The corpses twitched.
Their joints cracked like brittle twigs as they staggered to their feet. Blood ran down from lifeless eyes. Bows creaked. Spears lifted.
My hunters—once companions, betrayers, prey—now stood in front of me again. But this time, their strings were mine to pull.
"Seo-jin…" one gurgled, his skull split open, jaw hanging at an unnatural angle. His voice was empty, like wind whistling through a cavern.
The living hunters screamed.
I grinned.
"Oh, don't look so horrified." My voice came out smooth, pleasant, almost gentle. "They're still your friends. They just… changed careers."
The puppets lurched forward at my command. Their movements were jerky, stiff, but they obeyed absolutely.
The trolls that had been circling us roared and charged, clubs swinging. Normally, the hunters would've scrambled to form lines, screaming about tactics.
Now, my undead threw themselves into the clash.
A dead spearman rammed his weapon into a troll's gut. Bones cracked as the troll swatted him aside, shattering ribs. But the corpse simply stood up again, intestines hanging loose, spear raised once more.
The trolls hesitated.
Even they could sense it—something unnatural, something wrong.
And then, the real fun began.
"Bite."
At my word, a corpse hunter latched onto a troll's leg and sank his broken teeth into green flesh. The troll roared, smashing the corpse's skull.
But even headless, the body clung tighter.
I laughed, my chest trembling with glee.
"Dance."
The corpse twitched like a marionette, its limbs contorting in ways no living thing could. It climbed the troll's body, raking at its throat with fingernails.
The hunters gagged at the sight.
"Mon… monster…" someone whispered.
I turned, smiling at him warmly. "I thought we settled that already."
The living hunters were frozen. Some were pale as corpses themselves, others trembling with weapons half-raised.
I tilted my head.
"Don't just stand there. Fight with them. Your friends are waiting."
No one moved.
I sighed dramatically, rolling my shoulders.
"Fine. I'll make you move."
My sword snapped out, faster than their eyes could follow. One hunter's throat opened, blood spraying across the dirt. He staggered, clutching at the wound.
His eyes met mine, wide with betrayal.
"W… why…"
I whispered into his ear as he fell. "Because I wanted to see how much stronger you'd be as a corpse."
[You have slain a Challenger.]
[Corpse Assimilation activated.]
[Processing… Compatible skill detected.]
[Skill Acquired: Quick Draw (C-rank).]
The hunter's corpse jerked. Bones popped, muscles tensed, and then he rose again, eyes blank, blade raised.
The other hunters broke.
"No more! Please! Don't kill us!"
"We'll fight for you! Just don't—don't—"
Their voices cracked, sobs filling the air. They dropped their weapons, knelt, groveled like dogs.
It was pitiful.
I squatted down in front of one, tilting his chin up with my blade.
"Fight for me? Serve me? Like loyal hounds?"
He nodded frantically, tears streaking his dirt-stained face.
I smiled. "That's adorable."
And then I drove the sword through his skull.
His body twitched, collapsed, then rose again.
"See?" I gestured at the fresh corpse, grinning at the survivors. "You are fighting for me now. Even better than a hound. You don't eat, don't complain, don't betray."
I leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper.
"You're perfect."
The screams didn't last long.
One by one, I culled them. Some tried to run, but the undead dragged them back. Others tried to fight, but my regressions had made me untouchable.
Each death added to my chorus of puppets. Each corpse stood back up, weapons shaking in their grasp, eyes vacant.
When it was done, when silence fell again, the wasteland looked like a nightmare.
Dozens of hunters stood in formation, their flesh torn, blood dripping from gaping wounds, their eyes milky and blank.
My army.
I wiped blood from my cheek, still smiling.
"This… this is art."
[System Alert: Tower Event Triggered.]
[Calamity Factor detected.]
[New Quest generated: Cull the Living. Command the Dead.]
[Reward: Evolution of Necromancer's Authority.]
I froze.
Then I laughed. Harder than I'd ever laughed before.
"Do you hear that?" I shouted to no one, to everyone, to the void that whispered in my skull. "The Tower wants me to kill them all! It wants me to!"
The whispers in the dark surged, writhing with glee.
Good.
Yes.
More. Cull. Devour. Become ours.
My body shivered at the voices, the joy, the hunger.
I tilted my head back and roared with laughter until my throat bled.
When I finally calmed, I stood before my puppets.
They swayed slightly, awaiting command.
I studied them thoughtfully.
Their gear was broken, their bodies damaged. Fragile soldiers.
But… what if I broke them more?
What if I made them perfect?
I drew my sword and stepped forward.
"Let's test something, shall we?"
The experiment was beautiful.
I began cutting them apart—an arm here, a leg there, stabbing through skulls and guts. They collapsed, twitching, only to rise again at my will.
The more mangled they became, the stranger they fought. Crawling on broken limbs, biting with shattered jaws, stabbing with bone shards.
I giggled as I worked, fascinated.
"Even when you break, you serve. Even when nothing's left, you serve."
By the time I finished, some of them were unrecognizable lumps of flesh and bone—but still, they obeyed.
I exhaled slowly, chest rising and falling with manic satisfaction.
Necromancy wasn't just power.
It was freedom.
By the third day, the wasteland had become a graveyard under my rule.
Trolls avoided me now. Drakes circled wide, unwilling to test their fate.
And wherever I walked, my army of dead hunters marched, dragging their weapons, eyes glowing faintly with unnatural light.
The living survivors—those who had fled too fast for me to catch—watched from a distance. I could feel their terror like a heartbeat.
They didn't whisper betrayal anymore.
They whispered prayers.
Not for survival.
For death.
It was then that the Tower shifted.
A ripple of golden light, cutting through the storm clouds above.
[System Alert: Anomaly detected.]
[Elite Squad deployed from higher floors.]
[Objective: Investigate and eliminate irregular entity.]
The whispers in my skull hissed with delight.
Prey is coming.
Wolves are coming.
Hunt them. Feed on them. Die and die and die until they are yours.
I smiled, licking my lips.
"Perfect. New toys."
My army groaned in unison, swaying like reeds in the wind, waiting for command.
And I knew.
When the elite hunters arrived, when they saw what I'd become…
They wouldn't find a man.
They'd find a calamity.