Sovereign of the Ashes

Two days ago, he had not gotten a clear look at the monster.

But now, as Sein took a closer look at the creature, a startling realization dawned on him: This monster was—or at least had been—a “human”.

Although its hideous appearance and razor-sharp claws bore little resemblance to a human, Sein recognized the truth in the subtle details like the structure of its joints, breathing rate, and pupillary response.

“A mutation of a native human of this world, just like the abominations created by the necromancers back in the Magus World,” he concluded.

He rubbed his chin, his thoughts turning inward.

”But those abominations were stitched together from corpses. In recent years, the necromancers even incorporated certain concepts of mechanical puppets into them. Compared to those creations, this creature is nothing more than a pathetic, low-grade imitation.”

Sein did not waste more time analyzing the monster’s origins. It was a severely injured creature that barely reached Rank One—far beneath his concern.

He raised his hand.

From his palm, several beams of lumen elemental energy shot out, casting brilliant, searing light into the dim passage.

Undead creatures like this were especially vulnerable to lumen energy.

The radiant beams punched through the monster’s body. Upon impact, the light morphed to create a luminous web that wrapped around the creature and tightened into a constricting net.

Hssss!

White vapor rose from the monster’s body as the energy seared into its necrotic flesh, filling the underground passage with a foul stench.

The creature did not even have the strength to resist Sein’s powerful attack.

“Owwwwwrrgh!”

It let out a rasping, ear-piercing roar.

Sein caught a glimpse of its gaping maw and saw scraps of flesh and tiny fragments of bones lodged between its jagged fangs.

They did not look like they belonged to the sewer fish he had encountered earlier.

It was also at this moment Sein noticed a small pile of human bone fragments nearby.

The connection between the girl and this monster immediately became obvious to him.

The people whom the girl brought back... their souls were likely consumed by her while their remains were devoured by this monster.

Sein’s brows knit together as another, darker thought crossed his mind.

Were the girl and the monster deliberately let loose near the village?

His gaze moved past the writhing monster to the wall behind it. Amidst the filth and scattered debris, a scrap of fabric caught his attention.

It was red—possibly from a scarf or hat.

Considering the monster’s filthy living conditions, the fabric was too clean.

When Sein extended his right hand and conjured an elemental hand to draw the fabric toward him, the monster pinned to the ground thrashed even harder.

Thick, white vapor rose from its festering wounds.

If the creature kept struggling like this, it might end up tearing itself into minced flesh against Sein’s scorching light net—an outcome he had no desire to witness.

He cast a quick glance at the red fabric. It was ordinary in every sense—rough and unremarkable.

While examining the cloth, Sein extended his other hand and placed it atop the monster’s head.

The creature likely retained at least a shred of sanity.

Sein intended to search its soul and unearth the memories buried within.

The girl in the cabin could have been a candidate for this process as well, but she was far too weak.

Sein was not confident he could use soul magic on her without causing irreversible damage to her already fragile psyche.

This monster, however, was a different matter.

Sein did not care if it survived the process. The only loss would be the absence of a biological specimen to study.

Three silver runes materialized at his fingertips. As his mana infiltrated the monster’s mind, its frantic struggles gradually weakened until it slumped beneath the light web.

Physical resilience did not equate to a strong soul.

Sein had already determined that this creature barely possessed the strength of a Rank One being but was not a real Rank One creature.

Whoever created it had focused solely on destructive power while neglecting the strength of the creature’s soul.

Soul magic was a complex, elusive discipline in any plane.

In a top-tier civilization like the Magus World, soul magic only advanced through centuries of relentless study and experimentation by powerful grand mages.

Under Sein’s control, fragments of the monster’s memories quickly surfaced, coalescing into blurry, disjointed images projected on an elemental screen suspended before him.

Most of the scenes were disjointed snapshots, skipping erratically. Everything appeared in muted, gray tones.

As Sein delved deeper into the creature’s mind, colorful images began to appear.

It must have been at least twenty years ago...

In the memory, Sein saw a half-grown teenage boy standing before two lonely graves beneath a blood-red setting sun, holding the hand of a younger girl.

The image flickered and shifted.

Sein saw skeletons and strange creatures pursuing the pair through the night.

The final vivid image showed the teenager bound in a dim, stone-walled basement. Strange patterns were carved into every corner of the room.

Several black-robed figures loomed around the boy. One of them held a syringe filled with a frothy, gray substance and injected it into his body.

After watching the scenes, Sein fell silent.

He had no difficulty connecting the dots.

The gray monster lying before him was the teenager, and the girl who had cared for him over the past few days was the little girl from the memory.

“So that’s why she kept calling me Big Brother,” Sein thought.

The girl was confusing Sein with this gray monster.

As for the monster, it had likely been living in the underground sewer all this time and only appeared that night to protect her.

Although the girl appeared more normal and human-like than her brother on the surface, the monster actually retained more memories of their past.

At the very least, it knew who she truly was and that it needed to protect its younger sister.

The red scrap of fabric in Sein’s hand came from the girl’s scarf many years ago. It was the only brightly colored garment she wore.

The monster, unable to stay by her side for long, had kept this piece of fabric as a substitute.

It was a heartwarming, tragic story, yet Sein, the cold-blooded mage, felt nothing.

Rather than dwelling on the teenager’s misfortune, Sein fixated on something else entirely: the black-robed figures from the basement—their fighting style and the strange symbols etched into the ground.

Without a doubt, those robed figures possessed the ability to control undead creatures.

Yet their techniques were distinct from the necromancers of the Magus World—cruder, more primitive.

The patterns in the basement appeared to form a special array designed to gather death energy.

Sein did not dismiss the ingenuity behind it, but he was certain this world was leagues behind the Magus World—at least in terms of elemental power manipulation.

“It’s only a large-sized world, after all,” he exhaled softly.