it. Then, by manipulating chaos mana as though it were necrotic energy, I set them into motion.”

This was his new power. Unlike the cultists, Karnak couldn’t directly fuse magic and necromancy. They were too fundamentally different.

“Honestly, I don’t need to. At my level, why bother?”

It would be more effective for him to rely on necromancy rather than trying to fuse it with magic.

“But this approach is quite useful.”

Karnak readied another spell. This time, he conjured chaos magic in the style of necromancy. Dozens of black orbs were conjured that floated behind him.

Serati frowned, puzzled. ”Isn’t that just Arcane Mana Bolts? It’s just a different color, isn’t it?”

“It might look like it,” Karnak replied.

He fired the spell with a flourish.

”Darkened Arcane Bolts!”

The spheres shot out in every direction, striking the forest with thunderous impact.

Booooom!

The ground trembled as though an earthquake had struck. The sheer destructive power was astounding. Realizing what she’d witnessed, Serati nodded in understanding.

“Ah, I see now.”

Magic was unparalleled in its raw destructive force. Necromancy excelled in efficiency, consuming minimal energy while enabling sustained attacks. The Darkened Arcane Bolts fused the best aspects of both. Karnak had successfully harnessed the benefits of both necromancy and magic.

“That said, this method won’t be much help to other mages. It’s several times more difficult to use.”

For another mage to replicate Karnak’s technique, they’d need to master not only magic but also the intricate mechanics of necromancy. That kind of effort was hardly worth it compared to just using existing, efficient spells. But Karnak wasn’t just any mage—he was the greatest necromancer alive.

“Sometimes, it’s better to rely on a harder method that feels familiar than an easier one that feels awkward.”

What made this method truly invaluable, however, was something else entirely.

“This all still looks like magic, doesn’t it?”

By embedding residual wills rather than actual souls, the summoned golems bore no traces of malice or death energy. Even if Karnak managed to summon dozens, people wouldn’t suspect him of being a necromancer. At most, they’d hail him as a prodigious summoner.

The same applied to the Darkened Arcane Bolts. It bore no hint of malice or death energy. Others would assume it was just a particularly clever mage launching an absurd number of bolts. All things considered, the results were deeply satisfying.

“With more time, I could develop even more specialized techniques. I don’t know who originally devised this, but it’s been quite helpful.”

As Karnak suppressed his mana, a sense of accomplishment settled over him.

Varos, watching enviously, muttered, “Good for you. I’m still stuck not being able to awaken my aura.”

“Oh, right,” Karnak said, turning as if a thought had just occurred to him. “I think I figured out why you can’t awaken it.”

“Wait, really?”

Varos blinked in disbelief. Karnak had never dabbled in aura. Yet, he had uncovered a secret that even Varos himself had missed?

“Yeah. I pieced it together interrogating the cultists...” Karnak began, an incredulous tone in his voice. “Varos, you’re a necromancer.”

Varos froze, blinking again.

“...What?”

***

In this life and his past one, Varos had been the quintessential warrior. With his strong physique sparing his brain unnecessary strain, Varos had lived a simple, unburdened life. He’d never been one to read, either.

While Karnak’s relentless prodding had ensured Varos could now read, his literacy was limited to combat manuals and techniques.

“And yet you’re calling me a necromancer?”

“I’m not saying you’re a proper necromancer...” Karnak scratched his head, trying to explain. “Think about it. All those so-called Lords of Darkness we’ve taken down... Were any of them what you’d call proper necromancers?”

Varos’s blank stare suggested he hadn’t considered this before.

“Now that you mention it, even those lunatics who relied solely on the Shadow of Doom could be classified as necromancers.”

Necromancy was unlike magic. While knowledge and wisdom certainly helped, their absence didn’t render one powerless. Even illiterate necromancers existed.

“But I’ve never touched anything like the Shadow of Doom! And I’ve definitely never dabbled in darkness, have I?”

If his claims were somehow untrue, Varos would feel monumentally cheated. After reincarnating, he’d gone out of his way to live as healthily as possible.

“Your body’s fine,” Karnak reassured him. “The issue is with your soul.”

Mana, aura, divine power, necromantic energy. All these forces left indelible marks on the user once mastered. Their essence became ingrained in both body and soul. In other words, both body and soul mattered.

“Purging these forces from your body doesn’t fully reset everything. Your soul still carries the imprint of its past self.”

