Awakening: I Ascend As A Legendary Ranked Necromancer-Chapter 29: Firepower

How?

I stared at Temur’s frozen body on the ground. How exactly did things turn this way? I thought everything had been going well, and then those paladins came and...!!

I dropped to my knees and pressed my hand against Temur’s chest. Relief flickered when I felt it still beating. His heart was alive but he wasn’t responding. No reaction at all.

"Temur? Temur!" My voice came out sharp. "You’re not dead. Your head just thinks you are!"

"He can’t hear you now," the paladin said calmly with a smile. "The head controls the body. If the head believes it’s dead... won’t the body shut down eventually? The heart will stop."

He kept talking, but I stopped listening. First Litha. Now Temur.

I hadn’t known them long, but they’d helped me in ways I couldn’t even begin to repay.

I tapped Temur’s chest lightly. "Hang in there."

Then I pushed myself up and began limping toward the corpse of the monster.

"...Oh?" the paladin said with a slow and casual voice. "Trying to run away? There’s no escaping me."

He gestured.

The other paladin exploded his own right leg.

Pain detonated through mine.

I went down with a grunt, clenching my teeth hard enough to crack, choking back the scream clawing up my throat. I couldn’t feel my leg anymore, only the pain flooding through it.

Is this what Temur felt in his head? No wonder.

The paladins approached slowly, savoring it, one of them stepped on Temur as he passed.

"We’ll finish this quickly," he said. "I don’t want to face the impatient High Priest now that we’ve lost our captain."

They followed behind me, watching me crawl forward pitifully.

"Mopi said you were strong," one sneered. "And maybe you are. But your arrogance is your undoing. You think you can do anything because you have a better Grimoire?"

He leaned closer. "The High Priest did say we should bring you back alive, but he didn’t say you should be sane. Just like your friend, and your lady friend, after this, we’ll go after her too. After that... maybe we’ll.... "

"You talk too much."

My body was soaked in sweat, but I was now smiling.

I had crawled exactly where I wanted to be.

"But let’s have one final chat."

The paladin raised the thread of red light. "Sure. Why not?"

"The Chaos Devourer you want," I said calmly. "What exactly is it? I know it’s some kind of guardian."

He stared at me like I’d lost my mind. "You don’t even know? They’re children of Chaos itself. Born to serve Chaos. Princes of Chaos. Only three are ever born."

I absorbed that, then nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "Thank you."

I took a slow breath. "I’ll give you your reward now. But first, did you know the Chaos Devourer can heal? It’s mixed with my flesh and blood. It heals itself. And it heals me."

The two paladins exchanged confused glances.

Is this a dying man’s last ramble?

Maybe.

But it was also me convincing myself that I still had a chance, and for what they’d done, they would pay with their lives. My eyes burned. Green fire flickered within them.

While crawling, I had led them into the remains of the dead monster’s jaw, where massive fangs still jutted scattered on the ground.

"Unholy magic," I whispered. "Dance of the Bones."

Green flame erupted over my body, engulfing me from head to toe, then spilled outward into the jaw itself. I let everything go.

The magic leapt, split, and soaked into bone and fang. They lit up with green fire and then shuddered as the spell took hold. The ground trembled.

"Shit," one paladin muttered.

I laughed.

I laughed at their doom.

I laughed as the bones exploded, black acidic breath mixed with Unholy magic blasting outward, stripping flesh from bone and grinding bone into dust. Ancient trees disintegrated into ash.

Three hundred feet around us became a wasteland.

☆☆▪︎☆☆

Arkin waited until the sun began to sink.

"Have the paladins betrayed me?" he muttered. "No, that’s impossible. Their captain might have gotten over his head and died, but that hardly matters. I only need the monster inside."

He hesitated.

"Should I go myself?" He asked himself.

But he didn’t move.

He hadn’t lived this long by being impatient. He preferred knowing what was happening before acting. And now a troubling thought crossed his mind.

If the paladins were defeated, even with his summoned monsters, doesn’t that mean he can be defeated too?

But how powerful could three new Climbers really be? Even with strong Grimoires? 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"I suppose I wouldn’t know," he muttered. "I’ve never owned a powerful one."

"I’ll just observe," he decided. "After all that fighting, they should be on their last legs."

He stood at a high vantage point overlooking the forest.

Then it happened.

A blast.

A boom that split the air and lit the sky in greenish-black, he sew trees swey and a slight trembled in the ground before the shockwave from he pressure hit him even from that distance, freezing him in place.

When it cleared, Arkin sucked in a sharp breath.

"Impossible..."

The forest where the explosion occurred was simply gone. What remained looked like a blackened hole carved into a sea of red trees.

He waited but nothing followed. Arkin chose not to descend.

"No wonder the Priestess was killed," he murmured. "But nothing should survive that blast. Not even Awakeners."

His eyes narrowed. "Was that one of them? Or the monster?"

"Such firepower..."

He shook his head. "I’ll retreat for now and wait for my real squad to reach this floor."

Turning away, he smiled faintly.

Soon I’ll know whether they survived.

"But there’s no chance I’m letting the Chaos Devourer go," he thought. "I’m not the only sponsor behind the summoning."

"Ah," Arkin said softly, amused. His eyes suddenly lit up. "That reminds me, I know someone who would be very interested in a Necromancer."