Inside the meeting room on the second floor of the castle.
Hel, Lily, and Arwen — one man and two ghosts — sat around a massive round table.
On that table lay the corpses of the old butler and the young maid.
Meanwhile, several undead servants continued to carry more corpses into the room.
"Master, although the crisis within the castle has passed, our situation is still far from safe,"
Lily said, pointing at a layout map of the castle spread across the table.
"At present, the main building of the castle is sealed by a barrier. Because of that, whatever happens inside cannot be sensed from the outside.
Luckily, this barrier also prevents the Church of Holy Judgment from detecting the deathly aura filling the place.
But once dawn comes, if no one from the main building shows up, the guards on the outer walls will definitely grow suspicious.
When that happens, both Sir Arwen and I will no longer be able to hide the fact that we're undead."
"Lady Lily is right,"
added Arwen, the knight instructor in charge of training the troops.
"The one commanding the wall guards is Sir Lyman, a trusted aide of Duke Mandora. If he discovers what happened here, the duke will hear of it soon after. By then…"
He paused mid-sentence, realizing such words might be inappropriate for him to say.
Hel, however, didn't mind and simply finished the thought for him:
"By then, in order to cover up the fact that I'm a necromancer, that old fossil of a duke would send an army to silence me before the news spreads."
Arwen nodded, confirming Hel's assumption.
"Therefore, our top priority now is to find a way to conceal the death energy within our bodies. Only then can we consider our next steps."
Hel rubbed his hairless chin thoughtfully.
The best solution for hiding one's aura, in his case, was to obtain a fitting Trait.
And the creature possessing that Trait needed to be something he could currently create or summon.
After all, the situation did not allow him to lift the barrier and leisurely search outside.
That meant he had to look among the undead he could make.
So, which undead had the proper Trait?
Bone Spiders—simple to create from bones.
Flesh Spores—good at concealing themselves.
Shadow Souls—also possible.
And Blood Bats—as reconnaissance units, they might have suitable Traits as well.
After several trials, Hel found the Blood Bat to be the most cost-effective option.
The strongest effect belonged to the Shadow Soul's Phantom Body,
but that required the corpse of a Transcendent being for summoning—and each corpse could only summon one.
Of course, if that were the only issue, Hel could have chosen it anyway.
However, a Shadow Soul summoned by a low-tier knight only granted a white-quality Trait—
which might fool a second-tier Transcendent at best. Against the Church, guarded by third-tier powerhouses, it would be useless.
The Blood Bat, on the other hand, provided the Breath Concealment Trait, even if only gray quality.
Still, a single corpse's blood could summon fifty Blood Bats.
And besides Hel's men, the maids drained dry by the Rose couldn't be used,
nor could the knights who had been reanimated as undead laborers.
But there were still eighty-eight corpses remaining.
That meant Hel could create 4,400 instances of Breath Concealment.
Once all of those Traits were fused, he would end up with seven purple-quality Traits.
Purple Traits corresponded to fourth-tier power levels.
According to the description, Breath Concealment could mask one's elemental signature up to its corresponding tier,
and even a being one tier higher would not be able to see through it.
In other words, a purple-quality Breath Concealment would completely hide its bearer from a fifth-tier being's perception.
And in the Mandora Duchy, the strongest known individuals were only fifth-tier.
As long as Hel's group acted cautiously, no one would ever discover their secret.
So, after processing all the corpses, Hel obtained the Traits as planned.
He even got a few unexpected bonuses—two black-quality Traits from the Blood Bats: Low Intelligence and Blood Familiar.
The first was self-explanatory, a Trait that reduced one's intellect.
The second was a loyalty-type Trait, similar to Death Thrall.
Honestly, having eight thousand of these black Traits clogging his Trait pool was annoying.
Fortunately, black Traits could be upgraded.
After fusing all the Low Intelligence Traits, he obtained one called Brain Dead,
which reduced 90 points of Knowledge.
Anyone burdened with that Trait would practically lose the ability to take care of themselves—
a perfect tool for sabotaging others.
Meanwhile, after merging several Blood Familiar Traits, he reached their maximum level,
creating a new Trait called Blood Servant,
which increased loyalty to Hel by 60 points, matching the effect of Death Thrall.
And since it required few materials, fusing four thousand of them yielded seven Blood Servant Traits.
With these, building his future domain would be far easier.
"Now, let's move on to the second issue."
Hel tapped the table, pulling everyone's attention back.
"We need to decide what kind of undead Sebas and little Anna will become.
Or rather—how can we modify Anna so she can keep her human appearance?"
Currently, Hel still had a fourth-tier Elemental Crystal.
He could use it to create a powerful undead through crystal implantation.
But there were two people to resurrect.
Even the strongest of them, the butler Sebas, had only been tier two.
Normally, he could only be revived as a Skeleton Mage or a Ghoul Priest—
stronger than cannon fodder, but still just elite monsters.
"My apologies, Master,"
Arwen said, bowing.
"I'm not well-versed in undead biology."
That was expected—he was just a knight who couldn't even read.
Hel's real hope lay with Lily.
Now that Lily practiced both martial and arcane arts, Hel had given her the purple-quality [Advanced Blood Magic] Trait he took from the Rose.
Thanks to that, she had some understanding of common undead.
"Master, Anna was an ordinary human. It's nearly impossible to directly turn her into a high-tier undead in one go.
However, we could transform her into a vampire first,
and later find a way to enhance her bloodline—allowing her to evolve into a true bloodkin."
"A vampire, huh? That could work. But Lily, you only just became a bloodkin yourself.
If you give blood again, your bloodline purity might weaken."
"That would be true for an ordinary bloodkin, yes.
But since you, Master, evolved me into a Blood Queen, losing a bit of blood won't affect me much."
As if to prove her words, Lily drew the dagger at her waist and lightly slit her wrist.
A stream of blood flowed out, swirling in the air before slowly coalescing.
In moments, it formed a translucent Blood Crystal, though smaller than the one the Rose had created.
Seeing that Lily's complexion remained unchanged and no negative Traits appeared on her body,
Hel finally relaxed and took the crystal from her.
He then turned toward the small, shriveled corpse of the little maid—
her body completely drained of blood—lying on the table before him.