The skirmish ended in less than three minutes. The grey sand was littered with shattered bones and rusted swords.
Kael's shadows returned to his side, standing at attention. They didn't breathe, and they didn't tire.
Kael walked forward, kneeling beside a pile of shattered ribs. He reached out with his Death Lines vision. Even though the skeletons were "dead," he could still see faint, purple strings of mana attached to their bones, leading far off into the distance toward the center of the Ash Wastes.
"Puppet strings," Kael muttered. "The Lich King is controlling them remotely."
In his past life, the major guilds spent three entire weeks slowly grinding through millions of these skeletons to exhaust the Lich King's mana pool before fighting him. It was a grueling, deadly war of attrition that cost thousands of lives.
Kael didn't have three weeks.
"System," Kael said, his eyes glowing gold. "If I sever the Lich King's mana strings using Devour, can I hijack the corpses?"
[Processing...]
[The 'Lich King's' dominance is Absolute for this Floor. Hijacking is typically impossible.]
[However, your Title 'The Omniscient Shadow' boosts Necromancy authority by 300%.]
[Conclusion: Override is possible.]
Kael grinned like a madman. He placed his bare hand directly onto the shattered skull of a Skeleton Warrior.
"Devour."
Black energy surged from Kael's palm, racing down the purple puppet strings that connected the skeleton to its master. Kael felt a violent mental pushback—a cold, ancient consciousness trying to crush his mind.
Who dares touch my domain?! an echoing voice roared in Kael's head.
"The new landlord," Kael sneered back.
He pumped his Level 25 mana into the connection, completely overwhelming the distant Lich King's control. The purple strings shattered, instantly replaced by Kael's pitch-black Shadow Extraction aura.
The shattered bones on the ground began to rattle. They floated into the air, snapping back together. But instead of the standard white bone, the newly formed skeleton was dyed entirely in pitch-black shadow. Its eye sockets flared with Kael's signature gold light.
[Shadow Extraction Successful.]
[Name: Shadow Skeleton]
[Grade: Common]
Kael didn't stop there. He spread his arms wide, his aura expanding like a dark dome over the entire battlefield.
"Arise!"
All fifty shattered skeletons on the battlefield reconstructed themselves, turning into loyal Shadow Skeletons. They dropped their rusted swords and pulled shadowy replicas of the weapons from their own chests, standing in perfect military formation before Kael.
Elara and the recruits backed away, trembling. Kael had just turned the enemy's own troops against them.
"Why fight a war of attrition," Kael chuckled, looking at his new battalion, "when I can just steal your army?"
He pointed into the deep, ashen fog toward the Lich King's domain. "March."