Darion unsummoned all of his undeads now except a wolf, then he summoned his original undead wolf back. The massive creature materialized beside him, its green eyes glowing, its body still and waiting. Seren watched the process, seemingly fascinated by each summoning and unsummoning. She had seen it before, but there was something about the way the creatures appeared and disappeared that always caught her attention. The green light, the brief flicker, the way the air seemed to shift around them.

"Why did you unsummon the big wolf before?" Seren asked now.

Darion smiled. "Oh, it was too brutal and I needed the bodies of the wolves intact. That’s the whole point of this hunt, to create undead animals. If the big wolf had kept going, there wouldn’t be anything left to raise."

Seren nodded. She had seen the brutality of the large wolf herself, how it tore into its victim like it was tearing into a piece of bread, ripping and shredding without any concern for the shape of the body. She understood why Darion had stopped it

Darion stared at the corpses and crouched down beside the nearest one. The one his large undead wild wolf had handled was... well... literally like chopped meat. The body was torn apart, limbs separated from the torso, the head barely attached. Pieces of flesh and bone were scattered across the ground like someone had dropped a sack of meat from a height. There was nothing salvageable there. No skeleton intact enough to raise. He would have to leave that one behind.

He moved to the others and checked them. They were in good shape, bite wounds on the neck and torso, but the bones were intact, the skulls still whole. The Rops and undead wolves had done their job cleanly, killing with precision instead of destruction. He could work with these.

Placing his hands on the chest of one, he focused his energy, felt the familiar pull in his chest, and spoke the word.

"Arise!"

Boom. Green light spread from his palms, washing over the corpse like liquid fire. It seeped into the wounds, filled the hollow spaces, and wrapped around the bones. The wolf’s body twitched once, twice, then its eyes opened, glowing green. It stood up slowly, its movements stiff at first, then smoother as the binding settled.

Seren stared at the process. Her face was a mixture of emotions, disturbed and at the same time pleasantly amazed. She had seen him do this before, but it never got easier to watch. The way the dead came back to life, the way the light spread through their bodies like it was giving them a second chance at existence. It was unsettling. But it was also fascinating.

Darion smiled at her reaction. He had seen that look before, on the faces of the knights when he first started raising the dead. The same mix of fear and wonder. The same inability to look away.

He moved to the next corpse.

"Arise!"

Green light. Twitching. Glowing eyes. Another undead wolf standing before him.

He moved to the next.

"Arise!"

And the next.

"Arise!"

And the next.

"Arise!"

And the final one.

"Arise!"

One by one, the wolves rose from the dead. Five of them now stood before him, their eyes glowing green, their bodies still and waiting. They were his. They would serve him. They would fight for him.

Darion smiled. The hunt was going well.

He looked at them for a moment, taking in the sight of the five undead wolves standing before him, their green eyes glowing in the dim forest light. Then he turned to looked at Seren who stared at him with a smile.

"You’re literally a magician!" she said.

Darion laughed at that. "A magician of the dead, I guess."

He summoned the undeads into his inventory. One by one, they vanished in flashes of green light, their forms dissolving until nothing remained but the disturbed earth where they had fallen. Then words only he could see appeared in his status screen in front of him.

[Congratulations on reviving five undeads!]

[STATUS]

Name: Darion

Title: Baron of Percvale

Class: Necromancer

Rank: Acolyte

Territory: Percvale (Border Domain)

Territorial Resonance: Low (Starving-aligned — Improving)

[ATTRIBUTES]

Strength: 74 [+2]

Agility: 64 [+2]

Endurance: 76 [+2]

Vitality: 66 [+2]

Perception: 68 [+2]

Intelligence: 100 [+2]

Willpower: 78 [+2]

[Knight Undead Inventory: 150/150]

[Animal Undead Inventory: 15/70]

[Skills: Death Perception, Distant Command]

Darion stared at the status screen, observing the numbers, the increases, the way everything had crept upward. He was always surprised by the small changes, the way his attributes kept growing even when he wasn’t doing anything particularly strenuous.

Seren just thought he was staring forward. Like he was examining the trees or something like that, thinking of their next route for the hunt.

Darion played it cool by the way, not acting as if he was looking and reading something. He kept his face neutral, his eyes focused on the middle distance, as if he was simply thinking about something. She didn’t need to know he was reading a magical screen only he could see.

He noted the increases. +2 for everything. Not dramatic, but consistent. The system was rewarding him for the work he had done, even if the work was as simple as raising five wolves.

Fifteen animal undeads now, and fifty-five more till it was filled. He still had a long way to go, and this wasn’t like going into a graveyard where the corpses were already there and all that was left was to unearth and summon.

Here he had to find them and still kill them, or find them already dead and hope they were still intact. Finding a corpse would be much harder because he was certain creatures didn’t just die and leave their bodies behind.

Most animals in this forest were carnivores, so they would have eaten it. The remains would be scattered, torn apart, too damaged to be useful. He would have to be lucky to find anything worth raising.