Chapter 45: Turning tables

“No one has ever caught that funeral guy. No one below it in ranks anyway. If we leave the boy, then he’ll just rot there.”

“And the girl!” the old woman growled. Her wings beat faster as she stared sharply down. “Do you want me to tear the village down? That’s one way to do it.”

The faceless man shook his head. “You’ll kill the boy that way. He can’t survive if you attack. Let’s watch him do what he can, and then I will stop that funeral guy.”

Below, Riven was thinking about what to do, and the first thing he knew not to do was chase the funeral undead. It would be useless since he knew he couldn’t catch him, so why waste the little energy he had?

Instead, he sat down in a lotus position and took a deep breath. He focused on the undead, both the funeral undead and those inside, and he felt the aura surrounding them.

He felt that if he concentrated enough, he would see the aura clinging to them and twisting inside them, binding them. But he didn’t focus on that. There was no way he was going to enter into a mental battle with a necromancer powerful enough to set up everything surrounding him.

Instead, he began to cultivate the aura into his body and Sigil. His Sigil was already full, so the cultivation was him tempering his Sigil like a hammer against hot iron.

Next, he brushed against the Death Ledger in his mind. He reached inside to touch where the undead summon, Spartacus, was, and then he willed him out. “Heed me, Spartacus!”

His shadow darkened and spread on the ground like spilled ink. And from inside the dark pool, a hand reached out, a hand filled with battle scars.

The hand steadied itself against the edge of the ground and then heaved its owner out. Spartacus stood before Riven, and if not for the connection between them, Riven would have jumped up and away.

Unlike the other undead, Spartacus looked like his real self while he was still alive. Even the bloody throat wound that had killed him was healed.

He wore only trousers, his upper body left bare to the elements. On his wrists were thick chains that he used as decoration. On his back was his sword, strapped securely.

Riven shivered. He could still remember that hand crushing his throat. “Spartacus?”

Dark eyes, tainted with red, glanced down at him. There was intelligence in those eyes—cruel intelligence that promised retribution.

Riven’s heart skipped a beat. “Don’t tell me… His soul is in there? You’re still in there?”

Spartacus didn’t say anything, but Riven felt the hostility that enveloped him. It was as if a blade of flickering red fire was aimed at his neck. He shifted uncomfortably, but he wasn’t too worried because he felt the assurance of a necromancer over their undead.

Riven smiled as he stared at the funeral undead. “The reason why necromancers are feared and hated is because of the unfairness that people feel toward them.

“They are the people who can truly use others to do their dirty work while they sit back and control!”

But the problem was the amount of aura they could use, which limited how many undead they could control at each rank and how long they could last in a fight. The longer the battle, the more mental energy they would expend.

But right then, Riven wasn’t worried. Among necromancers of the same rank, he had the advantage.

Even Spartacus was taking enough aura to raise and control four normal undead, but Riven didn’t mind. His Sigil was extremely large for someone of his rank, and he would be able to snatch more death aura from where he was sitting.

Before he gave Spartacus any instructions, he began to whisper as he formed a foundation in his mind. He began to shape his Command technique—Gravekeeper’s Call.

“Heed me, Grave Knight!”

From his shadow, still spilled across the ground, a black door rose up and swung open. What came out was a knight clad in black armor, stained with blood, carrying a sword that was extremely thin and seemed to be made of crystal.

Riven nodded. “Come over here, Grave Knight, and protect me. And you, Spartacus. Go and fight those funeral undead. Don’t hold anything back. Destroy them all. Don’t let anything stand in your way.”

If Spartacus resisted, then Riven didn’t know or feel it, because the undead warrior jerked into action immediately. He unstrapped his sword and drew it without hesitation.

The blade flickered, a condensation of red light that throbbed like pure anger. Looking at it was like watching fury take the form of a sword.

The funeral undead were still wailing, but their eyes, containing countless red lights, were now looking his way with curiosity. Maybe they thought Spartacus was there to chase them, but the warrior simply bent, his legs tensed and swelled like a coiled serpent.

And then, with a single leap, he crossed the distance in a blink. His body blurred forward.

His speed didn’t seem to have decreased in death because he was in front of the first funeral undead, the one leading the group while carrying a black coffin.

But in that split second, the body of the undead blurred as it turned to run. However, it never accounted for the sword that came out like flashing lightning.

A red streak split the undead into two, and its coffin tumbled to the ground, its contents spilling out—a pile of old yellowed bones. The undead itself twitched on the ground.

Spartacus stepped on its head as he walked forward. His sword rose and fell, coiling like a whip. The sword seemed to extend slightly, and the buildings on either side were destroyed, some of the undead inside cut down as well.

Riven was shocked. “Was he holding back when he fought me?”

Even the funeral undead were stunned. Out of everything they had expected to happen, they never thought there would be someone capable of catching them and cutting them down!

In just a few seconds, the tables had turned!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep