The battlefield had quieted. Ash hung in the air like mourning silk, but beneath it, a new silence had taken root — the silence of victory.
Kael stood amidst his legions, his body still humming with power from the skill points he had burned. Then the system's voice thundered:
[ Rewards Calculated. ][ Dungeon Floor World Liberated. ][ Unique Skill Reward Generated. ]
The interface pulsed. The text shimmered, as though even the system hesitated to name what it had produced.
Finally, it spoke:
[ Reward: Necromancy (Mythical Rank). ]
Kael's breath caught. He had read of it — in cracked scrolls, in hushed whispers between scholars, in the fearful muttering of abyss cultists. Necromancy was a myth, said to have died with the First Age. Not summoning, not binding, but true command over death's flow.
The skill unfurled before his eyes like a shadowed scripture:
[ Necromancy (Mythical): Grants dominion over the essence of death. Allows you to raise slain beings as skeletal or wraithbound minions. Necromancy does not conflict with summoning but fuses with it, enabling hybrid evolutions and unholy ascensions. Limits: Bound only by the caster's will and mana. ]
Kael felt the weight of it sink into him. His veins burned cold, his heart throbbed as if echoing the rhythm of countless graves.
His summons stiffened — not in fear, but in acknowledgment. The battlefield itself shifted, shadows stretching toward Kael, as if kneeling.
Necromancy had returned to the world.
Within his stronghold — a fortress of stone, root, and light carved from the dungeon's heart — Kael called a gathering.
For the first time, all leaders stood beneath one roof:
Graknar, the Goblin Chieftain, his tusks sharpened with pride.
Two Kobold Captains, their scales lined with ore dust and soot.
Two Treant Elders, bark cracked but glowing with deep green light.
Two Beastman Champions, bearing scars of both battle and craft.
Behind them, the Elemental Sovereigns watched silently, their presence like gods observing mortals.
The air was tense, but united — for Kael's will had bound them together.
Kael rose, cloak still torn from war, eyes faintly glowing with necromantic fire.
"Today," he began, his voice echoing through the hall, "we stand not as scattered clans, not as borrowed strength, but as the foundation of something greater. You are no longer nameless leaders. Today, you are named. Today, you are pillars of this kingdom."
He extended his hand to the kobolds first.
To the first, whose claws were thick with ore and whose hammer gleamed, he said: "Durok, Forgeheart."
To the second, keen-eyed, who had led warriors through fire and stone: "Skarn, Ironfang."
The kobolds bowed low, their scales glowing faintly — for in this world, a name bestowed by power carried weight, solidifying destiny.
Next, he turned to the treants.
To the elder whose branches sheltered young sprouts even in war: "Thalor, Rootwarden."
To the one whose limbs had burned yet regrew in storm and ash: "Sylthra, Ashbloom."
The treants bowed, the roots beneath the stronghold stirring as if whispering their approval.
Finally, Kael turned to the beastmen.
To the wolf-headed warrior who had taken smithing into his own hands: "Kaelen, Steelclaw."
To the lioness who had led with both ferocity and craft: "Lyra, Dawnmane."
The beastmen thumped their chests in unison, pride swelling in their eyes.
And at last, he turned to Graknar.
"You have been my blade in shadow, my spear in the dark. From this day, you are Graknar Bloodtusk, Chieftain of the Goblins."
The hall shook with the goblins' roar, their voices rising in thunderous approval.
Kael spread his hands. Shadows and light swirled behind him, elemental sovereigns burning as silent witnesses.
"You are my generals. My roots. My fire. My steel. This world sought to bury us in the abyss." His eyes glowed with necromantic fire. "But we will not only endure — we will conquer. With life. With death. With shadow, steel, and flame."
The leaders roared, stomped, and howled. The stronghold trembled as if the dungeon itself had heard and accepted Kael's claim.
A kingdom had been born in the depths — forged from summons, shadows, and the will of one man.