No matter how much Varos’s body had regressed to his younger self, his soul remained that of a Death Knight Lord who had once served the Necromancer King.

“But even then, I was a death knight, not a necromancer,” Varos protested weakly.

“Varos, what were your main skills? Possession and dark aura manipulation, right?”

Stealing the energy of others by possessing their bodies or corrupting their energy into dark power. Such were his specialties.

“If that’s not necromancy, then what is?” Karnak said.

Varos blinked again, processing the revelation.

“Oh.”

It started to make sense. If Karnak had been so corrupt in his past life, how could someone who’d followed him for a century not be tainted themselves?

“Wait, so you were always destined to become a necromancer?”

Varos was recalling how Karnak had claimed he could only reincarnate to a point where he had dabbled in necromancy. That limitation had supposedly driven him to create chaos magic instead of pursuing other paths.

But now it seemed Karnak’s soul was so fundamentally necromantic that any other discipline had been impossible from the start.

“Not quite,” Karnak admitted.

This distinction was why Karnak hadn’t realized the issue sooner. While energy imprints on the body were irreversible, the soul retained past habits rather than being permanently fixed. The habits imprinted on the soul could be erased, allowing for a fresh start, but he had glossed over that fact.

“Thinking about it now, breaking those ingrained habits is no easy task.”

He likened the process of mastering aura to playing with colors. If a regular person’s soul was white and an aura wielder’s soul was red, then learning aura would involve pouring red dye into the soul. But Varos’s soul wasn’t white—it was blue.

“Pouring red dye into blue won’t make red. You’ll just get purple.”

In this state, no matter how much he practiced using conventional methods, he would never achieve the desired result. First, his soul had to be reset to white before he could awaken aura through standard techniques.

“You started off on the wrong foot.”

Varos slowly nodded as he began to understand the situation.

“So, I need to develop my own unique method for awakening aura?”

“Exactly.”

“And how do I do that?”

Varos’s eyes gleamed with expectation, but Karnak avoided his gaze.

“How would I know? Do I look like a swordsman? You’re the swordsman, not me.”

“Ugh...”

Varos slumped in disappointment but couldn’t argue. Karnak was a necromancer, not a warrior. He could only identify the problem as it related to necromancy, not provide a solution.

“It looks like I’ll have to figure this one out on my own.”

***

Karnak and his companions were granted a 20-day leave. During that time, Karnak made the most of every moment. He developed new techniques that combined magic and necromancy and focused on stabilizing the chaos mana he had accumulated over time.

His abilities as a mage improved significantly. While he remained at the sixth circle in terms of mastery, the power and efficiency of his spells had increased dramatically. In actual combat, he could now hold his own against most seventh-circle mages.

Serati also spent the time diligently honing her body and mind. Reflecting on her battles with stronger opponents, she internalized their techniques and continued to refine her aura under Varos’s guidance.

Varos, however, was growing increasingly frustrated.

“Identifying the problem was great and all, but I still don’t have a clue how to fix it.”

His soul was burdened by bad habits? Sure, fine. But getting rid of them? Figuring out how to do it fully escaped his grasp. Even his extensive knowledge and expertise in swordsmanship from his past life were of no help here.

In the first place, this was entirely uncharted territory. Walking a unique path came with its challenges. When something went wrong, there was no precedent to consult. In the end, Varos found himself utterly stuck.

“Damn it, I’m the only one not moving forward.”

When their leave ended, the group returned to the King’s Order headquarters. One of Karnak’s subordinates from the 7th Squad hurried to greet him.

“Captain Karnak, you’re finally back!”

The subordinate’s unusually tense demeanor caught Karnak’s attention.

“Has something happened?” Karnak asked, his expression hardening.

“Yes. It’s in the southern region of the kingdom, in the Zetelba Province,” the subordinate replied with grave seriousness. “A demonic sword that drinks blood has appeared. It enthralls its wielder, turning them into a murderer.”

Karnak and Varos exchanged puzzled glances.

[A sword that drinks blood and drives its user mad?]

[That sounds pretty common, doesn’t it?]

[Yeah, nothing special. Why’s this causing such a stir?]

The subordinate’s voice grew even grimmer.

“In the past ten days, there have been over 500 victims. Commander Erantel is treating this matter as a top priority.”

Their expressions turned serious at the mention of such a death toll.

“Five hundred? In just ten days?”

“With just one demonic sword? How is that possible?”