Rise of the Supreme Necromancer-Chapter 54: A Day for the Ghosts

"You can bind the ghost to yourself, master. The spell for this is very much like the magic you already know. It will hate this and you, but your Dark magic will overwhelm it and make it obey. However, until you re-bind it to an item, the ghost won’t be fully subdued. It will be like a rabid dog on a leash that you will be able to release in the direction of your enemies."

The ghastly smile on Aleric’s face grew wider.

"Perfect. Teach me the spell, Staff." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The magic really was simple. Parts of it were similar to the creation of Tarnished Star amulets, where Aleric had to bind a soul remnant to an item. Another part was similar to raising undead servants, where Aleric had to subdue a summoned soul and bind it to its body.

This time, the soul was already summoned, but Aleric was going to bind it for itself.

"Be careful, master. If you leash on the ghost is not strong enough, it will haunt you. At the very least, it will be annoying," the Staff warned. "But you can do it!"

Aleric walked fully into the haunted cell. From up close, he could clearly sense the soul’s presence and features.

The ghost looked like a withered old man, bald but with a long, tangled gray beard. His hands were more like chicken legs, while both his feet ended with stumps.

"Light... If only I could see some light... Curse you, Arstain!" he moaned, ignoring Aleric and even the weak candlelight coming from outside.

Aleric set the Spine Staff aside and pulled out his dagger. With a tip, he pricked his finger, just as the staff instructed earlier.

Blood of a mage was a potent tool for magic, but blood of a death-touched was also infused with Dark energy. Even a ghost was pulled out of its moaning and finally looked at Aleric.

At this moment, Aleric grabbed the Spine Staff and began to recite a spell of binding.

With it, tendrils of Dark energy flew out from Aleric toward the ghost, snatching it.

"Light! Curse! Light! Curse!" the ghost moaned. "Youuuuu! Arstaaaaaain!"

The last moan was almost a howl. The ghost lunged at Aleric, but it was held tightly in place by Aleric’s magic.

With his experience in subduing souls, this one wasn’t hard at all!

Soon, the Dark magic fully entwined it and pulled toward Aleric’s prickled hand.

When the ghost touched Aleric’s blood, the binding was complete.

Green flames erupted around the nascent ghost as the Dark magic fully infused it. Now it was free of visible bindings, and instead glowed with an eerie green light that could be seen with the naked eye.

There was only one tendril of magic left. A magical chain was going between Aleric’s chest and that of the ghost. It was so thin that only another mage would be able to sense it.

"Light... Light, I want to see light!" the ghost moaned. Now even the jailer standing outside could hear it.

The ghost stories the he heard in life had just become real! If he could, he’d go pale with fright and run away—but he was a zombie, and too loyal to Aleric to run away before finishing his duties.

"Be quiet!" Aleric ordered.

However, the ghost didn’t even notice the command.

"I need more light... And to kill the Arstains! Oh, to see the light again..."

This time, instead of an order, Aleric pulled on the magical leash, binding the ghost tighter. The ghost twisted as if grabbed by an invisible giant’s fist and let out a mindless moan of pain.

Although the ghost didn’t look like a promising new servant, Aleric still felt like smiling.

His power over souls was growing! He felt like he could carry this ghost around like he carried Spine Staff all over the place—and use it just as easily.

For a start, he pulled on the leash, forcing the ghost to float behind Aleric’s left shoulder. Aleric was sure that soon, he would have an opportunity to see it in action.

In the meanwhile...

He walked out of the cells and looked around. There was still Dark energy nearby. These solitary cells saw a lot of deaths that lasted years. They were as filled with Dark miasma as Mirkhill Fort.

This gave Aleric an idea.

***

A pair of zombie slaves dragged a corpse stripped to its underpants in front of a solitary cell and paused. Aleric approached the body with an outstretched hand and pushed a drop of blood out of his prickled finger into the body’s mouth.

After this, the zombies threw the corpse into the cell, where it landed on top of three others.

"This was the last one," Aleric said to himself, gesturing for the zombies to leave.

Each tiny cell has been stacked to the floor with dead bodies. In total, there were twenty corpses from "materials" for undead slaves.

Now, Aleric walked past the cells, reciting a spell as he walked.

"Alkmet nukkeasuvat mauelkti..."

This second rank spell had a strange name: Sleeping Beauties. For a second rank spell, it was simple, but still required as much mana as raising ten undead slaves.

Now that Aleric had mana to spare, it was convenient for preserving valuable corpses from rotting. It would only work for several days until its energy would end, and it didn’t stop the souls from escaping to the other side.

"Good. Now they will lie there until I remember about them again," Aleric said after he was done. "In that time, they will infuse with the energies of this place... Like pickles. And if what you said about the power of a necromancer’s blood is correct, Spine Staff, this would go much faster than in Mirkhill Fort."

"It would, master!" assured Spine Staff. "The blood of a necromancer is a conductor for Dark energy, used in countless rituals and able to speed up the processes of natural undead transformations. It’s a precious liquid."

"Youuuu!.. The dog of Arstains... Why aren’t you deaaaad..." the ghost moaned behind Aleric’s shoulder.

Aleric tightened the leash on the ghost. The thing was getting free enough to moan whenever he was using second rank magic... It was troubling.

’I should pay closer attention, or the ghost might do something unwelcome at the wrong moment...’