Chapter 469: Necromancer

Chapter 469: Necromancer

Max didn’t flinch. His eyes narrowed, cold and unforgiving. “Done?” he asked, his voice like steel. “If you’re done, then begin. I have important matters to attend to after I am done with you.”

William chuckled, but the sound twisted midway, becoming something far darker—something unnatural. “Hahaha… always so arrogant, aren’t you?” His lips curled into a grin as he raised one hand to the sky. “Then hold your breath, Max… because you’re about to witness something unholy.”

The sky above darkened instantly, clouds swirling into a whirlpool of black and grey. And then—crack—a soundless rupture tore through the fabric of the air behind William as a massive portal formed, rippling like the surface of a cursed lake.

The stench of death poured out, and with it, a thousand shadows began to rise from the portal, stepping, crawling, slithering, and flying out.

The dead had answered his call.

An army of undead surged forth like a flood. Rotting demons with tattered wings, skeletal elves with burning green eyes, humans with hollow sockets and rusted armor, all marching with jerky yet unwavering steps.

But more than anything else—monsters. Countless monsters. Giant undead arachnids, rotting serpents the size of trees, corpse-bears stitched together with chain bindings, eyeless ogres with cracked clubs, all emitting the twisted aura of reanimation.

These weren’t fresh corpses—these were monsters that had once terrified the world in life, now returned in death to serve.

And then came the five.

A black Wyvern, its wings torn and patched with rotting flesh, bones showing through its chest. When it roared, no sound came, only a violent wave of pressure that made the sky tremble.

A two-headed undead Minotaur, each head fighting for control, their mouths gnashing, its axe rusted but soaked in ancient blood.

A Bone Kraken, its limbs dragging through the sky, its maw hollow and filled with spikes of soul energy, floating as though swimming through mist, coiled in death’s silence.

A Graveborn Colossus, towering as high as a mountain, made of decayed stone and beast flesh, a fortress of bones sewn together by cursed magic.

And lastly, a Spectral Basilisk, its body shimmering between flesh and spirit, glowing veins pulsing with venom that had long outlived its death. Its stare turned even the surrounding air into black mist.

William spread his arms wide, the entire army standing behind him, the five monstrosities leading the charge. “You see this, Max?” he shouted, voice echoing across the heavens. “I tamed death. This is my strength. This is my army. This… is your grave.”

Max said nothing. He simply stood in the air, the wind brushing against his torn shirt, his eyes fixed on William and the monstrous army rising behind him.

His gaze shifted slowly, calmly, but beneath that still exterior, his mind was racing. ‘This is… not what I expected,’ he thought, his brow tightening ever so slightly.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t surprised—no, he was shocked. Shocked to the core. He had heard the rumors before—whispers spoken in the Phoenix Order Guild, in the academy, he had studied before awakening. There were always a tale of Necromancer. The legends of Necromancers.

That they could raise the dead, command armies of corpses, bend beasts and warriors alike to their will with a single curse.

But hearing rumors… and standing before a Necromancer who had done it, who had summoned thousands of the dead into the sky, was something else entirely.

His eyes moved from one hideous creature to the next. Rotting monsters. Hollow-eyed humans. Elves whose faces he could not recognize, now twisted into mockeries of their former nobility. Demons, too, wings flapping in slow, broken rhythm, their bodies grotesquely reassembled by death.

And the five that led them—the wyvern, the two-headed minotaur, the spectral basilisk, the kraken, the colossus—they didn’t feel like puppets. They felt like calamities. The sheer presence of them bent the sky above and darkened the horizon like dusk had fallen prematurely.

‘There are thousands of them…’ Max thought, his expression darkening slightly. Thousands. His aura trembled for a moment, not from fear, but calculation. His strength—when fully unleashed—was terrifying. He had defeated Level 2 Expert Rank warriors. He had survived Drevon’s direct attack.

But even he had limits.

And fighting an entire undead army, one that didn’t tire, didn’t feel pain, didn’t retreat, wasn’t something he could afford to do. ‘This isn’t a battle I can win by clashing head-on,’ he realized grimly. ‘Even if I cut them down, I’ll only be draining myself. And I can’t allow that… not with what I have planned next.’

The battlefield had shifted. The rules had changed. And now, Max would have to make a choice—either burn everything to survive this hell, or dig deeper into the abyss and become something the dead feared.

“Why so silent?” William sneered, his voice laced with mockery as he hovered confidently above his undead legion. His army of the dead loomed behind him like a wall of despair, a sea of rotting monsters and empty eyes awaiting his command. “Are you finally realizing the gap between us? Thinking of running away now that you know you can’t possibly defeat me?”

Max simply shook his head with a faint, almost amused smile. “No,” he said, voice calm, steady. “That’s not the case at all.”

He tilted his head slightly, as if pondering something far beneath the surface of this battlefield. “There are two ways I can kill you. One is the easy way, but I’m saving that for later—after I’ve dealt with the rest of the trashes like you. Which means…” His smile faded, replaced with a shadowed determination. “…I’ll have to do this the hard way.”

The air around him pulsed violently—and then erupted.

Black flames burst from Max’s body like an awakening volcano. They didn’t roar. They didn’t scream. They whispered. And it was that silence that was terrifying. The flames twisted around him, swallowing the space in writhing coils of shadow-fire that didn’t just burn—they devoured.

The air warped under the sheer intensity, rippling as though space itself was being scorched raw. The battlefield fell deathly still. Even the undead—lifeless and soulless—seemed to flinch as the aura pressed down on them.

‘Hard way it is then…’ Max thought, clapping both of his hands together.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!