And above it all, Kael felt the cold pulse of Necromancy waiting to be unleashed.
The council's roar still echoed in the stone roots of the stronghold when Kael rose from his throne. The fire in his veins burned colder now, the new mythical skill whispering promises he had yet to test.
He turned to the Sovereigns at his back, then to the newly named generals.
"Wait here," Kael said. His voice carried the weight of command, but also a strange gravity none had felt before. "I will return with proof of what Necromancy truly means."
The battlefield where the thirty mini-bosses and fifteen bosses had fallen was still raw. Broken earth steamed. Pools of ichor and ash crackled in silence. Scattered corpses of abyssal fiends — hulking beasts of flame, stone, shadow, and venom — lay where Kael's army had struck them down.
Even Kael's own fallen summons — expendable skeletons, shattered goblin warriors, treant seedlings burned in the firestorm — remained where they had fallen.
Kael stepped into the heart of it all. The world was quiet, waiting.
The system's voice whispered:
[ Necromancy (Mythical) — Ready. ][ Warning: Scale beyond mortal comprehension. ]
Kael raised his hand. Shadows poured from his palm like smoke, then coalesced into a swirling storm of midnight flame.
"Rise."
The world cracked.
Bones snapped back together. Goblin corpses lurched upright, their hollow sockets now burning with violet fire. Shattered treants reknit, their wooden limbs entwined with blackened roots. Fallen kobolds clawed their way out of the blood-soaked ground, jaws clattering with unnatural hunger.
And then the true shock came.
The thirty abyssal mini-bosses stirred. Their gargantuan frames twitched, then shuddered violently as necrotic light poured into them. Black chains of Kael's will wrapped their forms, sinking into their cores. One by one, they bent their knees and roared — not in rebellion, but in submission.
A towering scorpion whose stinger dripped magma.A basilisk whose petrifying gaze was now shrouded in shadowfire.A war-beast stitched from obsidian plates and abyssal muscle.
They were all his.
Ten of the bosses followed. Their corrupted forms twisted, their abyssal essence suppressed under Kael's dominion. They rose as towering generals of undeath, their power dimmed but not erased.
The ground itself trembled with their presence.
But when Kael turned his eyes to the last five bosses — the strongest of them, slain by his army's combined might — he felt it.
A pull.
Like hands in the dark, dragging their corpses downward.
The abyss itself was devouring them.
[ Necromancy Failed: Target essence absorbed by Abyssal Root. ]
Kael snarled, pressing harder. Shadows surged. His will clashed with the abyss. For a moment, the battlefield became a silent war — Kael's necromancy trying to bind the corpses, the abyss tearing them away.
Then, with a sickening lurch, the five bodies disintegrated into nothingness, devoured completely.
Kael's chest heaved. The system whispered again:
[ Warning: The Abyss has noticed you. ]
Behind him, his army had gathered silently. Goblins stood slack-jawed. Kobolds dropped their weapons, scales paling in shock. Treants shivered, leaves rattling as if in storm-wind. Even the Sovereigns' eyes gleamed with astonishment.
And Graknar — ever bold — broke the silence.
"You… you command death itself," the goblin chieftain whispered, half in awe, half in fear.
Kael turned, his cloak fluttering with shadowfire, the thirty mini-bosses and ten bosses standing behind him like silent titans.
"Not death," Kael corrected, his voice calm but resonant. "I command what comes after."
Far beneath, the abyss pulsed. Something had seen him. Something had felt the theft.
But it did not strike immediately. No. It waited, its hunger sharpening.
Kael could almost hear it.
So, little sovereign… you dare steal from me? Then prove yourself worthy to keep what you have taken.
Kael raised his hand again. His skeletal army, goblins, treants, kobolds, beastmen — and now thirty abyssal mini-bosses and ten corrupted bosses — all bowed in unison.
The abyss might have claimed five. But Kael had claimed the rest.
This was no longer just a stronghold. No longer just an army.